Yet another addition to my compulsory daily cyber-reading is Media Matters in America, created by David Brock, the former conservative reporter who helped ignite the Monica Lewinsky scandal but who finally saw the light and became a liberal. Brock keeps tabs on the excesses of the conservative media, and though he’s been at it only a few days now, he is already going full-speed ahead. I’m blogrolling it now.
Its mission statement:
In the column below, Media Matters for America will document and correct conservative misinformation in each news cycle. Media Matters for America will monitor cable and broadcast news channels, print media and talk radio, as well as marginal, right-wing websites that often serve as original sources of misinformation for well-known conservative and mainstream media outlets.
It’s about time.
Related Post: Media Matter’s Rush Limbaugh Ad
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By Michael
This is totally unrelated to your post, just like to remark that Andrew Sullivan is finally losing it. I say we start placing bets on exactly when he will reach the conclusion that the war was a bad idea. I’m guessing not for another month or two, but you never know…
Sullivan: “At this point, the reason for blogging has gotten a little lost. And then I realize we are at war.” (!!!)
May 10, 2004 @ 6:47 pm | Comment
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By richard
Well, Sullivan is in a real bind. One by one, each of his hopes for George W. Bush, whom he idolized, has been stuck down. The proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was a death blow — Sullivan started losing it then, bursting with conflicts and confusions, he just couldn’t reconcile any of them with the GWB he had supported and loved. Then he saw the fiasco of the US economy, laid waste by obscene tax cuts for the upper stratas and then raped by higher spending than any other government in our history.
And then, of course, we come to Iraq. Sullivan had been perhaps the most vocal and aggressive of all the bloggers in pushing for this war. Some of his posts from late 2002 and early 2003, when read today, seem utterly tragic — his insistence there would be little to no resistance, that we would indeed be greeted as liberators, and that this was a true mission, our Holy Grail for peace and democracy in the Middle East. (To his credit, he never said it was going to be easy, but he certainly made it sound much more attainable than it turned out to be.) He did his own share of badmouthing the French and the Germans and the Russians — but the joke was on him, for they were right across the board: There were no stockpiles of WMDS, the occupation was the nightmare they predicted, we failed to ake the local culture into account, and the Middle East is not yet ready for Western-style democracy (and perhaps never will be).
So Sullivan has taken quite a beating. Because I admire him in many ways, despite his attack-dog nature during the road to Iraq, my heart has to go out to him. And we need to give him credit for trying to look at all sides of the issue and ask probing, intelligent questions. (Unlike Instapuppy, who would have us believe it’s all going to plan and what’s the big deal about the prisoners?) So yeah, Sullivan is losing it and may still have a way to go. My guess is he will ultimately have to renounce the war, which will be terribly painful, like giving up a part of himself. But more power to him if he actually has the courage and the conviction to do it. Those are qualities that set him apart from Little Green Footballs and Instapuppy — can you imagine them performing deep acts of introspection and renouncing Bush? (No.)
May 10, 2004 @ 7:42 pm | Comment
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By Michael
That is it exactly! If he has the courage to openly renounce the war, rather than quietly modify his position the way other formerly gung-ho war boosters have done, he deserves recognition for not being ideologically blinkered.
No, I don’t think the InstaPuppy will ever stand up and say the war was a net loss. But it is interesting that a wave of blog-fatigue appears to be going around the pro-war side of the blogosphere lately. It may just be coincidence, but perhaps the ‘puppy’s recent malaise has deeper psychological underpinnings than bacteria? “Indeed.”
I think that it is impossible to say whether or not the Middle East is “ready for democracy”, but it is noteworthy that the CPA is not effectively trying to transmute the potentially unstable elements of Iraqi society into respectable political organisations. By labelling some organisations and people like Sadr as being beyond the political pale, the CPA is effectively committing itself to further violence to resolve dispute rather than political debate.
A more inclusive approach would perhaps have a chance of beginning a potentially democratic system, by allowing a plurality of political organisations and positions, even if some of those would not be very palatable to the coalition. Better than truck bombs, though! And closer to the spirit of the rhetoric that still spews forth about building democracy. It’s hardly surprising that banned political groups in Iraq are pretty jumpy, given their treatment under Saddam. I think the actions of the past year blew any chance of making a difference.
May 10, 2004 @ 8:21 pm | Comment
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By Preston
The problem with Andrew Sullivan is that he is living in his own little fantasy world and has not been able to see the light of reality. Nor has he as yet been able to see the real problem in America today which is by and large the stranglehold that the Radical Reich/Evangelical Christians/Conservative Repugnicans have on America and the American political discourse.
As an ex-conservative Republican myself (David Brock would be so proud!) — one who has now become quite painfully aware of the inherent evil behind all the aforementioned groups, it is obvious to me that Mr. Sullivan has simply not yet become fully cognizant of the evil that he supports.
May 18, 2004 @ 4:45 am | Comment
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By richard
Check out Sullivan’s latest article in Time about the whole no-communiion-for-pro-choice-politicians issue. He does see the threat of the Religious Right, and it clcearly scares him to death.
May 18, 2004 @ 9:01 am | Comment
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By jack
I was watching 60 Minutes this weekend and saw where the government is now producing in the US (at taxpayer’s expense) news in Iraq promoting Bush and the war. I also remember reading in the Center for American Progress how the government (again, at taxpayers’ expense) was producing television news stories which have the “appearance of legitimate news segments delivered by independent reporters.”
In conversations I have with Republican friends, they are totally unware of these going ons. Is there any way to push the so-called liberal medial (conservatives’ words, not mine) to really push these stories to the forefront. 60 Minutes did a wonderful job, but one story is not enough. The American public has to be informed constantly about these shenanigans.
May 19, 2004 @ 3:07 pm | Comment
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By richard
Jack, I think this will somewhat self-correct over the weeks ahead as the SCLM dares to speak up and actually call the Republicans on these things. They’ve been cowering for so long, but thanks to Hersh and 60 Minutes and a newly discovered bravery, the media is finally discovering its backbone once again. Bush deprived them of it after 911, when suddenly those who didn’t parrot the Bush line were somehow unpatriotic.
May 19, 2004 @ 4:53 pm | Comment