The coverage of the current Democratic primaries oozes with a quality of charity and brotherhood, with the kind of gentleness that is found among friends, or political allies. With a few robust exceptions (Howard Dean's attempt to channel Mr. T), the daily and nightly TV coverage has been mostly obsessed with the horse race at the expense of serious discussion of important political issues. Someone might claim that the conservatives should be delighted with the lack of bias, all the neutrality in tone, as Dan Rather asks short, sweet campaign-pamphlet questions such as "What's the basic Wesley Clark message in... continue reading
Back in our youth, when children ran around and played outdoors instead of hunkering down over the latest dazzling video-game system, we boys loved to play "Cops and Robbers." The cops were the good guys, the robbers the bad guys. It's a sorry sign of our morally relativist culture that today those roles are often indistinguishable. Now boys play popular video games that glamorize quick-shooting thugs. Witness the "Grand Theft Auto" series. The cops are either corrupt or target practice, or maybe both. On television, the cop-show genre continues, and while the police continue to be depicted favorably, there's a... continue reading
Just weeks ago, Howard Dean looked like he was popping corn in Iowa, comfortably on his way to the Democratic nomination. In the end, he was just creamed spinach, and most un-magnanimous in defeat. He was bitter, and passing out blame. On CNBC as the results rolled over him, Dean groused that he had become the front runner and then "all you in the media had some fun at my expense." How Clintonesque. In 1992, Clinton regularly whined that he was the most media-slammed and scrutinized candidate in American history. (You never heard that from Ronald Reagan, who perhaps was.)... continue reading
Don't look now, but a barrel of common sense seems to have rolled through the front door of the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is finally upset over the issue of filthy cursing on broadcast television. At first, David Solomon, the head of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau rendered a decision allowing the "f-word" on the public airwaves if used as an adjective, but not a noun. After a public outcry so loud that Congress is preparing hearings on broadcasting indecency, FCC Chairman Michael Powell reversed course. He threw Solomon's decision out the window, and then declared publicly that fines for... continue reading
It's amazing, if not surprising, the degree to which trashing God, trashing America, and trashing traditional values are the entertainment factory's favorite pastimes. All these ritual hatreds are brought together in HBOs miniseries "Angels in America," as the "prestige" cable channel tiptoes into another season of Golden Globes and Emmys and deep-bowing tributes. HBO, that jewel of the Time Warner empire, has taken Tony Kushner's propagandistic Broadway smash - the theatrical version of one of those crazy letters to the editor that never end and have too many capital letters - and devoted $60 million to turning this stale 1980s... continue reading
Once this presidential campaign has ended, Tom Brokaw will take his two-plus decades in the anchorman chair and his "Greatest Generation" millions and retire - leaving Peter and Dan to soldier on desperately as if competing to see which one will become the Strom Thurmond Iron Man of the anchor desk. We must honor Brokaw for this, for having the humility to leave before the game of firing up the liberal-bias projector passes him by. But he's apparently going out like Walter Cronkite, declaring how his heart pounds for the less fortunate, spitting on his General Electric overlords, and beating... continue reading
The sacrament of marriage is under attack like never before. Our popular culture is reducing marriage from eternal love to a temporary business merger, an elongated slumber party, with adults playacting at junior-high style "going steady." When the going gets tough, no one hangs tough. Marriage is no longer a commitment. It is merely the legalization of infatuation, which when followed almost immediately by irreconcilable differences, can be voided. The pinup for play-marriage this week is pop tart Britney Spears, who simply will not go away until we buy her lame CD "In The Zone" (now available at all fine... continue reading
Our presidential election year has barely started, and already left-wing troublemakers are getting away with murder. In 2000, the NAACP produced an ad featuring James Byrd's daughter suggesting George W. Bush was forcing her to relive her father's pickup-dragging death by refusing to sign a "hate crimes" law. Now the radical haters at MoveOn.Org have used their Internet space to show ads comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler, and the media, so quick to condemn any negative ads produced by Republicans, are giving them a free ride. Two 30-second Hitler spots were among more than 1,500 entries for a contest... continue reading
Our national media do not take charges of an institutional liberal bias well. Often they ignore them. Sometimes they simply deny them. Few reporters call and stand their ground. Recently, the Media Research Center asked a panel of 46 judges from across America to select the "Best Notable Quotables of 2003," for the year's worst reporting. One unhappy winner was Time reporter Karen Tumulty, who won the "Media Millionaires for Higher Taxes Award" for some May 11 comments on CBS's "Face the Nation." She called the MRC to protest. "This is taken out of context!" she complained to MRC's Tim... continue reading
ABC anchorman Peter Jennings recently hosted a special telling us "How to Get Fat Without Really Trying." The primary point was to encourage the public to view fatty foods as a public health threat on the order of cigarette smoking, and to encourage the viewpoint that government had better play a great role to play as the national food police. I'm sure many parents of young children caught one of the storylines within the special: children are being pressured by advertisers into overeating, overdrinking, and obesity. Jennings warned: "The average American child sees 10,000 food advertisements a year on television... continue reading