In November of 1994, right after Republicans took control of Congress fo the first time since the 1950s, Peter Jennings went on ABC radio and delivered a commentary that tells you everything you need to know about elite, liberal journalism.
“Some thoughts on those angry voters,” Jennings began. “Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It’s clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It’s the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week. …Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry two-year-old.”
Of course it wasn’t the voters who had just thrown a temper tantrum. It was Peter Jennings who was stomping his feet, rolling his eyes and screaming like a two year old. The late Mr. Jennings, like so many other journalists who live and work in a comfy liberal elite bubble, was clueless, shamefully out of touch with the American people. He just didn’t get it. How else to explain why he would conclude that “the voters had a temper tantrum” simply because they voted for Republicans!
And now it’s happening all over again. But this time, liberal journalists are throwing their little tantrums not after the November mid-term elections, but before they even happen. A mere technicality. Just as Peter Jennings saw what had just happened, journalists today see the tsunami that is coming – and they don’t like it. So they are doing what Mr. Jennings did 16 years ago. They’re stomping their feet, rolling their eyes and doing an awful lot of screaming.
What’s bringing on this display of rage is opposition to the proposed mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero.
“The right-wing is now frothing at the mouth over a Muslim community center,” says a left-wing paper called LA Progressive.
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen calls opponents of the mosque “bigots, demagogues or merely uninformed.” Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent writes that opposition “is rooted in bigotry.”
Norah O’Donnell, who sarcastically has been described as “the resident deep thinker” at NBC News, says opponents of the mosque are acting “like the people who stole freedom from Americans, the people who attacked America” on 9/11. And NBC’s Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd talks about “crazy demagoguery” coming from some of those who oppose the mosque two blocks from Ground Zero.
Joe Klein of Time magazine doesn’t mince words: So-called conservatives, as he puts it, who are making an issue of the mosque “for short-term electoral gain” are simply “un-American” he says.
And when they’re not screaming and stomping their feet, the media elites are taking sides the old fashioned way: by slanting the news to fit their ideology. Take the New York Times. The paper published a very long (nearly 2000 words) page one valentine-posing-as-a-profile of the imam behind the project, but left out one little fact: that just 19 days after the 9/11 attacks the imam told Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes that “I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.” This wasn’t some side issue. That statement by the imam, probably more than anything else, had focused the attention of critics of the mosque. Whatever happened to “All the news that’s fit to print”?
A majority of Americans – 71 percent according to a CBS News poll – and even a majority of New Yorkers – 63 percent according to the Siena Research Institute — are against building the mosque and cultural center two blocks from where the Twin Towers once stood. New Yorkers have been called many things, but right-wingers is not one of those things.
The mosque controversy has revealed that many liberal journalists, who for the most part look and dress like normal folks, have become unhinged. More than ever, it seems to me, they have become detached from mainstream America. The good news is that the American people have noticed. And fewer and fewer care what they think about the mosque controversy – or, for that matter, just about anything else.
THE MEDIA NEEDS TO CHANGE & BE MORE ACCURATE & PRECISE.
THE TERM ” LAME DUCK CONGRESS” MAY BE IN ERROR. I AM TIRED OF
ANIMAL ABUSE AND CRITICIZING HANDICAPPED DUCKS ! THIS MUST STOP !
GOING FORWARD, LETS SAY THE ” LAME-BRAIN CONGRESS” FOR
COMPLETE DISCLOSURE.
BERNIE, BIG NEWS STORY, SOMEONE IS HACKING INTO THE INTERNET,
OOPS, THEY SAY ITS THE WH, GUESS THEY JUST WANT TO DO SOME
REPAIRS. DID YOU HEAR THE NEW SLOGAN? GROPE & CHANGE !
People, Here is the entire interview that Bernie cropped:
The “accessory” remark is from a 2001 interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” in which Rauf said:
Rauf, Sept. 30, 2001: I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.
Correspondent Ed Bradley: OK. You say that we’re an accessory?
Rauf: Yes.
Bradley: How?
Rauf: Because we have been an accessory to a lot of — of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, it — in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.
That was a reference to U.S. support for bin Laden when he was fighting Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan, as CBS’ Bradley made clear in the sequence that immediately followed Rauf’s remark:
CBS’ Ed Bradley, Sept. 30, 2001: Bin Laden and his supporters were, in fact, recruited and paid nearly $4 billion by the CIA and the government of Saudi Arabia in the 1980s to fight with the Mujahedeen rebels against the former Soviet Union, which had invaded Afghanistan. After the Soviets pulled out, the Saudis, our best friends in the Arab world, our staunchest ally during the Gulf War, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the newly formed Taliban regime until 1999.
