Jewish World Review / May 25, 1998 / 29 Iyar, 5758
Thomas Sowell
Missing the point in the media
WHETHER ON TV OR IN PRINT, media pundits have developed an almost unbelievable ability
to miss the point. If you judged by what they say, you would think that the most
important issue of the day was the fate of the relative handful of people who are in
politics.
Analysis after analysis tries to show how this or that episode is going to affect the
Republicans or the Democrats in the next election. Media deep thinkers tell us how
events will impact on the political ambitions of Newt Gingrich or Al Gore, how the 
public's image of Kenneth Starr might be affected or whether Bill Clinton's poll ratings
will hold up.
What about the other quarter of a billion Americans? What about the future of this
country?
All the politicians in Washington, the whole Republican and Democratic parties
nationally and all the bureaucrats and judges put together add up to only a tiny fraction 
of the American people. Yet issue after issue is analyzed in terms of how it affects this
tiny political elite, not how it affects the rest of us -- much less posterity.
The question to ask about immigration is not whether it is an issue that will help
Republicans or Democrats, but what are the pros and cons of letting the present mass
inflow continue or putting particular kinds of restrictions on it. Since immigration involves
irreversible changes that can affect generations yet unborn, what it means as a political
issue in the Congressional election of 1998 or the presidential election of 2000 is small
potatoes by comparison.
Tax issues are likewise seen by the media in the narrowest possible terms. To the
pundits, it is just a question of which group will gain and which will lose -- and what that
means to the Republican or Democratic "base."
Principles of right and wrong vanish into thin air. No one seems to care whether people
who have already paid taxes on their money when they earned it should have it taxed
again when they die and leave it to their children or a spouse. Nor do the effects of
taxes on the economy as a whole seem to interest the media.
Nowhere is this preoccupation with individual politicians and parties more distracting
and misleading than in the current media frenzy over the investigation of White House
scandals.
From the standpoint of this country and its people, what earthly difference does it make
whether special prosecutor Kenneth Starr's motives are good, bad or indifferent? What
difference does it make whether Congressman Dan Burton is naughty or nice?
By contrast, the charges against the President of the United States can have enduring
consequences for our country and our whole form of government, if they are true.
Moreover, the consequences will be with us long after the present occupants of the
White House are gone.
If the most powerful office in the land can be used to commit and cover up crimes, to
buy off witnesses and ruin those who cannot be bought off, to intimidate Congress
itself with threats of releasing raw FBI files about its members, then we will no longer
have the kind of government created by the Constitution. We will have the kind of
corrupt despotism that has plagued too many other countries throughout history and
contributed to their downfall.
President Clinton began abusing his power from the moment he took office. His
unprecedented firing of all U.S. attorneys in 1993, including those investigating his
Whitewater dealings, set back that investigation, just as his later ignoring of subpoenas
and other stalling tactics have frustrated and mocked the law for years. Yet the media
want the special prosecutor to hurry up and close the investigation.
The White House's flouting of the law continued when Clinton aides spent hours
ransacking Vincent Foster's office on the night of his death, despite notices from law
enforcement officials to leave things as is until they arrived. The later mass amnesia
among these aides when they were called before Congress was in sharp contrast to
the vivid memories of F.B.I. agents, not to mention a secret service agent in the White
House who testified under oath that he saw records being removed from Foster's
office.
This all happened before either Kenneth Starr or Monica Lewinsky appeared on the
scene. Worst of all, this kind of thing will continue to happen in future administrations if
this one gets away with it. This is what media pundits are missing while they chatter
about "the president's private sex life."
5/22/98: The lessons of Indonesia
5/20/98: Smart but silent
5/18/98: Israel, Clinton and character
5/14/98: Monica Lewinsky's choices
5/11/98: Random thoughts
5/7/98: Media obstruction of justice
5/4/98: Dangerous "safety"
5/1/98:
Abolish Adolescence!
4/30/98: The naked truth
4/22/98: Playing fair and square
4/19/98: Bad teachers"
4/15/98: "Clinton in Africa
"
4/13/98: "Bundling and unbundling
"
4/9/98: "Rising or falling Starr
"
4/6/98: "Was Clinton ‘vindicated'?
"
3/26/98: "Diasters -- natural and political"
3/24/98: "A pattern of behavior"
3/22/98: Innocent explanations
3/19/98: Kathleen Willey and Anita Hill
3/17/98: Search and destroy
3/12/98: Media Circus versus Justice
3/6/98: Vindication
3/3/98: Cheap Shot Time
2/26/98: The Wrong Filter
2/24/98: Trial by Media
2/20/98: Dancing Around the Realities
2/19/98: A "Do Something" War?
2/12/98: Julian Simon, combatant in a 200-year war
2/6/98: A rush to rhetoric
