[NPR chief executive quits over hidden camera video - CBS News]
[FireDogLake: NPR]
We're going to see more of this citizen-with-a-camera, gotcha-journalism-take downs. Since the corporate media has basically jumped into bed with the political elite and given-up its watchdog responsibilities, someone should hold our overlord's feet to the fire.
For now, the right is the dominate player. Every time a right winger catches a lefty doing something, the media plays it up and the left capitulates. The left tries, like the Walker-Koch interview, but has yet to get the same results. The reason for the right's domination?
1. They are not above faking it, editing the tape or changing the "facts" to make their point. Hell, the right has a whole god-damned "news" organization that specializes in blasting made up shit 24/7. So far we've seen little indication the left will do that.
2. The right has the killer instinct. They go for the jugular. They don't just want to win, they want to destroy the left. In the mass media, the right has Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Beck, Savage, Hannity, Maklin and more, all calling for blood. The left has Maddow with the facts, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report with the humor but these leave the listener smirking at how stupid these people are and not with them wanting to "take there country back". The right has O'keefe and Breitbart making shit up to destroy the left while the left's best O'Keefe-type effort to date, the Walker-Koch call, seemed to be in fun, a joke. Sure they were trying to make a kill but the caper had a Bart Simpson air to it and left most snickering about how stupid Walker appeared.
3. The right has balls. A right-winger would never quit if they were caught in a video sting. They'd fight back, scream that they did nothing wrong and that the liberal media was out to get them. They'd change the subject, ignore it, make shit up, anything they could to win. By contrast the mainstream left is one pansy-assed group that just quits at the first sign of trouble. How many on the left have resigned? It's no wonder the right is driving the debate, its working. The right has balls. The left, well, not so much.
I guess the real point is that the right is playing to win. They see this as a war and they'll do whatever it takes to win. A no-holds barred, take no prisoners, there-are-no-rules-in-war approach is their method. The left is still playing the game by the more civilized rules of thirty years ago. Those rules don't apply and won't work today.
This is changing though. The left is beginning to play the right's game. It started with Olbermann and Maddow. The Daily Show And Colbert help. Left wing blogs have gotten more organized and better at catching and revealing the bullshit. They are also starting to use some of the right's uglier methods like fake calls. The Ed Shultz show has a right winger rage to it. Ed has balls. I've seen some lefty blogs recently with data slanted in a Fox news style. The fake stings will come. The left has to play the game as defined by the right if it has a chance to win.
The left will get there but I'm not sure we'll like the resulting politics. The right's current methods are borderline uncivilized and if the left follows their lead our political discourse is going to be very nasty. Maybe as bad as America has seen in generations.
I'm not sure what can be done though. Political intensity increased on the left in the Reagan years. Then on the right during the Clinton administration. It reached a new peak on the left with the "Stolen Election" crap during Bush-Gore. Then even more during the Bush wars and economic collapse. Both parties are responsible but the right took it to the crazy level by throwing a phony, propaganda-backed, hissy-fit when the no-birth-certificate-Kenyan-Muslim-socialist-Marxist was elected and stole their country. They chose to not accept the results of the game played under the old rules so they created their own rules. The left has little choice, either play the new game or be run over by it.
Maybe at some point the people will see the crazy and back off a bit. Maybe the Tea-Party will fade as they begin to enter nursing homes. Maybe the mass media will start doing its job and point out, or at least ignore, the Fox/conservative news hallucinations and the O'Keefe type hit jobs. Maybe our politics will go back to playing by a more civilized set of rules. I'm not holding my breath though.
tnb
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