Craig Crawford: The truth as the liberal media sees it should be good enough for you

Helen Thomas (warning, warning) writes on InsideBayArea.com on MSNBC contributor Craig Crawford's new book,"Attack the Messenger--How Politicians Turn You Against the Media":

His thesis is that "the role of the news media as an honest broker is shattered."

He claims a lot has gone wrong with the profession and blames the "spinning lies" from the government, what he calls "media wimps" and what he sees as "fear in the newsroom."

Back up. When was the last time that the media were an "honest broker"? Oh, yes, I remember now--back in the days when Dan Rather was riding high. Riiiight.

What Crawford is doing here, in an incredibly unsubtle way, is pandering to the MSM--trying to pretend that when the old guard, old school, liberal media were on top, those were the glory days. Aaaaah, those were the good old days, right? When the public knew their place as those who should shut up and accept the wisdom of "old media's real journalists," as Crawford calls the MSM.

But what's most breathtakingly dishonest about Crawford's book (and in this book, the eye-rollers compete for mention) is Crawford's supposed rationale for writing it--that the public's being taken for a ride by politicians allowed to run amok by a scared media. On page 139 Crawford writes that if only old media could make a comeback, "they could get back to where they belong, holding politicians accountable." Oh, and by the way, regain all the power, prestige and pay they squandered! Yeah, that too.

And Crawford's not being shy, even as he's being disingenuous, about the failings of his crowd. But his staggering sense of entitlement, and by proxy the MSM's staggering sense of lost entitlement, still blows me away. Check out page 17-18, where he writes:

"Despite their faults, those who once set the national news agenda were committed to telling the truth. Maybe it was the truth as they saw it, and sometimes they delivered it with a left-leaning bias. But they did not deliberately spread lies...the old gatekeepers of real news are gone...but what's replaced them presents a challenge, if not a threat, to democracy."

BOO! Get the biased lefties back in power or the republic crumbles! Panic! Panic! I'm sorry, but....what a jerk.

Oh, and don't forget the rank self-promotion in the form of scholarly reportage, namely this timeless gem on page 134. MSNBC contributor Crawford praises the flaming Ford Pinto of the cable news nets:

"MSNBC often can get the most information and more quickly...MSNBC began anew in 2004 under the management of network veteran Rick Kaplan." (Now sit! Speak! Play dead! Good boy.)

So we can infer that Crawford's a honest broker himself, hmmm? That's like saying that the butcher's an honest broker between the cow and the knife. Crawford calculatedly chooses not to acknowledge the now-permanent reality of the new media, and one of the main reasons it came into existence: the public was sick of being fed the same old MSM liberal party line. Crawford can write all the books he wants, but history, ultimately, writes itself, and the final chapter will surely say that Crawford's beloved "old media" is dead. For good, and to somewhat-ironically borrow liberal language, for the greater good, as well.