Ingrates

Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin has blamed “the right wing” and elements of the press “in service to it” for repeating Howard Dean’s remarks about Republicans and inflating them out of proportion. Durbin also blames the MSM for having “bought into” this.
Durbin is being too hard on his friends in the MSM. As Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center shows, the MSM has in this case attempted to perform its traditional role of protecting the left from itself. For example, Dean made his crack about Republicans “never having amde an honest living in their lives” on Thursday June 2. ABC, CBS, and NBC all ignored the story until Sunday, when they their audience is a fourth to a half of what it is during the work week. Bozell also notes that ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored Dean’s meltdown on Tim Russert’s show in May. Highlights included Dean’s laughable attempt to reconcile his statement that he wouldn’t prejudge Osama bin Laden’s guilt or innocence with his assertion that Tom DeLay should “serve his jail sentence.” And Bozell finds that, with the exception of Andrea Mitchell at NBC, the networks have neglected to cover Dean’s inability, compared to his Republican counterpart, to raise funds.
Never one to miss the opportunity to garble false Democratic talking points, Senator Boxer blamed Dean’s problems on the media’s “desire to have some kind of a controversy, so they don’t give the message of Howard Dean.” In her incoherent way, Boxer reveals the true duty of the MSM, as the liberals view it — not just to cover-up the public utterances of over-the-top Democratic leaders, but to rewrite what they say so that the “true” message comes through.
Who can blame Boxer? The MSM has, in fact, frequently served that very role in the past. Here, however, the MSM does the Democrats a favor to the extent that it provides a glimpse of the uncensored Dean. The more he is seen, the more likely he will be replaced by someone who believes what Dean and the mainstream of his party believes, but does a better job concealing it.

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