…and the Progressives’ war against it. They insist that only certain speech is permissible, and they are the arbiters of what we will be allowed to say and what we will be allowed to hear.
If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you’ll see more of them doing it.
President Barack Obama said that to The New Republic in a recent interview. Plainly, some folks shouldn’t be allowed to talk to their Congressmen, or to influence the vote of that employee. Nor are news organizations allowed to report on that, unless they’re saying the right sorts of things.
There’s more, as Kirsten Powers noted in the article at the above link.
[T]he White House has kept Fox News off of conference calls dealing with the Benghazi attack, despite Fox News being the only outlet that was regularly reporting on it and despite Fox having top notch foreign policy reporters.
They have left Chris Wallace’s “Fox News Sunday” out of a round of interviews that included CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS for not being part of a “legitimate” news network.
This is an extension of the attack on that inconvenient clause in that hard-to-understand Constitution that has continued since Obama tried to blacklist Fox News from press conferences in 2009.
It’s not just the Party, though. Media Matters typifies the assault from outside the Party. In their Media Matters 2012 memo (copies here and here) [emphasis added]:
…during a recent press conference, ABC‘s Jake Tapper asked Robert Gibbs how Fox News—”one of our sister organizations,” as he put it—is different from any other network. His question indicates the pervasive unwillingness among members of the media to officially kick Fox News to the curb of the press club. By legitimizing Fox News as a news organization, reporters and commentators are enabling the network to continue conducting a massive conservative political campaign under the guise of journalism. In the process, they are permitting Fox News to dominate the national discussion by spreading smears and lies—smears and lies that become conventional wisdom. They are also defending an organization that has nothing but contempt for journalistic standards—hence undermining their own profession and the public interest at the same time.
Disagreement can only be dishonest, and so the disagree-ers must be prevented from speaking. Thus, Media Matters proposes “The Solution:”
…we must launch new initiatives specifically designed to push back against Fox News’ partisan tactics.
Media Matters even complains about the reach of the 1st Amendment:
Conservatives are unwilling to yield even to minimal restrictions placed upon the press and speech by our laws….
Because it’s just plain wrong to insist on individual liberty. When that’s inconvenient to a point of view. And not a single LiberalProgressive, as Powers notes, is sufficiently embarrassed by these activities to protest. It isn’t Progressives who favor, in Powers’ words, “cherishing dissent and an inviolable right to freedom of expression.
This is Progressive freedom.