Conservative media betrayed, failed its audience
There’s truth being told in conservative circles today, for those who are willing to hear it.
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, for example, appears to be throwing his support behind the so-called DREAM Act, which would allow young immigrants brought here illegally as children to attend college and earn citizenship:
“In the next Congress, I am committed to working on upward mobility policies that will ensure people who work hard and play by the rules can rise above the circumstances of their birth and leave their children better off. The conservative movement should have particular appeal to people in minority and immigrant communities who are trying to make it, and Republicans need to work harder than ever to communicate our beliefs to them.”
And Conor Friedersdorf, writing in The Atlantic, asks why so many of his conservative colleagues were shocked and surprised last night, given that the outcome had been predicted for weeks by polls and expert analysis.
His conclusion: Because under the business model employed by the right-wing media at Fox News and elsewhere, it is more profitable to tell conservatives what they want to hear, not what they need to hear.
“But guess what?” he asks his fellow conservatives.
You haven’t just been misinformed about the horse race. Since the very beginning of the election cycle, conservative media has been failing you. With a few exceptions, they haven’t tried to rigorously tell you the truth, or even to bring you intellectually honest opinion. What they’ve done instead helps to explain why the right failed to triumph in a very winnable election.
Why do you keep putting up with it?
Conservatives were at a disadvantage because Romney supporters like Jennifer Rubin and Hugh Hewitt saw it as their duty to spin constantly for their favored candidate rather than being frank about his strengths and weaknesses. What conservative Washington Post readers got, when they traded in Dave Weigel for Rubin, was a lot more hackery and a lot less informed about the presidential election.
Conservatives were at an information disadvantage because so many right-leaning outlets wasted time on stories the rest of America dismissed as nonsense. WorldNetDaily brought you birtherism. Forbes brought you Kenyan anti-colonialism. National Review obsessed about an imaginary rejection of American exceptionalism, misrepresenting an Obama quote in the process, and Andy McCarthy was interviewed widely about his theory that Obama, aka the Drone Warrior in Chief, allied himself with our Islamist enemies in a “Grand Jihad” against America. Seriously?
Conservatives were at a disadvantage because their information elites pandered in the most cynical, self-defeating ways, treating would-be candidates like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain as if they were plausible presidents rather than national jokes who’d lose worse than George McGovern.
How many months were wasted on them?
How many hours of Glenn Beck conspiracy theories did Fox News broadcast to its viewers? How many hours of transparently mindless Sean Hannity content is still broadcast daily? Why don’t Americans trust Republicans on foreign policy as they once did? In part because conservatism hasn’t grappled with the foreign-policy failures of George W. Bush. A conspiracy of silence surrounds the subject. Romney could neither run on the man’s record nor repudiate it.
The most damaging Romney gaffe of the campaign, where he talked about how the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes are a lost cause for Republicans? Either he was unaware that many of those people are Republican voters, or was pandering to GOP donors who are misinformed. Either way, bad information within the conservative movement was to blame.”
The piece gets stronger from there, including language I’m not allowed to publish on this blog. If you’re a conservative seriously concerned about your movement’s future, I highly recommend it. Because if you don’t get this part right, you cannot get the rest of it right.
– Jay Bookman
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546 comments Add your comment
AU Liberal in ATL
November 7th, 2012
4:41 pm
Anyone who believes the radical right wing propaganda they see on Fox deserves exactly what they get. Will they learn their lesson? Based on the viral comments on this blog, it doesn’t look like it. They’ll continue down this ridiculous path, denying reality and refusing to take a progressive step and insisting on being on the wrong side of history until they finally find themselves fading into total obscurity. The sooner the better. Good bye and good riddance, Sewer Rat.
Oscar
November 7th, 2012
4:41 pm
Hillary is going to retire. Biden is probably too old, or old enough that he won’t run.
Jess Jackson, Jr. will probably be the next president. If he is out of the hospital and recovered by then. Good man, that Jessee.
