I think, in general, there's a generation of newspaper journalists who were inspired by Watergate and had a healthy suspicion of government (which I think is a good thing) but who were very selective in their suspicions. I worked, for example, in cities that were large, major urban cities, dominated by Democratic lawmakers. And when it came to local coverage of city councils or police departments, there tended to be more deference to them, especially when they were doing things that these reporters would obviously have had more questions and complaints about if they were done by Republicans—things like corporate welfare and expanding police authority for the war on drugs.
And then, because public policy issues like race, affirmative action, and similar cultural issues were always (and still are) a big concern and focus of mine, I also saw those biases coming through up there. There's pretty much a knee-jerk support among both the reporters and editorial writers that I worked alongside, support for things like government affirmative action and little questioning of the negative consequences of those kinds of government interventions.
Todd: But when it comes to the Holy Grail of culture war issues—abortion, gay marriage—there seems to be a definite bias.
Malkin: The coverage is almost anthropological. They play Margaret Meade to these alien species of Americans that they have little interaction with, or in common with, on social issues like abortion, gay marriage, immigration.
I definitely saw that in the newsroom. I heard mockery and derision for social conservative activists, particularly activist parents who were trying to fight the spread of left-wing propaganda and curriculum that did not conform with their values and that showed little respect for parental authority.
And that's why, with regards to abortion coverage, what you see is a narrative. A lot of editors will run front-page stories on anti-abortion, pro-life activists who are the most extreme of the movement. And yet there's little coverage when millions of peaceful, normal, everyday, ordinary, pro-life Americans descend on Washington every year for the Pro-Life March.
Little attention is paid to the fact that so many young people are energizing and fusing the movement because, of course, that would destroy their narrative of trying to paint every single pro-life activist as Randall Terry.
Todd: I don't know about you, but I get so frustrated around holidays like Christmas and Easter. We're bombarded with stories that either deride or attempt to debunk the Christian faith.
Malkin: The press simply cannot allow itself to celebrate religious diversity in all of its riches, and yet there almost seems to be this concerted effort every year during religious holidays to tear down the tenets of the Christian faith.
Several years ago I wrote a piece on Easter when I was at The Seattle Times, and I criticized our own newsroom because, rather than talk about the religious roots of Easter and what exactly is the reason for the season, it was always this dumbed-down, secularized coverage of Easter, with the Peeps and the Easter eggs.
I quoted an observation Father Richard John Neuhaus made during an interview with a mainstream reporter. The reporter was talking about moral and political corruption and how it was the most unprecedented act of corruption he had seen. Father Neuhaus replied, "Well, we've seen this sort of thing ever since the early days of the Garden."
The reporter just sat there blinking at him and said, "What garden are you speaking about?"
Father's conclusion was that, in some cases, it's not so much simple, ideological, cultural, or political biases. In some cases it's just sheer ignorance.
I think it's a combination of those two things. And certainly I think for Father and Catholic bloggers and Catholics in the media, that ignorance does tend to rear its head in all things related to the pope and the Church and the Vatican.
Todd: Have you ever wondered why the mainstream media has a problem with conservatives?
Malkin: You have to think about the type of people who are motivated to go into journalism and survive journalism school. It tends to be a self-selected and insular clique. That certainly was the case in the newsrooms I worked in.
Fortunately, I was able to work alongside some hardened, old-school journalists who got into the business before it became as professionalized—before you had to have Sorbonne-like documentation to be accepted into the club.
These were the guys who used to store vodka bottles in their drawers back in the day, and they would always grumble to me that it was all those smarty-pants with their MAs that destroyed the profession, and I think there's some truth in that. There wasn't the kind of class diversity there ought to be, especially when these newspapers pride themselves on representing the working class and the everyday people.
Today's journalists live in liberal enclaves. They go to the same cocktail parties and rub elbows with the same people. They're married to the city's power brokers. There's an even more pronounced element of that in newsrooms like The New York Times. They have no intellectual curiosity about people who possess opposite or different political views than they do.
Todd: When Anderson Cooper traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2010 to cover the historic floods, he seemed like he was on a different planet. He marveled at the number of churches and the fact that people were actually helping their neighbors. He seemed genuinely shocked and amazed.
Malkin: Anderson Cooper—a Vanderbilt. You look at people like that, who have traveled around the world, and yet they treat their own fellow Americans like, again, alien species. The New York Times has that same approach as the CNN journalists, of parachuting into these little corners of America and just being completely amazed and dazzled by the exoticness of it.
Todd: In 2008, President Obama used the phrase "bitter Americans that cling to their guns and religion." From a media standpoint, do you think journalists "get" middle America? Do you think they get those so-called "bitter Americans"?
Malkin: They haven't for a long time. That phrase, I think, encapsulates how many of Obama's water carriers in the media feel about the people they cover and the people they feel are entitled to buy their newspapers.
