The Quiet Conservative November 22, 2011
Profiles in Journalism.
You may have heard that Chelsea Clinton has joined NBC to help Brian Williams report on the news in
a fair, objective, and honest way. NBC will benefit from her hard won knowledge of the world to bring
truth back to news. No more liberal bias with Chelsea’s tough up from the streets background. Things
are looking up at NBC with this coup.
Over at CNN, other new faces are making their mark. At a recent Obama press conference in Hawaii
Dan Lothian was quoted on this question:
“Last night at the, uh, Republican debate, some of the, uhhh, hopefuls -- they hope to get your job.
They defended the practice of waterboarding which is a practice that you banned in 2009. Herman
Cain said, quote, "I don't see that as torture." Michele Bachmann said that it's, quote, "very
effective." So I'm wondering if you think that they're uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible.”
Good for Dan. It is those hardball questions I like to see. Before Dan was a White House
Correspondent, he helped shape Boston’s news on the local level. It is only now after years of such
excellence that the rest of the nation is graced with his insight, and seeing it on display.
Meanwhile, you don’t have to go far to find another random example of journalistic excellence with
Alex Wagner appearing on Bill Maher's show on HBO. Maher, the Professor Dumbledore of cable,
asked his guest and soon to be show host on MSNBC which part of the Constitution she would
change. He, of course, is in for a total rewrite. Alex, who is soon to have the aid of another hard
worldly street fighter, Meghan McCain, had this gem:
"Well, I'm going to be pilloried for this. I think get rid of the second Amendment, the right to bear
arms. I just think in the grand scheme of the rights that we have; the right of assembly, free speech, I
mean, owning a gun does not, it does not tally on the same level as those other Constitutional rights.
And being more discreet about who gets to have a firearm and right to kill with a firearm, I think is
something that would be in our national interest to revisit that."
You wonder what sage advice the worldly and cynically mature Meghan McCain could offer such a
profound progressive thinker. I would say between her and Chelsea Clinton, the 99% will be well
represented in the Fourth Estate.
However, I would bring your attention not to these shining examples of the best products of our
university systems, but to someone less well known but toiling quietly out of the spotlight like a termite
taking out a foundation- Natasha Lennard.
If you aren't familiar with the name, she is the reporter arrested at the Occupy Wall Street
demonstration crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. One moment a protester, the next moment in custody, the
next moment reverting to a “journalist covering the story.” That sudden shift allowed her to beat the
charge in court. Quite a convenient, but necessary, ruse for the revolution. Her last column on Salon
caught my eye. It had the headline and lead in as follows:
“Why I quit the Mainstream Media
Why Journalism must break the chains of objectivity and report truth -- and the Occupy
movement led me to do just that.”
Her column goes on from there to how she beat the rap and how she can now write with complete
abandon for the revolution. “As the Times publicly noted, they found no problem with any of the
reporting I had done for them on OWS. Indeed, a court hearing upheld that I had been on the
Brooklyn Bridge as a professional journalist and as such, deserved to have the disorderly conduct
charge against me dismissed.”
If you look beyond her high school level maturity of her reasoning, you begin to note just how she has
toiled away her time sticking it to the man before she got noticed getting arrested. She thanks the New
York Times where she free lanced. She thanks Politico. She was well trained and well published
before she ever got fame. This little farewell gem of a column ran in Salon.com. Under the link at the
end of the story it connected to more columns by Natasha published by Salon. I began to notice a
theme in her choice of news reporting:
August 15, 2011 Bachman Challenged on Anti-Gay Comment
August 12, 2011 Now Christine O’Donnell Regrets her Witch Comment
August 12, 2011 Free Birth Control for All (With Religious Exemptions)
August 12, 2011 Pawlenty’s Awkward Bachmann Moment
August 11, 2011 Bachmann in ’02: School reform will lead to Holocaust
August 11, 2011 When Mitt Bragged About Raising Taxes
August 11, 2011 Maddow Discusses Rick Perry’s Connection with a Christian Conspiracy Group
August 10, 2011 The Irony of David Cameron’s Riot Condemnation
August 9, 2011 Wisconsin: A Woman’s Rights Fight?
August 9, 2011 Rick Perry Opposes Federal Payments He Once Received.
August 9, 2011 Ryan Lizza on Covering Michelle Bachmann
August 8, 2011 It’s Make or Break Time in Wisconsin.