Democrats Are Devils
November 7th, 2012
4:41 pm
stock fell to 313 !! yeah !, take that in your 41k’s !!!
Tundra Dude
November 7th, 2012
4:42 pm
Josef:
Is there a G-d in heaven? How could there NOT be with Tammy Baldwin coming in from Ryanland…oh, the irony of it all
Confession: voted for her, not knowing she was a L, thought she was a Thespian
“HANNITY LIED AND ROMNEY DIED”
FOX LIED, PEOPLE CRIED
Democrats Are Devils
November 7th, 2012
4:42 pm
hey stock market ???lets get 600 tomorrow !!!!
Democrats Are Devils
November 7th, 2012
4:44 pm
crash ! crash ! crash ! Crash !
Democrats Are Devils
November 7th, 2012
4:45 pm
100,000 people got pink slips today !
Democrats Are Devils
November 7th, 2012
4:47 pm
i betcha that aint singing lets stay together today ! more better for them !!
Oscar
November 7th, 2012
4:47 pm
Everyone should realize by now that we need some government involvement and intervention in the economy in order to maintain our position and grow. The majority of the voters do, and showed yesterday that they understood that.
What killed Romney was his position on the auto bailout. And his position on immigration. His statements about deregulation of Wall Street did not help nor did his wanting to increase defense spending and cut taxes on the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.
Democrats Are Devils
November 7th, 2012
4:49 pm
oh and by the way ??? another massive storm on the east coast ! let them god !, let them have it !
oldguy
November 7th, 2012
4:50 pm
DaD – Gold my friend Gold! Portable, easy to store, acceptable anywhere in the world
And up today. Closing at almost $1,800.00/Troy Oz. The way the Dems are printing money it can only go up.
Don't Forget - Obama is a two term president.
November 7th, 2012
4:52 pm
DDR
I don’t put much stock in the claims that Hillary isn’t interested in 2016. She just needs a couple of years rest, maybe with a book and book tour including the talk show circuit and she’ll be in a prime position. The desire to be president doesn’t go away that easy.
Brosephus™
November 7th, 2012
5:07 pm
Has Saban invited her for an official visit yet?
betty
I’ve sent him a message or two to get the ball rolling. He may already have a scholarship ready and waiting.
————–
Williebkind: Another video? Oh well no one will see it.
Were you the kid in school who always had the “kick me” sign on their back? I guess that since betty and Jay commented on the video before you did proved you wrong even befor you posted. That’s probably gotta be some kind of record here.
—————
oldguy @ 4:39
That’s true to a point. If she’s renouncing just to avoid taxes, she’ll get hit with an exit penalty. That’s all up to her though. There’s nothing in the world that would make me renounce my citizenship here. Like you, my family’s been here since the 1790’s.
RGB
November 7th, 2012
6:01 pm
Mr. Bookman,
What a hypocritical hypothesis–that the conservative media didn’t do their job.
The liberal media has consistently failed the American public by failing to evaluate Obama’s policies ranging from his economic and monetary policy to energy and foreign policy. Zero scrutiny has been applied to anything he’s done. People are poorer and on a downward trajectory while you people have been cheering him on. I don’t want a conservative or liberal hack–only the truth.
And you people wrote that prospect off a long time ago. Shame!
Jim S.
November 7th, 2012
6:12 pm
Who doesn’t want Rove’s gig of fleecing rich folks out of their money…talk about a miserable failure…What fool would give him another dime to run any type of campaign?
Bone
November 7th, 2012
6:13 pm
Bookman, You are a waste of air!
Ronald Reagan
November 7th, 2012
6:21 pm
“In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, make us your slaves, but feed us.” Dostovevsky, The Grand Inquisitor
Toby
November 7th, 2012
6:25 pm
I would genuinely argue that Conservative media fails its audience by virtue of its Conservatism.
