SamSaid!

A RADICAL IDEA

     The Congressman from my district is a chap named Richard Pombo. I do not know Mr. Pombo  –  never met him or talked to him, and did not contribute to his campaign. A few days ago I noticed his name in the local newspaper in an article reporting that a left wing organization from (where else?) Berkeley had given Pombo an “F” grade for his Congressional performance. At the same time, this Berkeley outfit awarded glowing “A”s to a Bay Area Democratic delegation generally viewed as being about 100 yards to the left of Karl Marx. That started me thinking about terminology in the media.

     The article referring to Mr. Pombo was intended to disparage him  –  and it did. “A” is good, and “F” is bad. Got it? But the choice of words is critical. Let's think of the layout of a baseball field. Both liberals and conservatives want to present themselves as occupying center field. The liberals concede a slight tilt to the left and the conservatives a slight tilt to the right. As a factual matters, the liberalleftwingradicals (one word) occupy the territory in the area best suited to catch foul balls  — well to the left of the left field foul line But nobody refers to them as liberalleftwingradicals (one word). It is almost as though there is an editorial commandment, “thou shalt not….”  But if a conservative edges toward right center field he is immediately labelled as a conservativerightwingextemist (one word). Right wing extemist, OK; left wing radical, ah, no! Can you visualize  Peter Jennings or Dan Rather calling ANYONE a liberal left wing radical? Not a chance!

     In the newspaper article to which I made reference, can you imagine the reader response if it read, “Berkeley liberal leftwing radicals give “F” grade to Pombo”. Most readers would conclude that Pombo must be doing something right. The broadcast jounalists and print media folks have had their way for a long time. Nowadays, the radio talk show hosts have levelled the playing field —  and the denizens of the left don't like it. Liberalleftwingradicals  –  it has a nice ring to it.

     I think I would like to meet Mr. Pombo. From what I can see he is guilty of using a lot of common sense  –  a scarce commodity nowadays.