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Need further proof of how hopelessly liberal the mainstream media really are? Just consider the coverage of the accusations of incivility and incitement hurled at Republicans and conservatives by Democrats and liberals in the aftermath of the December shootings in Tucson.
The charges were almost without exception reported in the most matter-of-fact manner, with hardly any provision made for context or examples given of liberal hate speech against conservatives – of which volumes could be written using a sampling of quotes from the past decade alone.
The fact is, President George W. Bush was ridiculed and vilified and demonized by liberals and leftists on a scale dwarfing any of the verbal abuse to which President Obama has been subjected.
But the left’s animosity extended well beyond one man sitting in the Oval Office. Liberals spent the better part of eight years spitting scorn and rage at those of their fellow Americans benighted enough to actually vote for a man routinely likened to a terrorist, a mass murderer, and a war criminal.
During the fight over ballot counting in Florida after the 2000 presidential election, Al Sharpton accused Republicans of wanting to “do the same thing to us” that “Hitler in his wickedness and evil” did to Jews.
In 2004, Newsday columnist Hugh Pearson took a look at the Republican National Convention, held that year in New York, and was reminded of “Nazi rallies held in Germany during the reign of Adolf Hitler.”
New York Post gossip queen Cindy Adams welcomed Republican delegates to that convention with a column stinking of condescension and class superiority, as in her remarks that “not all our hotels are goat-friendly” and that “I met one delegate’s girlfriend. She was a cow. A real cow.”
Adams was just getting started. “I welcome them,” she wrote of her countrymen whose only crime was attending a Republican convention in her city. “I understand them. Their Architectural Digest is Home Depot. Class is Anna Nicole Smith. Couture is Sears. For their collections, they go to Wal-Mart. It’s the Evening Wear section when buying corduroy . Even their faces are polyester.”
The novelist Jane Smiley, writing shortly before the election about why she would be voting for John Kerry, called Bush “an amoral prevaricator and ruthless opportunist,” adding, “I consider a vote for Bush a vote for tyranny.”
Bush won, of course, and Smiley, by now marinating in a stew of hate and hysteria, knew why, writing a post-election analysis that castigated Bush voters for their brutish violence and “unteachable” ignorance – she used the latter word or a variant of it no fewer than 11 times in what was a relatively short essay, as in “The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in this country” and “The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America.”
The day after Bush’s reelection, The New York Times canvassed liberal New Yorkers for their reactions. A Manhattan resident described as a “retired psychiatrist” told the Times he was “saddened by what I feel is the obtuseness and shortsightedness of a good part of the country – the heartland. This kind of redneck, shoot-from-the-hip mentality and a very concrete interpretation of religion is prevalent in Bush country – the heartland.”
Another New Yorker quoted in the article declared, “New Yorkers are savvy. We have street smarts. Whereas people in the Midwest are more influenced by what their friends say.”
(This coming from a liberal Manhattanite – a class that has no equal when it comes to sheer insularity and susceptibility to groupthink, as witness the late film critic Pauline Kael’s lamenting after the 1972 election that saw President Nixon carry 49 states, “I don’t know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.”)

Keith Burgess-Jackson, an academic writing at the conservative website FrontPageMag.com, hit it on the head several years ago when he described the liberal mindset in words that ring just as true today:

 

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Conservatives are ignorant, stupid, and evil, or some combination of the three . Liberals, of course, are the opposite of all these. They’re knowledgeable, intelligent, and good. Note that if you believe your opponents to be stupid or evil, you don’t try to reason with them. Stupid people, like animals and children, need guidance by their superiors . That, in a nutshell, is the liberal mentality. It explains why liberals are so angry, hateful and spiteful . Take it from me, a former liberal.

 

          Jason Maoz can be reached at [email protected]

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Jason Maoz served as Senior Editor of The Jewish Press from 2001-2018. Presently he is Communications Coordinator at COJO Flatbush.