Ritemore Bull on the Liberal Media
March 31, 2001
by Art Bushwald

There has been so much said about the "liberal media" recently that I decided to a pay a visit to one of my media friends to get his thoughts on this topic. The friend I met was Ritemore Bull, the news editor of the Daily Double-Standard, a hometown newspaper that is operated by Newsco Incorporated, a wholly owned subsidiary of Slash-and-Burn Publishing Corporation, which was recently bought out by Megalomaniac Media Moguls Worldwide. Following is the interview I conducted with him.

Art: How's the news business these days? Is the media really as liberal as they say it is?

Bull: Darn right. Just like Peter Jennings, I'm always struck by the fact that there are not enough conservative voices in the mainstream media. And I think that's unfortunate.

Art: How so?

Bull: Take Clinton, for example. With all those scandals of his, the media never did have the guts to pin anything down on him. And that despite the fact nearly every day, the Reverend Moon's people over at the god-fearing Washington Times were duly cranking out juicy bits of gossip and innuendo about him. But they'll keep at it, and get him eventually.

Art: No doubt they will. It's like that old adage about giving an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite number of years...

Bull: Exactly. But that's not all. The liberal media has been shockingly silent about other bad things Clinton did in his official capacity as President.

Art: Like what?

Bull: For one thing, Clinton wasted too much time trying to help women, workers, minorities, little kids, and the lower classes. For example, he had the audacity to get the minimum wage raised by more than a buck an hour. Did anyone in the liberal press have the mettle to point out the folly with that misguided policy? Thank goodness that when he was governor, Bush at least realized there wasn't any merit to raising the minimum wage in Texas to even the four-dollar level.

Art: I can see your point. No telling what might happen if the people at the bottom of the economic ladder in Texas were given a living wage...

Bull: Here's another thing. Clinton was busy working for peace in other countries -- Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Israel, Korea, wherever, right up to his last day in office. Yet the liberal media was strangely quiet about this. But if a Republican had been doing that, why, the media would have had a field day addling him about it, because no self-respecting Republican would ever work for world peace -- it would be bad for the US defense industry. And then there was the fact that too many people in Clinton's Cabinet were acting like they were actually working in public service or something. But did the wimpy liberal media report that? Noooooooo. Oh, it makes my blood boil just to think about it. Interior Secretary Babbitt was one of the worst offenders. He actually seemed to believe that being given stewardship of public lands meant that he actually had to look after the lands for the public! Can you believe that?

Art: These days, it is rather difficult to believe.

Bull: Just like that pesky Teddy Roosevelt a century ago. Did you know that a group of honest businessmen, wanting to make an honest dollar, were planning to build a tramway across the Grand Canyon? But did Roosevelt let them? Hah! Even though he claimed to be a Republican, he had to go and act like a dadblasted Democrat and turn that public land into a national park! Thank goodness that few Republican presidents since him have made that same mistake.

Art: The Republicans are known for their love of business, but the national park business isn't one of them...

Bull: Anyway, getting back to the kid glove treatment of Clinton, another one of the things that really bugged me was how almost no one in the media except Rush took Clinton to task about his phony 'I feel your pain' schtick.

Art: Um, yeah. How could anyone like Clinton, whose father died before he was born, who grew up dirt-poor in a small southern town, and who had to work for everything he got, possibly know anything about feeling pain?

Bull: Precisely. Now on the flip side, there's Dubya. He was born in a privileged family, his daddy got him through Yale and Harvard without him having to learn proper English, he spent much of his adult life partying and even got arrested for DWI, he engaged in some insider trading while his daddy was president, and he never worked at a really difficult job in his life. Yet during the campaign, there were actually a couple of liberal reporters that had the gall to question his qualifications for president! I mean, the man had been governor of Texas for nearly six whole years! He had to deal with a friendly legislature every two years! How many more qualifications do you need than that?

Art: I'd be hard pressed to think of a long list right off-hand...

Bull: And now here's what's really sticking in my craw. In just the two months since he entered the Oval Office, Dubya has angered just about every one of our allies, stuck his nose up at women's and workers' rights, given his middle finger to the environment, proposed funding cuts for kids' programs, and bad-mouthed the economy to push his tax cut for himself and his rich friends. And despite all these successes, some impertinent media types are claiming that he's unfit for the job. I mean, sheesh! That's what a president's supposed to do! But Dubya'll show them! He's said no more press conferences, at least until they stop asking those liberal trick questions, like 'What's your policy on minorities?' or 'What do you intend to do about Macedonia?' If the liberal press wants to talk to talk with him in the future, they're going to have to go back to substantive questions like 'How many ways did you restore honor and dignity to the White House today?' and 'Mr. President, what kind of cute nickname can you give me?'

Art: Thank you for your time, Mr. Bull

View All Articles