In a response to my last post, James writes:
I’d argue strongly against the idea that right-wing talk radio, Fox News et all killed non-partisan media. I’d argue that they themselves were a response to a mainstream media which, while it might have claimed to be nonpartisan, was anything but. From my perspective, the major networks and the big national newspapers (NY Times, Washington Post) have been to the left, and have promoted Democratic Party issues, narratives and candidates all along. I’d also say that it continues to this very day (the lack of coverage of John Edwards’ scandal, when “everyone” in the Washington circuit knew/suspected it, and while he was still running for President, and the fact that it only came out after he was out of the race – and the National Enquirer shamed the mainstream press into covering it…compared to the glee with which the press has torn into every aspect of Sarah Palin’s life as well as that of her underage children, treating every rumor and allegation and utterance by her political foes as something worthy of front page news).
First, as someone intimately familiar with the media due to my professional work of the past eight years, I’ll say that yes, individual rank-and-file reporters are predominately liberal, but the media itself has tilted rightward since at least the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The New York Times has a predominately liberal editorial page, but is not in my opinion as “liberal” as some on the right likes to label it. The Washington Post often gets cited as a liberal publication, but the editorial page skews to the neoconservative side (you can thank Editorial Page editor Fred Hiatt for that), and the coverage of the Iraq was has until relatively recently been pretty strongly pro-Bush.
But the problem with the mainstream media is that due to its own “objectivity” myth it’s easy for partisans to project their political opponents onto it. If any negative story comes out about your side, it’s easy to feel as if your side is being unfairly attacked. Clinton partisans felt that way in the 1990’s, and Bush partisans felt that way in the last eight years. The thing is, the media loves sensationalism and negative stories. Trust me when I say this that President Obama will be as much a victim of it as Clinton, Bush I and II, Reagan, Carter, or say a President McCain. I know reporters better than just about any other type of professional, and nothing thrills them more than a good scandal.
Personally, I thought the media spent too much time talking about John Edwards, and and I am thankful that he wasn’t nominee. I’ve always thought Edwards was kind of a creep, though I do think he’s genuine in regards to his crusade against poverty. One can both be well-intentioned and a jerk at the same time.
James continues:
If we can’t even agree on basic facts about the world around us (forget interpretation, I’m talking about the existence of the facts in the first place), we don’t have a society that’s sustainable.
I think that’s a very bad thing. I’m not saying I want to go back to some mythical 1950’s that never actually existed where we all got along and thought the same and everything was perfect (except for the bad things which we pretended didn’t exist). But we’re in a really frightening place, in terms of what kind of society and country we are, and in terms of how we relate to our fellow citizens.
The boomer, generation X, generation y and millennial generations have a view of history that is terribly skewed by the uniting event that was the second World War. World War II and its after effects served as the driving force for over half of the 20th Century and is still impacting us today. World War II took a generation of young Americans and forced them into an incomprehensible nightmare — when that nightmare ended, there was a great sense of shared experience that softened partisan edges until the late 1960’s when Vietnam and the draft, coupled with the civil rights and women’s liberation movements and the rising generational influence of the boomers split the country in two. Lyndon Johnson essentially put the nail in the coffin of the post-war bipartisan American consensus for good by signing the Civil Rights Act into law.
We like to believe our country historically was “better” than it is now, but look no further than the recent “John Adams” biography and Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” for the truth. We are a country that has been sundered by intense partisanship for over 200 years.
From the beginning, compromises were made on any number of fronts — slavery, taxes, government and military power, etc. These differences are written into the DNA of American democracy. The liberal-conservative divide of today is just a continuation of the fights Jefferson and Adams had regarding the nature of our government. It’s never been clear sailing for any president. Look at Abraham Lincoln, whose very election helped percipitate the Civil War. Now that’s partisanship.
How should American force be used? How should we deal with Islamic terror, Russian regional hegemony, Chinese economic ascendancy, and any number of other critical foreign policy questions? What is the role of government in American life? Is the Constitution static (as the conservative legal scholars say), or is it a living document, open to reinterpretation with changing times (as liberal legal scholars contend)? Should gays and lesbians be granted marriage equality? What is the role of religion in the public sphere? Should the government provide universal health care? These are the questions of our day, and it’s up to each side to convince the voters of how right (or wrong) their argument is.
In terms of cultural and ethnic changes, America has gone through those before. We went from a country that was majority English to one that was dominated by immigrants from across the entirity of Europe to one that is now influenced by immigrants from Latin America, Asia, Africa and other parts of the world. But despite the differences those people have culturally, they are all here because they share a love for the hope and promise of America. Yes, America is changing, but America has always been changing. The Democratic presidential nominee is a son of Kansas and Kenya (and a constitutional lawyer and legal scholar to boot). Inconceivable just ten years ago, but a fact of life almost taken for granted today.
Regardless of who wins, partisanship will become fiercer and fiercer, as it has since the Nixon hearings and the Bork nomination, two milestones in the escalation of modern partisanship. Perhaps that partisanship can be cooled by a unifying event like World War II, but I doubt it at this point. 9/11 was our chance for that, but Bush blew it by demonizing his opponents. He could have built a moderate consensus, but instead he tacked to the right. With the Republican party becoming more and more the party of evangelical Christians, and the Democratic party becoming the party of secularists, reconciliation between the two is more remote than ever.
But as I wrote before, both sides have legimate differences and any effort crush or dispell one of the sides of the conflict will result in the disenfranchisement of half of the electorate. Even in the minority, a political party can give voice to the views and frustrations of the portion of the country that supports them. Without that outlet, I would hate to imagine the true turmoil that would erupt.
Politics | jeff | 
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