Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Bob Schieffer's Media Bubble

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Bob Schieffer has been host of “Face the Nation” as long as I can remember (well, maybe not that long), but after a 24 year run, he is done.  He's been with CBS News since 1969.  He has been among the faces of the news for a very long time.  But, in his little liberal bubble that believes that only the mainstream media of elites is capable of giving you the news as they see fit to allow you to be exposed to, he has come to the conclusion that in today's world of mass information thanks to the internet, he doesn't understand where people get their news.  After all, not all people are mindless drones who only believe what the mainstream media tells them, anymore, and that has Schieffer confused.

Washington has changed dramatically since when he began covering the nation’s capital. Schieffer told “CBS This Morning” that the “revolution in communications” has turned D.C. “upside-down.”

“We now don’t know where people get their news, but what we do know is they’re bombarded with information 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Most of the information is wrong and some of it is wrong on purpose,” Schieffer said. “It is our job, I think, in mainstream journalism to try to cut through this mall of information and tell people what we think is relevant in what they need to know. That is the job of the journalist and I have to say it’s harder and harder.”

Schieffer also touched on the influx of money changing the way the government and campaigns are run, as if money has never been intertwined in the system.  It always has, and the media has covered it up.  It's just now that the information is available for the taking without the media dictating to how much we know, everyone knows how bad it is, and how bad it has been.  Crony Capitalism, or we can call it what the Founding Fathers called it, mercantilism, has always been a problem.  As a political joke passing around once revealed under a picture of money passing from one hand to another: "How a bill becomes a law."

Campaigns are Schieffer's concern.  He didn't go into the massive money that the Democrats raise using leftist billionaires, or money laundered through the unions, and he didn't complain about the Koch brothers, but he did verbalize a legitimate concern among a large segment of the voting public regarding the massive amounts of money in politics, and more specifically, in campaigns.

“I mean our campaigns have become, ‘I have more billionaires than you do so I’m a viable candidate.’ I don’t think that’s what the founders had in mind when they started this country,” he told “CBS This Morning.” “I don’t know where this goes, but I think something is going to have to change on that front because what we have now is people have to sign up with so many special interests before they get to Washington, that once they’re here they can’t compromise. And when you have a government and a legislative body that can’t compromise, you have what we have — a legislative body that’s in constant and total gridlock.”

Well, he was kind of right, and kind of wrong.  The founders knew that money would be a part of it, and that is why there are checks and balances in government all over the place.  Money is necessary to run a campaign, especially in such a large nation that extends from sea to shining sea.  In the beginning the campaigns were started and ran by supporters, not the candidates.  Now, there are professional candidates, and professional politicians, that seem to run amok.  As for the gridlock, our system was designed that way.  Unfortunately, Schieffer has bought into the idea that good government is a government filled with legislatures that bow to the President's every command.  The gears of government were designed by the Founding Fathers to grind slowly.  There is such thing as an efficient government with no gridlock.  It's called a dictatorship.

Washington is a meaner place, said Schieffer in his interview, and he is partially correct.  Welcome to the Obama era.  But, if he thinks the delegates at the Constitutional Convention were dancing through the daisies together, he has another thing coming.  The battling was so bad during the first few weeks, that Benjamin Franklin had to scold the delegates in the 1787 Philadelphia convention, calling on prayer to help alleviate the animosity.  Eventually, the delegation made up largely of nationalists, reached a miraculous agreement, creating a central government rooted in limiting principles, restrained by the chains of the Constitution.

Schieffer mentioned part of the problem is "Internet anonymity but also by a lack of collegiality."  In other words, only those properly trained and indoctrinated by the liberal left collegiate community should be reporting the news.  The allowance for people to be reporting on the news that aren't in goosestep with the rest of the journalistic community is just unacceptable to him.

The departing newsman also indicated that lawmakers of all stripes and their families used to know each other better but now spend more time in their districts and less time in the capital. Some families never move.

In other words, they are going back to the roots. . . finally, of America.  When the clause requiring Congress to meet at least once per year was added to the Constitution, there were those that protested the clause, calling it "overburdensome."  The federal government's authorities are limited to only external issues.  Unless there is a war, they stated, why would they need to be at the Seat of Government?  They were shopkeepers, lawyers, doctors and farmers.  They didn't have time to be professional politicians, they had lives to maintain back at home.

In a sense, Schieffer is saying that familiarity breeds getting things done.

It has led to an inability to get things done that Schieffer says is a greater danger to the country’s future than terrorism.

Yeah, it ranks right up there with global warming, as a threat to the nation.  Because we all know that an entire ideology filled with a massive population of crazed, bloodthirsty terrorists is not nearly as threatening as a bunch of politicians that don't get to know each other better.

“It has changed the people who run for office now,” he said. “I don’t mean they’re bad people, but they’re different. They have to raise so much money, they have to sign off with so many interest groups to get here that once they’re here they can’t compromise their positions. Their positions are set in stone.”

“Some of ’em I like better than others, some of ’em I respect and some of ’em I don’t. I still think most of the people in government are good people, but there are some exceptions.”

Good people with wonderful intentions to use government to control your lives and dictate to you how to live your life.  No evil there in Washington, right Mr. Schieffer?  The controlling statists who lust for power and money only have our best interests at heart, right?

“I wanted, number one, to be able to walk away from this job when people still thought I could do it. I’ve just seen too many people here in Washington that they hang around and hang around and then somebody has to come and get them by the hand and say, ‘C’mon, old fella. It’s time to get in your car and go back home. I just didn’t want to do that,” Schieffer said, adding that he wanted to give new “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson time to settle in before the presidential campaign year begins.

In other words, he didn't want to be Brett Favre.

Schieffer says what he’s going to miss the most is “being in the middle of things.”

“I kind of been in the middle of things for a long time now. I’ve had access to the people who make the news, who have an impact with their actions on the rest of us in this country, and I just never got over that,” he told “CBS This Morning.” “That’s the reason why I wanted to be a reporter. I always got a big kick out of being able to go behind police lines where other people couldn’t go, talking to these people who made the news. I guess I have to say that’s the part I’m going to miss the most.”

Thank you for your long career in the news media, Mr. Schieffer.  You can leave now.  You have helped the tyrants ensure that an entire generation is angry, confused, and dependent upon government.  But I still suggest that you only wear your Obama armband in the privacy of your leftist comrades.  There are still too many of those non-leftists that lack collegiality running around to allow you to fully expose your allegiance to the tyranny of oligarchy.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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