Birth of the “Vast L…

Birth of the “Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy”: The NY Times is reporting (free registration required to read) that a group called “AnShell Media L.L.C.” and subsidized by big Democrat supporters Sheldon and Anita Drobny, is planning on creating a whole slate of liberal radio shows to combat the likes of Rush Limbaugh and FOX News Channel. Well, there are so many angles to this story, it’s hard to decide where to begin.

The obvious point is that it’s amazing how over-the-top liberals react when confronted with even the smallest of opposition. FOX News Channel is one of a number of TV news outlets, the vast majority of which ignore or underreport the conservative view. Liberal bias is considered “balance” by those on the left, of course, and no dissenting voices will be tolerated (which, coming from the allegedly “tolerant” left is a telling response).

Listen to how they plan to counter Rush Limbaugh:

“This side has failed by going at Rush, and trying to be Rush ? you’re not going to beat him at his game,” Mr. [Jon] Sinton [CEO of AnShell & radio executive] said. “What really makes this work is tapping into Hollywood and New York and having a huge entertainment component, where political sarcasm is every bit as effective as Rush Limbaugh is at bashing you over the head.”

Do you see the difference here? Rush combats ideas with ideas. His show certainly does have its entertainment aspect, no doubt, but his main thrust is the triumph of ideas, not comedy, over other ideas. The liberal answer to him will be comedy and entertainment, where typically complex ideas are oversimplified and errant thinking is lost among the laughter. Liberals continue to prove that they must appeal to your emotions rather than your intellect in order to make a case. When they try the latter, they get failure (e.g. the article mentions Jim Hightower and Mario Cuomo as aborted attempts).

Al Franken, who is being considered as one of the satirists for the group, explained how his approach would differ from Limbaugh’s. “I think the audience isn’t there for a liberal Rush, because I think liberals don’t want to hear that kind of demagoguery.” This from a man who titled a book “Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot”.

The main reason I think people tune in to conservative talk radio is because they’re finally hearing ideas that they already believe in but aren’t being equally reflected in news and opinion in the mainstream media. I think that if the TV networks and the newspapers were actually fair and balanced, Rush wouldn’t be as big a hit as he is. I think the reason FOX News Channel is beating CNN is because it does, in fact, present both sides far more fairly than any other network. (I do have to say that I believe the folks on FNC are more conservative than liberal, on the whole, although Rivera and van Susteren certainly are no right-wingers. Sometimes I wish Sheppard Smith wouldn’t let his leanings spill over so much in his interviews, but FNC’s other personalities do far better keeping their personal beliefs in check than on your random major broadcast network, and asking questions that challenge both sides.)

The rise of so-called “conservative media” is not because it’s packaged better or is more combative or more outrageous. It’s because it provides something the mainstream media has been ignoring. In that sense, it’s the exception that proves the rule of liberal bias everywhere else.

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