Lately there has been some talk about JournoList, "an off-the-record online meeting space," for "several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics," in the words of Politico reporter Michael Calderone.  Some reporters have admitted the existence of the e-mail group, but feel it would be "inappropriate" to say more.  Ooh, inappropriate!

Bothering to note the fact that these same talking heads would scream bloody murder at the 'collusion of the media-industrial complex' in a 'virtual smoky back room' if the people involved were anything other than leftists would be a tired cliché before the words were even typed.  Of course it's different for the good progressives to do something than for the evil conservatives.

So what?  The complete lack of self-examination in news outlets should not be news by now; biased reporting and sanitized editorials mark every newspaper but the Wall Street Journal and the late New York Post.  That most television reporters voted for 'The One,' Barack Obama, should be obvious and pathetic.  He didn't even have to charm them; they were waiting to be "tingled," as MSNBC's Chris Matthews might put it.  Does the fact that these people e-mail each other and their trusted sources change anything?  No.

Neither does the fact that it's "secret" change anything.  What happens on the list does not stay on the list; they become the featured talking points of the next news cycle.  Secrecy is great for drama but not really necessary for political action.  As an example, look at the recent remake of The Manchurian Candidate: an evil corporation secretly brainwashes a presidential candidate for their own nefarious purposes.  Now look at AIG and its special treatment - and the fact that it donated $100k to the New York Democratic Party just before the bailout.  Chris Dodd and Barack Obama don't have to be secretive about their support for their friends at Countrywide; nobody expects them to be other than honest politicians who stay bought once they're bought.  Experts agree: everything's fine.

One final nefarious plot, though.  Until about 15-20 years ago, most Americans pronounced the capital of Russia as "ma's cow."  This seems reasonable, since we spell it Moscow.  The Russians spell it Mockbá, which transliterates as "Moskva."  The Canadian anchor Peter Jennings, however, pronounced it as "MossCo," like some subsidiary of Petco or Costco.  Jennings' pronunciation had no more to do with the Russian than the American, but now nobody uses any other.  This pronunciation spread from ABC to the other networks and to everyday speech simply on the assumption that it was more correct.  Nobody bothered to pick up an encyclopedia.  Nobody called a contact in the State Department.  Uninformed, desperate trendiness was all that was needed for the media to expose the secret that they have an Orwellian "groupthink" consisting of uninformed, desperate trendiness.

Honestly, can the people on JournoList even organize a surprise party?  Oh, wait, discussion of that would be "inappropriate."  Ooh, the horrible secrecy of it!

Sigh. I really wanted to like An American Carol, but the writers and editors made it very hard. Comedy about a serious subject is always a difficult balance, but apparently first-rate talent was somehow unwilling to attempt it. Three possibilities exist. The first is simply that scriptwriters and editors are so divorced from reality as to be unwilling to participate. The second is that scriptwriters and editors are too afraid of being blacklisted to participate. The third (and sadly most likely) possibility is that first-rate comedic talent simply no longer exists in Hollywood.

I mean, really, when was the last good movie you’ve seen? When you did see one, was it by Pixar? We know that Pixar makes authentic Disney movies, because real Disney movies make us cry. Of course, they also make us laugh, but such is a balance found in great drama, and certainly not a balance found in slapstick comedy, which relies rather on one gag after another, keeping the audience from catching its breath. Too much breathing room was left in this movie; An American Carol is simply not paced as well as earlier films. Let’s face it, Airplane! and similar previous works by the producers are only ‘classic comedy’ by comparison to the other clunkers the movie-going public has had to endure since the demise of the old Hays code. I considered a detailed analysis of the plot and jokes, but since the producers didn’t bother, why should I?

The past always seems better than today, because that which was ugly, useless, or immoral has generally been discarded. This does not mean that evil, foolishness, and bad taste were absent, nor does it mean that such things are acceptable because they have always been. Some eras of history just seem thinner than others because there was little worth preserving. So far, the 21st century seems more notable for its technology than its culture.

I am just livid over NBC’s “fact-checking” of McCain’s “account” of “his time” (torture) in the Hanoi Hilton. Obscene is the best word for it.

However, this is just a symptom of a larger problem. Liberals have long claimed that the media has a conservative bias because corporations own them, and could not possibly allow news contrary to their class interests. This Marxist trope has become a reflex, to the point that I’ve heard it from my own mother. However, NBC’s shameless support of Obama seems to refute this.

NBC reflects the political bias of not only its own management, but of the acknowledged politics of the chairman of GE, NBC’s “corporate master.” Doubtless they giggle over cries of bias, because, according to the trope, this is the first time anyone in the press can possibly ever have taken such a position.  They might say, “It’s only fair after so long.  After all, the Republicans do it.”

This beautifully illustrates the larger point: Democrats always say that, or something like that, to justify their dirty tactics. Nobody on the Republican side ever says anything like that, because they simply don’t think that way. Psychologically speaking, this is called projection. Democrats seem to look in the mirror and fail to see themselves. Rather, they dissociate themselves from their own racism, sexism, and religious intolerance: “Oh, that’s horribly ugly. It must be Republican.”

So whenever the Democrats or mainstream media assume that the Republicans must be “fact-checked,” remember that this is a necessary psychological maneuver to justify blatant bias or outright lying. After all, the Republicans are out to get them, so they can’t possibly be paranoid.