Some say that it is because of what he took away from the Left when he won the presidency.  Their anger at that is, indeed, fiery.  But, that is not what is going on, here.  The key to what is going on here lies in the results of the mid-term election.  But, the first thing you have to understand is not why they're doing it, but rather why they can. -- LL

We're talking about the Mainstream Media here.  The American press mega-structure that is owned and staffed by the American Left.  The Oregonian, the Seattle Times, the New York Times, the L.A. Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Time Magazine, Newsweek -- just about every  publication, television network and television station in the United States, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal's Editorial page, and much of what goes on in the New York Post, the Washington Times, FOX and a very few others.. 

You've heard a lot about the "domination" of radio by conservatives, lately, folks.  Here's just how dominant it is..  Using Oregon as an example, the total number of individuals who are reached by every conservative radio talk show, regardless of its point of origin (in-state or via national syndication) plus the readership of BrainstormNW Magazine, plus the readership of this magazine wouldn't populate a town the size of Eugene, now Oregon's third largest city.  Say, 1% of the population of Oregon.  This is because the same individuals who listen to Rush Limbaugh (the top radio program of any kind in Oregon) listen to other radio conservatives, as well.  And, these same people read Brainstorm, or this magazine, or both.  When you boil out the duplication factor, the number of specific Janes and Joes is, though growing, at present very small. 

The other 99% of Oregonians get their news from liberal lefties.

If you watch the evening network news, you have of late seen them all showing polls which indicate a shift in American public viewpoints on Bush and Iraq.  His overall popularity numbers have, according to one, dropped 25 points in the past month.  Where 80% of the public supported the Administration plan for democratization two weeks ago, 50% of the public now believes the post-war reconstruction is costing too many lives, the president lied about the nuclear item in the state of the union message and that the cost of rebuilding Iraq is too high. 

Bush didn't lie about anything.  Except for valid national security reasons, I doubt if he's capable of lying.  The plan for Iraqi democratization, like the war that preceeded it, is ripping along at record pace.  General Douglas MacArthur (a Democrat if memory serves, though I could be wrong about that), took four years (some say seven) to establish representative government in Japan, yet the media elite are complaining that after ten weeks it doesn't exist in Iraq.  As to soldiers dying, we have a volunteer military.  Soldiers choose that life and know the risks.  They are the bravest citizens we have, and it's a damn good thing that they, not the mainstream media, make up our armed forces. Our military, not the liberal media, is the best hope for freedom most of the world has.  Everyone who saw the statues of Hussein fall know the truth about that.

And, the death rate of American soldiers in Iraq is lower than the murder rate in Los Angeles, California.

So, what is causing this falloff in public support for a great president?  Attribute it to the hour by hour hammering of the president by the big media.  It has been going on for months, now, and is perhaps beginning to bear fruit. 

He who has the biggest speakers drowns out all the other musicians. The next question is: why are they doing it?  This "nuclear material purchase in Africa by Saddam Hussein" business cannot be the actual reason.  Every reporter in America knows that congress voted to support the war before the State of the Union speech where the subject came up.   (If they gave Bush the money and the free hand to go into Iraq before he mentioned the British report at the heart of this, America went into that war for reasons other than that. No harm, no foul.) 

So why are they doing this to him?

The heart of it lies in the 2002 elections.  It is traditional for the out-of-power group (that is, the party that does not control the White House) to gain seats in mid-term elections.  Bush, however, accomplished the impossible.  In the mid-terms, the Republicans  took the Senate  back.  

Here's a little historical background.  His party held congress during the election that gave him the White House, but later lost control of the Senate by way of a cheap Democrat trick named Jim Jeffords, the New England Senator who ran for and won his senate seat as a Republican, then afterwards changed to an Independant and sided with the Dems.  

We will probably never know how much the Jeffords jump cost the Democrats, but, whatever the price was, that one vote gave the U.S. Senate to Tom Daschle of South Dakota.  This gave the Senate Judiciary Committee to the Democrats, as well, for the majority party gets the committee chairmanships, and has one more vote than the minority party in each committee..

With that, the federal judiciary was safe from Bush.  No truly conservative nominee had a chance, after that.  And with the mid-terms coming up, history was proof that their hold on the Senate would be consolidated. 

Then, what I described above happened.  Bush stumped the nation during the mid-terms, and took back the Senate.  All the liberals had left to block conservative nominees to the federal bench was the filibuster.  They have been hanging on to that thread now for almost two years.  But, now we are approaching another election. 

It's the law.

What this is all about is the U.S. Supreme Court. 

They all know Bush will be re-elected.  But, if Bush has a super big re-election victory, he will carry Republican candidates into congress on his coattails.  A nine seat gain for Republicans in the U.S. Senate, combined with some conservative Democrat votes (there are usually a few of those) will allow them to support "cloture," which means "end a filibuster." 

All of Bush's federal court nominees will then go straight out of committee to the floor, and will be passed on voice votes because the Democrats, unable to stop cloture, will have no weapon to block them. 

The Left has governed (created law) via the courts for years.  A heavily conservative federal judiciary and a conservative-stacked U.S. Supreme Court means the end to abortion and affirmative action.  It means the end to capricious law suits against gun manufacturers, no more multi-million dollar judgements in the healthcare industry (which has been driving doctors and
hospitals out of business).  It means no more invented "rights" for special interest groups. 

That is the reason Bush is being hammered by the full weight of the liberal mainstream media.  To keep the size of his coming re-election victory from being so large that Republicans will be able to install judges who have actually read the U.S. Constitution.

The very liberal mainstream media outnumbers conservative media a thousand to one.  They have the biggest hammer, and must use it mercilessly or see their ultimate weapon destroyed.

© 2003 Oregon Magazine