Will, You certainly do have a talent for trivializin’ the momentous and complicatin’ the obvious.
It must be very difficult for you living in a nation that is forced to make foreign policy decisions that you believe are so wrong and evil. How do you face each day knowing you are “so” right and everyone else is so wrong. I think shrinks have a term for this.
And so this is why they killed 3,000 of us? Because we helped them drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan? Makes perfect sense to me. Gawd you’re a moron.
Eddie, this is to logical for Wil to understand.
I would like to point out that the explanation of the imam’s comment on US complicity in the 911 attacks came from Bradley and not the imam. Sorry, but Bradley’s interpretation is no more valid than Goldberg’s interpretation – the words are there to speak for themselves and no amount of spinning will change them.
Bernie, You really don’t have any argument other than this fallacious slippery slope bullshit, do you? And all your toaties agree with every word you spit out. How sad!
As opposed to hanging on Olberman’s every word.
May I suggest that you might find the Huffington Post more suitable for your liberal fallacies. I would caution you to limit your exposure to 15 minutes at first since you are certain to experience orgasmic sensory overload from all that intense reinforcement of your ideals. You can even compete with the other pseudo intellectuals for “fans” to your little jewels of wisdom.
In that same article, Cohen called Sarah Palin a “…twittering twit…”. this guy is right out of an Oscar Wilde play. He reminded me of the murderer in the movie ‘Laura’.
didn’t Peter Jennings marry Hanan Ashwairie the Palestinian spokeswoman?
there is a video of an unhinged 30 year old yelling and provoking an 83 year old survivor of the camps in WW2. the young one lost it.
It’ a sick bunch on the left.
Sick but yet so smug.
For the benefit of the left, perhaps we should recall the words of Bishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979): “America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance. It is not. It is suffering from tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so much overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded…” In the face of this “broadmindedness,” perhaps we Americans need more “intolerance,” notwithstanding the Left’s hypocritical rantings to the contrary.
Evan Sayet says that America’s problem isn’t discrimination. It’s the lack of discrimination between good and bad, right and wrong.
Thanks for showing us some of these ridiculous quotes, I can’t believer these explanations come from their mouths. As you put it Bernie, they are the ones having the temper tantrum.
The liberal political comentators, with their incessant nasty childish denigration, of the majority of Americans who disagree with them are rapidly talking themselves out of their own very existance. Newsweek recently sold for $! and Time as well as U.S.News are doing poorly. The New York Times had to sell their real estate to a Mexican financier and rent it back from him in order to remain in business. CBS, NBC ,ABC and CNN are losing viewership at a steady rate. Each and every one of them employ lying, name-calling fools while their editorial staffs constantly withold news stories that contradict their political philosophies. The public is simply mad as hell and is showing its feelings by hitting them in the pocketbook. Evidently the aforementioned news sources are too stupidly stubborn to recognize it which, for the good of the country, happens to be a good thing.
I hold a dissenting view about the appropriateness of erecting a Mosque near the ‘ground zero’ site in NYC…Those “bigots, demagogues or merely uninformed” liberals can call me what ever they wish, as I have every right to voice my ‘dissenting’ view, as they do of their ‘approving’ slant on the issue!
Hey Buz, Likely Senate candidate Joe Miller (R) in Alaska told Fox News last week that GOP lawmakers must have the “courage to shut down the government” in order to eliminate government programs he doesn’t like. Right-wing CNN personality Erick Erickson said with child-like excitement yesterday, “I’m almost giddy thinking about a government shutdown next year. I cannot wait!”
And sleazy GOP consultant Dick Morris told activists late last week that Republicans should do exactly as Gingrich/Dole did 15 years ago, but this time it’ll work out better.
Wil – To quote Dan Akroyd, “Wil, You ignorant sl**!” The best thing that could happen to us would be for our government to shut down. Why is it that a liberal will always defend the wrong doers on their side, no matter how serious the offense? Most normal people are sick and tired of both parties. The sad truth is that the republicans are simply the lessor of two evils.
You are correct on the shut down. The liberal answers to everything, more government & more spending. How many become dismal failures which require endless funding?
You have to throw in an insult or two to cap off the full straw man argument though, Bruce. Wil would be on fire and the only thing he would do is blame someone. That’s an analogy, WIl, not an insult. Instead of trying to fix the problem, the Liberal in Chief is more concerned with getting his “Historic” agenda rammed through while the clock is ticking and pointing out faults of everyone. His implosion as a “leader” is great entertainment. When EJ Dionne starts begging for something from his pin-up guy, you know things are getting bad.
