An act of Congress

Monday, May 28, 2018

Back in the mid-to-late 1980s, I met Bill for the first time.

He was the local assemblyman and I was just making the transition from underground press to mainstream media on a weekly that covered the town where I grew up.

Bill was never an outright liar, but he loved to tell half-truths. He was the classic liberal that Will Rogers once described as a man who liked to use his own ideas in preference to a generation he knows knows more than he does.

His whole agenda was to sell media into buying his bullshit, and he knew the more provocatively his ideas sounded and the more pathetic the victims he strutted out as proof, the more likely we were to put his version of “the truth” in print.

Bill, of course, was not exclusive to this brand of politics; he simply became a master practitioner as he rose from Assemblyman to mayor and eventually came into congress where he learned the most important lesson any Democrat could ever learn.

A Democratic congressman is not there to represent the majority of the whole country. The first thing he or she learns is that he or she should never vote for anything the GOP proposes, no matter how good it looks. People didn’t elect him to pass good bills, but to keep the GOP from passing any.

As a master spin doctor, Bill’s whole career was spent building up his personal image as a leader of the liberal faction of the Democratic party and will craft all of his spin to make sure that media tells his and only his side of a story, even if it is chuck full of distortion and half-truths. Some of his spin is to make sure his opponents, inside his party or in the GOP, do not get their side of the story told, and to do as much damage to the public perception of whatever rival he targets at the time.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand how politicians like Bill persisted on spinning media with tales of self-righteousness not always borne out by fact. I thought the problem was with me, not him, and it took several decades for me to realize that Bill – regardless of what position he held – had become the model liberal politician and rarely said anything that wasn’t in his own best interest. He wouldn’t lie outright, but often neglected to tell the whole truth or give all the relevant facts.

And worse, most reporters went along with his version, and for a number of reasons.

Currently it is difficult to tell the difference between a preacher and a journalist; one is selling you phony salvation and the other is paving your way to hell.

Many contemporary journalists actually have adopted Bill’s philosophy and so wish to bash whomever Bill wants to bash, whether it is a wayward Democratic opponent in a primary or President Donald Trump.

Some reporters are simply too lazy to look up alternative views or are bound by an editorial policy that will not allow them, too.

Many reporters, however, have too close a relationship to politicians like Bill, and are scared that if they do not print his version of the truth they will lose access to him for future stories.

This is not uncommon inside the Beltway where media such as The Hill and The Washington Post buy whatever bullshit people like Bill sell them, to satisfy their own anti-Trump agenda.

The provocative politicians like Bill make their case sound, the more likely media is to give it play and not bother telling the other side – despite its relevance.

Manipulating media – especially one already slanted in your behalf – has become a principle occupation for politicians like Bill.

Not all congressmen are as dishonest as Bill is; in fact, most of those I’ve come to deal with over time are not constantly trying to manipulate media the way Bill always is, even sometimes admitting off the record that the other side may have a legitimate point – which wins them a large amount of credibility Bill’s manipulation lacks.

Bill’s whole political life is one constant political spin, and he will even hold sick kids hostage at a local hospital, marching them out to sell some piece of legislation the president won’t sign because Bill and his cohorts have saddled it with other bits of unrelated liberal baggage so that the sick kids won’t ever get fixed.

Bill always has an agenda, so, each time we indulge him, we get further away from objectivity. But media keeps going back for more from his kind like junkies. We’d father get back dope than no dope at all.

And so, this also explains why good journalists write bad and slanted stories, because access to power is our stock and trade.