A couple of days ago, a college classmate posted Paul Krugman’s angry and dishonest screed against Republican opponents of the recently enacted, unpopular health care overhaul.  Last night at Seder, a woman, unaware of my political leanings, talked about the extremist Tea Party folk.

Both are sensible folk, the former slightly to the left of center, the other more in the liberal mainstream.  Neither a foam-at-the-mouth left-wing activist, regularly spouting venom at Republicans and others on the right.

Yet, each, while well-informed on the issues of the day, has a jaundiced view of the Tea Party phenomenon.  This has little to do with the reality of said phenomenon, but with the coverage these protests have received in the media.  Even as the mainstream media are losing their audience, they still have some sway over public opinion.

At the same time the three broadcast networks and major East Coast dailies trumpet stories of right-wing extremists and “report” unsubstantiated allegations of racist behavior at Tea Party protests, they downplay or downright ignore evidence of similar behavior on the left.  Today, for example, Jim Hoft observes that while Code Pink radicals shut down a Karl Rove book signing in Beverly Hills, the national media are silent.  This event was covered only by local media.

Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds alerts us to their ignorance of other stories at odds with their narrative:

AFTER COVERING BOGUS “THREAT” STORIES LAST WEEK, ABC and CBS Skip Arrest of Man Targeting GOP’s Cantor. It’s all about the narrative. Besides, if they’d covered it, they might have slipped up and mentioned that he was a two-time Obama donor.

And yet, despite the press’s full-court press to demonize the Tea Parties, a majority of Americans believe Tea Parties are more in touch with reality than Congress.

Can you imagine what those numbers would be like if the media covered the Tea Parties more fairly and instead of focusing on their most extreme elements focused on the shared ideas and diverse backgrounds of the protesters?  And if instead of running with wild allegations from the movement’s critics, actually investigated them before reporting?

I saw former NATO Commander US Gen. John Sheehan’s remarks made a couple weeks ago during a Congressional hearing on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”  I was surprised it didn’t receive more media attention when he said it:

Sheehan claimed that Dutch leaders, including the former chief of staff of the Dutch army General Henk van den Breemen, had told him that the presence of gay soldiers had contributed to the fall of the enclave which led to the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

When I saw the original testimony, I was flabbergasted and wondered who on Capitol Hill had vetted this guy.  Then again, he was NATO Commander.

Sheehan has since apologized, under threat of lawsuit by Dutch groups.

“To be clear, the failure on the ground in Srebrenica was in no way the fault of the individual soldiers,” states Sheehan’s letter, dated Monday and addressed to the now retired Van den Breemen.

“I am sorry that my recent public recollection of those discussions of 15 years ago inaccurately reflected your thinking on some specific social issues in the military.”

What is it with NATO Commanders and their grasp of reality.  Sheehan, Wesley Clark, and Alexander Haig.  All three seem to have been a few cards short of a full deck, no?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

As our readers note, Tammy Bruce is a gun-toting, abortion-rights’ supporting lesbian feminist who once served as president of the LA chapter of the National Organization for Women, breaking with them after her harsh criticism of O.J. Simpson and his defenders during his murder trial.  In 1992, she enthusiastically backed Barbara Boxer in her first bid for the United States Senate.

On Saturday night, she was Bruce and my guest at the Claremont dinner, honoring former Vice President Cheney.  And not only was it a treat to hear the Vice President speak and to meet that great and good man, but I was particularly honored to sit next to Tammy at dinner.  She is a great conversationalist who does not mince words.

Just like the former Vice President.

And during dinner, we were constantly being interrupted as numerous guests at this fundraiser for a conservative think tank came up to tell this pro-choice lesbian how much they loved her and appreciated her work.  She was even approached as we retreated to the bar after the dinner.

So, here we have an openly lesbian, openly pro-choice, openly feminist woman with an enthusiastic fan base among Angeleno conservatives.  Guess being a lesbian is not a hindrance to earning accolades on the right.  Kind of defeats the narrative of a narrow-minded, gay-hating right.

As President Obama signs the reconciliation portion of the Stalinization of Health Care Act of 2010 into law this morning*, comes word from an AP analysis that young people will be getting the shaft as the new regime of mandates spreads their wealth around to their older, less-healthy fellow citizens.

Of course, we told you so.

Now, while the report caveats that the study “did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase,” it’s little consolation. What we have now is the choice between the bad of young people having to bankroll their parents and grandparents or the even worse of the entire Nation having to bankroll thier bankrolling. So would you rather young broke people or young dependent people?

President Obama won 66% of the youth vote. I suppose he hopes he can keep them ignorant of his socialist tendencies and plans to finance his utopia on thier backs. Let’s hope, for America’s sake, they’re smarter than that.

*Thought you’d get a kick out of this: Watching the ceremony with the sound off, the useless notes beneath President Obama next to the FoxNews logo read: “OBAMA: TODAY MARKS HISTORICAL MILESTONE” Funny that I misread this on first glance as “MILLSTONE”?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

Over at Gateway Pundit, the indefatigable Jim Hoft has relentlessly been taking on those Democrats (and their MSM allies) who contend that Tea Party protesters hurled ugly racial epithets at members of the Congressional Black Caucus as they paraded with Nancy Pelosi to vote on increasing government control over.

He has shown this picture of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) marching through the crowd carrying not one, but two, digital video cameras.

Now, why would the Democrat be carrying two such cameras?  Will Collier helps lead us to the answer:

The Democrats and the left in general have been trying unsuccessfully to smear and marginalize the tea party movement for over a year now. I think that in the face of a storm of opposition, they decided to try for a Hail Mary pass; they picked a charge perfectly calibrated to excite the prejudices of their allies in the media and get big coverage. In the last, at least, they were successful.

But that was simply preaching to a very willing choir. In the arena of public opinion, the “Hail Mary” failed. No such video exists. If it did, we’d all have seen it a thousand times by now. Andrew Breitbart was confident enough about the un-video to publicly bet $10,000 (since raised to $100,000) that nobody could produce one. So far, there haven’t been any takers.

(H/t:  Instapundit.)  While I agree with the general thrust of his argument, I do have a slight quibble with his recreation of what went on in the Democrats’ strategy meeting.  I contend they didn’t think what they were doing was a “Hail Mary” pass.  They thought that by staging this bit of political theater, it was certain to elicit racist reaction because they really, truly believe that Republicans, especially their most zealous supporters, hate people of color (and sexual minorities).  Hence the cameras.

If a group of black people walked through a crowd of Tea Party protesters, they were bound to hear a racial epithet.

(And when they didn’t find what they expected, they still rushed to the media with the accusations they were prepared to have leveled when they encountered the racism they were certain to find–but didn’t encounter.)

Mistaken in their assumption of prejudice, they’re blind to their own prejudice, their assumption of the racial bias of Americans protesting big government.   (more…)