I do not want to spend much time defending John Kerry right now, since it's only been a month since his sniveling vote in favor of the Iraqi War Resolution, but the concerted attacks (see below) on his character the past few days require some response. As Al Gore pointed out last week, there is now a "fifth column" of reporters, pundits and journals of opinion, that are more interested in publishing the particular ideological line favored by the Bush Administration than in getting the truth out to the public. No one seriously doubts that this phenomenon exists, and that it will be a factor in American politics for a long time to come.

For example, anyone with a serious bullshit detector avoids the Sunday morning pundit gabfests like they were the Norwalk Virus. Invariably, there will be a two-to-one or three-to-one ideological split in favor of the right wing position among the panelists, and the liberal is usually the least articulate or charismatic member of the panel. That ratio, known as the "Kondracke Rule", is often preserved by having at least one pundit who writes or edits the New Republic(a political journal that had left-of-center leanings several decades ago, but which now tends to peddle a chickenhawkish foreign policy and an anti-black rollback of civil rights laws), and who therefore can be positioned as a "liberal" in the interests of fairness, even though his views are often indistinguishable from the panelist from the Washington Times. A more interesting and balanced political debate can be found on the NFL Today, or in the weekly scraps between Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley on TNT, than on Meet the Press or This Week.

Well, wing nuts predominated on talk radio long before Rush Limbaugh discovered anal warts could get him out of doing tours in Vietnam, and the "Kondracke Rule" is perhaps more a reflection of the establishment biases of the media's corporate sponsors than anything else. What Al Gore was referring to specifically was the manner in which clearly propagandistic (and usually false) stories now being devised in conservative organs, like the Washington Times, the Regnery Press, and Fox News, wind up being covered by conventional newspapers and broadcast networks, giving a mainstream gloss to right wing spin points.

The scandals that came to be known as "Whitewater" illustrate this phenomenon beautifully: allegations made by assorted wackos and white supremacists in Arkansas were hyped on hate radio, conservative media organs such as the now-defunct American Spectator, and on Drudge, and more mainstream outlets began to investigate. Those newspapers created the climate for the appointment of an independent counsel, who could then leak stories of his investigation to favored journalists; long before Monica Lewinsky came to symbolize fellatio, Susan Schmidt (aka "Steno Sue") of the Washington Post was the pin-up girl for sycophancy at the feet of power.

More recently, the Post's media "critic", Howard Kurtz, has become a brave "foot soldier" in this fifth column, uncritically recycling GOP spin in every column. When the GOP needed to win the Senate seat in Minnesota, he wrote a column denigrating the Paul Wellstone Memorial Service. His last few columns have attacked Tom Daschle for his warnings about the influence of hate radio (the words "anthrax letter" were strangely omitted from Kurtz' column), Al Gore for the "fifth column" interview, and, of course (surprise, surprise !!), today's hitpiece on John Kerry. And as you might expect. George W. does not need a Monica when he can get a Howie for free.

Try as I might, I can't help thinking that this trend has more to do with journalistic lethargy than any pre-existing proclivity for hard-right dogma. If the people who surround you all day have the same political and cultural values, it is not hard to start viewing outside opinions as extreme, or out of the mainstream. Familiar faces are more likely to get a pass; the fact that Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus are both considered to be something of a joke by their fellow bloggers will not stop either of them from being cited as mainstream opinions, as Mr. Kurtz does today, since they have a reputation within the Beltway that pre-dates their websites. In that situation, it's no surprise that much of the mainstream media has become little more than a house organ for the GOP.

UPDATE: For a more recent commentary on the media's shilling for right-wing politicians, check this out, re: Bush's "service" in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.