Remember when conservatives were trying to slow the growth of government in early '95 with the Contract With America? Dan Rather characterized that as a "legislative agenda to demolish or damage government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor."
ABC used to have a regular segment called "The American Agenda," which spent a lot of time explaining how government bureaucrats could fix your life--with things like socialized medicine--if only they had the power. Introducing one such piece, Mr. Jennings said "the best child care system in the world . . is in Sweden. The Swedish system is run and paid for by the Swedish government, something many Americans would like to see the U.S. government do as well."
One reason conservatives chide the networks is because they tend to believe any government program is more effective than a free market solution. Another reason is that they purport the sovereign nation myth by comparing any government on the face of the Earth as the equal to America. They do this by going to Cuba and interviewing Castro or going to Iraq and interviewing Saddam. Would these people interview Hitler if he were alive today? Would Barbara Walter lean in and smile and say, “De Fuhrer, what is it about your regime that the allies misunderstand?” “Benito, why isn’t Italy given enough credit for the trains running on-time.” “Generalissimo Franco, you’ve nearly eradicated illiteracy, what is it the world can take away from experiences in Spain?”
And that’s the big tell that it really is a bias. The networks tend to treat any totalitarian government that isn’t fascist in nature as legitimate, even as these countries slaughter their own citizens just for trying to leave.
Now maybe it can be said on the Left that the media takes other issues and sees them through the scope of rightwing thinking. It’s true that the networks were more gung ho early in the war than I would have thought, but I tend to think that was a reaction to FoxNews beating them in the ratings. Now that the major fighting is over, we’re hearing the chorus of critics with the Vietnam analogies.
When was the last time that supply side economics was given a fair treatment in the mainstream press? You’d think it was discredited despite Milton Freidman and Friedrich Hayek winning Nobel Prizes for purporting it. When the country boomed in the 1980s, it was described as the Decade of Greed. When the same thing happened in the 1990s it was cheered as Clinton’s economic program as if Clinton’s economy could have flourished under the pre 1981 tax rates.
It just seems like the basic idea that Americans can succeed without a federal government program is lost on the mainstream media. Can anyone think of examples where the mainstream media supported the free market over government intervention other than abortion?
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