Friday, December 04, 2009
The fix is in, liberal media selling out for pot of government gold
...McTaggart in particular ought to ring up former GM CEO Rick Waggoner for a little chat about the value of promises of non-intervention by government officials. Waggoner found out the hard way when President Obama summarily - and probably illegally, but what's a mere constitution between friends? - fired him barely hours after professing to have absolutely no desire "to run the auto industry."
Also chirping along to Waxman's song during the workshop was Eric Newton, the powerful vice-president for journalism programs of the wealthy Knight Foundation. Newton, who makes his living doling out money earned by somebody else to causes of his choice, rejected as "mythology" the idea that government has never been involved with media.
"It's a bogus argument that just keeps us from doing the right thing," Newton said, according to Glover. The arogance of this argument is truly breath-taking.
What appalls me when I read comments like those of Newton, MacCarthy and McTaggart is they can't plead Waxman's excuse, which is the same base hypocrisy that explains the empty words of most politicians.
Newton, MacCarthy and McTaggart know better. Newton, for example, claims a government bailout won't compromise media independence because of the same sort of "firewall" that separates advertising and editorial.
Firewalls can work in private businesses when management insists that they be respected, but it's different when government is involved because nobody can say no to power-happy federal bureaucrats armed with regulatory authority or litigious Justice Department attorneys packing subpoenas and make it stick....