I want to apologize to the legitimate Comments of the Day that are still waiting on the runway, but this one ticked me off. If you want to know why we don’t get more progressive perspective around here, it’s because I end up dinging submissions like this using the Ethics Alarms Stupidity Rule. However, a first time commenter named Mike Fitzgerald offered this, and I decided it was worth highlighting because it has all the features of the average missive from the Left. Mike says he’s not a liberal, so I will take him at his word. His assertion, however,  that President Trump is a “would-be dictator” is signature significance for a non-liberal who doesn’t have the historical knowledge, perspective or awareness not to swallow  “resistance” Big Lies whole.

In truth, the “dictator”smear has been used against many Presidents by political opponents, always when they use their legitimate powers to seek ends the opponents object to. Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, TR, and FDR are prominent among the so-accused. Such Presidents, whatever their virtues and deficits otherwise, are known as strong Presidents. The opposition always hates strong Presidents, and tries to use fear-mongering to undermine them.

But you have to know some Presidential history to realize this.

Here’s Mike’s comment, in response to “Unethical Quote Of The Month: MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace,” to be followed immediately by my restrained reply to it.

In honesty the point(s) raised about Wallace are valid but Trump supporters pretend the Fox is a balanced unbiased news agency, None of you mentioned Hannity or Shapiro or the three geniuses on the morning couch. Very selective memories to support a would be dictator.

PS. I am not a liberal

My reply:

1. I’ll put your comment in the dictionary under “whataboutism.” The post was about a specific incident with a specific “journalist.” When I want to write an extensive review of all biased instances in the news media, I will….when I have ten years and a bigger blog.

2. Trump supporters think Fox News is unbiased? Prove it. Conservatives know and admit that Fox tilts right—they also know that it was created to provide contrast and some desperate balance after the arrogant mainstream media had made its agenda clear to anyone paying attention. Roger Ailes was explicit about Fox’s orientation—he was Reagan’s media guy: what kind of network would you expect him to launch?—and nobody on this forum is so stupid or dishonest as to pretend otherwise.

3. So who do you think you’re talking to? A theme here, for years, is that there is no bias-free, trustworthy news source. Right-biased sources like Fox News are essential to provide access to some stories that the mainstream media intentionally or negligently buries. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t biased. It does mean that its bias allows it to cover stories the left-biased media won’t, but should.

4. Meanwhile, while Fox is mostly straightforward  about its bias, we hear utter insulting disingenuous nonsense from, for example, the editor of the Times, who boasted last week about how objective the unofficial voice of the Democratic Party is. This was the paper that announced that it would tilt its coverage against Trump at the end of the campaign, a flaming admission that it’s a journalism disgrace.

5. In contrast to most Fox News fans—I boycott the network because of its lack of professionalism, and only use it when it is flagged as a source for a left-buried news item—pompous, complicit progressives still generally deny the mainstream media’s bias, which is daily, pervasive, obvious, and getting worse.

6. If progressives were half as honest agreeing that the mainstream news media was an ally of the Democratic Party pretending otherwise as conservatives are honest about Fox News, maybe this crumbling and rotting profession might begin reforming, which is desperately needed.

7. But then, people like you (I almost used another description, ) pave the way for unethical journalism by minimizing episodes like this one with blather like “What about Fox and Friends? What about Hannity?” Fox’s cheerleading—which is obviously cheerleading—neither balances, counteracts nor excuses the breaches of MSNBC, ABC, where a Clinton acolyte pretends to be an objective journalist, CNN, CBS, NBC, PBS, The Times, The Washington Post, and others. In short, Fox News is not relevant to the serious issue of mainstream media bias, except in the sense that it wouldn’t be necessary if rest practiced ethical journalism.

8. This site does have a search engine, you know. I challenge you to find anything but contempt for Sean Hannity and Fox and Friends.

9. Ben Shapiro is a generally smart right-wing commentator, and has never pretended to be anything else. He also doesn’t work for Fox News. His Daily Wire is in the same category as The Blaze and Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller. I’ve never pretended otherwise, and if you bothered to do your due diligence here before accusing me, you would have seen the last post about Ben, which scored him for doing pretty much what your idiotic comment did to me.

10. When a Fox host asks a GOP candidate to “Tell me how we can help,” I’ll write about it.Someone will have to flag it first, because, as I said, I don’t watch Fox News.

11. In short, your comment is a cheap shot, logically and ethically lamebrained, and not backed by the record of this blog. Whether you are a liberal or not is irrelevant. You’re a jerk.

[From prior experience, my guess would be that either we don’t hear from Mike again, or his next comment gets him banned. I’ve been surprised before, though. We shall see.]