Media woes...

This is going to be a recurring theme, I think. The media is just killing me.

I was stuck in a car today driving, so I listened to talk and news radio. It keeps me awake. I was amazed at some of the things I heard.

As you may know, a very disturbed man named Mr. Stack dove his small airplane into the public building which housed the IRS in Austin, TX on Thursday Feb. 18th. He burned his house and car first to prevent anyone in the government from seizing it, and left a 38 paragraph 'suicide note' or manifesto, or rant, or whatever, behind.

The guy was obviously a nut and a terrorist. I heard some of what he wrote on talk radio, but as happens on the road I lost the signal. While searching for a replacement I stumbled into a talk radio show from the opposite political viewpoint. I decided to listen for a bit, to see if some of the claims from the previous host were valid.

Wow. According to this host, the pilot was a "radical right-wing tea-bagger." This was obvious from what he wrote, apparently. Except that the exerpts I heard from his post were far shorter and more incomplete than what I had heard already that morning.

More offensive to me, however, was the host's persistent statements that the man was affiliated with the Tea Party Movement. I was also offended (as I am always offended) by the use of the derogatory term "tea-bagger", a usage that is designed to belittle and insult. I find the Left so fast to use such labels.... But I digress.

The worst, though, was the continued linkage to anyone who takes a Conservative view. According to this man, anyone who is Conservative is already nearly at a point of doing the same thing. We're all crazy people, on the edge of violent outburst. Conservatives are dangerous, and when we go over the edge we crash planes into buildings or other such things.

And yet...

And yet, examine Mr. Stack's rant. He is far more Liberal than Conservative. He embraces Communist ideals. He rants against the IRS, but mainly for Leftist reasons. He rants against corporations and President Bush and tax cuts. He was, if anything, a Liberal Progressive with serious Communist leanings.

But he's portrayed by a mainstream media host (CNN radio) as 'radical right wing'.

Meanwhile, the woman who shot her peers at UAH, a woman who is an avowed and open Liberal Obama supporter is never once examined in light of her political views. A woman who pulled a gun and shot six others for no good reason who happens to be a rabid liberal is just "crazy" and is not linked to anything.

Unless, of course, they manage to find a way to link HER to the Tea Party Movement as well. Or Conservatives in general. Then, of course, they'll make the linkage...

And finally my favorite. Bill Mahar (sp?) on Larry King, complaining about the Democrats. He complained that the Dems were backing down on the KSM trial. And he revealed far more of his view than I think he intended.

He said, on the record, that people "want strong leadership", that Americans are "to dumb to know the issues" and that we simply want someone who sticks to a position. We don't care what, we just have an "animal instinct" to follow strength.

Yeah. You keep telling yourselves that my Liberal friends. It will make our job easier in November.