Our first duty is to war against dishonesty...war against it in public life, and...war against it in business life. Corruption in every form is the arch enemy of this Republic, the arch enemy of free institutions and of government by the people, an even more dangerous enemy than the open
lawlessness of violence, because it works in a hidden and furtive fashion.
For me, the most shocking display of dishonesty and corruption in this election cycle has been in the media. Many, many examples exist of the print and television media acting, not as neutral observers, but as surrogates of the Obama campaign or even as Obama's Praetorian Guard. Two items are particularly damning:
- The LA Times' refusal to release the videotape, the audio portion of the tape, or a transcript of President-elect Obama's appearance at a dinner for Rashid Khalidi, who reportedly worked for the PLO press agency WAFA from 1976-82 - a time when the PLO was considered by the US (and other nations) to be a terrorist organization. Khalidi has long been an outspoken critic of Israel, and has made many statements in support of so-called "resistance to the Israeli occupation". If there's truly "nothing to see" on the tape, why won't the LA Times let the American people see it?
- The willful decision on the part of most major media outlets to completely ignore an Obama interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, in which he states his intention to bankrupt the coal industry through taxes on greenhouse gas emissions. In the interview, Obama acknowledges the fact that, due to his plan, "...electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket". While the Chronicle posted the audio file on their website, the story they ran on the interview made no mention whatsoever of Obama's plans for the coal industry. When the damning quotes surfaced (less than a week before the election), the New York Times, the Washington Post and MSNBC all studiously avoided any mention of "Obama" and "coal" in the same sentence, much less Obama's own words on the subject. This was no small feat, given that these (so-called) news outlets did report on Sarah Palin's campaign stops over the weekend, in which she brought Obama's comments to light.
Two questions will tantalize and torment for years to come: How might the election results have differed if the media had done their duty and fully disclosed/reported the above newsworthy items, and how much more went unreported that we don't know about?
At this time, however, those questions are moot. The question at hand is: How can the media be compelled to abide by the rules of journalistic ethics, integrity and objectivity, without infringing upon their First Amendment rights? I am a firm believer in the Freedom of the Press, but with that freedom comes responsibility, and the media, by and large, have abused their power and shirked their responsibilities in their ideological crusade to put a liberal Democrat in the White House.
I do not profess to have the answer, but I know that now is the time for a serious dialogue to begin. All Americans must recognize the danger inherent in a "free" press which is, in fact, a slave to a singular ideology, and we must act now. We must demand the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from television and print media. We must demand the media simply report the news, rather than telling us what to think. We must do these things, and now, for every sunrise witnesses the further construction, through the media, of alternate realities - one for liberals and one for conservatives. We cannot be One Nation, Under God with two versions of the truth, two versions of reality. The time has come for the press to act responsibly and help unite America.
