Whenever the left “wing-nut” media feels that they are about to be publicly embarrassed by looming events, they trot out the old “Special Report.” And the airing of “The Rise of the New Right” by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is only the newest example of that desperate tactic. If it’s not a rerun in a presidential election year of the Kennedy assassination, then it’s a “Special Report.” And be assured, the media are breathing heavy ‘round the water-coolers and coffee pots in New York City and Washington DC this mid-term election year, frantic for some way to distract angry voters. Things are just not going as scripted for their would-be Messiah; that balm of off-shore goo anointing his ivy-league hands is not olive oil after all. Drip, drip, drip! And the oil is bubbling up to the gunnels of his Ship of State! “Don’t want to let a tragedy go to waste now, do we?”
The new strategy from the war rooms on the left, therefore, is how to siphon back the Independents from the Tea Party’s gas tank: those critical Independent voters that Obama lost after the bloom fell off his rose last February. How this happened with the media so firmly in his pocket has truly flummoxed the liberal elitists. What to do? Aw, yes, the “Special Report!” It’s a tired, but tried and true playbook maneuver. You create a sense of impending drama for your audience, suggesting through highlighted pre-show clips that you have something of which the masses are dangerously unaware, while redefining that something in a different way than the masses understand it. And then you present it with cherry-picked video (the witness for the prosecution) and with your star public prosecutor. It’s an open and shut case!
And no, I didn’t watch it. I know the scenario only too well. I’ve seen enough of the “we found a man wearing camo’s in the woods holding a gun,” or the, “see the person praying to God” videos. You could “plug the damn hole” with them! The clips are intended to tell us just how radical the host thinks these Tea Party people are, and why the viewers at home should think so too. And the unspoken but obvious connect-the-dot conclusion is that these are typical right-wing Tea Party folks, who might just cause insurrection unless they are stopped by you, the viewer, come November.
And then what’s so earth-shaking that I need to spend a whole hour ensconced, watching Mr. Matthews try to persuade me that say: some drunkards roll in their own vomit, or something less monumental? I mean that’s what the “Special Report” finally amounts to for all the investigative journalism involved. You could turn the sound off and make up your own dialog, and not be far off the actual script. Re-runs of “Jeopardy” would be almost as enthralling. But Chris Matthews is cast as the star public prosecutor with “the” incriminating evidence; while the Tea Parties are the defendants exposed to his searching scrutiny in the docket. (What drama!) And oh yeah, you’re the judge and jury. See how it goes? The legal analogy is only missing one thing- a defense attorney. (Tea Parties are not allowed to cross examine in the Matthew’s courtroom.)
But here is the subtle slight of hand stratagem that the left has tried to get you to accept without even the batting of an eye, and it’s in the title of the show itself: “The Rise of the New Right.” New Right! If we don’t question the title of the show, then MSNBC believes its viewers will accept their a priori premise: that the Tea Parties are not only the right, but a “new,” and, possibly by being new, dangerous right; hence the videos of people dressed in camo’s with guns and the praying fanatics.
What they don’t want you to see in this trial by “Special Report with Christopher” are the clips and interviews with large numbers of Independents and even Democrats who support the Tea Parties. They must convince you, the passive electorate, that “all” Tea Party people are the way they have portrayed them in the “Special Report”: that they are extreme, that you need to be concerned, and that the Tea Parties are the “New Right.” Expect to hear that phrase thrown around by all the leftist media as their new mantra. Let’s all say it together now, “Tea Party is the New Right!”
The truth, however, Christopher and MSNBC, is that the Tea Party Movement is correctly the “New Center.” It has captured the imagination of the majority of Americans dissatisfied with both bankrupt and corrupt parties; and if it can maintain itself through the next two elections, has the possibility of becoming the true center of the political landscape for some time to come. And this is because the Constitution “is the center” for all government, regardless of whether you lean left or right. The Tea Parties demand a restoration of its founding principles and limitations on government. Move too far from the document, in either direction, and you will find yourself living under either tyranny or anarchy. We are now experiencing tyranny with the signing of the Health Care Bill on March 23. That’s a fact.
Imagine Chris: returning to the Constitution! No Messianic thrills down your leg I grant you, but real stability in an increasingly unstable world. At the federal level that would mean the elimination of such unconstitutional departments as: Interior, Agriculture, Education, Energy, and now Health Care; as well as many other agencies, not to mention all the bureaucrats that man them; with their power, money, and influence devolved to the sovereign States and the “People.” Wouldn’t that be a wonderful present to the Nation? Think of the savings!
Well, November approaches, and the “New Center” is eyeing its quarry greedily, including the so-called “fourth” branch of government. For you and your Hippie fiends Matthews – Woodstock is over! Your “Special Report” is too late!
