http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/178100.html

Important point. Thanks!

I here you loud and clear.

Of course the liberal press will suppress the voice of outright socialist tyranny that is the proggs' aspiration: they know forthright socialism cannot win the people (yet!), so for years the plan has been to softpedal the left's real intentions. Mr. Hedges should be grateful: without this deception, fewer of his desired policies would have become law.

Dr. K, my bad here. I should have said that I "read" you loud and clear.

Hmmm....

Maybe not. Can reading be "heard"? If speaking can't be read, then maybe I'm reading you correctly instead of hearing you correctly.

Anyway, my intent was sarcasm, so while I understand the correction, I'm still not 100% certain because there's a fairly well established usage of "here here" to indicate disapproval:

"Here, here" is a scold; "Hear, Hear" is a cheer.

It's complicated further by the fact that I'd rather come across in my style as a clueless crank than a pedantic schoolmarm.

So, not only might I be wrong about this, it might be in my interest to be wrong.

Tell you what; next time my dog chews on something, I'll say "hear hear!" and see whether that makes a difference!

You hear this complaint every election season. Last time it was called The Democratic Wing of the Democrat Party.

Or "we need a more progressive candidate". i.e. if we show our true colors the American people will swoon and we will win in a landslide.

I think they have been spending too much time with the cockroaches.

'lanched

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2008/04/post_743.html

http://instapundit.com/archives2/018128.php

Fixed it. Nice having editing privileges here.

As the designated asshat, it is my sad duty to inform you the phrase is, "Hear, hear". Not that I would know but for having spent too many years learning how people spoke in Nelson's day in O'Brians's Aubry/Maturin books.

Isn't it pretty clear that this is intentional? The mainstream media supports the Democrats, and while they may or may not personally be far left wingers, the media are fully aware that a radical left message will lose elections.

So the far left is marginalized during election season and when they criticize their own (but surely not when they bash the right) and the far right is given perhaps too much limelight - to serve as an example of "how crazy those evil right wingers are."

Why are you surprised?

Todd is absolutely right - the average MSM reporter or editor's bias is not so much toward leftist ideology but Democratic partisanship.

what possible advantage is it for liberal media to shine a light on the wackjobs that populate the fringe left? they only make the left in general look bad with their raving. the liberal media thinks that by shining a light on the religious right that they will drive the moderates toward the liberal candidates.

Based on a variant of this - Hillary's distaste for this very same lefty base - I thought it worth mentioning how it compared to McCain's distaste (mutual, actually) for the conservative base.

So what does it tell us when two of the three major candidates loathe the bases of their own parties, and the bases of the parties loathe all three candidates?

Could it possibly be that the party organization itself has gotten badly out of whack?

What's with Chris Hedges? He wrote from the left for the NYTimes, then left the paper and evidently became insane. His ideology is more like Harold Ickes than his son the Hillary apologist.

Of course the media burys the stories from the far left. They have to. If they gave them top play it would reveal to the majority of Americans that the Far Left is plain, batshit crazy.

go figure. Well I'd say with the democrats struggling to find their presidential candidate, they have been getting a lot of media attention. However, its probably not the kind they want. And Obama and Hillary may not be the liberals we want getting all the attention.

What's so funny the majority of this country is probably liberal but we just don't voice ourselves loud enough. I'm sick of conservatives running the show. Where's our voice already??

The mainstream media wants people to believe that left wingers simply do not exist.

They are portrayed as
"civil rights activists", "women's rights activists", "gay rights activists", "environmental activists", etc.....idealists who are committed to making the world a better place.

The media purposely acts as if these various "activists" do not share a common political philosophy, but are simply motivated by a particular issue that they are passionate about. This fits right into their effort to portray liberalism as the norm, and conservatism as some sort of quirky disorder.

My 84 year old diehard liberal dad has been lulled, by the media, into believing that the Democratic party is still chock full of Scoop Jacksons, and that the leftists are just a "handful of kooks from the 60s" with little or no influence.

