Is there anything funnier to watch than the Left suddenly discovering the virtues of journalistic objectivity? Liberals arrogantly have ruled the news media roost for decades, regularly demeaning conservative ideas and leaders in their ongoing quest for progress and enlightenment. But now that Fox News Channel is on the scene, dominating the cable news scene and showing America that TV news can be something different than the suffocating consensus of the liberal establishment, the left is in a panic. Objectivity is needed! Democracy itself is in danger! When Fox News debuted in 1996, liberals couldn't contain their laughter at what... continue reading
Summer is always a big season for movie attendance, especially big, loud, special effects-laden movies. The dominating blockbuster this summer so far is "Spiderman 2," loved by critics this time as well as anticipated by fans. But does the PG-13 rating reflect the movie's content? Some parents didn't think so. "It's very violent and very disruptive, especially for children," one parent told the New York Daily News. "It's fine to jump over buildings. It's another thing to crush someone's skull," he said, referring to a scene where the villain, Doctor Octopus, crushes a surgeon's head with one of his mechanical... continue reading
Political reporters think Americans are uneducated and easy to command. They think TV viewers will buy the Crayola-crayon notion that John Edwards is a Southerner, therefore he is a "moderate." Do these people with the advanced degrees in international affairs and pancake makeup techniques really think they don't have to update their political notions beyond 1964? Any journalist who had five minutes on his hands to determine the ideology of Sen. Edwards would learn he has a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of...50? 40? Nope. Try 12. Even the liberal Americans for Democratic Action has him rated at 81 percent... continue reading
Who would have imagined five years ago that the fad, the rage, the phenomenon of network television would be the "reality" show? Now that it's the 21st century, network executives are putting expensive actors and their scripts aside for average Americans trying to claw their way into their 15 minutes of fame. At least 20 percent of the prime-time schedule during the February sweeps period was composed of reality programming. Unfortunately, these "unscripted" moments are even less acceptable for family viewing than the old, unfashionable scripted shows. A new study by Aubree Rankin of the Parents Television Council examines the... continue reading
Most of the discussion about religion and politics in America ignores the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which instructs that the state should recognize no particular faith as the church of the state. Instead, the discussion revolves around Thomas Jefferson's private concept of the "separation of church and state," which is usually interpreted in the widest berth imaginable: let no one speak a religious word in public, especially in association with politics, lest church-state separation be violated. In the August Ladies' Home Journal, editor Diane Salvatore advanced that very belief in a question to Sen. John Kerry: "There's been... continue reading
George W. Bush has rarely if ever said a discouraging word about Hollywood, but Hollywood is unloading every gun and bomb bay on George W. Bush. Earlier in the summer, we had the cartoonish science-fiction film "The Day After Tomorrow," in which the clueless Bush stand-in president somehow freezes from global warming, and the Cheney stand-in vice president confesses he should have listened to the Greenpeace gang, for they have all knowledge and wisdom. At least that malarkey was pitched as fiction, raising further questions about Al Gore's political sanity for roundly endorsing it. The main exhibit now is Michael... continue reading
Jack Ryan watched his young career as a Senate candidate go up in smoke because the Chicago Tribune sued to bust the seal on his divorce papers from his wife, the "Star Trek" actress Jeri Lynn Ryan. In the papers, Mrs. Ryan asserted that her husband pressured her to have sex with him in public in swinging sex clubs. Republicans wanted him gone. He had lied to conservative journalists and GOP supporters alike when he said there were no potential skeletons in his closet. Republicans wouldn't stand for that. Bill Clinton now claims a "badge of honor" because independent counsel... continue reading
Forty-five seems like a little old for an adult to decide to grow up, but it's better than never. In an interview with ABC last week, fading pop star Madonna addressed the fact that she's been less than a role model in her career. She looks back on her provocative act over the last two decades and conceded it was meaningless. She told interviewer Cynthia McFadden: "I did spend at least a decade taking my clothes off, and being photographed; saying bad words on TV...And I thought I was liberating mankind. But like I said, I wasn't really offering an... continue reading
So Bill Clinton has written a 957-page book about his life. It appears to be the literary equivalent of the movie "Airplane!" in which the main character, Ted Striker, kept trying to bore captive passengers with his life story, as they all killed themselves rather than listen to him drone on, and on, and on. Luckily, nobody actually has to read the entire Clinton memoirs. Nobody should, given Clinton's fathomless credibility problems. Millions of Clinton fans will buy it, and maybe one or two of them will even finish it. But let's be clear about this book. It's an opportunity... continue reading
They once called women the "fairer sex," the civilizers of men, the paragons of reticence and manners. Then along came feminism, which promised women that they, too, could be loutish, horny, greedy, and profane. Today, that perspective is not just stylish, it's the toast of television. "Sex and the City" is the media-darling series on that sleazy media-darling channel HBO, which could stand for Horny, Bawdy, and Obnoxious. Now that the pay-cable channel's original episodes are finished, HBO has cashed in some more by selling a slightly edited version of the show to TBS. A whole new audience that doesn't... continue reading