Under the Double Eagle is an old marching tune that John Philips Sousa made famous, recording it three times. It moved on from marching band music into bluegrass when Roy Clark played it live on the Johnny Carson show in the 60’s. Few are aware that the song was written as an Austrian marching tune prior to World War One.
Because of Sousa’s influence a marching tune used by the German Army in WW1 became ours instead. Back then we, just as in the days of WW2, were of a single mind; we progressed forward to make America the most powerful and most liberated country the world had ever seen. Unfortunately, as in WW2, we are facing enemies on more than one front, but this time the enemy is home grown. Now rather than the Double Eagle we are under the Double Standard.
By now even the most illiterate among us must be aware of New York Congressman Anthony Weiner and his bulging britches. Entire catalogs of off-color jokes and jibs have been circulated to even more people than photos of Weiner’s, er…little buddy. The calls for the congressman’s removal from office have begun and even a few Democrats have joined the Republican side of the aisle in voicing their displeasure regarding their colleague’s fitness to serve. Of course, those Democrats surprisingly seem to be sitting in seats that are not as securely Democrat as Weiner’s.
There is, however one arena where discussion of Anthony Weiner and his unique judgment style remains almost absent if not forgiving, the American Press. Consider Chris “Tingle Up My Leg” Matthews’ reaction to Weiner’s embarrassment:
Chris Matthews 2 link
On one hand he falls back on that old liberal tactic, blame someone else. In this case he tries to shift it to Weiner’s wife, the one person in this entire mess who actually has a reason to feel betrayed, and in the other case, after Weiner has admitted absolute guilt, he seems unable to understand why this is a bad thing. I think we have discovered another man who needs to step down from the public spotlight.
I could easily make this column into a multi-volume book simply by describing briefly every present day occurrence of the press demonstrating their left-leaning bias. The Weinergate incidence is merely another occurrence. If you think back to the days of the first President Bush and his Read My Lips promise and the eventual breaking of that promise, you will also find a firestorm of outrage by the press, especially when they were given the opportunity to support a draft dodger in the person of Bill Clinton as their anointed candidate. It is useful to note that of the voters who cited Bush's broken "No New Taxes" pledge as "very important", two thirds voted for Bill Clinton. This was the race that featured the first effective third party candidate, Ross Perot.
Now let’s move forward a couple decades to another presidential campaign, that of Senator Barack Hussein Obama. During his campaign Obama made roughly 500 promises. I do believe that may be a record in modern day politics. So far he’s broken over 40. A few have been kept, very few. Most are either still waiting for any type of action or are stalled either in Congress or in some form of bureaucratic limbo. The press blames the Republican controlled Congress and for some reason a president who is more than two years removed for the economic troubles we face today. link But when an effective conservative is President, as in the person of Ronald Reagan, and the congress is Democrat controlled, the same press manages to shift all the blame toward the Administration, or rather, the non-liberal.
This brings us back to the press and their kid gloves treatment of an out-of-control pervert in the form of Congressman Anthony Weiner. Weiner has made himself no friends in Congress due to his fragile temper and his often undecipherable rants about often nothing of any consequence, but somehow the liberal media talking heads and opinion writers find him to be exactly what they want to see spending their tax dollars, not some “shudder” fiscal conservative like Sarah Palin.
It makes one wonder what would happen if the media actually hard to put forth not what was politically correct by their lights, but what was actually correct? Granted, such a mandate would skewer both liberal and conservative because neither camp is loaded with saints, but the thought is at least due debate. For example, imagine if everything remained the same, but just the party was changed from Democrat to Republican. What would be the difference in coverage? Well, where Mark Foley, the Florida Republican was caught with his pants figuratively down around his ankles and exposed as something other than a heterosexual, Time magazine alone devoted nearly an entire issue to crucifying the now ex-congressman. Weiner, until Andrew Breitbart published his breaking story about all that was available was a few twitter lines and an upside-down photo, link.
Let’s take it one step further, what do you think would happen if, this never would by the way, Sarah Palin did a Weiner? By my estimation nearly every media network in the US and Canada would melt down in the rush to condemn the woman and demand that she pay for her outrageous behavior. Nancy Pelosi would be holding Congressional hearing around the clock and Chris “TUML” Matthews would have to undergo surgery to remove the grin from his face.
If the one doing a Weiner was Hillary Clinton, the opposite would happen. The blame would be passed along to someone else, preferably the closet-conservative who drove her to it. The media isn’t particular as to where they assign their double standard, just as long as they do.
It used to be that a journalist fulfilled the definition of the word, “one who collects and disseminates information about current events, people, trends, and issues.” Sadly that has now become a rare jewel indeed. As a representative of the state of Nevada, I had the unfortunate opportunity to see firsthand what the quality of today’s journalists have devolved into. Just as Obama cannot speak intelligently in public without a teleprompter, today’s journalist cannot write well, much less spell and use proper grammar without the aid of a spell and grammar checker. It seems they also do not use those tools often. One example is from 2007 when a young female reporter by the name of Molly Ball was covering the Nevada Legislature. She interviewed the minority GOP leader concerning a no vote by one of my caucus members regarding the elevation of a member of the Democrat majority to the position of Speaker of the Assembly. I witnessed the entire interview. The next morning I read a work of fiction. It seems the answers to her questions did not fit the progressive agenda, since the ownership of that paper hails from Little Rock and is primarily liberal in its opinions. Nonetheless, the difference between what was said and what was reported is significant. In another example with the same paper, I was interviewed regarding a bill I wrote which would have closed a loophole allowing not just corruption but theft from a certain class of employee by those they worked for. It seems some media companies are just fine with that as long as the thief is powerful enough. The reporter was unwilling to accede to my demand that the two sentence text of the law that was being broken be included in the story, so the interview was never published.
Again, the double standard was not just supported but encouraged. It used to be that we could rely on what arrived on our stoop each morning. It is no longer All the News that is Fit to Print, but what is allowed to be printed. Too many people writing our news, speaking our news and voicing opinions seem to be doing so for the purpose of furthering the revolution rather than being a real journalist.
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