A New Organization for Student Journalists

Gee Mark, all these summer internships were at far right wing publications….hmmm. What does that say? Did ;you notice this, or just forget to point it out?Chuck Kleinhans

Gee “mavprof” in some of the recent comments I made on Bauerlein’s blog, I self identified as a Marxist. I also sign my entries with my real name, and anyone can easily figure out where I’m coming from by googling my name.Why are you hiding behind a pseudonym? I find it hard to take seriously anyone who doesn’t have the courage to stand up for their statements.But to return to the point. Of course there are much further right publications: say those run by Andrew Beitbart. But what would any reasonable person call The Daily Caller, which opens its website with an invitation to “vote” on the rhetorical question: “Is Obama a Patriot?” and leads with an article on the booming sales of Tea Party apparel? The Weekly Standard is edited by Bill Kristol who is the mainstream media’s go-to guy for right wing opinion. The Washington Times is a Moonie front. And The Hill includes such “reportage” as an article entitled “Without Emanuel, who is going to mail all of the dead fish?” Fair and balanced?Chuck Kleinhans

Gee, chuckkle, since I didn’t see your posting as a self-identified Marxist, nor am I a connaisseur/euse of oppo-research, I didn’t notice your perspective comes from so far up in the left field bleachers.I think in opinion blog sites such as this it’s not so important who bloggers are, but what they say. So LOL away, chuckkle!Same goes for the publications; I scanned the Tea Party apparel article (mostly info from PR director of Zazzle, which also markets Obama apparel) and the Rahm Immanuel article (“larger-than-life personality,” “colorful character,” plus straightforward info–reportage proper, not just a catchy title, including a quotation from former lib-Demo congressman Eric Massa, who called him “son of the devil’s spawn”–didn’t know that). Noted as well another prominent poll in The Daily Caller in addition to the one you cited: “Is the Tea Party Racist?”–well, that’d probably be more to your taste. All in all, just standard conservative or right-wing opinion journals by my reckoning.While I don’t consider my own perspective “far” anything, I suppose to a Marxist . . . well, I’ll leave you to your labelling “post-it”s game–don’t forget “paleo-,” “extreme,” and “ultra-” now. . . .

Mark, I don’t think chuckkle answered your point in your short riposte to his wholesale discounting of The Washington Times as a “Moonie front,” for he offered not a whit of evidence to tie the content of the newspaper to the Moonie agenda. Your response indicates you knew of its ownership and association with the Unification Church, so, if so, chuckkle’s smarmy response in quoting the Wiki bit is, at bottom, nugatory. I’m certainly no defender of this sect, but–qui sait?–perhaps what M. chukkle finds particularly galling is the sect’s . . . mmm, anti-communism?Nor, I’m sure, are you unaware that the four publications sponsoring the internships tend conservative, just that chuckkle’s “far right wing” claim about the WS went, well, too far. Nor would the political slant of those publications be hidden from anyone who takes even a passing interest in political journalism or who might find the internships offered an interesting opportunity. Thus I see no reason that you should be called on to “fess up” (as if required to place a kind of political “Surgeon General’s Warning” upon your announcement about the Student Free Press Association) by M., or perhaps better, Commissar chuckkle, do you?I won’t address at length chuckkle’s non-reponse to my challenges to his feeble and bogus examples that purport only to reveal publication bias, since he deigns only to exchange opinions with named correspondents, though on this and most opinion blog sites, where an overwhelming majority prefer pseudonyms, this rather idiosyncratic stipulation must afford him the precious asset of avoiding address to all but a few pointed ripostes to his clumsy charges.

Mark, it seems chuckkle again tries to dodge the challenge you made so economically to his claim that publications like the WS represent “far right wing” opinion or his insinuation that The Washington Times’ content is a “front” for Moonie propaganda. And it may also be apropos to point out that the popular conservative advocates chuckkle just introduced in his last post can scarcely be counted as contributors to these publications, and thereby he strays even further from the mark.Among his not-so-artful dodges is his ungenerous reference to me as a “spineless” “sock puppet” all the while affecting a “Non-Ti-Dico!” (“I’m-Not-Talking-to-You!”) stance. Or is he perhaps seeking relief in an implied or hoped-for banishment of my comments–a sure sign of exasperation?

Yes it is.”Neoconservatism” (of the Podhoretzes, the Kristols, et al.) may be literate, intelligent, well-argued (well, William Kristol’s brief tenure as a toke conservatism on the NYT’s op-ed page was an exception, but everybody has bad days), and way above the tone and tactics of our present-day Lonesome Rhodeses* such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh (look that one up, or better yet, see the movie), but it’s still “far right.” And in its Staussian-derived anti-populism (you know, political philosophers having to speak in two tongues: one for initiates who know the code, one for the proles who have to be gently led), it’s actually a little more right-wing than paleoconservatism.* Of course, neoconservatives love the dirty work that Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter, Ingraham, Savage, et al. do that allows them to keep their intellectual hands clean.And sure, Dennis Kucinich, Janeane Garofalo, Bernie Sanders, Michael Harrington, the late Howard Ziff, et al., are “far left.”