A generation of liberal journalists who made their bones off covering Watergate seems to emerge whenever there is a (Democrat) presidential scandal to sanctimoniously remind us that no matter what this can’t possibly be as bad as All the President’s Men.
Right on cue, enter Carl Bernstein.
Between the potential Benghazi cover-up, using the IRS to go after Tea Party groups,
and the Obama justice department secretly obtaining months of phone records
from Associated Press reporters, this is arguably the worst week of headlines for a
sitting president since we first heard the name Monica Lewinsky. And that's not even
counting "Fast and Furious" and the previously revealed secret White House kill list.
Nevertheless, Bernstein told MSNBC“we know a lot about President Obama” but we
have “no evidence” that he would want to “use the IRS for retribution," and that scandals
like Benghazi aren't as bad as Watergate but should be looked at in the context of a
more polarized society.
If America is more polarized now than it was during the counter-culture revolution/
Watergate era, then we largely have the likes of Bernstein and his ilk to thank for that.
They helped to usher in a media culture that has devolved from providing slanted news
to no news at all too often.
Case in point, last week most of the media culture that looks up to the likes of Bernstein and strives to emulate him all but ignored Congressional hearings on the Benghazi terrorist attack featuring three whistleblowers—all former Obama Administration employees. The star whistleblower, a registered Democrat who voted for Obama twice and has received almost a dozen meritorious honors in his 22-year state department career, has been ignored by much of Bernstein’s industry protégés. But Bernstein’s industry protégés did regale us for days on end recently with the sexual escapades of a marginal NBA player instead. Apparently we’ve devolved from All the President’s Men to Idiocracy Was a How-To Video.
No one died at Watergate. There were four Americans, including a U.S. Ambassador, lying dead in the ground after the Benghazi attack last September 11th. Watergate was important, for sure, because it dealt with the question of whether or not a president is above the law. But there wasn’t national security at stake or American lives in the balance as there are right now.
Thanks a lot to Bernstein’s media industry descendants we essentially have two Americas when it comes to news and analysis. For example, if you watched Fox last week you got the Benghazi hearings live. If you watched everyone else you got the Arias verdict. There’s no wonder we have so many low-information voters who are better at keeping up with the Kardashians than they are their Constitution. Fox continues to beat all these networks in the ratings. But instead of emulating the competition that is kicking their backside by providing more objectivity, the liberal mainstream media culture just seems to dig in its heels all the more.
A media culture that really wanted to serve a constitutional republic’s best interest rather than advancing its preferred ideology would be spending its resources trying to get answers to crucial national security questions such as:
1.) Were those Americans denied the security necessary to keep them alive beforehand, and if so why?
2.) Why were the families of those dead Americans consoled with promises to hold accountable some hack wannabe filmmaker, who made a movie about Muhammad that hardly anybody saw or heard of prior to Benghazi, when they were told by the top assets on the ground in Libya right away this was a coordinated terrorist attack?
3.) Was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fully honest and forthright during her U.S. Senate hearing earlier this year?
4.) Why did the Administration perpetuate their preferred mythology for days publicly following the attack, including sending its top ambassador to disseminate misinformation on the Sunday morning talk shows immediately afterwards?
5.) Did White House Spokesman Jay Carney, himself a former Bernstein media industry protégé, outright lie to the American people at least once?
Mr. Bernstein, if there is “no evidence” this administration would want to use the IRS for
political retribution, then pray tell fine sir what exactly the IRS is apologizing for then?
What's more believable, that an administration that claims executive privilege over
a "Fast and Furious" scandal (it also claims it has nothing to do with) used the IRS for
its own political purposes. Or that some rogue IRS agents in Cincinnati were able to go
after who coincidentally represents the president's chief political opposition all on their
own?
There are a lot of bad Republicans, too many for my asking. I often expose them writing in national publications such as this one. But since Watergate and the emergence of the contemporary liberal media culture, there is an aura of suspicion regarding Republicans while Democrats too often get the benefit of the doubt. The liberal mainstream media even uses Democrat talking points like “anti-abortion” rather than “pro-life” in how it frames its coverage. Several times during last week’s Benghazi hearings Democrats didn’t cross-examine the whistle-blowers with questions, but quoted instead from liberal mainstream media sources who attempted to preemptively debunk scrutiny of the matter rather than reporting on it.
Bernstein and his media descendants’ job isn’t to tell us what they think Obama is or isn’t capable of. Their job is to find out what he actually is or isn’t capable of, just as they did with Nixon. Might there be a reason they’re not as eager to find the truth now as they were back then?
Steve Deace is a nationally-syndicated talk show host. You can follow him on Twitter @SteveDeaceShow