The right-wing media long ago cemented its status as a shrill, extremist platform for failed conservative positions, pundits, and politicians. Often it melded all three into its version of super-troopers, peddling partisan rhetoric and propaganda. Fox News, not surprisingly, is the best example of this with their employment of media-politico crossovers like Sarah Palin and Karl Rove.
However, to the extent that some of the more sober purveyors of news sought to maintain an image of seriousness and thoughtful analysis, even that boundary has been breached.
When Rupert Murdoch purchased the Wall Street Journal it was a respected news organization that, at least outwardly, aspired to adhere to established journalistic principles. Murdoch insisted that he was committed to preserving that heritage and that he would not impose his views on the paper’s editorial process. But this morning any aspiration toward ethical journalism was abandoned and replaced with an embrace of the most deranged lunacy straight off of the supermarket tabloid rack.
Dorothy Rabinowitz composed a screed for the Journal that is so devoid of rationality it makes an argument for her family to invoke conservatorship and have her confined to an institution for her own protection. It begins with the title The Alien In The White House. Despite a disclaimer at the end of the fourth paragraph that it has “nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe,” Rabinowitz has to know that the imagery in her words plants the very message she claims not to be espousing. The demented fringe will devour it with relish. She wants her readers to conjure up thoughts of a foreign, illegitimate, usurper to power.
In support of this promotion of birtherism, Murdoch’s web site, Fox Nation, republished Rabinowitz’s column with a graphic exclamation point. The visual cues employed here escalate the routine insanity of those who believe that Obama was born in Kenya, to an even more absurd insinuation that he is not even from this planet. At this rate the Weekly World News may sue Murdoch for infringing on their fringiness.
But even the message to which Rabinowitz is laying claim distastefully casts President Obama as something other than a patriotic public servant. In fact, she paints him as borderline treasonous. In her view the President aligns himself with foreigners and pursues their interests and not those of Americans.
“A great part of America now understands that this president’s sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class.”
Never mind the fact that it was a majority of Americans, not foreigners, who elected him. Rabinowitz imagines that the country has a perception of the President as having a “distant relation to the country.” However, the truth is that she is the one who feels a distance from the mainstream citizens who rejected the policies of her ideological class; the policies that drove the nation into a financial ditch and embroiled it in two costly wars.
Ironically, the first example Rabinowitz offers of Obama’s other-worldliness is that, upon moving into the White House, he failed to find a place for a bust of Winston Churchill. She is literally arguing that by removing the bust of a foreigner Obama is aligning himself with foreigners. That is the level of cognitive disconnect the right suffers from in general. And, of course, had he placed Churchill’s bust on the mantle in the East Room, he would have been criticized for glorifying a foreigner and harassed about why an American didn’t get that spot of honor on the mantle.
It is to be expected that broadsheets like the Weekly World News publish stories about presidents meeting with Venutians, but it represents a devastating collapse of integrity to see the Wall Street Journal treading that territory. And the fact that this nonsense is plastered across multiple Murdoch properties proves that it is his initiative. He cannot pretend to be removed from the hysterical madness that has permeated his enterprise. He is responsible for Rabinowitz’s incoherent daftness, just as he is responsible for Glenn Beck’s fascist evangelism, and Bill O’Reilly’s arrogant racism, and the rest of the crackpot conspiratorialists at Fox.
If Rupert Murdoch ever hoped that by acquiring the Journal he would rehabilitate his reputation, he has fouled that up entirely. Rather than having the Journal’s respected history rub off on him and polish his legacy, he has rubbed off on the Journal and stained it forever. Nice work, Rupe.
ADDENDUM: With regard to the bust of Churchill, Rabinowitz was even more off base than I thought. First of all, Churchill’s bust was on loan from the British embassy and was returned before Obama was inaugurated, so he had nothing to do with it not being displayed. What’s more, Obama put a bust of Martin Luther King in the place where Churchill’s had been. And this is what Rabinowitz is asserting is somehow un-American?
Talk about grasping at straws. As much as you like to assume otherwise, conservatives actually do read. That’s why books by Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and others sell like hotcakes, while left-wing tree-wasting book like Bill Press’ “Toxic Talk” gathers dust on the shelves. We read the editorial and immediately see that it has nothing to do with birther crap. Just like we see your mouth-frothing about “fascist evangelism and arrogant racism” and other non-existent falderol regarding FNC.
Such high editorial morals from a repuke.
BBWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! dude your funny!
Obama is an alien-oriented being. His interest lies with others and not with those of the American people. As I speak there is a build up of foreign troops here on American soil, and it is not for the common interest of the American people. There are lot of laws been passed in this country, especially lately, and they not for the interest of the American people. What is not apparent is that the goverment of this country has been infiltrated and taken over by Alien entities for quite sometime, and they have an agenda that is not good for the American people. It doesn’t matter whether the party involved is Republican or Democrat. 9-11 was just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, and should be or has been a wake-up call for many people. One agenda they have in which efforts, laws and actions have been implemented for is population control. However, the masses of American still seem to be asleep to their insidious and nefarious plans and tactics.
LOL –> “…the goverment of this country has been infiltrated and taken over by Alien entities for quite sometime.”
Sometimes it’s hard to tell where Fox News ends and Fox Muldar begins.
I agree with you about the malign intent of Rabinowitz’s “alien” suggestion. I also disagree vehemently with much of her article. But does she have a point about the White House pussyfooting around the fact that many of the terrorists — including those that Obama acknowledges the U.S. is at war with, in Afghanistan, among other places — are Muslim? I appreciate the need for sensitivity not to tar the innocent, but does the administration go too far? Are they too reluctant to state the obvious truth?
The administration has identified radical Muslims on many occasions as the perpetrators of terrorism. It is a fallacy of the the media and the right-wingers that they have not.