PrintSeptember 21, 2009
Is the Federal Department of News Next?
Barack Obama just dipped his toe into the ocean of government subsidized news and promptly suggested that the water is fine, adding that he is open to the possibility of jumping right in. The Hill reports B.O.'s seemingly innocuous response to a question regarding Congressional bills providing tax breaks for struggling news organizations:
"I haven't seen detailed proposals yet, but I'll be happy to look at them."
Keep in mind that when the student of Saul Alinsky looked at the banking and automobile industries, he decided to have the feds take control over them. Is a News Czar next or a proposal for a cabinet level Department of News?
The foundering Obama administration would love to shutter the widespread exposure his unenlightened economic policies and sophomoric foreign relations strategies receive from the alternative media. The chairman of the FCC will announce the administration's plan for internet regulation in a speech today before the Brookings institution. This is no idle co-incidence. A further examination of Obama's remarks indicate the understated desire to control or eliminate the information flowing from the blogosphere:
"I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said. (ibid-The Hill)
Of course the only kind of mutual understanding the student of Chicago machine-style politics intends is an enforced one. It isn't "fact-checking" that concerns our first Marxist President, but the production of any facts at all regarding his union cronyism, support for radical leftist organizations like ACORN, and his weak-kneed apologies and the surrender of America's military prerogatives to the world's leftist thugs.
Is the elevation of Pinch Sulzberger to Federal News Czar next? Or would Czarina Arianna Huffington be a more logical BHO selection?
Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target