A mosque built at this location will be nothing more than a monument to the Muslim 9-11 murderers. A mosque built anywhere, with Imam Rauf and all he obviously believes attached to it, would be an enormous mistake. Moving it would make little difference. To Bernie: you have the patience of Job when it comes to the O’Reilly interruptions mentioned above. It’s very frustrating for those of us who obviously want to hear what you have to say- though we know there’s little you can do about it. Also,I enjoyed ‘Slobbering’ immensely and eagerly await your next book!
Juliet, We sacrificed 4,415 of our military personnel in Iraq to save Muslims, and there are thousands still there tonight to protect Muslims, but we don’t want Muslims to open a combination culinary school and prayer space in Manhattan?
Every time a liberal media talking head issues a wanton insult at those who disagree with his views, he simply hardens their opposition and they tune him out completely. If the liberals who disparage those who disagree with them would take a more flexible and understanding approach regarding the views of those who disagree with them, they might not change any minds, but they would certainly encounter a more receptive audience.
And this has nothing to do with the liberal conservative divide, it is simply the most effective way to change someone’s mind or convince them of an idea with which they disagree.
I am beginning to wonder if liberals and leftists have ever been properly socialized to interact with others.
I firmly believe that Libs thrive on hate and discontent. Next ’cause’ on their agenda: The casino proposed to be built near the Gettysburg Battlefield. They’ll be chanting that “it’s just a field, and building the casino is ‘legal’”.
Say it like it is, Bernie – those leftist progressives are afraid of their own shadow – like the kids who give their lunch money to the schoolyard bullies, hoping not to be hurt. What we have here is not religious bigotry, but a stand against an abhorrent, to the West, political agenda. The words ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islam” have become synonymous with terror and hatred of all who do not belong to those groups, by an ideology which is determined to make Hitler’s 3rd Reich look like a
elementary school project.
Unfortunately, the progressive leftists amongst us, and those who would rather run than fight, who have lost the will to maintain the democratic republic in which we live and prosper (hopefully), are, what were called in WWII, Quislings. A real ‘shanda’.
Bernie. You have to tell oreilly to stop interrupting you and let you finish a sentence.Thtat guy just dominates everyone. regards to ytou.
PLEASE Bernie — tell Bill to let you talk … his endless interruptions are driving us away from his show
I saw an interview yesterday on Newsmax TV with Michael Schreuer, the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit. He said that he thinks the mosque would be a symbol of victory for Islamic extremists around the world. Watch it here (you won’t see it on 60 Minutes or anywhere else in ObamaMedia):
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/scheuer-bin-laden-ground/2010/08/26/id/368530?s=al&promo_code=A9E6-1
Hopefully all of this back and forth about the sickening bias in the media will be a wake up call not only to private citizens and how they get their news, but to the next generation of journalists. Send our news “stars” to the golf course with President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg. They are useless to us. We need new blood to help us.
Do we all remember how the Middle Easterners rejoiced and danced in the streets when the towers fell? And Toby Keith sang about our “big black eye”? Do we want them to give us another black eye? Let’s be Americans (not “global citizens”) and say no to this Muslim trophy at Ground Zero.
Ignorance of facts is usually the cause of confusion in complicated issues. According to the data from the Koran and other Muslim literature the Muslim religion is the worship of the Moon God. This is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It further states that the entire world will eventually be worshipers of this Moon God or their necks will be under the sword of Allah. The Muslims are long term thinkers and according to the Koran it is good to lie to and Infidel i.e. Christian or Jew to achieve their goals. This is not religious bigotry or an assault on the sons of Ishmael it is simply the facts.
On MSNBC they Willy Geist won’t even say Mosque now, he refers to it as “a cultural center”
Willy who? Nobody watches MSNBC, he can call it whatever he wants.
The Liberal thinks Obama can do no wrong. I remember when Dan Rather announced that “Gore” won in 2000 before all of Flordia was counted. Well, guess what CBS, Dan had to eat his words.
This Mosque is a slap in the face to all “True Americans”. It is a front for the Muslims to push their Sharia Law into our nation. They have pushed their Sharia Law in every country they have “Conquered”. The Muslims build their “Trophys” over every Christian site they can.
God Bless you Bernie for writing the “Truth”.
Just because you have the right to do something doesn’t make it the right thing to do. Perhaps, the proponents of this mosque should ask, “Why wouldn’t someone want this mosque built?” If bigotry is the only answer they can come up with then I think they need to learn the definition of bigotry. Wasn’t it bigotry when terrorists acted out the 9/11 plot simply because they hated us because we weren’t Muslim? Or was that the terrorist just getting their Rev. Jeremiah Wright on? Sure there are actual bigots who oppose the mosque just because those who will use it are Muslims, and that is wrong. I would like to think that a a majority of opponents just think it a tad insensitive to build the mosque simply because it is too close and too soon after. Per the usual, the Lamestream Media did its best to turn this into a partisan issue. Lame indeed!
