Sorry about the decomposing little fantasy world you want to live in Mr. Shark.

I just got back from F-9/11 and my resolve to unseat the pretend president is stronger than ever and it was strong before.

I feel the same as when Nixon was President. Enraged and empowered. Just like Nixon, Bush will go down. The lies and the double dealing and the sycophantic press (what liberal media?!) are no match for humanity and the power of truth. It will be a battle against your well financed and well connected forces and your right wing corporate controlled media, but for the sake of my children and grandchildren we must prevail.

But just think...you'll have (hopefully) 16 whole years of apoplexy and revenge plotting.

The rest of us will get a return to a humanistic social policy, a sane fiscal policy, real protection of our precious natural resources, an end (wishful thinking, I know) of the corporate welfare state and the respect and admiration of the rest of the world for through the re-implementation of REAL American Values: Respect of Diversity...Strength with Compassion...Promotion of democracy and democratic values through EXAMPLE.

Don't choke on your bile you guys.

Thanks for the advice, Lefty Lefty. I'll try not to choke on my bile.

Your thoughtful, factual and unemotional analysis raises the bar for me.

Maybe if you change your name to "Lefty Lefty Lefty" fewer people will be confused about your point of view?

"The rest of us will get a return to a humanistic social policy, a sane fiscal policy, real protection of our precious natural resources, an end (wishful thinking, I know) of the corporate welfare state ... blah, blah, blah ..."

And just how do you plan to do all this?

Really. I'm all ears.

Love it. First L2 says. " Enraged and empowered. Just like Nixon, Bush will go down. The lies and the double dealing... your right wing corporate controlled media..."

Then, L2 ends with, "Don't choke on your bile you guys..."

Beyond parody, those guys. I almost can't believe L2 is for real... is it possible L2 is just pulling our leg?

"my resolve to unseat the pretend president...blahblahblah".

On the day that Iraqis are handed the reigns to their country, the second country in that part of the world which has moved away from a dictatorship to a democracy, under our "pretend" President, Lefty Left Lefty Shabadoo shows once again why the lefties are a joke.

hen: democracy has yet to arrive in iraq. stay tuned--it may arrive, but its not quite so simple as say using the suzanne sommer's thighmaster.

while l2 states some lofty goals, i too would be interested how we'd get there given that our politicians tend to be bought and paid for by larger corporate interests.

shark: how do you reconcile the fact that most major media outlets (with some notable exceptions, eg nyt) are owned by larger corporate parents, which corporate parents are not really known as bastions of liberal thought? for example, do you think the corporate mandate of maximizing shareholder value has been given second chair to espousing liberal ideology?

Dinesh,

Your last question is a good one.

Anybody who works for a dysfunctional company (sound familiar?) will recognize that there's often a difference between an organization's stated goals and what is accomplished in practice. I think that soft and/or declining audience numbers in the media industry should suggest that shareholder value is not always being maximized. I would also be the last person to say that the liberal media is a result of an organized conspiracy. I think it's simply a result of a self-perpetuating newsroom culture where like-minded people tend to hire and promote other like-minded people. This also means that many of the corporate executives will have been promoted from the ranks of the newsroom staff. And in many cases the prevailing newsroom culture and biases will influence corporate decision making in ways that aren't necessarily in the interests of the corporation's outside shareholders.

Actually, there is a capitalistic answer to why corporated media leans hard-left. Before I go there I should reiterate --- when a leftist says, "yeah, but the media are corporate-owned, therefore, they can not be left wing," that is nothing more than a magician's trick of misdirection, trying to focus on who owns the media rather than the opinions that are actually put out by the media.

In any case, the reason I read is that editors and producers have found that liberal journalists are willing to work for much less than middle-of-the-road or conservative journalists, which means they can be hired for less. There you have the explanation of why corporate media hire left-wing journalists.

This is also why most elite journalists are so detached from middle-class America. To get a job in journalism usually requires working as a low-paid or unpaid intern to get one's foot in the door. Hardly anyone can afford to do that without a highly-resourced family to support them. And, as we have seen, people who grow up in unearned affluence tend to drift leftward.

dines - i did not say either country was a democracy - i said they are both moving in that direction.

for that the world owes Bush and the US a debt of gratitude.

hen: if i told you that an several external agencies/countries, together with some expatriate elite types identified a group of persons to lead a provisional government in a country occupied by 130,000 foreign troops, with no clear security solution and coordinated attacks in multiple cities just a few days ago, would you say that is a country which is moving towards democracy?

besides one person, one vote, what are other criteria for democracy?

matt--thanks for your insight. unfortunately, i don't find persuasive the 'i'll work for less' arguement given that jennings, rather, brokaw, king, et al are all making several tens of millions of dollars per year.

furthermore, it doesn't address the fiduciary obligation of a corporation's directors and management to maximize shareholder value; that is, general electric, as the corporate parent of nbc, should be looking at nbc as a profit-generating business unit. the question is, therefore, does 'liberal media bias' attract more viewers and therefore command a higher price for its television commercials. (we know the superbowl, for example, is a highly watched television event, whose commercial time commands some of the highest prices paid by advertisers).

shark's theory that this liberal media bias is a legacy of previous times makes some sense, but i'm sure the 'cost efficiency manager types' would have no problem changing news formats in an effort to improve revenue, much like they have done with other aspects of the program schedule (e.g. reality television).

the shift from news as a loss-leader to a profit center has been well-documented, and i believe accounts for the current crop of 'infotainment' news shows we have (dateline, 48 hours, prime time). these shows are relatively cheap to produce, generate revenue and are disguised as 'news' when really they are a packaged form of entertainment.

people still view the 'news' as a source of information as compiled by the editors. i believe rather, that the news is a product for consumption, and as such is not subject to any particular ideology other than that which will sell. (see clinton's sex scandal, o.j., laci peterson, and every story involving a small child and a hole in the ground).

so if anything, i think the bias is one involving a hunt for profit, rather than any particular ideology. that i believe, explains why we don't have news organizations focusing on the acts of major corporations as much as they focus on sex. sex sells.

