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Monday, May 11, 2009

Points of View

This is Steven Petrick posting.

There was an editorial in today's paper complaining about the stand of a particular elected political leader. Who this leader is is not relevant to this observation, but before anyone throws brickbats at me, it is not President Obama.

The editorial writer complained vociferously that the particular elected political leader had "failed to show leadership" because the political leader had announced that while his own views were that he should vote for the issue under consideration, he was elected to represent his constituents and his constituents opposed the issue.

The point is of course is that had the elected political leader voted for the issue and against the will of his constituents, and the editorial writer had been against the issue, he would have castigated the elected political leader, not because he was "showing leadership", but because he "failed to follow the will of the people".

The editorial writer has done this on numerous occasions. Do what the editorial writer wants you to do, i.e., act as his marionette casting ballots in accordance with the Editorial Writer's point of view, and you are a great person, showing "leadership" by forcing the people who elected you to represent them to do the write thing, or properly representing the people who elected you, depending on whether or not you have done what the editorial writer wanted.

Many editorial writers take this view. They cannot see themselves as wrong, they are always right. Just read their editorials and they will tell you so.

So many of us are conditioned to accept this.

If all the Right-wing Talk Radio hosts were to announce they had had a study done by a right wing organization and had determined that they represented the mainstream of America, the Media would castigate the findings and denounce them as it is obvious that right-wing radio take show hosts are biased in favor of right-wing causes and ideals. But we are all assured that the Media has investigated itself, and found itself to be representative of the mainstream, and even though we may believe they have a left wing bias, they deny it and many accept it because they (the media) had more talking heads announcing their views are not biased in favor of left wing causes.

But they very truly are, and the sad part is that many of them are no longer afraid to admit it. We saw much of that in last election where reporters would go on record that it was more important that President Obama be elected than that a fair election be held, i.e., it was their duty "as a free and fair press" to make sure that McCain lost and Obama won.