The Washington crowd and talk radio community is in a tizzy because the President took part in a Labor Day rally with a union thug, Jimmy Hoffa, who used harsh, militaristic rhetoric to criticize the Tea Party.
Pardon me if I’m not upset. As I’ve already explained, it is pathetic and demeaning for people to act like field goal kickers and soccer players, falling to the ground and feigning injury in hopes of getting a cheap penalty call.
The real problem is not harmless rhetoric, but pervasive hypocrisy by the press.
Probably the worst example, exposed by John Hinderaker of Powerline, is the way left-wing hack Paul Krugman engaged in libel against Rep. Michelle Bachmann by implying she was urging murderous violence against rival politicians, when all she said was “I’m going to have materials for people when they leave. I want people armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax.”
Or what about the media establishment getting all upset when anybody calls Obama a socialist (he’s actually a corporatist or statist), but don’t pay any attention when a Congressman Andre Carson slurs millions of Americans by claiming the tea party people want blacks “hanging on a tree.”
Media Bias is a huge issue. That’s what talk radio should be highlighting, not harmless rhetoric.
P.S. There are many examples of actual violence by union thugs, some of which are motivated by political passion. And there may be, at some point, examples of violence by Tea Party activists. The people who commit those crimes should be punished.
Headline is right… But I think the real hypocrisy is overlooked. That is that Mr. Hoffa is ostensibly the representative of blue collar workers – seeking to improve their lot. What he reveals in this speech that he is nothing more than a political operative willing to sacrifice any level of his supposed constituency to support the political ambitions of this administration.
Complaining that the “media is biased” seems a bit like the field goal kicker flop IMO.
I agree with your post. In fact in a post on Tuesday, I said much the same thing: http://americanteapartypolitics.com/?p=11. I’m planning a post on civil discourse being a one-way street for the Democrats. The only way is their way. I read the Washington Post and I wasn’t really shocked when they didn’t mention Hoffa slurs in the article about Obama’s speech. Sean Hannity was right: objective journalism is dead in America; it died during the 2008 election.
Media bias is a given. Last Sunday’s comics(Doonesberry) is an incredible piece of sexism that would not be tolerated by “The View” if it were directed at liberals or Democrats. Tea Party folks are associated with the right wing by the media, when they only advocate small government, and less taxation. The media is under the contol of the government as it always is in the early stages of socialism.
PS: On the video, “Jobs,jobs,jobs,jobs, jobs, jobs, Lets take these sons of bitches.”, does he refer to the current administration?
You’re right that hypocrisy is the problem, but it’s also hypocritical to suggest that talk radio highlight media bias, given that talk radio has its own strong bias.
The bias is made worse by overriding partisanship and power politics. There are numerous examples of one political party opposing a policy until they are in power, then passing it. The opposition party has every incentive to harm the economy prior to an election, and too often does so.
We see this lately when the conservative media opposes an Obama policy which they would strongly support if proposed by a Republican. The opposite is often true of the liberal media.
Another example is the anti-war protests, which largely died down after Mr. Obama’s election, even though we’re continuing to be involved overseas. My personal opinion is that the “Tea Party” will largely disappear if the Republicans sweep the 2012 elections. There may be a number of sincere supporters of small government in the Tea Party, but too much of it is anti-Obama and anti-Democrat.
Thomas,
There is a key difference between talk radio and the media: talk radio admits it is biased where the media claims it is not. The nature of talk radio is to espouse a side, whereas the news is not supposed to.
That difference is what makes the hypocricy,and worse, the inconsistency.
Hypocricy is where one says one thing and practices another. Talk radio has never claimed it is unbiased. The nature of talk radio is the sharing and discussin of their world-view and opinion. Talk radio commmits no hypocricy in this regard.
The media news programs on the other hand purport to give unbiased accounts of news. We know by their constnat filtering that this is untrue.
So yes, talk radio has its own huge strong bias. But they admit it and everyone knows it. But the media, while it has a huge bias, pretends and says it does not.
[...] mean, sure, Dan Mitchell can point out “The Problem Is Staggering Hypocrisy,” but as long as there’s no punishment for [...]