Why a Democratic network won’t fly

Until a few years ago, just about all of the national print and electronic media that mattered were safely in the hands of people who, being intellectuals of a sort, shared the liberal view of public affairs. This mindset was so pervasive that the media barons who possessed it were often genuinely unaware of their own liberal tilt. If anyone complained about their liberal bias, he was simply dismissed as too eccentric to matter. And, of course, liberals assured members of the media that they were doing a splendid and absolutely objective job.

About 30 years ago, however, a few serpents managed to get into this liberal Garden of Eden. Mostly they were the hosts of late-night talk shows, who had discovered that proclaiming conservative political views made their switchboards light up. Then, around 20 years ago, the advent of cable TV broke the news monopoly previously held by NBC, ABC and CBS. It was only a matter of time until one of the new cable networks began appealing to conservatives.

During the last 10 years, Rush Limbaugh and a number of other conservative radio talk-show hosts have managed to achieve national syndication – in Limbaugh’s case, on more than 600 radio stations, with a total weekly audience of about 20 million. And, just within the past year or two, the Fox News Channel, which is fair – even kind – to its conservative viewers, has become the biggest cable network in the country (though still fairly small by the standards of NBC, etc.).

This new state of affairs has finally jolted the media liberals out of their slumber. Several of them are frantically trying to appeal to conservatives themselves. Most, however, have circled the wagons and flatly denied there is any liberal bias in the media. Some liberals have charged, for good measure, that it is the conservatives who are polluting the national discourse with their views.

Now we are beginning to hear of serious liberal (which is to say, Democratic) efforts to create a think tank to rival the conservatives’ Heritage Foundation, and then, as one spokesperson explained, “cultivate a bench of effective surrogates who can speak to the issues. We’ll provide media training, educate them about the ideas and then market them.” Among others, Al Gore is said to have “expressed interest in starting a liberal challenge to outlets like the Fox News Channel.”

Money won’t be a problem; Democratic fat cats will leap at the opportunity to try to counter such deadly and effective foes as Rush Limbaugh. Nor, for all their complaints to the contrary, are liberals short of ideas, or of means to communicate them to the American people. The front and editorial pages of the New York Times provide liberal network news anchors with 80 percent of the liberal propaganda they deluge their viewers with every night.

No, what the liberals need is a sympathetic audience, and this they have proven incapable of either finding or creating. A moment’s thought will suggest why. Rush Limbaugh’s huge audience (just to take the easiest example) shares a set of core beliefs which he addresses every day. Broadly speaking, they are patriots who think of themselves as members of the larger American community. They defend its traditional values, and oppose its critics. As one of those critics said recently, they are “an army.”

Liberals, on the other hand, have no such unifying concept, save perhaps their hatred of conservatives. They are contemptuous of patriotism, dislike much about America, and usually save their deepest loyalty for some special cause: ultrafeminism, gay liberation, environmentalism, welfare expansion, gun control, teachers’ pay or whatever.

Can that herd of cats be molded into a volunteer army of true believers by listening to some liberal guru on radio or television every day?

I’ll believe it when I see it.