Lambert on Keillor

Brian Lambert, if you're from out of town, is the Pioneer Press' media columnist. He's the quintessential critic - in several attempts to be an air personality, he's proven himself an excellent print journalist.

And his left-bias is as subtle as Christina Aguilera's outfit at the MTV Music Awards.

But he has the occasional point, as with this one on Keillor's rants:

But it's not like this anger at double standards and routine character assassination by Republican media foghorns validates rumors about a politician's private life. Mainstream media organizations routinely pursue rumors of all kinds about politicians of all ideologies. And by "mainstream," I mean actual journalists. People who require verifiable facts as the basis of their stories...

In other words, the insistence of infuriated liberals notwithstanding, the media are unlikely to run with a story if they can't prove there is any there, there.

And, as noted elsewhere in the article, nobody's been able to find any there, there.

However, Lambert uncorks this hooter:

It is interesting, though, when you ask news organizations, theoretically, what they would do if they found rumors about a politician's personal life to be true. Some say it would be a story in and of itself and that they would run with it. Others say it would require another set of factors — something that would trigger the so-called "hypocrisy factor," such as pandering to the family values crowd.

Which would explain the ongoing media lynching of former Senator Rod Grams. He didn't do anything "worse" than what, for example, another sitting Minnesota congressperson is alleged to be doing more-or-less currently. Yet the media tarred Grams with the brush of his alcoholic, drug-addicted son's hijinks (even though Grams had been a non-custodial parent - his ex-wife had raised Morgan). If Grams had just been a DFL libertine, this quote seems to indicate it would have been kept on the QT. Right, Mr. Lambert?

Either way, anyone who was disgusted by what was done to Bill Clinton ought to stop and think how far into this sewer they want to go.

Fair enough, that. But if Lambert wants to play the comparison game, he's probably on fairly thin ice.

(Via Powerline and Fraters Libertas)

Posted by Mitch at November 19, 2002 04:42 PM