Real Athens
November 7th, 2012
6:54 pm
Basically, what the Atlantic is opining about has already been written by Jonathan Swift and expounded upon – hilariously – by John Kennedy Toole:
“When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.”
…and I’m not talking about Sean Hannity.
Mike
November 7th, 2012
7:14 pm
@Real Athens
Perhaps why John Kennedy Toole committed suicide, I suppose.
jimmie
November 7th, 2012
7:18 pm
no jay..the reality is tha progressive moochers, gays, blacks and latinos want free stuff…and i think a whooping by society is going to teach them that their progressive gods such as your idiodic self are useless and lead to nowhere. the leaches time is coming….
jimmie
November 7th, 2012
7:20 pm
sandy was just the start…
godless heathen
November 7th, 2012
7:40 pm
Looks like most of the regulars are sleeping it off tonight. I checked in a few times during the day to read the posts of the gracious winners reaching out to the other side for the better of the country. Unfortunately, I saw very little of that. Mostly a lot of childish gloating along the lines of “suck it losers.” Oh well that is what political discourse has become these days.
President Obama is now free to pursue whatever agenda he chooses or he can just fritter away another four years worrying about his legacy. I wish him luck and I support the President although I may disagree with his policies.
Mama Says
November 7th, 2012
7:56 pm
Jay,
First of all I should take the time to say congrats to all you liberal nut jobs. Your man won fair and square, as much as politics can be fair and square. I also must say that I do not think the country is doomed to hell, is about to adopt the Koran or impose face concealing head ware any time soon.
I am still very concerned about Obamas financial plans and tax issues.
With all that said the question of media coverage and bias is a two way street. When you write about this issue as if its the cons who sit alone at the table sucking up propaganda, Generated by Fox News, you ignore your sides gullible approach to your news outlets and dare I say ? bloggers.
If indeed the right wing media par takes in such BS it is an overall indictment of today’s press. It is no different than the CBS Dan Rather effort to shoot down Bush. To argue that Fox is doing it in order to make money is to ignore the fact that if true, we should be very clear that the other outlets are trying hard to get some of that pie, by hook or crook.
If in fact you are correct in your support of the conservative writers in this blog then you must at the same time, ask yourself if for example the death of the Americans in Lybia deserved more coverage than it got. The first ambassador killed in 30 years and the lib press gives it a week of spotty coverage ! Really ? Perhaps you can ask the current Al Qaeda leader if he thinks it was important. Today he released his statement on the weakness of America and the falling of US flags across the region. Rather than simply taking your guys word on it you could act as if you were a neutral party and look into the issue objectively.
You could also explain how a 16 trillion dollar debt hurts us. Surely it Hurts more now than Obama said 4 trillion did in 2008. By the way Obama is the one who told us back then it was hurting us. Can’t you guys ask how much ? And be honest with your answer.
Pope UGA XXIII
November 7th, 2012
8:04 pm
You suck, “Bookamrk” – always have & always will
Airdale
November 7th, 2012
8:26 pm
Last time US debt was reduced? Clinton second term. His administration showed the way. Bush II came along and showed us how to foul that up big time. Deficits don’t count as long as taxes are cut??? Obama was left a mess that the clinton model could not fix. He had to come up with something different. so instesd of the Clinton model, he had to hark back to the Rosevelt model. Then the Repugnants put party before country and tried to block him at every turn. Talk about traitors!!!
Obama won, now what?
November 7th, 2012
8:56 pm
Hey Butch Cassidy!
Classless comments but as a lover of the multi colored flag, not surprising!
Obama won, now what?
November 7th, 2012
9:00 pm
Hey Oscar!
Isn’t Jessee Jackson Jr in rehab? How is your dad’s illegitimate child he tried to hide a couple of years ago? Racist – not hardly, just being honest. Political correctness is for the spineless!!!!
