OPINION: Message To Conservatives: Hold Breitbart Accountable

By Ellen Ratner - Bureau Chief Talk Radio News Service

When I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, I learned that we had trial by jury and that people were innocent until proven guilty. We watched courtroom dramas where people we thought were guilty from all the available facts were proven innocent when the likes of Perry Mason defended them in court. I thought that due process was something that was a hallowed and cherished principle of our American ideals.

That seems to have gone out the window. On radio I am forever defending the right of people to not be incarcerated in Guantanamo without trail. People tell me I am soft on terrorism. No, I am not; I am just in love with what I was taught about real justice.

So, what am I to think when my fellow liberals caved under pressure when the right wing uses viral Internet videos to make a community organization, ACORN, look like it is renting to obvious pimps or racist government employees? I think we have forgotten what we stand for.

The ACORN video was heavily edited to make ACORN look bad and like a criminal enterprise. Whomever edited the Shirley Sherrod video left out the whole story. Sherrod’s whole story was about her personal transformation to being color blind and being concerned about small farmers. It is a great and heartwarming tale.

Later, we learned that her husband was a famous member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, during the early ’60s. When other African-American members of SNCC did not want to take the time to deal with white kids from the North, Ms. Sherrod’s husband did. There is a family history of working with others to achieve equality.

When online editing first came into being, I used to show our interns how you could take any interview and edit individual words to make the speaker say something they did not. The interns learned a lesson about media manipulation. What we have seen in the ACORN and NAACP tape of Sherrod is an example of that kind of manipulation.

The 24-hour news cycle has pulled more reporters off the beat, increased demand for content and made real investigative journalism almost a thing of the past. Organizations simply can’t the luxury of sitting on a story, mulling over its implications has all but gone. No one news organization can be blamed as everyone one of those news organizations has taken some short cuts in pursuit of getting something on the air. It is just the economic state of the news business.

What I do not understand is why conservatives have not held Andrew Breitbart’s feet to the fire for allowing two edited videotapes on his website? How is it that anyone would ever give something he tries to hawk to destroy perceived liberals any credence? It is actually quite shocking that his fellow conservatives have kept their mouths shut.

ACORN shouldn’t have lost its funding. Shirley Sherrod shouldn’t have been fired, even though she was instantly rehired. Due process and innocence before being declared guilty should be the reaction to the media begging for a quick story.

In the future, the fraddy cat liberal Democrats should remember what we were taught grade school: Time and realinvestigation should take place before they take the bait. It may make the right wing think twice before they surface another fake scandal.

Young Conservatives Study Reaganomics

By Courtney Ann Jackson-Talk Radio News Service

A group of young conservatives and GOP leaders gathered for a discussion on lessons that they believe can be learned from “Reaganomics.” The day also marks the fifth anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s death.

The group noted that Obama understands the importance of reaching out to young Americans, just as Reagan did during his presidency in the 1980s. But the group expressed concern over many of Obama's policies.

“In Obama’s America, the federal government would pick economic winners and losers and substitute political judgements for economic ones.” said Frank Donatelli, former Deputy Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Donatelli said that the U.S. economy has seen a significant downturn, but countered Obama's statements that America is on the brink of another Great Depression.

“The time is coming when this President will own the economy and we’ll have to learn yet again, government doesn’t create wealth, it only distributes it and when it does, we all have less of it,” Donatelli said.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said that Reagan understood that it is “freedom and freedom alone that produces prosperity in a society.”

Kate Obenshain, former chairman of the Virginia GOP, said Reagan also understood that not only did freedom need to be understood but it needed to be reinstitutionalized.

The discussion was sponsored by the Young America’s Foundation. The Foundation called on the young conservatives to go out and get involved in campus activism and promote the conservative message.

The Budget: A "Transformative Package"

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

This afternoon, on the eve of President Obama’s 100th day in office, progressive leaders addressed the budget and how it will improve health care, clean energy and education.

The campaign to Rebuild and Renew America Now!, a coalition of 116 national and over 700 state and local progressive, labor and advocacy organizations working together to pass the President’s budget held a press conference this afternoon and said they are confident that Congress will do what is best for the American people, and that is to pass it.

Alan Charney, the Program Director for US Action said that the budget is “transformative.”

“This blueprint totally reverses the failed economic policies of the past and sets us on a road to long term recovery,” said Charney

Tom McMahon, the Acting Executive Director of Americans United for Change criticized the Conservatives and blamed them for leading our nation into one of the most deepest recession in decades.

“Their best and in fact, only prescription for this ailing economy is more and more tax breaks for big corporations that have outsourced American jobs and more tax breaks for multi-millionaires that never manage to trickle down to anyone else and more short change investments in things that will actually grow the economy, like health care and education,” said McMahon.

The coalition members said that a clean energy legislation, health care reform and education are the most pressing issues that they hope the budget will improve.

“Congress now has the choice to stand up for our students and vote for a budget that works or they can continue to play into the pockets of the student lenders,” said Carmen Berkley, the President of the United States Student Association (USSA) and the United States Student Association Foundation (USSAF).

Berkley said that student lenders are ruining credit and dreams of students who are wanting to go to college.

Berkley also said that by eliminating programs that don’t work, like the family federal education loan program, it will put $94 billion more into the Pell grant program for students.

“We know that Congress will make an investment in students this week that works for students and their families,” said Berkley.

Conservatives hope for power in 2010

The Heritage Foundation hosted a discussion with Michael Medved about his thoughts on the major falsities surrounding America as developed in his book "The Ten Big Lies about America". Medved focused on three of his ten lies beginning with the idea that the one solution for economic downturns is to respond with aggressive government programs. Medved singled-out FDR and the New Deal as a perfect example for failure in terms of economic recovery. He believes that the new Obama administration will not "waste a crisis" and will behave in an extremely Rooseveltian capacity.

The second lie Medved specified was that the United States is an imperialist power and a constant threat to world peace. The alleged past of isolationism and pacifism that is believed to have existed at some point in American history is a fabrication that "never existed", said Medved. He continued to deny America's imperialist tendencies by pointing out that Canada is still "allowed to exist" almost undefended against our borders.

The final lie believed to distort America's political dialogue is that America is in a state of "irreversible moral decline." Medved says that every generation since the inception of America has believed they were the worst generation in the history of the world. However, conservatives can be reassured and encouraged by the passing of legislation like California's Proposition 8 that created an amendment to ban same-sex marriage in the state, as opposed to the discouragement they felt with the overwhelming support for Democrats.

No matter what, Medved called himself a "tremendous optimist even at the age of the dawn of Obama". He encouraged the conservative tone of the discussion by invoking the memory of Bill Clinton's 1992 election. A similar sense of hope and change was in the air at the turn of that election, and by 1994 the Republicans had gained more seats (55 in the House of Representatives) than had ever been gained before in one election. Medved says this brings hope to the Republican Party for the possibilities in 2010.