Over the past 24 hours, there have been a number of good columns published that take issue with outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s testimony yesterday. Some mocked Congressional and Senate Democrats for choosing to fawn all over Hillary, instead of probing into the unnecessary deaths of four Americans. Others, like PJ Media’s Bryan Preston, are rightfully angry at Republicans who were completely outgunned and outmaneuvered by Madam Secretary, and as a result blew their last chance to get real answers.
Simpering Democrats. Feckless Republicans. Just another day in DC.
What really should worry every American is the media.
Over the last twenty years, I have watched the American media closely, and in doing so become aware of patterns in the media’s behavior. While the media have always been biased against the GOP and in favor of Leftists, there were still certain things you could count on.
For instance, whether you were Republican or Democrat, you would always pay a heavy price for lying to the media. Also, once a Democrat was safely elected, the media weren’t afraid to give that particular pol grief, should events warrant.
Bill Clinton is a perfect example. After he was safely settled into the early part of his first term, the media dug into Whitewater and Hillary’s extraordinary overnight success in cattle futures. After Clinton was safely reelected, and once Drudge let the cat out of the bag, the media beat Clinton up over his affair with Monica Lewinsky … at least until impeachment became a possibility.
My point is that, once upon a time, the media were still biased and unwilling to damage a Democrats’ electoral chances, but at least under certain circumstances we could expect Democrats to be held accountable for wrongdoing.
No more.
Had this pattern stayed true, after Obama secured his reelection, the media would have started to show real interest in the incompetence that caused the deaths of four Americans in Libya, and the Administration’s shameful and deceptive efforts to cover up that incompetence.
As we all know, for two crucial weeks during the 2012 election, the White House repeatedly lied in order to manufacture a phony narrative that said a successful terrorist attack committed by an al-Qaeda affiliate was instead the result of a spontaneous protest gone bad. In other words: It was something no one could’ve possibly seen coming.
Knowing this but not caring, during the election, the media circled Obama’s palace and passionately played whack-a-mole against anyone who dared do anything that might turn the Libya cover up into a reelection liability — most especially Mitt Romney. But this all fit into the old pattern.
What’s new, and what we learned yesterday from the coverage surrounding Hillary’s testimony, is that even after Obama has been safely sworn in for his second term, the media are STILL guarding his palace. And whether you’re Republican or Democrat, this is a very troubling thing.
Maybe I was naïve to expect the media to come around after the election. But after being lied to by Obama for weeks, and the endless list of questions that still remain unanswered about the worst terrorist attack this country has dealt with since 2001, I actually did expect the palace guarding to ease up a little bit. But to quote Madam Secretary…
“What difference does it make!”
Silly me.
From the looks of it, we’ve entered a new media era where the Obama Administration will be protected at all costs. The media, I think, sees Obama as the avenue through which all its left-wing dreams might come true, and therefore they intend to do everything in their power to seize the moment.
Twitter might also have something to do with this. I monitor somewhere around 500 media types who tweet one another throughout the day, and I think one of the consequences of this constant, real-time communication is a hardening of the Collective Groupthink. It really is eye-opening to watch these people as they go back and forth throughout the day. The clique mentality, the overwhelming desire to be loved, and the fear to step off the Narrative Plantation is palpable–most especially when the news gets hot. It’s like high school in a velvet bubble filled with ambition, fear, and insecurity.
I shouldn’t make light of it, though, because the ramifications for our democracy are truly frightening. We not only have a president in power who need not fear a media unwilling to report, dig, or uncover something that might set him back; we also have an entire political party just as aware that it can get away with anything.
And I don’t use the word “anything” lightly. When a White House’s incompetence can result in the death of four Americans, and the media do not care, that’s pretty close to “anything.” When a White House can look the media in the eye for over two weeks and lie about those deaths, only to have the media circle the wagons on its behalf, that takes your breath away.
This doesn’t even include Obama’s failed, jobless “recovery, our staggering deficit, Fast and Furious, the re-emergence of al-Qaeda, and the BP oil spill.
The media attempting to turn everything into Watergate during the final six years of the last Bush administration annoyed me to no end. But at least I knew that the White House knew it was being watched.
Now we’re seeing the exact opposite extreme in effect, and it’s frightening.
So much power left unchecked never ends well.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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