Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

The myth of media impartiality

Victor Davis Hanson:

The recent Dan Rather and Newsweek controversies hardly seem connected. But on closer examination, both incidents symbolize what has gone wrong with traditional news organizations.
The old assumption was that opinion media -- such as the National Review, the Nation and the New Republic -- offer a slant on current events, but that major news outlets, outside their designated opinion sections, do not. This commitment to disinterested reporting -- and along with it the public's trust in mainstream media -- has been shattered in recent years.
It's easy to see why people no longer feel they can rely on a CBS News or a Newsweek for information without bias. At CBS, Dan Rather persistently wished us to believe a clearly forged memo was authentic. Michael Isikoff's reliance on a single anonymous and unreliable source about supposed desecration of the Koran made an already jaded public believe Newsweek was too eager to deliver a one-sided story.
Three now-common themes appeared in each controversy:
(1) The misinformation erred predictably against the current American government. In CBS' case, anchorman Dan Rather impugned the president's past military service. The Newsweek article questioned the ethics and sense of the U.S. military.
(2) These were not minor slips. The counterfeit documents Mr. Rather circulated undercut a sitting commander-in-chief in the midst of a national election. The fraud had the potential to alter the very governance of the United States. Newsweek's wrong information incited the Middle East's lunatic elements. Rioting and death followed, complicating the U.S. military effort.
(3) Neither organization was markedly contrite when exposed. The culpable Mr. Rather refashioned himself as the maligned target of the blogosphere. Newsweek spokesmen whined that a vindictive administration was hounding their management.

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Liberal copycats of talk radio fail, not because they are always boring but because there is little market or even need for such a counter-establishment media. The progressive audience already finds its views embedded in a New York Times or CBS "news" story. So why turn to a redundant and less adept Al Franken, Phil Donahue or Arianna Huffington?
Yet the irony is that though our major media are considered liberal, they are hardly populist. When Dan Rather and Newsweek are exposed, they seek refuge in stuffy institutional reputations and huffy establishment protocols.
Meanwhile, a million bloggers with pitchforks -- derided by a former CBS executive as "guys in pajamas" -- couldn't care less about degrees or titles but use their collective brainpower to poke holes in the New York-Washington gatekeepers.

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A fire-breathing Rush Limbaugh or snapping Bill O'Reilly might not receive many honorary doctorates, speak at Ivy League commencements or carry off the Peabody Award. Yet they come off as no more opinionated than an anointed Peter Jennings or insider Bill Moyers -- and a lot more honest about their own politics and the medium in which they work.