The incredibly quick rise and equally quick fall of Ben Domenech from the Washington Post payroll is an odd place to find a parallel to one of the lessons I learned as a dittohead. But find it there I did.
A quick note about Ben in case you missed it. The Washington Post is really sensitive about being accused of having a 'liberal bias.' So, in an effort to placate the throng of angry LTE writers calling them "commie, pinko, America-haters," the Post decided to carve out a hunk of its own cyberspace and dedicate it to right-wing opinion (and thank God for that! Republican opinions are otherwise so hard to find). They called the site Red America, and Ben Domenech would be its poster child.
I see a lot of who I used to be in young Ben--confident that the overwhelming majority of American's agreed with me (and by 'me' I mean Rush), and that it was only the nefarious elements of a liberal media that kept this fact from being known. That the Republican way was the only way, and that liberals wanted to destroy America. Give Ben a decade or so. Let him live in the real world for awhile. He may turn out alright.
But I'm getting sidetracked--back in 1994 during the "Glorious Revolution" of Newt Gingrich, Rush (who some might say served as the chief architect of the Republican overthrow) was asked to give a speech to the incoming freshman class. Rush offered this advice: (If you're so inclined, you can read the whole thing here)
"-- by the way I was told to give you some advice about the media. ... [W]e all are susceptible to human nature, and we all want to be liked; we all want to be loved; and you all want to live in surroundings which are not hostile. ... And so sometimes to avoid the hostility, we say things and then begin do things designed to gain the approval of those who are hostile toward us. I want to warn you against it. I want to warn you: you will never ever be their friends. They don't want to be your friends."
Today I think this advice resonates more the other way. It's not Republicans who need to be wary of the media, it's the media who need to be wary of Republicans. I understand where it comes from. No one likes being hated, so you try to appease the people who hate you. This is why the Washington Post hired Ben. They have a reporter who has been particularly critical of the administration, so conservatives bitch and bitch and bitch until you decide to 'offset' a critical reporter with a partisan blogger. This is sort of like having a Rolling Stone reporter and an American Idol fan review the latest Clay Aiken album and calling it 'balance.'
And it is precisely this line of thinking that has lead to the piss-poor state of journalism we see today. For any given story you'll have one person from the right, one from the left, and you'll end the story by saying "well, who knows where the truth lies." Instead of saying to your audience "these are the facts," you think you're doing your job by telling us "these are the opinions."
Let me save you some time here "Mainstream Media." Rock-ribbed conservatives get their news from Rush, Sean, Fox News, and other opinion shows, and they are never, ever, EVER going to turn to you for information. As far as they are concerned you guys wake up every morning and say to each other "how can we make Bush look bad today?" I'm not even kidding, guys. This isn't hyperbole. It's what they really think. Trust me! I used to be one!
This kind of goes hand in hand with "The Limbaugh Doctrine," which states that "Peace follows victory." I believe the genesis of the Limbaugh Doctrine was in Clinton's attempts to make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Such a peace, Rush asserted, could never come to pass because Palestine's stated goal was to push Israel back into the ocean. You can't make peace with people who want to destroy you. So it is with conservatives and the so-called liberal media. You guys are Israel, and you're dealing with Hamas.
And so it is in that spirit that I offer Jim Brady, Judith Miller, Bob Woodward, and all you other "liberal media" members the following advice: Don't waste your time being nice to conservatives. You will never ever be their friends. They don't want to be your friends.