A media environment that tilts to the right is obscuring what President Obama stands for and closing off political options that should be part of the public discussion.
Yes, you read that correctly: If you doubt that there is a conservative inclination in the media, consider which arguments you hear regularly and which you don't. When Rush Limbaugh sneezes or Newt Gingrich tweets, their views ricochet from the Internet to cable television and into the traditional media. It is remarkable how successful they are in setting what passes for the news agenda.
The power of the Limbaugh-Gingrich axis means that Obama is regularly cast as somewhere on the far left end of a truncated political spectrum. He's the guy who nominates a "racist" to the Supreme Court (though Gingrich retreated from the word yesterday), wants to weaken America's defenses against terrorism and is proposing a massive government takeover of the private economy. Steve Forbes, writing for his magazine, recently went so far as to compare Obama's economic policies to those of Juan Peron's Argentina.
Democrats are complicit in building up Gingrich and Limbaugh as the main spokesmen for the Republican Party, since Obama polls so much better than either of them. But the media play an independent role by regularly treating far-right views as mainstream positions and by largely ignoring critiques of Obama that come from elected officials on the left.
A "conservative inclination" in the media?? That's just silly. Did you happen to see the 2-hour wet kiss NBC gave Obama the last two nights? How about all the breast-beating over Dr. George Tiller while the Army recruiter shooting was largely ignored?
There's a much simpler explanation for the attention given to Rush and Newt than a right-leaning media: They're controversial and controversy gets ratings.
The standard media response is to take something Rush or Newt says and then run to Democrats or moderate Republicans and try to get them to denounce them. The kerfuffle that results is what makes the news, and to some extent Obama's agenda gets drowned.
If you saw the NBC White House Special on Tuesday night you saw what happened when Newt and Rush described Sonia Sotomayor as "racist". The White House suddenly found themselves having to defend their nominee as the press took the statements and demanded a response. It completely derailed the message plans for that day. That wasn't caused by a conservative media, but a media that thrives on conflict.
If a statement or two from Rush or Newt is all it takes to knock Obama off message, then Rush and Newt should keep it up.
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