Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson has been trying to figure out what happened on November 2nd. Remember that he had showered George Soros with praise prior to the election for privatizing the Democratic Party with his big bucks. Meyerson thought all the Soros “527” groups were going to strike it big on election day. Marty Peretz of the liberal New Republic lamented after election day that $100 million from Soros and his billionaire buddies had accomplished absolutely nothing.
Meyerson didn’t want to admit that. However, he did find it striking that the number of conservatives in the electorate had gone up in four years, from 29 to 34 percent, and that the number of moderates had declined, from 50 to 45. That is an interesting figure, but it’s made more interesting when you compare that number to the paucity of conservatives in the news media. A Pew study found that “Just 7% of national news people and 12% of local journalists describe themselves as conservatives, compared with a third of all Americans.” The liberal bias was most apparent in coverage of social issues. It found, for instance, that “…journalists are much more accepting of homosexuality than is the general public.”
Remember that finding as we analyze the striking passage by very strong margins of anti-homosexual marriage amendments in 11 states on Election Day. If there is a culture war, it pits the media against the people. More specifically, it pits the media against conservatives. Those votes are a message not only to the liberals, but to the liberals in the media, who were trying to force public acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle and gay marriage. The public responded with a loud “No.”
Post columnist Meyerson doesn’t want to believe that. He claims that Bush’s win constitutes a “narrow” victory for the “moral majority.” He ignores the passage of those ballot measures by margins of 57 to 86 percent. That’s hardly narrow. On the other hand, Meyerson did concede that “Karl Rove’s strategy?that Bush could attain a majority by a supermobilization of the Christian right?was vindicated and then some” on Election Day. Yes, but if Bush had campaigned more explicitly against “gay marriage,” he could have garnered far more votes than 51 percent. And that should really worry Meyerson?and the rest of the media.
Meyerson refused to say anything critical of George Soros, whose millions of dollars went for naught. That demonstrates that he has a blind spot for what went wrong. Peretz is correct that the Soros money was wasted. But the problem is not so much the money but what it represents. Soros stands for drug legalization, homosexual and abortion rights, open borders, opposition to the Iraq war, and soft-on-terrorism policies. Even if the liberals ultimately reject the money?and that’s a big “if”?they are stuck with the Soros positions on these cultural matters.
We are seeing endless stories about what the Democrats must do to win again. But change must come not only to the Democratic Party but to the liberal media. A good place to start is the hiring of journalists with a conservative bent who respect the traditional values of the American people.
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