etee's Blog

When I am looking for something mildly entertaining to amuse myself, I can take comfort that the current Spy vs. Spy Liberal vs. Conservative "culture wars" will provide a diversion, however short, from the path toward stable, lower blood pressure. Like children in an elementary schoolyard, the two sides are engaged in a perpetual shouting match to see who can make themselves look more foolish their point at the others' expense.

Today, we look at one such incident, which has to do with the MSM (that's "Main Stream Media", for those of you in College Station.) It seems that Bill O'Reilly took exception to the coverage given to the arrest of a former ACLU chapter president on child pornography charges, as compared to the rather extensive coverage given Ted Haggard. As usual, this controversy made its way to the Houston Chronicle, where the Readers Representative had this to say about why the two stories received the amount of coverage they did:

Rust-Tierney, 51, had been president of the ACLU's Virginia chapter, not the organization's national president. His claim to local fame (in the late 1990s) was appealing to the Loudoun County Library Board for unrestricted access to the Internet. He also was a youth sports coach, which, of course, makes the charges against him all the more disturbing.

Conversely, Haggard was the president of the National Evangelical Association, an organization that represents 30 million evangelical Christians. As NEA president, Haggard participated in conference calls with White House staffers and lobbied Congress on Supreme Court nominees. He also condemned homosexual sex.

This makes perfect sense, but then he goes on to say:

In all of his self-righteous indignation, O'Reilly exposed himself as the charlatan that he is. It's his choice to keep score. But the least he can do is compare apples to apples.

OK, let's put this in context. BOR (that's "Bill O'Reilly" for those of you in College Station) has an ongoing talking point about "left wing bias" in the MSM. Fine, he is entitled to his opinion. (As an aside, I happen to agree with him on that point.) However, it is also true that newspapers (unlike their broadcast radio and TV brethren) are expected to be partisan - this is at the heart of the "freedom of press" protections in the First Amendment. So, while BOR makes his point, when applied to newspapers it is an irrelevancy, a yawner, a non-starter.

However, there is a darker subplot going here. I do not know what lies behind this, but BOR has a real issue with sex offenses (or, maybe it is sex offenders) involving children. Don't get me wrong: the subject creeps me out, as well. However, BOR has taken this up as his crusade, and has used his TV and radio shows as a bully pulpit to, as he put it once, "make their lives as hard as possible." He has never met a law targeting them (offenders) he doesn't like, and as I hear him speak I can imagine Cotton Mather at the Salem witch trials (or Torquemada during the Spanish Inquisition.) This frankly scares me, as we have seen time and again what happens to a society when they assign one group the status of "pariah" or scapegoat, and decide that the rules that protect us from an overzealous government don't apply to these folks.

(Interestingly enough, though, when conservative commentator Jon Matthews was sentenced to prison for violating the terms of his plea agreement (indecency with a child), the Chronicle had it on the front page - while I don't think BOR mentioned it at all. Hmmmm...)

Anyway, this one I'm gonna give to the Chronicle - with the admonishment that they also understand that BOR isn't a charlatan: he is a political commentator, and while there may not be a whole heckuva lotta difference between the two, they are not in fact one and the same.

And, the Crybaby goes to... Bill O'Reilly!