Mama Says
November 7th, 2012
9:04 pm
Airdale you got it figured out. Basically Obama and the dems did nothing wrong.
He had to add 16 trillion to our debt to cover the 4 trillion Bush ran up.sounds logical now that you explained it.
So tell me, since Obama has often said that he is using the money he saved us by ending wars isn’t he still running up the debt by spending it at home ?
I mean the money is being spent either way right ?
Why not use the money saved by ending the wars to pay the debt down that Bush incurred, after all you contend it was Bush alone who caused the economic woes.
Oh I know that answer, because Obama is a democrat and spending the money was exactly what he wanted to do.
I could have supported a New Deal type project where he updated our infrastructure or electrical grid but no he had to give bundle after bundle to his corporate supporters didn’t he .
Obama won, now what?
November 7th, 2012
9:04 pm
Hey Jay!
Did you hear what Chris Matthews said about the storm that hit NJ / NY?
He is one of yours!
sam
November 7th, 2012
9:04 pm
i susepct the outlets that pass for conservative media actually profit more from Obama being reelected than if Romney would’ve won. they live off the outrage they produce with the half-truths and straight misinformation. keep them angry and ignorant and they’ll keep listening/watching and foaming at the mouth. fox ‘news’ is better off with Obama in office.
Mama Says
November 7th, 2012
9:11 pm
Yeah Sam, kinda like the 8 years of liberal outrage at Bush.
But if you actually thought about what you said you would understand that Fox wanted Obama to win. Which is directly opposite to your original argument.
Tell you what though, rest assured if you are killed in the Middle East via a terrorist attack and a democrat is in office, it will be the republicans asking for answers, not the dems.
bamabelle2000
November 7th, 2012
9:45 pm
Conservatives are STILL going to be in denial and that’s their problem. According to them all of us are wrong and they are right. They don’t listen to reason and refuse to understand anyone else’s point of view, but when the true party members try to tell it like it is, they turn their backs. Most of them STILL don’t understand or refuse to accept the real reason they lost this election and until they do, they need to get ready to lose a few more in the future. Hey GOP, America has changed time for you to do the same.
Dekalb comments
November 7th, 2012
9:49 pm
Williebkind…
You do know that “conservative”, i.e. red states receive more from the federal government than they send in tax dollars don’t you? So Georgians suck at the federal teat whereas those that live in New York actually contribute to the federal budget.
Harold
November 7th, 2012
10:06 pm
The problem is not right wing media. The problem is that its listeners have no idea it’s entertainment rather than news. That’s a problem that stems from poor education right here in the red states. Education is bad in the red states, and when red state governments say they want to improve that, they’re lying.
Mike
November 7th, 2012
10:11 pm
As a percentage, yes. As actual amounts, no. Third time today I’ve read this misinformation.
beam me up
November 7th, 2012
10:27 pm
Way back, a long time ago, I took a class called Logic and Critical Thinking (the only college course I ever made a 100 in, but I digress). The class largely focused on differentiating between facts and opinions. Rush Limbaugh was used extensively to demonstrate how opinions could be twisted to seem factual on the surface even though they were still opinions. Considering that a fairly big chunk of the Republican base is still in denial about evolution, how difficult can they be to fool? They want to be fooled. No, they are begging to be fooled.
A very smart man (perhaps the smartest there has been) once said: “Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
He, being Albert Einstein, was dead on with that. In my opinion, this is the root of the Republican problem today. They are the party of the intractable. This was done by design. The people who could overcome their prejudices were more attracted to the alternative party. This is in part why the Democratic party struggled so long for identity in the wake of the Southern Strategy. It was more of an oddball collection while the Republicans were relatively homogenous. However, the Democrats seem to be hitting their stride.
I read one piece today that theorized that the reliably blue states might now total 263 electoral votes. The implication there is that winning only one out of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado will be enough to put the Democratic candidate over the top for the forseeable future. Considering that Romney only managed to carry North Carolina out of that group despite hundreds of millions of dollars in attack ads, the prospects for the Republicans retaking the White House in the next few election cycles are pretty dim. At some point in the next decade, one of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court will leave or die.
