Double, double standards on being shocked, shocked

By Mark J. Fitzgibbons

The leftwing media is up in arms, claiming the videos in which NPR executives were ‘O'Keefed' were edited misleadingly and dishonestly.

Puuhhhleeease.

Even Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois, whose own honesty has been called into question, is getting into the act.

Misleading and dishonest editing have been standard operating procedure for the leftwing and mainstream media. You'll recall how MSNBC's Contessa Brewer attempted to falsely smear the Tea Party and scare her viewers, mixing racism and guns, which stands out because it was so obvious and flagrant, but not because it doesn't happen every day.

But this type of "mainstream" reporting and editing goes way back. After NBC's Dateline was exposed for having used incendiary devices to blow up a General Motors pickup truck as a pretext for a segment on safety issues, Walter Olson wrote in 1993:

An investigation of past network auto-safety coverage reveals that both CBS and ABC have run the same sorts of grossly misleading crash videos and simulations, withheld the same sorts of material facts about the tests, and relied on the same dubious experts with the same ties to the plaintiffs bar. In at least one documented case -- another is rumored--viewers were shown a crash fire and explosion without being told it had been started by an incendiary device. Dateline committed many journalistic sins. But not least was that it couldn't even manage to be original.

The gig is up, except in a few dark corners of liberalism. The inability (or refusal) of many on the left, but especially in the media, to show any signs of introspection and intellectual honesty is overwhelming them.

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh may have said it best in referring to criticism of the Tea Party:

For those of you at the New York Times (and CBS, ABC, NBC, the Washington Post) using this same talking point that you can't let go of: The Peter King hearings (Guantanamo Bay prison, Abu Ghraib, whatever) is going to lead to a whole new generation of jihadists, how about this: "Any criticism of the Tea Party will create a whole new generation of freedom lovers." You keep ripping into the Tea Party and all you're doing is creating more of 'em.