Pinch Happened:

Republicans should celebrate Abramson’s promotion because if they look closely at it — and at the growing effectiveness of conservative media — they will see two freight trains running toward each other that will collide spectacularly next year right in front of the eyes of American voters.

The two first collided in a 2004 fender-bender that cost Dan Rather his job when conservative bloggers exposed the phony documents he used to attack George Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard. The media learned from Rather’s mistake and four years later reasserted themselves in the role of the gatekeepers of voters’ knowledge. Throughout the Obama campaign stories which real reporters would have dug into deeply — such as Obama’s record in the Illinois legislature, his association with shady characters such as Tony Rezko, and his two decades of listening to radical preacher Jeremiah Wright — were stories the gatekeeper media chose not to report. (TheTimes, of course, held the story on John McCain’s alleged affair with a lobbyist until he had secured the nomination. The story was debunked before the ink dried on the Times‘ front page.)

The lavish coverage and daily praise the media poured on Obama pushed critical examination of him out of voters’ consciousness. The pro-Obama narrative isn’t the result of some dark conspiracy: it’s the product of the media’s culture. The media culture is so powerful and so common that reporters, editors and television news executives can no more resist it than Canada geese can resist the instinct to fly south in winter.

All of this is good news for Republicans because conservative media are more brash, more agile and more willing to report real news than the dinosaurs of the gatekeeper media. Talk radio has a larger and more politically-active audience than all the liberal newspapers, lib talkers and liberal TV programs combined.

Michelle Bachmann rejects Chris Wallace’s apology:

ABC News’ Jon Karl, who’s been getting face-time with Bachmann in Waterloo in advance of her formal campaign announcement, played a clip of the web video in which Wallace said, “I messed up. I’m sorry.”

When Karl asked if she accepts the apology, Bachmann brushed aside the question this way: “I think that it’s insulting to insinuate that a candidate for president is less than serious.”

(more…)

Yesterday, in this piece about Stephen Colbert,I mentioned Jon Stewart’s attack on Fox News but couched it with as much skepticism as possible because, frankly, it didn’t pass the smell test, especially in the area of context. To have those suspicions confirmed last night by Bill O’Reilly came as no surprise (see the video below). Furthermore, I respectfully disagree with O’Reilly that Stewart should be held to a lower factual standard because he’s a “satirist.” Stewart isn’t a satirist, he’s a political partisan disguised as a satirist, a man as determined to defeat the right as Nancy Pelosi and Bill Maher. The difference between Pelosi and Maher, though, is that they step into the arena of political battle and fly their flag. At the very least you can respect them for that. They come to wage open war whereas Stewart and Colbert come to throw rocks while wearing the protective shield of a clown nose.

I love our side and there’s really no lower form of life than someone on our side who undermines their own, so I say this to be constructive, not destructive. There are a lot of people on the Right who love Jon Stewart, people I respect, some of whom I know and like. And I agree that Stewart’s very good at what he does (which is why I take him seriously). But a conservative admiring the brilliance of Jon Stewart’s talent is like a boxer admiring the power of Mike Tyson’s punch as he’s beating you senseless. You have to fight back and in that respect, last night O’Reilly did an excellent job of threading a very difficult needle. Stewart is not easy to lay a glove on, but this was a clean hit. (You’ll be glad to know that I am now out of boxing metaphors).

Another point O’Reilly made that should be highlighted, is how the so-called “objective” or “legitimate” media too often takes what Stewart and Colbert do as some kind of gospel. Because Stewart is a “comedian,” the liberal media uses that as an excuse to blow up what he does on their air or online without bothering to fact-check, even when the stakes involve reputations. We’ve seen this before. Nobody watches “Saturday Night Live” but everyone saw Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin impression. With a smirk, and as though it didn’t matter, the left-wing media let Tina Fey do their dirty work on Palin with the endless looping of those SNL clips all in the name of “fun.” Well, it’s not fun, it’s an attempt to dehumanize someone into a national punchline and the media knew it. (more…)

I am calling to all of you freedom-loving Americans to come once again to Washington D.C. to gather on the Capitol steps on Saturday, at 12 o’clock noon.

We must come by the thousands.

Speaker Pelosi will stop at nothing to fulfill her corrupt conquests. She will bring all of the corrupt ACORN liars to try to bully all the Democrats that may be having pangs of guilt knowing quite surely what their votes can and will do. If they’re bullied into saying “yes,” it will destroy America.

Join me and Rep. Michele Bachmann in Washington DC at 12 noon EST so we can give all the Democrats who know what the end result will be the courage to say: “No, do not pass this destructive bill.” (more…)