So, yes, they need to do some serious soul searching if they want to be relevant at the national level. However, they won’t, because they are not capable of it.
tell the truth
November 7th, 2012
10:39 pm
How sweet it is to enjoy the results of yesterday’s election. After 4 years of lies and slander by the Repunk party they got their ass handed to them again. How appropriate. And of course the vote here in Georgia could not matter any less- so all you redneck good old boy patriots “this Buds for you”.
tell the truth
November 7th, 2012
10:52 pm
Obama won, now what?
You wouldn’t know class if it bit you in the butt – it really sucks to be you I know. And now you get to watch our President Obama govern our country for 4 more years. Your life really suck eh??? Keep cooking those fries boy- you’ll get a chance some day.
roswell mom
November 7th, 2012
11:25 pm
The repubs lie at every turn. Now we find out that they lie to themselves, too. Not sorry at all that it didn’t work out for you.
independent thinker
November 8th, 2012
7:35 am
Message from electorate to the right wing – Most Americans do not want arrogant, and rich leaders who act like they are entitled to the presidency and will lie about anything including wars because of their total disdain for the common folks.
What we do want is a president who was given the worst economy since Herbert Hoover in 1929 and who was miraculously able to bring the country back to where it was before George Bush destroyed it. No president has done that in three and half years. No president – No president was handed three live wars and successfully handled all three- Iraq, Afghanistand and war on Terror.
The right wing thought most Americans could be fooled by those two clowns they selected who exuded arrogance, incompetence and lack of integrity. They covered it up with phony projections to bilk the 1% and corporations of billions of dollars in campaign money just like the vulture capitalists did in an orgy of greed and disdain for the truth.
Dick Morris- “So I was wrong, no big deal”;
Rushbo- “I never said privately that Romney would win big” (but he said it on the air);
Rove- “just give me some time to work with our people in Ohio to prove we can turn this projection around” We know what that meant. Sorry Rove -too much votes over the dam to fix it with rigging one state.
What I loved the most was Romney could not even win tiny little New Hamshire, his home state. What does that say????
ElectionsHaveConsequences
November 8th, 2012
8:37 am
@independent thinker
Interesting. So who gets the blame for the next 4 years?
todd
November 8th, 2012
9:39 am
Free speech my …… Free speech can only go so far. When you use the airwaves to perpetrate stories and ideas that you know are false and that are meant to subjugate the freedom and laws of the land then your “free speech” has turned into a criminal enterprise.
michelle
November 8th, 2012
10:08 am
Ever driven through West Virginia and tried to find a rock station? Nothing there but gospel, country and Neil Boortz–– perfect conditions for an ipod.
lovelyliz
November 8th, 2012
10:42 am
“You know your party’s in trouble when you read this: A: The rape guy lost. B: Which one?”
ANOTHERsingleMom
November 8th, 2012
12:41 pm
ALL OF YOU TOLD ME TO GO VOTE
I did…and I STILL am a moderate …I did not likle EITHER of the AZZhats that were running
BUT I will respect the office…whoever is in the chair is our President Love him or Hate him….respect the Office
I am going to say this…Anyone who thinks this election is a MANDATE only needs to look at 2008 and 2010
The way I see it Conservatives have Fox news and Liberals have MSNBC
OF COURSE the media had to PROCLAIM how close it was …they have to pay the rent An analogy is a college football game at 49-0 at half time and yet the announcers keep saying how your team is going to come back …just give them a minute
All of you people who spend so much time here day in day out…same crap
Do you call your elected officials Do you volunteer time for a candidate Do you give money towards your candidate?
If not would you PLEASE shut the heck up and think about how shallow it is to do nothing but bicker here
REALLY GET A LIFE!