Friday, June 12, 2009

Politics does make strange bedfellows and can expose weak journalism

I miss one of my favorite television shows, Boston Legal. I looked forward to Alan Shore's social critiques through the practice of law and his interactions with his arch-conservative best friend, Denny Crane. I've been picking up the re-runs recently on ion television and came across a rant about how journalism became divided by liberal and conservative and is no longer "the news."

However, I do have to hand it to the Fox Business Channel for interviewing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (could an American pick him out of a line up?). Fox's Cavuto was attempting a to bait a conservative to say Obama's economic plan was foolish. His move fell flat in the interview. Someone other than an American conservative has to think Obama is an idiot, right? I guess Cavuto has to go fishing for support somewhere else. Harper didn't bite, and even went as far to say that Obama acted appropriately considering the recession that Obama didn't create.

I'm not completely sold on Obama's economics. I would prefer that most of the energy and borrowing and resources would go toward infrastructure. I don't think the spending goes far enough in that direction. What I enjoy about this Fox-Harper interaction is that it exposes the foolishness of a liberal-conservative dialectic in journalism. The public deserves better, but in some ways, we get exactly what we want. It's hard to be challenged, and we have the journalism that reflect our fear of challenge.

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