VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: THE LEFT DESTROYS EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES
https://victorhanson.com/institutions-breaking-bad/
As a general rule, the Left eventually destroys everything it touches.
It sees all institutions as ideological fodder, to be warped and twisted, as a necessary means to serve higher political ends. Think of an institution that started out in theory as at least neutral, apolitical, and benign, and then ponder how utterly corrupt it has become.
Public Broadcasting. The public was delighted over a half-century ago with the novel idea that it could enjoy drama, documentaries, and in-depth news—without soap and car commercials (as if something can ever be “free” without consequences). Who did not enjoy the importation of Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation or the multi-episode version of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius?
Remember the first decade of the MacNeil/Lehrer Report? It was a mostly honest liberal version of the news, delivered by two professional journalists, both superior to a Dan Rather or Peter Jennings.
But by the new millennium, the non-political programming began to become overtly ideological. “Nature” documentaries began plugging manmade, disastrous “global warming” to “climate change” to “climate chaos” themes. The PBS NewsHour house “conservatives” were more liberal than most Democrats of the age.
The quirky Garrison Keillor’s liberal, but interesting radio show, A Prairie Home Companion was finally Trotskyized by #MeToo, along with the blotted-out name of Keillor himself.
Many originally thought that NPR might resemble a more lavishly funded form of a mostly nonpartisan C-SPAN, as envisioned, say, by the talented, fair-minded, and astute Brian Lamb of Booknotes. But listen to NPR now and one would conclude that transgenderism is the new normal, that about four people voted for Donald Trump, that BLM/Antifa are similar to the Elks or Rotary, and the dossier is still “Russian collusion,” and Hunter’s laptop remains “disinformation.”
Fact-checkers. What a supposedly good idea some thought?
Disinterested, above-the-fray (WARNING: there are no such things!) journalists and free lancers at the Washington Post, at PolitiFact, or at Snopes would dispassionately dissect the news, especially the propaganda of politicians. Then they would use their expertise dispassionately to rate a claim as true or false, or award Pinocchios for lying.
That idea of honorable fact-checkers above suspicion lasted about a week. Suddenly they reverted to a predictable script. When an Obama or Biden told one of their accustomed whoppers or sounded hyper-partisan and mean-spirited, then and only then was “context” needed to adjudicate their claims. If it was an absolute lie, after torturous reasoning we were maybe given a rare, “mostly false.” To paraphrase Juvenal, who will fact check the fact-checkers? Answer? More fact-checkers will fact check the fact-checkers of the politicians in an endless circle of defending liberal pieties.
Debates and their Moderators. What a good notion would be a “nonpartisan” commission to set up neutral debate venues for the presidential candidates. Renowned journalists would spar equally with Democrats and Republicans, as the public finally got to hear the issues discussed in adult fashion apart from the 60-second political hit ads.
How did that go?
Do we remember in 2012 CNN “moderate” moderator Candy Crowley jumping in as a partisan to the Romney-Obama back-and-forth—in order to bail out the flailing Obama by lying that Obama in truth, really, of course had in fact quickly called the Benghazi attack an act of terror in her putdown of Romney?
The Crowley-Obama construct was abjectly untrue, since Obama’s mention of terrorism was actually referring to 9/11 not Benghazi, because 1) Obama only with greatest reluctance would call any Islamist terrorist attack a “terrorist” operation, and 2) he knew well that terrorists had preplanned the attack, had given us ample good reason to be worried that American compounds in Libya were insecure, and had concluded that the Obama administration was utterly unable to respond in deterrent fashion (Obama blamed the attack on a Coptic film maker, remember?).
Do we also recall in 2020 when the proposed debate moderator Steven Scully texted the disgraced Trump-hating Anthony Scaramucci for advice after Trump had accused Scully of being biased? Then when the text did in fact surface giving rise to doubts about his impartiality, Scully simply lied that his Twitter account had been hacked—the old Joy Reid defense?
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner. In theory, the dinner has a long pedigree and honors those reporters who cover the President. The original idea was to create bipartisanship and comraderies of journalists. And in a “fun” evening, all would drop the adversarial relationship between press and president and celebrate their American cultural commonalities, as each made fun of themselves and each other.
But by the millennium the dinner was patently political and boring. The snarksters and sarcastic mediocre comedians offered lame partisan jokes. Hollywood’s elite narcissists began showing up. The dinner was a bad fashion show. Corporate CEOs, movie producers, starlets, models, etc. all crammed in, as public television aired the event.
By the Trump era—boycotted by Trump—it was virtual open season on conservatives as the dinner became a leftwing must attend event. Bad comedians and journalists talked of themselves in hagiographic fashion as if they were reporters in a combat zone.
Cameras shot around the room, to offer viewers a glimpse of Kim Kardashian or Brad Pitt, as if they were heavy-weight scholars of investigative journalism.
Presidents like Obama and Biden went from the accustomed self-effacing and self-critical jokes to trashing their opponents to the oohs and aahs of the Harvey Weinstein sorts and those who flew down to Jeffrey Epstein’s island.
And now? Any future Republican president who attends that cena Trimalchionis should have his head examined.
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