A big part of liberal media bias is the insatiable need to create drama about any intra-party Republican disagreements, while downplaying or ignoring Democratic divisions. Even the most liberal media outlets agreed that last week’s CNBC debate was a flaming dirigible, but when the Republican party cancelled the next NBC debate and the candidates started talking about taking more control of the debate process themselves, the media suddenly realized this looked bad for their profession as a whole. They started dishing out some astonishingly defensive responses. These ranged from laughably unnecessary outrage to suggesting that this means Republicans are disdaining Hispanics.
But but the silliest example of bedwetting is the idea that this means that wanting better debates run by more professional journalists means that Republicans are against free speech. It’s not entirely an errant thought. Either that, or journos are all hanging out on the same list-serv again:
For candidates who so love shouting about freedom, they’re weirdly uncomfortable with the freedom of the press to ask them questions.
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) November 2, 2015
Imagine what any candidate whining about the debates would do to freedom of speech if they were elected president.
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) November 2, 2015
Again, last week’s debate began with a question asking whether one of the candidates was running a “comic book version” of a campaign. Not wanting to deal with the network behind this clownshow again is a pretty understandable response. In the era of the internet, rejecting the self-appointed gatekeeper status of a major network news operation hardly means that you don’t have respect for the First Amendment.
But what’s just mind-boggling about this response is that there are real live First Amendment threats that the media should care about. However, when they are the result of Democrats, the media can’t be bothered. Let’s review:
—The Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, is running on a platform of overturning and/or correcting the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. That decision, which liberalized campaign finance laws, hinged on whether showing a film criticizing, yes, Hillary Clinton would constitute a campaign finance violation. During the arguments before the court, Obama’s deputy solicitor general argued that the government should have the power to ban books if deemed necessary to enforce campaign finance laws. Yet, Hillary Clinton’s own role in the Citizens United case is almost never mentioned and whenever campaign finance comes up liberal voters and journalists — but I repeat myself — still scream “money isn’t speech!” at every turn.
—While we’re discussing Hillary Clinton, Beltway journalists have congealed around the idea that her recent testimony before the Benghazi committee was a triumph, despite the fact that it exposed she lied about the attack being prompted by a blasphemous video. But setting aside why, after being repeatedly burned by the Clintons’s dishonesty, we’re still extending her the benefit of the doubt, let’s look at what Clinton did in response to Benghazi. She promised the families of the Benghazi victims that she would arrest the person responsible for the video and, in fact, that threat was carried because, to quote the president, “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” a statement that is subtly at odds with the idea that the future damn well better belong to those who believe you have the right to slander the prophet of Islam without being subject to violence over mere words. Yes, the filmmaker was allegedly arrested for a parole violation, but we all know it was really for the crime of posting something to YouTube. Nonetheless, the liberal intelligentsia lined up to support Clinton and Obama on this point. Forgive me, but without even going into the laws she broke hiding her public correspondence, I look at the current presidential field and not a single Republican candidate seems anywhere near as troubling as Hillary Clinton when it comes to free speech.
—And speaking of Obama, when he ran for president in 2008 he repeatedly threatened his critics with legal prosecution even though most of the charges were fair game. In some cases, such as Obama downplaying his relationship with terrorist Bill Ayers, the president and his campaign were lying and/or actively hiding the truth, but made the legal threats anyway.
—In 2009, congressional Democrats tried to pass a press shield law that didn’t include “student journalists, amateur bloggers, or even freelancers working without a contract.” As of 2013, Senator Dick Durbin was still trying to make the case that the First Amendment just doesn’t apply some people. “What is a journalist today in 2013? We know it’s someone that works for Fox or AP, but does it include a blogger? Does it include someone who is tweeting? Are these people journalists and entitled to constitutional protection?” Durbin told Fox’s Chris Wallace.
—Yesterday, a Washington Post reporter was kicked out of a meeting between Secretary of State (and former Democratic nominee) John Kerry and the president of Uzbekistan for having the temerity to ask a question about human rights. Yawn.
I honestly do not recall any of these episodes garnering a fraction of the collective media condemnation that has been devoted to harumphing about the GOP cutting NBC out of the next debate. It’s not that Republicans can’t deal with or shouldn’t be subject to media criticism, but it’s postively insulting to be time and again be singled out for criticism that should also rightfully be leveled at the Democratic party. And yet, it never is.
