Tough Words

Hugh Hewitt:

Jake [Tapper]'s exchange with Harry Reid is linked here, and the comments to this one are all over the map. Jake did a fine bit of hard questioning with Harry Reid, and he held it up in our exchange as proof of his "objectivity," but of course it is nothing of the sort. It is evidence instead of a capacity to ask difficult questions of Democrats, a capacity which has been infrequently used by Tapper and wholly unused by most MSMers in the Beltway-Manhattan media elite. That's why it has attracted such attention --it is so rare.

When an elephant shows up in your backyard, it isn't evidence that you run a zoo, it is an extraordinary occurrence that everyone talks about and points to. Please list the examples below or send me e-mails of MSMers posing questions to leading Dems as pointed as this one question posed to Reid. When that list hits 100 good examples in a month, I'll begin to believe MSM has turned a corner. The Dems are running both Houses of Congress and have been given a free ride by the left-dominated MSM. Senators Clinton, Edwards and Obama are also strolling through the long campaign without any serious questioning of their understanding of what will happen if we leave Iraq, or whether military force should be used to stop Iran's nuclear program or whether they believe Ahmadinejad's statements about Israel disappearing in a flash.

Jake Tapper is in denial about the collapse of MSM credibility, just like every other MSMer I have ever interviewed (or been interviewed by.) Jake seems genuinely unaware of what millions of Americans see every day: He and the guild roll over for the Democrats, rarely if ever even offering a tough question much less a series of them. They advance a narrative of Iraq fed by their own prejudices and are oblivious to counter-arguments and facts. Worst of all, they genuinely believe that the debate inside the Beltway matters most of all, when in fact like the products of most closed systems, their interpretive skills are underdeveloped and their biases so deeply embedded as to be unrecognizable by anyone living under the dome. Thus they are surprised by McCain's collapse, the uproar over the immigration bill, and the political suicide being undertaken by Senators Domenici and Smith.

It isn't journalism they practice, but a sort of high-end yodeling: shouting out cliches which, when echoed back, they take for proof positive of their prejudices. It is all very amusing --until you realize that the lives of millions of Iraqis and eventually millions of Americans areimperiled by their collective incompetence. Walter Duranty was knowing dupe of mass murderers, and this generation of MSM dupes are not knowing at all. But their reckless disregard for the obvious consequences of their one-sided approach to the war and politics will be as infamous as Duranty's, and the disdain for their "work" just as deep a generation down the road.