Every evening Katie and her ilk explain to viewers that they didn’t see what they just saw. That they didn’t hear what they just heard, and oh, by the way, that they’re bigots for noticing in the first place. The sad part is that so many of them are taken in because they’ve had their brains smashed into mush from years of being pounded with the liberal media’s “half-truth” hammer. You see it’s the half-truths that, in my mind, are the most dangerous. While outright lies are often uncovered it’s the “half-truths” that most of the population never figure out. A “half-truth” is a liberals best friend and they depend upon them for virtually everything that they’re trying to accomplish. Maybe the old saying should be revised to say that there are lies, damn lies, and liberal half-truths!
Live TV is one thing, but I wonder what Mr Jennings thought / said about his comments in retrospect.
In much the same way that greed may be the unfortunate yet unavoidable consequence of free market capitalism, perhaps elitism is the distasteful by-product of amassing a large (or even faux-large, in the case of the modern broadcast network anchor) audience of viewers, listeners, fans, digital “friends” (i.e. the social networking meaning of the word).
Perhaps the roots of this phenomenon are genetic. When an animal leads / dominates the pack, group, whatever, they behave differently than the animals in the pack. It’s their job. There’s a method / order to things, developed over centuries that works. But in the wild, the leader not on his/her toes can be challenged and replaced at just about any time.
We’ve largely taken competition in that form out of the equation. So even if a pack of intelligent high school kids could research, write, produce and present a 22 minute evening news program that even old-time, legitimate (aka dead) journalists would be proud of, Katie, Brian and whoever are not in danger of being replaced (or challenged or eaten
Throw in a staff who interpret the “Emperor has no clothes” parable as aspirational, not cautionary and voila, unbridled elitism.
“Good show Katie (I need my job). You really taught the (fading) audience a thing or two about the socio-economic consequences of Keysian spending in a post-industrial federated bifurcated global marketplace.”
“Huh?”
“I liked the housing story.”
“Oh thanks…
“Who is that? Get her reassigned to local traffic or something. And send out that memo again about not calling me Katie.”
Dan
- “The Next 10 Amendments”
Good column Bernie. I always have the impression that the liberal elites in the media think we are mushrooms. The keep us in the dark & feed us s%*t.
Lets not forget that they can’t understand why Fox is the dominant name in news.
I remember watching Capitol Gang a week before the ’94 elections and everyone but Robert Novak predicted the Dems would pick up a few seats. When Novak predicted the Repubs would pick up a bunch of seats the others laughed at him. Pretty much sums up the state of journalism doesn’t it.
What the liberal media elite can’t seem to understand is that many Americans are frustrated, not only with the economy, but what we see as a change in the country’s culture. Americans can’t understand why their kids can no longer sing “Christmas” songs in school and the city square can’t display a nativity scene, yet the administration and the media are bending over frontwards to appease Muslims. Americans see artists, comedians and liberal commentators mock Christians and Jews (crucifix in a jar of urine ring a bell), yet these same folks say nothing critical of Muslims for fear of their lives. With some due respect, when are the administration and media going to hold Muslims accountable for some of the “misunderstanding” of their religion?. I, like most Americans, have never seen these “so-called moderate Muslims” ever say anything positive about our country. If they have, why keep these feeling under wraps? All we seem to hear is fiery rhetoric about how terrible Americans and Jews are. Most Americans know that Muslim/Arab countries are among the most intolerant on earth (towards women, other religions, freedom of speech, etc.), yet we are called bigots and racists. I thought Obama was supposed to bring people together.
You forgot to mention another Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President, on the O’Reilly Factor:
“A few very well orchestrated agitators have created a situation where we now see tea party people going after Jewish American elected officials. Mayor Bloomberg, myself, the speaker of our assembly Sheldon Silver.”
How about that ?!?!?
Now if you are against the mosque you are against the NYC Jewish politicians.
Bernie, thanks for your great insight. I don’t have your experience, so the bias is something thathas really only sunk in for me over the last three years. I remember that I used to read the NYT and The New Republic. I watched Chris Mathews. I simply cannot do those things anymore. What colossal arrogance these elites have! The damage they have done to journalism…
Another spot on analysis Mr. Goldberg. I grow weary of the “elite”.
I grow weary of the elite–The Republicans and their Tea Party cronies. Now think of the damage Fox News has done to journalism. It’s not pretty.