CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, July 23, 2001

This way and that way

Visitors to Staniel Cay in the Caribbean are surprised by the island’s only highway directional sign. The sign has one arrow pointing to the left and one arrow pointing to the right. The left arrow is inscribed: “This way.” The right arrow is inscribed: “That way.” In that same spirit, this column goes “this way and that way.”

By now, my earlier column about media bias in the Condit-Levy mystery has been verified by both L. Brent Bozell’s Center for Media Studies and by Democratic Party fund raiser, Dan Rather.

In the first 200 major media stories, Democrat Congressman Condit was identified by party label less than one percent of the time. In cases where Republican office holders are caught doing something unsavory, the party label is attached to their names almost 100 percent of the time. Some of this failure to provide party labels is done on purpose. Some of it is done unconsciously. But it is a consistent vice of the liberal media to use party labels when it suits their purpose and to omit party labels when it does not.

Moreover, virtually every Condit-Levy story gave him the title of Rep. instead of Congressman. Unless a party label is attached, some people think that “Rep.” stands for Republican. Liberal reporters and editors know this, so it is not done by accident.

Finally, as the story grew, CNN tried to paint Mr. Condit as a “right-wing Democrat from a “heavily right-wing congressional district” around Modesto, California. One suspects all those unionized farm workers out in Modesto, who almost always vote Democrat, must be surprised to know that CNN thinks that they are members of the vast, right-wing conspiracy.

For 80 days, CBS Evening News’ Dan Rather refused to report that Chandra Levy was even missing. Hello, Earth to Dan. Would Dan have exercised the same restraint if Mr. Condit were a Republican? The most mentally-challenged person in the village knows that answer.

On the class-warfare front, the Left continues to castigate Bill Gates for being so wealthy. Then, they complaint about MicroSoft’s leadership in the world of computer software. Hello. MicroSoft dominates its field because it produces outstanding computer software that even a computer dummy like me can use. And, for the value received, the price is right.

Where have all the Commies gone? With the demise of communist world headquarters in Moscow, the now, only half-vast, left-wing conspiracy to take over the world has taken cover under two movements both of which appeal to those who are prone to fall for nice-sounding slogans.

Those of us who like to breathe clean air and drink clean water are easy prey for the environmental extremists. Who can be against clean air and clean water?

Yet, those of us who have other desires such as affordable food, shelter, clothing and efficient transportation, find ourselves in a public relations deficit from day one. We are painted as chain-saw wielding, water-polluting ogres.

The Commies tried for 73 years to take over the world and failed. They could not beat the free world with either guns or butter. Now, their only recourse is to try to cripple the economies of the free-world democracies through the enactment of extreme restrictions on the use of natural resources such as land, water, forests, fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Look at the faces of the protestors who show up at the meetings of the Big 8 economic powers or the World Trade Organization. The same faces keep showing up at these protests. The “anti-globalists’ are merely the old-line Commies along with a handful of their “useful idiot” new recruits.

The growth of freedom and economic well-being within the western democracies drives them nuts. Their goal is our destruction. The slogans they chant make no sense and are, to give it a scientific name: male bovine excretia.

William Hamilton is a nationally syndicated columnist and a featured commentator for USA Today.

©2001. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com