The liberal media are under assault from, strangely enough, .... the left. It's hard to believe, I know, but the southpaw hurlers at places like the Daily Kos are "mad as hell and not going to take it any more" from the likes of - are you sitting down? - The Washington Post and reliable lib warhorse Chris Matthews. All it takes is one little misstep, apparently, one tiny offense against orthodox doctrine, and the Taliban left will be screaming for your infidel head. John Leo has the story. Here's a snippet:
Two skirmishes are under way, one against The Washington Post and its ombudsman, Deborah Howell, the other against Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball." Howell's offense was writing that the sleazy Jack Abramoff had given money to Democrats as well as Republicans. That was inaccurate. A tide of angry and exceptionally abusive complaints flooded into the Post. Howell then corrected herself, writing that she should have said that Abramoff "directed" a considerable amount of his clients' money to Democrats, though he never gave any himself. That was correct, but vicious and amazingly obscene e-mail kept pouring in, so the Post shut down its Web site. (Not a good idea, in my opinion. It would have been better, though more expensive, to let readers vent, while editing out obscenities.)
The campaign against Chris Matthews has escalated into talk of a boycott, though the would-be boycotters prefer to call it an "appeal to advertisers." Matthews is accused of being soft on Republicans in general, and in particular, of comparing Michael Moore to Osama bin Laden. On Jan. 19, Matthews said on "Hardball" that in his new audio message, bin Laden "sounds like an over-the-top Michael Moore." Matthews was citing bin Laden's mention of "the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars to the influential people and war merchants in America." The next night, Matthews suggested that bin Laden was picking up the lingo of the American anti-war left, and asked, "Why would he start to talk like Moore?" Bloggers turned quickly against Matthews, a Democrat, calling him "a broadcasting neo-con," "stupid Bush lover" and "man whore for the GOP."
Ouch. "Stupid Bush lover." I'll bet that hurt.
The lefties are right, though. It's crazy to compare Michael Moore to Osama bin Laden. Moore's probably twice as heavy as bin Laden is.