Taking a Page Out of Eric Alterman’s Book

Everyone’s seen the arguments: The New York Times is right-wing; NBC, ABC, and CBS are arch-conservative outlets; The Washington Post is crypto-fascist; &c. These are just a few of the countless examples of what we’ve taken to calling “The Eric Alterman Proposition.”

Mr. Alterman, for those of you blissfully unaware of him, is the incessantly enraged media critic of The Nation, a neo-Stalinoid rag that has offered conventional un-wisdom to members of the chattering class since 1865. If you pretend to love the downtrodden but don’t feel comfortable outside the comfy purlieus of the faculty lounge, chances are you’re a huge fan of The Nation.

As a columnist for this intellectual sinking ship, Mr. Alterman has made something of a name for himself by excoriating the mainstream media for its sickening conservative bias. If Mr. Alterman's palaver weren’t taken so seriously, it would actually serve as an interesting experiment: How unhinged from reality does an argument have to get before our “progressive” pals won’t believe it any longer?

Naturally, Mr. Alterman’s ravings that Democratic-leaning media outlets with overwhelmingly Democrat-leaning staffs are fountains of hardcore conservatism are just plain moronic. But this doesn’t stop his fellow lefty friends offering kindred examples of this feculent argument.

Why, just take a look at a particularly pathetic example from one Tony Hendra. In a savage, vitriolic essay for The Huffington Post, Mr. Hendra argues that National Public Radio is a bastion of evil Republicans. Oh, and that President Bush is a “cretinous coward” whom many Americans would savor to see “choke to death on his own blood.”

Ah, so NPR is a collection of Burkeans too, eh? Wow: One wonders where all the liberal journalists go. After all, polls demonstrate that left-wing hacks outnumber their right-wing brethren by wide margins, but somehow only the conservatives get employed? Very, very curious.

Frankly, dear reader, we’ve had enough. “The Eric Alterman Proposition” is entirely foolish. If you ask us, it’s not even an argument. On the contrary, it’s an attempt at damage control from those who dislike cries of liberal media bias. And we aim to put a stop to it.

But how do we aim to do that? Well, by coming up with our alternate absurd proposition. We call it “The Crack Young Staff Proposition,” and it’ll serve as a perfect foil for Mr. Alterman’s nonsense.

Put simply, our moronic contention is this: All so-called “conservative” media—right-wing talk radio; conservative “weblogs”; Fox News—are actually fountains of paleo-liberalism. Rush Limbaugh? He’s a Communist. Brit Hume? That sickening Trotskyite. Ann Coulter? Well, she’s a liberal and guilty of treason in our book. Q.E.D.

So, bring it on, Alterman. Let’s see whose proposition is stupider.