Business as Usual

The widespread effort by the Left and the compliant media to portray people on the Right as violent extremists is perhaps the most shameful political smear I've ever witnessed. Casual consumers of network news and popular culture would honestly believe that Conservatives are currently the great violators of civil discourse, which is patently ridiculous. And - this is an important point - that dishonest portrayal infuriates me much more than any health-care boondoggle or scheming politician ever could.

The fact is, the fervor on the right (even during the recent "small scale...Kristallnacht" - as Frank Rich so psychotically described it) doesn't even approximate the daily madness of the Left today, during the Bush years, or at any other point in recent American history. The difference, of course, is that this type of behavior is "business as usual" for the Left.

The Left has established a benchmark of uncivil behavior (or perhaps such behavior has always been more congruous with their worldview), and that benchmark is completely ignored by their ideological fellow travelers in the media. But when the Right, with a higher concentration of older and therefore generally more temperate citizens, suddenly realizes that they're being drowned out and decides to raise their own volume to match their ideological opponents, the mainstream media feigns shock.

What we're witnessing is the attempted marginalization of half of the American population through Aliskyite methods. And it is not the political Left that is the perpetrator, it is the media. It is their twisted wish-fulfillment, their disingenuous smearing - not the vociferous or even offensive expression of public opinion - that is threatening the long-term tranquility of our country.

Laura Ingraham said it very well in her smack-down of Matt Lauer on the Today Show. Yes, there are intemperate voices on both sides of the debate, but when the media only reports one side of the story, they throw fuel on the fire. That is what drives people crazy and destroys civil discourse.

America can handle offensive speech and opinionated people, but it cannot abide corrupt institutions - and the modern American media is corrupt to the core. Their behavior over the last week proves it.