Monday, October 19, 2009

A Dirty Mainstream   [Jay Nordlinger]

Yesterday, I had a note on Anita Dunn, Fox News, CNN, and all that jazz. I said that a CNN anchorman, Anderson Cooper, had coined this “teabagger” epithet against anti-Obama protesters. “Teabagging” is a sexual practice defined in that earlier note of mine: and Cooper used it in a very specific context. Almost immediately, Democratic pundits and politicians picked up the epithet, “mainstreaming” it. (Of course, when something begins with a CNN anchorman, it pretty much starts life mainstream.)

Many, many readers wrote me yesterday saying that George Stephanopoulos, host of This Week, had used “teabagger” or “teabagging” that very morning. So had one of his guests, E. J. Dionne — but Dionne is a pundit, an opinionist, and Stephanopoulos is a host, right? Isn’t he supposed to be David Brinkley now? When last I was a real TV-watcher, he was saying that Gennifer Flowers had doctored the tapes and so on.

My readers complain that Republicans and conservatives let Stephanopoulos et al. get away with “teabagger.” For example, why doesn’t George Will say something? Shame them, rebuke them? I myself am afraid that “teabagger” is here to stay. And perhaps conservatives will “own” the insult, as they say? Or maybe they have owned it already? Alternatively, is “teabagger” to be a conservative N-word, acceptable — even joyously employed — among conservatives, but nasty and impermissible from liberals?

The White House war on Fox News is quite interesting. My impression is that the Obama people are very, very unused to criticism or “pushback” — especially from the media. They are used to support. (Remember when Obama reminded a ballroom of journalists that they had all voted for him?) So Fox looks very exotic and alien to them. George W. Bush’s people would never have singled out, say, MSNBC. Why? Because pretty much all the media are like that — all the “mainstreamers,” to one degree or another. Oh, Keith and Chris may be a little hotter than whoever the CNN or ABC people are — but still, the sentiment and substance are the same.

(Though I am not a real TV-watcher, I absorb enough, I hope you will agree. Plus, funny thing about this new age: The Internet is full of TV clips.)

Fox is different — and, again, must come across as terribly strange and menacing to the Obama people. Obama-supporting networks are normal and legitimate; the one non-Obama-supporting one is weird, freakish — probably un-American. John Podhoretz once remarked that all conservatives are bilingual: We speak both conservative and liberal. Liberals are monolingual, because they can afford to be. To the Obama crowd, Fox News is a foreign tongue. The “mainstream” tongue? Well, we all grew up with it, were taught in it.

When conservatives hear liberal bias, they say, “Yeah, so? The sun rises in the east.” When liberals hear conservative bias, or even a point or bit of news uncongenial to liberals, they’re apt to say, “Eek, a mouse!”

Anita Dunn was boasting the other day about how the White House “controlled” (her word) the media’s coverage of Obama’s presidential campaign. Fox News is a network the White House surely can’t control. You can understand the Obama people’s instinct: “Get ’em” — and you will have the other networks’ support as you do.

My main question: Why aren’t other journalists — the ones who work for the other networks — embarrassed? Shouldn’t they feel annoyed at being Obama’s pets, even when they are? You know? Where is their pride or manhood? And why should I have to learn about Van Jones, ACORN, and other significant matters from Fox News opinionists? Shouldn’t the news business take care of the news, while the opinionists take care of the opinions? Weird, weird times. (Weird, weird Times?)

One more thing: I love something Charles Krauthammer says about Fox News. You will hear more from Dr. K. in an interview piece I will have in the next National Review. He says, “Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes are geniuses: They found a niche market — half of America.”

10/19 11:02 AMShare