587 The Liberal Media

587 The Liberal Media

The liberal media, the REAL liberal media, is getting kind of inbred. Who are we talking about? Mostly, the Huffington Post and two shows on MSNBC, "Countdown" and "The Rachel Madow Show." There's so much cross pollination among these three.

Arianna Huffington is on one or another of these shows a lot. Her Huffington Post quotes both shows, um, liberally. Madow and Countdown's Keith Olbermann do cross talk on each other's programs all the time. And syndicated progressive talker Ed Schultz spends a great deal of his radio time promoting HIS MSNBC show, leaving us with the impression that the radio isn't where he wants to be and that he saves his "best" material for TV.

The audience for these various outlets is pretty much the same people.

Time was, you could get a bunch of different stories and a bunch of different takes on them by watching or reading all of this. No more.

The bookers appear to share their Rolodexes, and all of this has become a traveling sideshow similar to the early morning talk programs and the Sunday Washington shows on the three major networks.

You see one, you've seen 'em all. And it's all the same stuff.

So if you want a little variety with your progressive politics, what do you do?

Maybe you pick up "The Nation," dry as a bone, dull as watching paint dry. Or you pick up "Mother Jones." (is that still around? Yes. Anyone notice?)

We end up talking to ourselves. Not a bad way to make a buck. But not a good way toward any political end, other than converting the converted.

You get dribs and drabs of something different from Alan Colmes on Fox or Ellis Henican in Newsday. But it's not enough.

We can talk to and with and among ourselves all day, every day and that's not going to make Chuck Grassley go away.

There are a million blogs like this one, mostly read by other people who write blogs like this one. But the bottom line is we're not getting the word out.

The blogger-in-chief/talk show host-in-chief, of course, is President Obama. And these days, he's not only not getting the word out either, but he's not even converting some of the converted.

Anyone got a better idea?

Shrapnel:

--Another health insurance proposal. Given the tax situation, most of us are working for the government beside whatever else we do. So why not give us the same benefits you give other employees?

--The furor over the town hall meetings should be tripping our entrepreneurial switches. There soon will be a shortage of bus exterior decorators. And modern technology makes the job pretty easy.

--Everyone in the northeast complained there was no summer. We got it now. And it feels like the temperature is twice normal to make up for the missing warm days last month and the month before.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.®
©WJR 2009