HOPE AND CHANGE? FAT CHANCE
October 22, 2009
Exclusive: First Amendment in the Age of Hope and Change? Fat Chance!
Pam Meister
Americans were assured after the presidential election of 2008 that this nation would come together. Political rifts would scab over and heal and citizens would become more than just a melting pot; they’d turn into the equivalent of a Velveeta fondue – a mild flavored, soft gooey mass that’s extremely smooth and malleable.
Sadly, things haven’t quite turned out the way we were told they would. Fifty-one percent of those polled in a CNN/Opinion Research poll disagree with Obama on the issues that mean most to them. Average citizens are daring to voice their displeasure with their elected leadership, showing up at tea parties throughout the nation and descending upon Washington, D.C. en masse. Iran is gearing up to drop a bomb on someone – likely Israel, but we could be a close second – and the Russians are gleefully rubbing their hands in anticipation. The situation in Afghanistan is dire; our troops need additional support and they aren’t getting it. And to top it off, there are known Marxists and Maoists in the White House. Not exactly the Utopia we were promised.
When an administration – any administration – faces this kind of opposition, we expect one of two courses of action. Either they’ll just dig in their heels or they’ll take to the airwaves, Internet and print media and try to convince Americans why their policies are the right ones for this nation.
What we don’t expect is for the administration to zero in on a particular media outlet and try to marginalize it because that media outlet is reporting on stories that are unflattering to the administration. But that’s exactly what’s happening now as the White House has put Fox News in its crosshairs, along with talk radio titan Rush Limbaugh and others.
From declaring that the network is a propaganda arm of the GOP to sending top officials on the other news shows to say that Fox is “not a news organization†to outright refusing the network access to the president until at least the end of this year (perhaps longer, who knows?), it’s now an all-out war between the White House and cable’s top-rated news network. The hows and whys are in the book Rules for Radicals, where rabble rouser Saul Alinsky’s rule number 13 states:
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen.’…
“…any target can always say, ‘Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?’ When your ‘freeze the target,’ you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments…. Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the ‘others’ come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target…’
“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.”
Whither the rest of big media? Except for Jake Tapper at ABC, who dared to question White House press secretary Robert Gibbs how it can be “appropriate for the White House to declare that a news organization is not one,†things have been fairly quiet on the self-appointed watchdog front – which can mean a couple of things. Either the rest of the media agree with the White House’s take on Fox (which may or may not be surprising) or they’re just relieved that the playground bully is picking on someone else.
Neither of these scenarios should be reassuring ones to the American people.
Memo to Robert Gibbs and Co.: there’s this little thing in our Constitution called the bill of Rights, wherein the First Amendment can be found:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government
for a redress of grievances.
Now, should it matter if a news outlet espouses a particular ideology or point of view? The First Amendment says nothing about that. And whether they admit it or not, most news outlets promote a point of view. In fact, most Americans would probably welcome our media making a clean breast of things. Regardless, the First Amendment simply states that Congress shall make no law that would abridge freedom of speech or freedom of the press. And while this has not happened – yet – the chatter about reinstating the Fairness Doctrine (or some new iteration of it) and our administration actively targeting news and opinion outlets should be very worrying. Very worrying indeed.
Former president Gerald Ford told a joint session of Congress on August 12, 1974: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” We could reconfigure this statement as a warning to the media today: “A government powerful enough to grant you the access you crave is powerful enough to crush you when you don’t play by their rules.†We know that this administration is adept at controlling how its message gets out to the masses. When we should worry is when an administration starts trying to control the messengers too.
That media outlets would not only just sit by and watch while one of their own is targeted by the White House for marginalization and deligitimization but also seem to crave a pat on the head like a dog wagging its tail is not just disheartening, it’s downright frightening.
Today it’s Fox and Rush. Who will it be tomorrow?
But who am I to ruin a good time?
So: in the spirit of the new America, I suggest that reporters and news organizations that toe the official line receive the Robert Gibbs Seal of Approval. It’s Gibbs Tested, White House Approved. Those who don’t can get kicked to the curb like the rest of the trash.
Pam Meister is the editor of FamilySecurityMatters.org.
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Pam Meister
Editor: FamilySecurityMatters.org
Contributor: Big Hollywood; Pajamas Media
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