So Ron Paul goes on Fox and Friends, ostensibly to talk about yet another record day of internet fundraising, and Steve Doocy asks him about Mike Huckabee's Christmas ad. So when Mr. Paul unexpectedly cites Sinclair Lewis's famous statement -- that when fascism comes to the United States, it'll be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross -- what does Steve Doocy do? Ask Ron Paul what he means by "fascism" as it relates to Mike Huckabee's domestic policy? Why, no -- he just defends Mike Huckabee, saying that "he's simply sending out a Christmas message," and then cuts-and-runs to a commercial. Way to be fair and balanced, Stevo. After watching the second part of this segment, in which Gretchen Carlson asks Mr. Paul for one-word reactions to "Iraq," "mainstream media," "illegal immigration," and "war on terror," you might just come away thinking that Fox and Friends is even worse than Pravda TV's nighttime lineup.
The Concord Monitor takes the unusual step of anti-endorsing Mitt Romney for President. Read the editorial and you'd think the Monitor finds Mr. Romney untrustworthy because of the changes in his philosophy over the last year or so. Read the campaign's reply, however, and you'd think the Monitor criticized Mr. Romney because he's so "conservative." You know, because they're so "liberal." Remember, kids: if you can't win an argument, just pretend you're having a different argument, and try to win that. It works for (insert name of right-wing windbag) and it can work for you, too! And, as always, be sure to visit the Mitt Romney campaign website at nochance2008.org.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times, that putative bastion of "liberal" "bias," gives us a very balanced report on Mike Huckabee's support for the National Sales Tax, a.k.a. the "Fair Tax." I say "balanced" because the report uses anaylsis from, by my count, one center-left source (at Brookings), one conservative source (Bruce Bartlett) and two far-right sources (Messrs. Norquist and Hoagland), and two out of these four sources think the "Fair Tax" is a bad idea. But if they'd talked to an actual liberal -- like, say, someone at Citizens for Tax Justice -- the Times might have learned that its headline was inaccurate: the "Fair Tax" isn't a 23% tax, but a 30% tax. 30 cents is 30% of a buck, but Americans for Fair Taxation calls it a 23% tax because 30 cents is 23% of $1.30. A fifth grader would know that's cheating, but not our "liberal" media. (Incidentally, the report also gets the year of Jim DeMint's Senate election wrong -- it was 2004, not 2006 -- and, frankly, a double-digit victory in an open-seat election is not a "cliffhanger." But maybe I'm just piling on.)
William F. Buckley, Jr. weighs in against the writers in the writers' strike. He's cagey about it, though, and one part of his strategy, apparently, is turgid prose: I had to read the opening sentence three times before understanding it. Remember, kids: split infinitives can really gum up a sentence. Of course, Mr. Buckley doesn't come out and say he's against the writers, but says that the whole idea of collective bargaining hurts "the public interest." "Whichever side comes out the winner, the public loses," he says -- so why don't you writers stop striking? A good culture needs good TV! Our consciences grow more leaden by the day! But the public would lose more if the writers caved, and thus taught corporations (again) how far they could go in their greed for profit.
Finally, to mark the PBS broadcast of An Unreasonable Man, Eric Alterman vents yet more of his bottomless hatred for Ralph Nader. How can he complain that "70s liberals" "(tried) to win in the courts what they could not win at the ballot box," when the slew of consumer protection laws passed by Congress during the '70s (which Mr. Alterman would know about if he'd seen that part of An Unreasonable Man he wouldn't see when he had the opportunity) suggests that those '70s liberals were "winning at the ballot box"? And no, I would certainly not blame America's greatest citizen for everything Mr. Bush has done. I would blame Mr. Bush, his administration, a cowardly Congress, a corporate and corpulent media, Mr. Bush's many emptiest-wagon supporters, and -- yes -- cowardly and enabling liberals for everything Mr. Bush has done. You want to talk about "the great mistakes liberals make"? How about blaming the wrong people and excusing the real villains? Or can't George W. Bush help himself, boo hoo? In short, Mr. Alterman's essay is one of the worst pieces of prose I've read all year.
UPDATE. Two "meanwhiles" in five paragraphs? Unforgivable. Error corrected.