U.S. Politics: GOP v. MSM

Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the Bush 41 administration. In a piece for Real Clear Politics, Babbin asserts, as has this blog, that the mainstream media, not the Democrats, are the Republicans’ real opposition:

The Democrats ran out of ideas the night Bobby Kennedy died, and since then the media have become the primary source of Democrat ideas and policy.

Babbin adds:

the media are more than just the Dems' think tank. . . Think of what George Soros could do if he had a global news network that could produce multi-million dollar attack ads every day, and then you'll know what some mainstream media outlets have become. Rightly or wrongly, given their history with CBS, ABC, NBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post and lately, AP, some conservatives classify them among the worst offenders.

. . . essentially political activists[, t]hey are in the campaign business nearly as much as they are in the business of reporting the news these days. They will be tossing October surprises at Republicans all day every day from September 5, when Katie Couric takes over at CBS, until the election returns are certified.

. . . the Republican base is practically begging to be fired up about the [media's] political activism. They know something is badly wrong with the guys, but they can't quite put their finger on it. The problem began in the Clinton years when the media gave the administration a pass on the growth of terrorism, on Iraq and on the mountains of non-Monica corruption the Clintons lived in. By turning a blind eye to the Clintons' problems, the [media] became intellectually corrupt, more interested in political success for the Dems than the truth.

Americans knew they'd heard something important last year when Washington Post editor Marie Arana said, "The elephant in the newsroom is our narrowness ... If you work here, you must be one of us. You must be liberal, progressive, a Democrat. I've been in communal gatherings at the Post, watching election returns, and have been flabbergasted to see my colleagues cheer unabashedly for the Democratic candidates."