Liberals in News Media Want to Help Obama Win, Literally

More than a week ago, after reflecting on the first presidential debate, Yuval Levin at National Review Online made a prediction about the liberal news media’s narrative after tonight’s debate (I write this some three hours before the debate begins):

I do think we can be sure of one thing, though: Regardless of how Biden and Obama do in the coming debates, the Left will not acknowledge dissatisfaction again. They will be described by the press and liberal surrogates as having made a triumphant comeback.

News Media Still Liberal — Consume Some Conservative Media!

The “mainstream” news media are all liberal.

The news media do occasionally conspire—such as at a Romney press conference about the Benghazi killings, when they coordinated to make sure the narrative would be all about criticizing Romney’s response (Right Scoop with the audio; see also News Busters, Hot Air, Breitbart.com, National Review Online), or in 2008 when liberal journalists used the e-mail list “Journolist” to conspire to keep the Reverend Wright story from hurting Obama’s chances in the election (Daily Caller, News Busters, Politico)—but I’m willing to assume that the rest of the time, there is no conspiracy.

There doesn’t have to be.

‘You Didn’t Get There on Your Own’

In the course of reflecting on President Obama’s speech at the convention last week, Yuval Levin reflects on the modern American left more generally:

. . . he persisted in the dominant trope of this convention—and, it seems, of contemporary progressive thought: the jump from the sheer fact of human interdependence to a defense of every federal program in precisely its current form. It’s the liberal welfare state or the law of the jungle, and no other alternative is imaginable. This mental gesture—which simultaneously offers an excuse for ignoring the imminent collapse of the liberal welfare state and for ignoring what conservatives are actually saying and offering—really deserves to be thought through. It is a fascinating indicator of the contemporary Left’s intellectual exhaustion.

Racism, Racism, Everywhere! Plus: ‘Fact-checking’ Paul Ryan

Lately a lot of liberals seem to think that our desire to elect Republicans can only be explained by racism.

Rich Lowry discusses some examples (full version at Politico, short version at National Review Online).

[Michael Eric Dyson] wrote a blog post for The New York Times contending that, by attacking Obama for cutting Medicare to pay for “Obamacare,” the Romney campaign is engaged in a politics of “racially freighted resource competition.”

Why? Because Medicare beneficiaries are “largely white” and “Obamacare” beneficiaries will be “disproportionately minority.” Edsall calls this supposed strategy “subtle.” Very, very subtle.

New York Times Liberal

In case you ever have occasion to wonder:  Yes, the New York Times is definitely part of the liberal news media.  Just take it from their own 2003-2005 “public editor” (“The public editor serves as the readers’ representative. His opinions and conclusions are his own”), Daniel Okrent:

Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?

Of course it is.

. . . the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others[—]if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you’ve been reading the paper with your eyes closed.

Still Didn’t Build That; Chick-fil-A

I know I already mentioned the Tumblr blog Didn’t build that .com, but this one made me laugh out loud:

Obama vs. Obama

Today’s recommended reading comes from National Review Online.  Rich Lowry and John Lott compare what President (not candidate) Obama said not long ago to what he’s saying now (he doesn’t compare favorably…), while Michael Barone discusses how the voters feel about that (angry).  Read the whole thing (all three), but here are some excerpts:

Lott, “Obama’s Revisionism” (“He predicted a strong economy, but blames his failure on Bush”):

In March 2009, when some economists, such as Harvard’s Greg Mankiw, questioned whether the stimulus would produce the promised benefits, Obama supporter Paul Krugman attacked their honesty. In one blog post at the New York Times entitled “Roots of evil,” Krugman accused Mankiw of “more than a bit of deliberate obtuseness” and claimed that “we can expect fast growth.”

‘The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday—but never jam today.’

Jonah Goldberg has an interesting piece at National Review Online today: “The Myth of the Good Conservative” (“For liberals, he always existed yesterday”).  The thesis is as the subtitle implies: that certain liberals are always praising particular conservatives of the past and/or hypothetical conservatives in general, to whom particular conservatives and conservative policy proposals of today supposedly compare unfavorably.

Liberals Can’t Understand the Other Guy’s Point of View

If you’re going to disagree with someone, I think it may be pretty important that you understand his point of view.  That doesn’t mean you have to agree with him, by any means—on the contrary, in a way, it’s only after you understand his position that you can truly disagree with it.

Via the Nullspace, self-described liberal Nicholas Kristof calls our attention to an interesting study:

Conservatives may not like liberals, but they seem to understand them. In contrast, many liberals find conservative voters not just wrong but also bewildering.

Washington Post Liberal

In case you ever have occasion to wonder, yes, the Washington Post is definitely part of the liberal news media.  Just take it from their own ombudsman (2005-2008), the late Deborah Howell:

I’ll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. There are centrists at The Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don’t even want to be quoted by name in a memo.

(Emphasis added.)  She also noted that after Barack Obama became the nominee in 2008, he received three times as much front-page coverage (in terms of number of articles) as John McCain.  In her parting column, she observed, “Too many Post staff members think alike; more diversity of opinion should be welcomed,” and advised, “Make a serious effort to cover political and social conservatives and their issues; the paper tends to shy away from those stories . . . .”