August 8, 2011 Greenspan: “US can pay any debt it has”
August 5, 2011 Where is all the Wisconsin Money Coming From?
At this point I realize I haven’t been including the sub titles, which are below the titles and are lead in to
the articles which are presented as news. So let’s start adding them as they give more flavor to the
certifiable “objectivity” that Natasha Lennard can now abandon.
August 5, 2011 Is This the Most Anti-Environment House in History? A review of votes in the 112th
Congress shows a GOP at war with environmental protections.
August 5, 2011 New “Sick Details” Emerge About Water Torture. On "Countdown," Jeremy Scahill
discusses how the DOD hid behind waterboarding while using other water tortures.
August 4, 2011 Gov. Rick Perry Underwent Stem Cell Therapy. ...the kind that Christian
conservatives like.
August 4, 2011 Chris Christie Calls Fears Over Muslim Judge “Crap” The New Jersey governor tells
reporters that "ignorance is behind the criticism"
August 3, 2011 The Real Problem with Buchanan Calling Obama “Boy” The conservative pundit
says he intended no slur, but his history suggests otherwise
August 3, 2011 GOP Congressman Says Birth Control Will End the Human Race ...and other extreme
responses to new guidelines for women's healthcare coverage
August 3, 2011 Al Gore: “We Need an American Spring” The former VP tells Olbermann we need a
non-violent Tahrir Square, but he doesn't mean revolution
August 2, 2011 Unions: The Great Equalizers? A major study directly links the decline of unions to
rises in wage inequality
August 2, 2011 A Whiff of Koch Backed Foul Play in Wisconsin Recalls A conservative group has
sent absentee ballot applications to Democrats with the wrong return date
August 2, 2011 Gabrielle Giffords Returns to Capitol Hill The Arizona shooting victim insisted on
voting on the debt deal, having been dismayed by recent fierce partisanship
August 1, 2011 Al Jazeera’s Slow Crawl Onto US Television The celebrated channel will now air in
New York, but still can't get national distribution
August 1, 2011 Krugman: America is Heading for a “Lost Decade” The economist repeats his grim
forecast for a budget deal based on spending cuts
July 29, 2011 The New Jim Crow? Democrats in Congress urge the Justice Department to look into
new, GOP-authored voter ID laws
I can keep going, but there are 35 pages of Natasha Lennard’s columns just on Salon. None of them
are shot through with “objectivity” she now feels she can abandon. In fact, she is consistently and
without fail writing from the viewpoint of a dedicated hard core Marxist/Progressive.
Now searching the web with that in mind, it didn't take too long to find Natasha Lennard’s little video
on Brietbart's site, where she is co-chairing a meeting of Occupy Wall Streeters in some small radical
bookstore (www.breitbart.tv/new-video-reveals-new-york-times-reporter-natasha-lennard-is-
occupywallstreet-activist-supporter/) Well, what were the odds?
So our busy termite never had objectivity to begin with. Looking over the titles for just the month of
August, (I couldn't resist the last one from July, as it seemed the icing on the cake.) It is plain to
anyone just how she was crafting her news stories. For, they weren't presented as editorials. The
editors at Salon had 35 pages of her titles and columns just on their own site to see her bias if they had
wanted to. How many columns has she had published elsewhere? How many people’s views has she
shaped by presenting her propaganda as news?
The point being with the volume of her reporting, her editors didn't have a problem with the bias as
they themselves share the same bias. This is how she was hired, why she was hired, and why she was
paid. No wonder the Times found no issues with her reporting on OWS. They had her entire biased
career laid before them any time they wanted to check, and, if they did check, they found she was their
kind of reporter. The only reason she isn't on the way to the top of the Times, or CNN, or MSNBC,
or HBO, was that she was careless and was outed as the complete Marxist shill she was. Everyone
where she worked agreed with what she was writing, what she was doing, how she was shaping public
opinion, but she made the mistake of being shown honestly as she was.
Once caught, she was sacrificed on the altar of appearances. Under the guise of being honest news
outlets, they had to let her go even while grieving that such an upstanding progressive will have to
advance their cause through other means. But take heart those that would tear down a free nation, you
still have Meghan and Alex and Bill and Chelsea and all the unknown, faceless, editors and fellow
travelers of your profession eager to carry on the fight.
And carry on they shall.