Sleight of hand again... it's not who owns the media that defines their slant hard-left... it's the content of their output.

Dinesh,

I believe if you look at the campaign contributions of the board members and CEOs of the major media companies - Viacom, GE and Disney ... companies which own the networks, just for starters - you'll find the majority of those decision-makers give to one, particular, political party.

I'll give you a hint; it ain't Republicans.

dinesh pining for the good old days of Taliban rule in Afghanistan and Saddam in Iraq - old loves are hard to forget, huh? pathetic.

"if i told you that an several external agencies/countries, together with some expatriate elite types identified a group of persons to lead a provisional government in a country occupied by 130,000 foreign troops, with no clear security solution and coordinated attacks in multiple cities just a few days ago, would you say that is a country which is moving towards democracy?"

Gee, it would depend on what the foreign soldiers are doing (Are they oppressing or helping people?), what the elite types are like (Sounds like the US elections), whether the "expatriates" are loyal to unfriendly countries or just people who haven't been in the country recently, how likely the terrorists are to topple the government (Deaths are tragic but do not disprove the existence of democracy. Ask NYers or Israelis), and of course any discussion of the "direction" of a country necessitates looking at its past.

In this case, I would say: Yes

hen: what are you talking about? try engaging in meaningful dialogue.

i work with a large, publicly traded company. our corporation's politcial action committee donations are split down the line, with half to the ds and the other half to the rs. i suspect that is true of the ge, viacom, etc., but i would have to check.

matt--i think you may have missed my earlier post, with the question to shark. if there is a liberal media bias, it would have to be consistent with a corporation's obligation to maximize shareholder value and the corporation's board of diretors (not its owners, but rather its managers) have a fiduciary obligation to ensure management is operating with that maxim in mind. the question, then, is how is a liberal media bias consistent with the obgliation to maximize shareholder value?

Dinesh:

Several years ago, either National Review or the New Republic did a story on corporate donations to environmental groups, and found many of the largest companies regularly gave donations, contributions, etc., to Sierra Club, Greenpeace, etc.

Now, perhaps there's some way to justify this as maximizing shareholder interest, but somehow, CYA doesn't seem to fit that definition. Perhaps it DOES reflect the feelings of the corporate board as well?

dean: from my personal experience, those type of contributions are considered part of "community giving"--designed to portray the company in a positive light by appearing as a good corporate citizen. these donations are allocations of earned income.

what is at issue here is how to earn that income, and the question remains, how does a board of directors for a media organization condone a liberal bias unless such a bias is consistent with maximizing shareholder value. one answer, i think, is that the marketplace rewards such a liberal bias through increased viewership/readership. leaving the nyt out for a moment (since its not publicly traded and as such, presumably has more discretion in its editorial choices), the paid subscription of the wapo, the viewship of cnn, etc. perhaps justify this bias. the advent of fox news certainly suggests that a bias (towards the right in this case, despite their 'fair and balanced' tag line) can be rewarded by its viewship.

so using fox news as an example, its clear that murdoch and co. designed the news channel to have a particular slant as a strategy for gaining viewers and thus making money (he's not in it for charity!). the question then, are general electric, as the parent of nbc, or other corporate parents of media outlets, deliberately condoning a liberal bias because its increases viewership/readership? i find that hard to believe. certainly there will be instances, but i think that poor journalism standards account for much of the bias (e.g. asserting opinion as fact, failing to cooroborate information prior to publication, picking up a wire story without independent verification, lack of analysis) accounts for this more than any liberal bias.

Yeah, but is a few million more dollars in revenue worth it to have to tolerate the tongue-clucking and disdain GE and NBC's management would receive at Manhattan cocktail parties and weekends in the Hamptons were they to present a more balanced perspective?

You can't pretend capitalism is a machine devoid of human emotions and prejudice. When the directors of Tyco and Adelphia lavished money on themselves instead of investing it for the benefit of shareholders, they were not eyeing the bottom line. Why is it so difficult to believe that liberal media elites would not sacrifice a few million in profit for the sake of the ego gratification they get from pleasing their fellow liberals?

I think 1st Lt. Mark V. Shaney USMC said it best when he said:

"Responsible journalism should include responsibility for one's actions in publishing a news story in such a way that puts many other people in harm's way; has a direct result of publication of a particular story might have on other people.

"We are a people that cherish the democratic system of government and therefore hold the will of the enemy is trying very hard to portray our efforts over here, you can refute them by knowing that we are failing, even if we are making the whole world safer. "

Raymond Onnard
And as always: "Quidquid excusatio prandium pro!