Just look at the allergic reaction of the media to the Tea Party Movement. The taxpayer revolts of 2010 were really revelatory. The viciousness and vindictiveness with which journalists treated this national movement was incredible.
Todd: So how about Michelle Malkin? Are you one of President Obama's "bitter Americans"?
Malkin: That was one of the biggest myths of how the press portrayed the Tea Party Movement, and it is certainly a persistent myth about conservatives who fight for limited government.
In fact, I start every day blessed, with a smile on my face, counting myself among the luckiest people on the planet, to be able to live in this country, exercise free speech and freedom of assembly, and to be able to petition—still—for redress of grievances.
You want to talk about bitter and clingy? Look at the teachers union. Look at the Service Employees International Union. They were the ones who sent their thugs out to peaceful protests of Tea Party activists.
Look at where the real rancor was during the town hall protests over the summer of Obamacare. It was the Organizing for America and Media Matters types who were the most bitter and angry.
Most of the conservatives I cover are happy warriors, in the mold of Ronald Reagan. Are we upset? Are we worried? Are we concerned about our kids' future? Yes.
But ultimately, there are things outside the Beltway, outside the political square, that buoy us. And those include the things a lot of these left-wing reporters do not appreciate or understand—community, school life, and church.
Todd: What are the dangers of a press that is not fair and balanced?
Malkin: The founders enshrined a free press for a reason, as an independent check on the power of government. And when the mainstream press fills that role, it's wonderful.
I'm not a blank
et detractor of every single journalist in the mainstream media. I've worked in the mainstream media. I'm a part of it. I owe so much of my early career and my ability to jump into the Internet to the great editors and veteran journalists I've learned so much from. The danger is in becoming so intertwined with the people you're covering that you're unable to do your job.
I think we saw that in living color, in such vibrant color, during the 2008 presidential campaign. When the Grand Canyon-sized gap between Barack Obama's rhetoric and the reality of his Chicago politics was so obvious to a lot of people, and yet was not covered by the press—in fact was covered up—I think the press lost so much credibility, they became a joke. You had these reporters who were gushing over Obama's physique—you remember that? There was that Washington Post reporter who talked about the sun-kissed glint off his chest?
It's a huge squandering of those inalienable rights that were passed on to us, not to forsake the basic duties of the press, which is, to borrow that 1970s phrase, question authority. We need watchdogs, not lapdogs.
24
The Rise of the Food Nazis
The government is coming after your Nutter Butters.
There's a national movement underway to control what we eat. I call these people Food Nazis, lawmakers who are legislating our taste buds. They want to come into our homes, clean out our refrigerators, and force us to eat meals only the government deems appropriate.
First Lady Michelle Obama has been at the forefront of this effort, the country's self-anointed First Parent. Her work started at the White House with the planting of a special garden. You might remember seeing photographs of Mrs. Obama tending her garden in a pair of $495 Tory Burch gardening boots—because that's how regular Americans tend their gardens.
Then there was the time she scolded the nation's restaurants. She delivered an address to the National Restaurant Association and told them to take butter and cream out of their dishes and use low-fat milk and provide carrots on kids' menus. She even suggested they make French fries a "special order" item.
She also championed a child nutrition bill that gave the government power to limit school bake sales and other fund-raisers. Her "Let's Move" campaign has generated outrage among millions of Americans.
Perhaps we should be reminded of the words of Thomas Jefferson. "A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have," he said.
Sean Hannity summed up the issue on FOX News Channel. He said the First Lady was "taking the nanny state to a new level by telling us what to eat."
"Get away from my french fries, Mrs. Obama," declared Glenn Beck.
Sarah Palin also chimed in by preparing a plate of s'mores on her television show, Sarah Palin's Alaska. "This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert," she said. She expounded on her comments during a radio interview with Laura Ingraham.
"What she is telling us is she cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat," Palin said. "Instead of a government thinking that they need to take over and make decisions for us according to some politician or politician's wife's priorities, just leave us alone, get off our back, and allow us as individuals to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions, and then our country gets back on the right track."
The mainstream media went nuts over Palin's statement, but she has a point. We have a God-given right in this nation to eat whatever we want to, whether it's tofu or deep-fried butter. And we also have the right to suffer the consequences of our actions.
Perhaps Mrs. Obama might want to clean out her own refrigerator before cleaning out ours. Consider the menu for the 2011 White House Super Bowl Party:
• Bratwurst
• Kielbasa
• Cheeseburgers
• Deep-dish pizza
• Buffalo wings
• German potato salad
• Twice-baked potatoes
• Potato chips and pretzels
• Chips and dips
• Ice cream
I'm hard-pressed to find a single piece of arugula on that menu.
This nanny-state mentality was put on display for the entire country to watch during a live episode of the ABC talk show The View. If you haven't seen the program, it features Barbara Walters and a bunch of liberal women ranting and raving about various issues of the day. I personally don't watch The View because I can't handle that much testosterone in the morning.