Todd and a few following commenters note an important point. The media bias may be reliably leftward, but seldom extreme left. I don't think their neglect of the farther left is calculated, I think it is the flip side of their neglect of conservative points of view. Journalists believe that where they are is the center, and from their "balanced" perspective help us to see life as it is. Huh.

On a 0-100 liberal to conservative scale, journalists are about a 35-40. They therefore treat the spectrum from 15-60 as respectable and everyone else as suspect. Conservatives/libertarians notice and complain about it more because we are disproportionately represented in the outgroup. But full-blooded lefties have a legitimate complaint as well.

For purposes of reference, I would list Obama at about 20, Clinton 30, McCain 60, and Fred Thomson 80 on that scale. That's off-the-cuff, however, and a detailed argument might cause me to bend those ratings.

Addendum: Jeremy's comment is the hoot of the day. Yeah, liberals haven't been loud enough, that's it. And bare electoral majorities by a mixed bag of Republicans has resulted in "conservatives running the show." Further evidence that the left doesn't perceive things as fair unless they can dominate unhindered. Oh for the good old days, when the Democrats dominated the House and Senate for decades on end, eh?

The Republicans have barely edged up over 50% only a few times in the last 60 years(!)in the House and Senate jeremy. You have never lived under an even moderately conservative 3 branches of government in your life, unless your memory extends back to Coolidge.

You see far-left activists in the media all the time, they're just sanitized.

Look at a typical left-wing protest on CNN, then go to Zombietime and look at the same protest. It's like they're covering two completely different events. The CNN photos will be carefully filtered to make the protesters appear peaceful and well-reasoned.

"So what does it tell us when ... candidates loathe the bases ... and the bases ... loathe ... candidates?"
That's a consequence of a political strategy called "Triangulation". Presidential candidates run to the center to win swing voters in the general election.

A triangulating candidate wins primaries on the argument of electability. Thus it is the base itself who ultimately ratifies the triangulator's compromise.

"What's so funny the majority of this country is probably liberal".

Sure. Where's your data? And your definition of 'liberal'. If you define liberal in the way Jefferson was a liberal, you are probably correct. If you define it as it has been defined since 1972 or so (you know, the type of 'liberal' that got elected in '74 and that just about every Democratic candidate since has been trying to avoid being labeled) then that's just laughable.

I'd be willing to make a deal: let's let some major 'liberal' policies be put to a national referendum, with the result becoming law. Oops. There goes most abortions. Oops. There go restrictive gun laws. Oops. Here comes prayers in school. Oops. There goes affirmative action. Oops. Here comes tax cuts. Oops. There goes gay marriage. Oops. Here comes charter schools.

Oh, yeah. "(T)he majority of this country is probably liberal" -- in a pig's eye.

Back in 2003 near the start of the Iraq War, there was a radio host on the air in Portland, Oregon that did something I thought was brilliant.

He invited one of the "peace" groups on the air, asked them questions (nothing too pointed, just the kind of follow up that you would like to see more of)and let them talk.

I think it was Abraham Lincoln that observed that "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt."

We need to see more interviews with leftist supporters in Berkeley, SF and Evergreen State College.

It would remove a lot of doubts.

Call it the Tyrell syndrome. It is cooling to the brow to think that liberal biases at least hurt the libs SOME, and mitigate their strengths. Or perhaps, it harms them more as they are tactically and strategically blinded. No peripheral vision.

"I'd be willing to make a deal: let's let some major 'liberal' policies be put to a national referendum ..."
You're right in general but wrong on some of your specifics. I don't think most Americans are in favor of outlawing abortion or legalizing involuntary school prayer.

There are some positions between the absolutes you might get a referendum through on, like school prayer before or after school hours or restrictions on abortion after a certain level of fetal development. Legislatures are mostly following the popular will here, though, muddling through the compromises just as their constituents are.