Look for many differences between the previous eight years and the next four years. Of course, you already knew to do that. But look at what issues are going to be tackled differently and why.
One of those issues is censorship and the manner in which Old Media deals with the Chief Executive. Tony Blankley's new book, American Grit, contains a chapter about just this and it would be a good idea to look into it further.
Writing for Town Hall, Brent Bozell takes us on a guided tour of that chapter and what it means:
| He reminds us that during the Bush years, "the media blissfully endangered America's safety for the pleasure of striking a blow at a president it despised. ... Even when there's no allegation of wrongdoing, it seems that many newspapers today take a perverse pride in revealing U.S. intelligence secrets." It's these repeated actions by papers like the New York Times exposing and destroying our anti-terrorist programs (and in the case of the Los Angeles Times, tattling about how our government encouraged defectors from Iran's nuclear program) that cries out for censorship, Blankley argues. It's not enough to hope these newspapers will now cooperate with the Obama administration when it wants them to keep its actions secret. |
In other words, leftist publications like the New York Times had absolutely no problem with endangering Americans by revealing our secrets when it would be an embarrassment to President Bush to do so, but they will help President Obama by keeping his darkest secrets safe.
More:
| Blankley trenchantly recounts left-wing hacks like CNN's Jack Cafferty and Newsweek's Jonathan Alter finding the seeds of a "full-blown dictatorship" in the Bush White House, and snarling Joe Conason claiming Bush was headed toward an "authoritarian peril." Blankley dismisses these claims for showing "an embarrassing ignorance of the history of executive authority." |
There were numerous shrill cries from the leftist media that the Bush Administration was engaging in some sort of censorship of the news. But it never happened. There is no evidence for it whatsoever. In fact, the evidence argues the opposite.
But what is real censorship? Let's take a look at the Presidents whom Barack Obama idolizes and see what their records on censorship were:
| President Lincoln shut down dozens of newspapers and imprisoned their editors. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act banned "uttering, printing, writing or publishing any disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language about the United States government or the military." At least 75 periodicals were banned by the postmaster general. During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt gave FBI director J. Edgar Hoover the power to censor all news or communications entering or leaving America. Blankley notes FDR repeatedly asked his attorney general, Francis Biddle, "When are you going to indict the seditionists?" |
Let's see, Lincoln, FDR and Wilson. Yep, Barack Obama holds those three in high regard. Think the leftists at the NYT will report on this? Probably not.
But was there any kind of censorship during the Bush years?
| By contrast, during those allegedly dictatorial Bush years, our national newspapers proudly published op-eds by founders and supporters of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. |
Dictatorial censorship? Hardly. It was the working of a Free Press and President Bush allowed it to happen despite the shrill claims from the left and pathetic attempts at re-writing history.
What is Obama's view on this?
| President Obama has already signaled that it isn't Hamas chieftains he wants to silence, but conservative talk-radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh. |
Who do these leftists think they are kidding? Obama and his followers are clearly on the path of allowing America's enemies every chance to stand up and speak while simultaneously trying to censor private American citizens.
You can access the complete column on-line here:
Tony Blankley's Untimely Cry
Brent Bozell III
TownHall.com
January 28, 2009
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