But one day Paula Deen was invited on the program to talk about a new cookbook for children. Everything good about the South is wrapped up in Paula Deen. She is kind and compassionate, slow to anger, and knows that the way to a man's heart is slathered in butter.
Miss Paula arrived on the show with a basketful of homemade treats, as any southern lady worth her drawl would do. While the other hosts were nibbling away, Paula noticed Barbara Walters was not eating.
"Barbara, you're not diving in," she said.
And that's when Barbara tore into the queen of southern cooking on national television.
"Let me act like your mother and ask you to hold off a minute," Barbara sneered. "This is a cookbook for kids. Obesity is the number-one problem for kids today. Everything you have here is enormously fattening. You tell kids to have cheesecake for breakfast. You tell them to have chocolate cake and meatloaf for lunch. And french fries. Doesn't it even bother you that you're adding to this?"
So it's Paula Deen's fault that the nation's children are overweight? Give me a break. Miss Paula was gracious in her response to the ranting of a lunatic who was apparently delusional from eating too much granola.
"I think we have to teach our children, first off, Barbara, moderation," she replied.
Barbara fired back, "Not when you're giving them this."
Now, if Miss Paula had been a redneck woman, she would have politely removed her high heels, taken off her earrings, and promptly commenced to giving Barbara Walters the catfight she deserved. Fortunately for Barbara, Miss Paula is a refined and cultured southern lady.
I had a chance to ask Miss Paula about that during a special meeting in New York City. She was in town to help distribute free Smithfield hams to families in need. Southern folks do that kind of thing.
Todd: My Aunt Lynn from Coldwater, Mississippi, said you should've grabbed a cast-iron skillet and whacked Barbara Walters on the head.
Miss Paula: It sounded like Barbara wanted to blame me for childhood obesity. I don't have any obese children in my family. So I don't know where that was coming from. I encourage children and families to eat nutritiously and to eat in moderation. But the biggest thing is they need to get off the sofa and get outside and play and exercise.
Todd: So you don't eat deep-fried butter every day?
Miss Paula: I don't. You know, people think, "Gosh, she eats fried chicken and biscuits and gravy every day of her life." I do not. But when I do eat fried chicken, it's prepared the old southern way, the way that my granny taught me how to cook it.
Todd: What is it about food?
Miss Paula: Food is the vehicle that takes us where we want to go. It's the common denominator between all of us. It doesn't matter what your race is, your religion, where you live. We all have to eat to survive.
Todd: And there's nothing better than southern cooking.
Miss Paula: Ain't nothing better than southern cooking, baby.
And then Miss Paula gave me a bear hug. I'm ready to go to heaven now.
Cheese, Oreos Banned from School
American cheese and Oreo cookies are banned from packed lunches at the Children's Success Academy in Tucson, Arizona. The school has a strict policy forbidding any processed foods, refined sugar, or even white flour. At the start of every school day, boys and girls at t
he public charter school are required to allow teachers to inspect their lunch boxes. Any forbidden foods are confiscated, and students are given a "healthy alternative."
"I will get them peanut butter and honey on whole wheat,"1 teacher Leticia Moreno told the Arizona Daily Star. However, the peanut butter can't have any sugar.
The school doesn't have a cafeteria so students must bring their own lunch; and according to the newspaper, the rules are creating a hardship for cash-strapped parents.
"It is challenging mainly because in grocery stores it's so hard to find anything without sugar," parent Breanna Chacon told the newspaper.
The list of banned foods is substantial—American cheese, canned fruit, flavored yogurt, white bread, peanut butter made with sugar, and even Oreo cookies. One child had a package of Ritz crackers and cheese spread confiscated by the Food Nazis.
And there are no exceptions to the rule, said Nanci Aiken, the school's director. "You don't need a cake," she said. "They can have nuts or fruit."
Speaking of nuts . . .
"I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West a lot of times, but it makes such a big difference," she said. "When you eat sugar, especially by itself like a candy bar, you get a rush and crash. An apple will not give you instant gratification or a rush, but it lasts longer."
There are critics to the school's methods. "All kinds of emotional and behavioral problems can happen if you tell a child never, ever to eat a cookie," said registered dietitian Nancy Rogers. "They may do just the opposite once they are at a rebellious stage."
But, said Aiken, "We are what we eat."
They're facing a similar issue in the British town of Pemberton. Dorothy Gallear removed her son from a nursery after the family was rebuked for serving the child a cheese sandwich. She was told that future cheese sandwiches must include either lettuce or tomato. Otherwise, the sandwich would be classified as a snack and therefore would be banned under government guidelines.
Dispatches from Bitter America: A Gun Toting, Chicken Eating Son of a Baptist's Culture War Stories Page 12