Media Heroes
by Vincent Fiore

On April 10, Republican Congressman Chris Shays of Connecticut told the Associated press that House majority leader Tom Delay should step down from the leadership. Shays, who said that "Tom's conduct is hurting the Republican Party, is hurting this Republican majority and it is hurting any Republican who is up for re-election," thus became the first Republican in federal office to ask for Tom Delay to step aside. (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050410/D89CP0K80.html )

That same day, the Associated Press blasted "Delay Needs to Answer Questions" to the news wires. If one were to only read the headlines, one would think the inspiration for that quote, Republican Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania , was condemning Delay for his supposed "unethical conduct." (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050410/D89CLA881.html )

But scanning headlines and foregoing the read is exactly what the media want people to do, and to a large degree, expects. They count on the hustle and bustle of life, and a shallow span of attention. One only has to read a bit further to find Senator Santorum unequivocally stating that "from everything I've heard, again, from the comments and responding to those, is everything he's done was according to the law" and that Tom Delay "has not been compromised." Truth, anyone?

Predictably, the Washington Post than ran a story by Dana Milbank on April 14 titled "The Loneliest Republican," which essentially portrays Shays as the type of Republican the media loves best: a soft-spoken scold of the party and trend-bucking maverick. (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51336-2005Apr13.html?nav=rss_politics)

Later that same day, Republican Senator John McCain sat with MSNBC's Chris Matthews in RFK Stadium in Washington and declared his intention to vote against his party in regard to changing senate rules in using the filibuster. Matthews, who has probably seen more of McCain in the last six years than the senator's wife has, did his best to look as if thunderstruck upon hearing McCain say "No, I will vote against the nuclear option." (www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7505537/ )

There it was, Dana Milbank, Chris Matthews and company cooing with delight over the "party disunity" of the GOP and the "turmoil" this must be causing for President Bush's agenda. Certainly, this is a problem of some importance for the president and the Republican rank and file on Capitol Hill. But it is not the great chasm of doom for the party that the mainstream media purports it to be.

When one considers the source for the media's somewhat evangelical hunting of Tom Delay and its indignant pooh-poohing over the very thought of Senator Bill Frist pulling the trigger on the "nuclear option," one remembers that the world according to Shays and McCain is not one of principle, but one of bending to a perceived popular or media will.

For the mainstream media, that is business-as-usual. Never mind the actual proof, lacking in Tom Delay's case, of documented and egregious law breaking. It is the seriousness of the charge that counts, and how many page-one stories the media can throw out to a public that loves the blood-sport spectacle of scandal.

In the case of Chris Shays, here is a classic example of a northeastern liberal Republican. Because he and others like him are cowed into compliance by the editorial pages of the New York Times and the like, it is far easier to lie on his sword than to present it for battle. No real Republican, or even fair-minded Independent, would throw his majority leader to the wolves over unproven accusations and merely alleged wrongdoing.

For John McCain, this is just a continuation of campaign 2000, and his love affair with the Washington media elite and theirs with him. Though McCain and his fans among the chattering classes believe that he could have been president if not for that dumb-as-a-fencepost Bush, the sheer ego of the man is enough to sustain him till 2008, and then who knows?

But it seems that we never hear about those "courageous," "principled," and "insightful" "mavericks" of the Democratic Party. Unlike Republicans, who legislatively flirt with the opposite party, Democrats who do likewise are seldom heard from, or reported on.

A case in point: Nebraskan Senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat, was trying to work out a deal with Senator Trent Lott, Republican senator from Mississippi to allow President Bush's stalled judicial nominees to receive a floor vote after a predetermined amount of time once they are voted out of committee. (www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/041305/nelson.html )

Senator Nelson was plainly going against the grain of his Democratic party. Other Democratic Senators share Nelson's angst over Senate minority leader Harry Reid's scorched earth position regarding the president's nominees. Senators Bill Nelson and Ken Salazar are looking for a way out of Reid's own "nuclear option" of shutting down Senate business, as are Senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln.

All of the above senators are sufficiently Democratic, are in positively "Red" states, and are virtually ignored by a mainstream media that will continually trumpet the actions of one GOP congressman from Connecticut and one GOP senator from Arizona. In today's journalism and what passes for it, this is not just expected, but a media right-of-passage.

After all, everyone knows there are no "maverick" Democrats in Washington.

Vincent Fiore is a freelance political writer who lives in New York City.

Email the Editor