R.I.P.

In response to accusations of blatant media bias, someone named Jim Roberts, an ex-NYT reporter, tweeted: "Yes. The media is biased. Biased against hatred, sexism, racism, incompetence, belligerence, inequality, To name a few." I think Roberts' insipid moral preening represents the position of the vast majority of "journalists" who have worked tirelessly to destroy every GOP candidate since the turn of the century and supported every Democrat candidate including Hillary Clinton.

David Harsanyi considers the current campaign and summarizes nicely:

Donald Trump has been such a political and moral calamity for conservatives that liberals have been free to ignore the failings of their own mendacious, corrupt candidate and the significant role they played in destroying trust in American institutions.

So forgive me if I don’t take liberal concern-trolling about the GOP’s wicked presidential choice too seriously. After all, even if Republicans had nominated the most qualified, competent, and chaste moderate in the existence of the republic, there still would be no #NeverHillary movement within the Democratic Party. No matter how many scandals were uncovered. No matter how many lies she told. What they’ve done is normalize Hillary’s behavior. Because Trump.

Actually, many of these same people treated a competent and ethically upright moderate like Mitt Romney just like they treat Trump. And even the most sexist-sensitive liberal would likely support a lecherous Bill Clinton over a virtuous Republican nominee. Because state power is the virtue. So spare us.

It’s been something to watch the media engage in this smug, self-satisfying, feigned outrage — much of it aimed at real Trump scandals, and plenty of it hyper-parsing and overreactions — after giving him nearly unlimited and uncritical airtime during the primaries to ensure his nomination for the ratings and to help Hillary.

In addition to the bias itself, it's the complete lack of a "NeverHillary movement that bothers me. It seems as if Democrats are perfectly willing to forget and forgive blatant dishonesty, unambiguous corruption, and proven incompetence because ... well ... Hillary Clinton is a Democrat and Donald trump is just a "horrible" person.

Liberal opinion writer Chris Cillizza has the unmitigated gall to suggest that media is a victim in all of this and that Trump's bashing of it will hurt our democratic processes. Really?

So it's okay to blatantly advocate for one candidate in the news pages of The Washington Post (Cillizza's paper) and the vast majority of other MSM sources, to select only stories that hurt that candidate's opponent, to bury news that might injure that candidate (think: Wikileaksor Project Veritas) and to do this every single day? In the fevered imagination of Cillizza, that's all okay because Trump represents a true threat to his elitist world view. He whines (ahh, it's nice to use Barack Obama's favorite word):

Many Trump supporters think that the mainstream media are so crooked — to borrow a favorite word from the Trump vocabulary — that they not only can't be trusted but need to be eliminated.

That is deeply dangerous. I have no illusion that people are going to suddenly like the media any time soon. But, there's a big difference between liking the media (or agreeing with the media) and believing they are a necessary part of a healthy and functioning democracy. I take no issue with anyone who doesn't like me or even “capital-J” Journalism. That's fine. But the increasing willingness to declare journalism dead and celebrate that fact is a very bad thing.

The kind of biased and dishonest journalism practiced by Cillizza and his many colleagues throughout the MSM is very much alive and well. A blatantly biased media, and not Trump's reaction to it, is deeply dangerous to a functioning democracy.

It's the ethical, honest, unbiased, and objective journalism that we all should expect that has died. R.I.P.