ABC News aka OBC News

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

The Drudge Report was the first to announce the latest step in the fascist/socialist march to dictatorship in the United States. To guarantee that there is no “debate” on the government’s plan to impose mandatory health care “reform” on the nation, President Barack Obama has made a deal with ABC News to conduct a phony prime time “town hall” style meeting from the Blue Room of the White House on June 24. The sanctimonious and overly chummy anchor Charles Gibson will host “World News” from that precious vantage point. He will welcome the nation to the to the first airing of the Obama Broadcasting Corporation.

Not even FDR was brazen enough to co-opt a broadcaster to shill for the New Deal.

No one in the Reichstag -- excuse me, in Congress -- is protesting this blatantly bogus “reality show” except in the most wimpish manner. Republican National Committee chief of staff Ken McKay, according to Drudge, “fired off a complaint to the head of ABC News.” The text of his letter is really just a complaint that the Republicans have not been invited to participate in the “debate.”

Today, the RNC requested an opportunity to add our Party’s views to those of the President’s to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented. Our request was rejected.

Drudge reported that ABC News Senior Vice President Kerry Smith replied to the RNC, claiming it contained “false premises.”

ABC News prides itself on covering all sides of important issues and asking direct questions of all newsmakers -- of all political persuasions -- even when others have taken a more partisan approach and even in the face of criticism from extremes on both ends of the political spectrum. ABC News is looking for the most thoughtful and diverse voices on this issue. ABC News alone will select those who will be in the audience asking questions of the president….ABC News will have complete editorial control. To suggest otherwise is quite unfair to both our journalists and our audience.

Kerry Smith’s rebuttal must be taken with a hefty dose of sea salt. She is as much a liar as Obama when he states he doesn’t want to run a car company, or the banking industry, or any American business. “Thoughtful and diverse voices” are the last thing she and Obama want to hear. Note the disparagement of any political opposition that is to be excluded as a “partisan approach,” and the dismissal of “criticism from extremes on both ends of the political spectrum” as a kind of unnecessarily divisive “polarization.” There is no such thing as an objectively verifiable truth, according to Smith, just a comfortable, non-judgmental middle ground amenable to the wishes of an administration willing to initiate force in its quest to “do good.”

Given the leftist bias of ABC News (and of its rivals, CBS and NBC), one can guess the composition of the audience and predict the kinds of prearranged questions that will be asked Obama. Sure, ABC News will “select” the audience and have “complete editorial control,” but not without every person and virtually every word first being vetted by chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and press secretary Robert Gibbs and whoever else on Obama’s staff is responsible for scripts. This kind of circus will not be put on without an enormous amount of preparation, and every precaution will be taken to prevent any untoward “dialogue” between Obama and any of the dupes in the audience. The June 24th broadcast will have all the spontaneity of a White House press conference. Furthermore, ABC News has always broadcast from one extreme end of the political spectrum, that of total government control over everything. It is immaterial, however, which network was chosen to be Obama’s stalking horse. They are all equally culpable.

The denial for “equal time” should have come as no surprise. The Republicans, because they abandoned individual rights and reason, can only suggest a watered-down version of socialized health care. They will not oppose the idea of socialized medicine. Why should Obama and Congress settle for less when they have demonstrated they can go the limit with no fundamental opposition?

Did ABC deny the request? Yes. On its own initiative? Doubtful. Neither Obama nor his allies in Congress want to hear any other “views“ on socialized medicine. Therefore, any request for “equal time” is unwelcome. Rational arguments against socialized medicine and health care would only prove to be distractions, or worse, illuminating. The arrangement is a preview of the reinstatement of the “Fairness Doctrine” under another label, a doctrine whose very nature guarantees the suppression of dissent for as long as the government controls the airwaves and has the power to dictate the content and character of speech. Obama and the Democrats want to enact that doctrine without it being called censorship. If ABC wishes to continue to be the favored network, it will take orders. Apparently, that will be voluntarily.

There must be more behind ABC’s anointment than just a “deal.” One can imagine the bidding war for Obama’s favor between ABC, CBS and NBC; one cannot help but wonder what promises ABC made to the White House for this show and for all future “town halls.“ One can even speculate on the reasons behind the choice of Gibson as the “moderator” of the forthcoming broadcast. CBS anchor Katie Couric has little or no verisimilitude. Anchor Brian Williams of NBC is even more abrasively sanctimonious and authoritarian than is Gibson. One can only suppose it was decided that Gibson’s features are less annoying and patronizing. Image is everything. They don’t want to bore or frighten the kiddies.

Drudge reports that the arrangement has “ignited an ethical firestorm.” But this development represents more than an issue of ethics. It represents a paucity of moral courage, which I do not believe ABC News ever knew the meaning of or was ever bothered by, coupled with a blind avarice for high ratings. Most importantly, ABC News endorses the government’s rapidly expanding control of not only the economy but of virtually every aspect of the lives of this country’s citizens. But the fact remains that all three news anchors and their co-anchors report the government’s wishes as the metaphysically given. “It is raining outside.” “You will be fined by the government for not enrolling in its health care program.” Period.

The print press is no less guilty. Frank Rich, for example, in his New York Times article on June 14, “The Obama Haters’ Silent Enablers," was moved to smear any verbal opposition to the Obama agenda as goading “violent extremists.” This position is in complete agreement with the DHS memo of April (discussed in “A Cavalcade of Collectivism,” April 18), which lumped together all opposition, rational, semi-rational and irrational, as phenomena to be monitored and possibly stymied by the authorities, and insinuates that it is this kind of “free speech” that provokes assassins and civil unrest. To judge by the frenetic tone of his op-ed, Rich would likely welcome an Obama and Congressional version of Hitler’s 1933 Enabling Act, one that would suppress all “provocative” speech.

One cannot doubt the news media’s complicity in bringing fascism to this country. It is a complicity whose root is not some vast ignorance of what was being done. Ignorance of the law of identity is no excuse for breaking it; in an individual, reality will correct such ignorance. But there is no possible excuse, either, for a news organization that poses as politically sophisticated. It acts with full knowledge of the fraud and deception perpetrated by the Democrats on the country ever since Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency.

The accession of ABC News as a de facto department of the Obama administration ought to serve as convincing evidence of that complicity.

Crossposted at The Dougout