In the 1980's, if liberals pointed out that America was not entirely sin-less when it came to 3rd World exploitation, conservatives accused liberals of practicing "moral equivalence": just because America does a few things that the Soviet do doesn't mean they are the same. In the same way, just because Michael Moore is rude to Charlton Heston, doesn't mean that liberals are the same as conservatives.
September 18, 2009
Firstly, context. It's a repeat of the Bill Clinton years. While Democrats and liberals generally-- but not always-- respect the outcome of elections-- the hard conservative right does not. They do not accept that part of the democratic process is that you respect the outcome of elections. They do not accept that it is good for democracy that all parties respect the outcome of elections. They do not accept that anyone other than themselves has a right to govern.
So they attack unscrupulously. When the media takes note of their deceits and distortions, they accuse the media of bias. They imagine what they would do if they were "the media", and what they do in fact do over at Fox News, and then accuse the media of doing it.
So when a couple of "investigative journalists" (you have to laugh for a long time at the thought-- do these propagandists actually "investigate" anything?) find a couple of gullible Acorn employees and entrap them into seeming to approve of a bordello, oh the ecstatic joy in the humorless enclaves of the bigots and corporatists and godly! All this to preserve those handsome Bush tax cuts to the rich. How do the rich do it? How do they always seem to be able to muster enough of these idiots to cause a ruckus?
I put quotation marks around "investigative Journalists" because real journalists follow stories and report what they find regardless of how it plays into the agenda of any particular interest group. These people were only seeking stories damaging to Obama. If they had found a story damaging to the Republicans, would they have presented it? Well, you won't find what you aren't looking for.
We are fortunate that the right wing retains it's inexhaustible reserve of hubris-- it appears that they were, in fact, evicted and the police were called at at least one location after they mentioned the idea of using 13-year-olds as prostitutes-- and they denied it by claiming that, in fact, they were still there for a few minutes. If they had offered this information immediately, they might have established more credibility.
You will undoubtedly hear some conservatives who, while finding these activities distasteful, will immediately claim that liberals do it too. Maybe. Maybe somewhat. I really don't believe that the so-called "liberal" media indulges in this kind of crap in the same way, with the same hysterical passion as conservatives. Does any respectable conservative really believe that Fox News does anything like "journalism"? Yes, indeedy, everyone is biased to some extent, but not everyone is stupid or brutally one-sided.
Without a doubt, it would be possible for a couple of liberals to attend a few "Christian" churches, or bible camps, or workshops, or whatever, and come away with equally controversial material. So what? There is fringe material in every movement, and I'll bet there is a lot more fringe to the rightwing fringe than there is to the left.
How scary is Peter, Paul, & Mary compared to Timothy McVeigh?
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