They just don't get it

When Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis ran for president in 1988 against the first George Bush, he appeared on Nightline and after an unimpressive response, host Ted Koppel said "I still don't think you get it."

Anyone reading Dana Milbank's March 20th column, My Bias for Mainstream News, which tried to explain how the mainstream media is fair, probably came away thinking "I still don't think you get it."

Just look at what Milbank wrote: Partisans on the left and right have formed cottage industries devoted to discrediting what they dismissively call the "mainstream media" -- the networks, daily newspapers and newsmagazines. Their goal: to steer readers and viewers toward ideologically driven outlets that will confirm their own views and protect them from disagreeable facts.

Perhaps on the right but not on the left. Rather than pushing people away from the MSM, the left's goal has been to shine a light on mistakes on mistakes in hopes that this would help improve the reporting by the mainstream media.

Milbank mentions a survey conducted before the 2004 election that found that 72 percent of Bush's supporters believed that, at the time of the U.S. invasion, Iraq had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and that 75 percent believed that Iraq either gave al Qaeda "substantial support" or was directly involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Milbank did point out that It's fine to argue about the merits of the Iraq war, but these views are just plain wrong. However he loses it when he writes Many on the left harbor their own fantasies that they consider fact -- about how Bush knew of 9/11 in advance, or how he was coached during one of the presidential debates via a transmitter between his shoulder blades.

The problem is there are few on the left who truly believe those exact claims. Many may be cynics and believe there is truth to these claims. For example, some might believe, based on the Aug. 6 PDB, Bush might have listened enough to be aware that a memo that says Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US, meant that there could be a terrorist strike in the US in the near future. Does that mean all on the left believe that Bush knew in advance of 9/11 or just that he and Rice knew that Bin Laden would try to strike the US?

To compare 75 percent of Bush supporters believed in the Iraq - al Qaeda connection to an unknown percent having cynical views on 9/11 attacks is ridiculous. To often the press falls victim to this moral equivalence comparison. Last fall ABC News' political director Mark Halperin tried to buck the trend, writing in an internal memo that although both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry distorted the truth, the Bush team went way beyond what Kerry did.

As such, "though both sides need to be held accountable, it doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides equally' accountable when the facts don't warrant that."

It's too bad Milbank didn't get the memo. Anyone reading, watching or listening to right wing rants comes to the conclusion that they are much more over the edge. Unfortunately too many in the media have swallowed the idea that they shouldn't differentiate between political murder and political jaywalking. To them it's all the same.

Apparently they just don't get it.