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The End of the Liberal Media
My hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, is reputed
to be the most leftist of all the mainstream newspapers in the country.
I can see why it would have this reputation, since my hometown is
considered to be a hotbed of liberalism. I read the Chronicle
every morning around ten-thirty, when I get a coffee break from work.
I am a liberal, you see, and I need my daily dose of propaganda.
This morning I read a column by a conservative named T. Friedman.
The appearance of a conservative column does not in itself color
my perception of the Chronicle's left-wing political bias, since
one always must print the token opposition to demonstrate one's fairness.
And just to play along with the charade of being fair which we liberals
love so much, I read them - even if, as often happens, all of the columns
are from conservatives. D. Saunders railing on the ICC for not even
being capable of prosecuting Milosevic, for instance, or G. Will saying
the liberals are leaping to conclusions on WMDs and potential success in
Iraq, or D. Prager rambling about the exact causes of liberal infantility.
This column by Friedman tried to strike a more moderate tone for a
conservative - it was called The End of the West. In it, he
said that "Europe honestly does not believe that democracy can occur in
Iraq or any other Arab nations."
Now, my problem with this statement is not just that it is false. Lots
of things these analysts say are false. What bothers me is that the
statement is not even arguable. It's like concluding from a disputed
call that the Red Sox thinks umpires are unnecessary for the game of baseball
- it just doesn't make sense. And to the degree that one can take
such a statement and consider it just another arguable interpretation of
Europe's position, such is the degree that the media has failed to inform
the public as to what they're saying over there.
I've followed the European position since the beginning, and I've just
visited them recently. Just to inform you, Europe does indeed believe
that democracy is possible in Iraq, and in fact throughout the globe. In
this belief they have a principle which they follow. The primacy of
this principle is not simply my arguable interpretation of their statements.
It is quite simply the content of just about every speech they give
on the subject.
Principle? The Europeans have a principle? What is this
principle? I'll give you a hint: it is very easy to understand, neither
complex nor new and original, and has been repeated over and over again
by European leaders and top dignitaries since long before the UN showdown.
Its simplicity and common sense holds Europe enthralled, as it once
enthralled Americans.
Give up? The principle is that the stable spread of democracy
on the globe is only possible through rule of law, with equality under
the law. This should sound familiar to us, since it is the basis
of our government, and what we preached to our allies when we created
the UN and modeled its charter after the US Constitution.
I told you this principle was not difficult to understand. But
I can make its consequences - and the answer to all our bewildered questions
about European thought - work in neanderthal: build international
law, good. Break international law, bad.
That's it. That's all they talk about. That's the subject
of conversation in Europe. It is also, by the way, a liberal principle
- insofar as the conservative principle seems to be American rule through
preemptive war. And since it is a liberal principle, and since we
have a liberal press, I would imagine that this would be a prominent theme
for the press.
Do I even have to mention that it is not?
But perhaps this principle is not worth our time to debate just now.
Perhaps it is ignored by the media because it represents the lunatic
fringe. I must say that I find this hard to believe, since it agrees
with our founding fathers that for a democracy to work it is required that
a fair method of law must be agreed upon and equitably - and visibly - executed.
Yes, I know that their position has the disadvantage of contradicting
Bush's "I don't care about methods, I care about results" (State
of the Union, 2002), but why would the liberal media care about
that?
What about a headline like this: "France: International Law essential
for stable democracy"? That would be short and to the point. Go
look for it in the domestic, liberal press. I'll wait.
You know, liberals always want to debate the reason the terrorists
hate us, and I understand why average Americans don't want to ask that
question. The general thinking about attention-getting schemes is
that they must not work. When you use the deaths of civilians to get
people to listen to you, you've forfeited automatically all right to be
listened to. I generally agree with this approach on principle. But
what I really can't figure out is this: why must we ignore the statements
and beliefs of our long-time allies? Why won't we debate the role
of international law in the spread of democracy? What is the principle
at work in this case? Is it...Patriotism?
All this makes me wonder about the press. It makes me wonder
a lot. Sure, a lot of people have accused the press of ignoring stories
they think are important before, but this one is different. This one
is the big story, the transatlantic rift, the freedom fries and all that.
This is the one America has been talking about for months. Sure seems
like some bright reporter might have figured out at least the neanderthal
version of European principle. Maybe some prize-winning journalist
could have even pointed to its roots in American democracy.
No, reporting the news has never been the only thing the free
press did, but for my conscious life I have believed that it did at
least that. At least the big stuff. Now all of Europe
has one very simple thing to say to us, and our news channels don't even
acknowledge it. America offers no answer, because so few of us have
even heard the question.
And this modest little essay by Friedman, The End of the West
, proves it. If we knew even in a general way what Europe thinks,
nobody could make such a claim without risking their status as a reasonable
analyst. No one could lie quite so easily without a gap in our knowledge
big enough to drive a fertilizer-laden truck through. And since this
gap extends even to the most lefty of all newspapers in the country, I
have to wonder about that good old liberal bias in the media. I have
to wonder exactly how much freedom the editors of our newspapers really
have from the dictates of their wealthy conservative owners.
Who owns the Chronicle?
But now I'm done with my coffee and I have to go back to work, like
the treasonous Arab-loving infantile American taxpayer that I am. Oh,
by the way, that column by D. Saunders on the inability of the ICC to prosecute
Milosevic? It was written many months ago, and last I checked (yesterday),
the trial was still continuing. Talk about leaping to conclusions...
November 7, 2003