Conservative journalism's role is to counter the objective kind. The mainstream media is as balanced as Barack Obama's budget schemes. By thankful contrast, the internet news's equivalent of well-armed bomb shelters are why anybody knows what Benghazi is, much less where it is. And Town Hall is why astute readers know enough to remain outraged about Fast and Furious, the Obama administration's original bloody Watergate. These interweb machines make it as easy to set up one's own editorial feed as it is necessary.
Those who brought us tremendous growth if debt counts feel they may disregard any bit of news that emanates from an entity featuring editorial voices to the right of Elizabeth Warren. We apparently can't get the truth from someone with an opinion. Balanced leftists stammer about why a news item from the Washington Times or Fox News Channel is to be automatically dismissed like reports of terror attacks while we have a cool president.
Tellingly, those who turn to Chris Matthews for an impartial look never bother to actually critique the news reports in question. For them, seeing a story from Human Events is enough to dismiss it without conveniently ever having to ponder the content.
In fact, we know what we're getting when we visit a site with the late Andrew Breitbart's name on it. News consumers would be much better off if journalists announced their biases instead of pretending to be robots, although many media participants don't have to try that hard; Brian Williams is as lifelike a cyborg as the boys in the NBC lab are ever going to invent.
Consumers should encourage reporters to attend political rallies and wear campaign buttons on air, as it would at least be honest. Any reporter admitting to opinions could then be judged while accounting for visible red flags. Dealing with human perceptions instead of accepting that natural leftists can dodge them until quitting time is how a president helped convince millions of unemployed people to spend a free Tuesday voting for him.
Living inside a bubble where 3 o'clock means it's time to replay Rush Limbaugh doesn't necessarily lead to a lack of awareness of the other side's practices. To wit, election predictions going goofy Mitt Romney's way weren't a matter of simply hoping or thinking he would trounce the shrinking statist incumbent. The evidence looked promising even for those of us passing the hours loading ammo in loner-style shacks.
Obama shouldn't have won again except among people who enjoy clinical depression. Before his job review, observers saw an eternal trainee of an incumbent who was unpopular due to his socialistic-y tendencies, how many undecided voters there were and how they usually break to the challenger during challenging times, those painful times themselves, the way he was a petulant brat at the debates as the opponent was coming into form, which side's backers were enthusiastic in which counties, and how Obama sucks at his job. All the indications added to subtracting a zero of a president.
Voters who think self-sufficiency isn't for suckers were only insulated from the lamentable manner in which resentment and dependency now qualify as hip pursuits. More people are regrettably comfortable on the dole thanks to faith in a president who assures subjects that he'll provide for them; just don't ask about the income source. It's mission accomplished for antisocial social democrats, as the fossilized media endorses comfort in a lobotomized existence.
And what has Obama done to deserve grief for the economy except ruin it? Lamentably conventional press drones will blame any financial peril on conservatives, whether it's demonizing some mysterious Wall Street-based goons who somehow made the government issue subprime mortgages, acting as if spending is cut at the same rate as compassion, or shaming those who suggest countermeasures to the president's ludicrous maneuvers in the war on class. I blame the undercover Tea Partiers who caused all that violence at Occupy rallies.
As for getting on the record, the proof that conservatives weren't merely reinforcing each other came a presidential election earlier. There are few Twitter trails on account of how nobody knew it existed, but most conservatives thought John McCain was going to get trounced even if he was the less bad candidate. Those who remember when five percent unemployment was unacceptable wanted Meggie's daddy to win, if only because of the alternative, and still felt gloom on election day 2008 percolating under the patently false hope being peddled by a mysteriously inexperienced hustler.
Thinking Mitt was on track to win despite his blandness and unappetizing deviations from conservatism was an honest mistake. We'd be in far better shape if only America would have conceded the same thing about the incumbent.
The conservative media universe isn't a place to reinforce opinions: it's where to escape the conventional reinforced opinions. People who know the only thing more scandalous than the economy's state are the policies that led to Brian Terry and Christopher Stevens getting killed are compelled to look for facts and commentary away from the suspect usual suspects.
Calling these “dark times” is undoubtedly going to be branded as racist, but we're long past inured to the outrageous charge. The non-liberal media remains the only hope to expose how we don't have to live as jealous sluggards. Our best journalists admit to opinions and work from there. Unlike MSNBC anchors and New York Times editors, conservative media members and users acknowledge what political maneuvers they think work. While being correct is nice, it's not as important as being honest.
Anthony Bialy is a writer and “Red Eye” conservative in New York City. He tweets at http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy.
