HereÂ’s a complaint that seems to miss the entire history of the press in America.

On "Meet the Press," David Brooks reiterated his critique of talk radio from Friday's Times, calling Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin "loons" and "harmful for America." (Limbaugh, on Friday, told POLITICO that Brooks is just jealous).

Continuing on discussion of partisan media divide, Republican strategist Mike Murphy -- an NBC News analyst who's made some appearances on MSNBC -- said "there is kind of a freakshow business of each side."

"We have one-party cable networks now," Murphy said. "One of each. What that does is dumb down the debate."

"Is Joe Scarborough -- which network is he on?" Rachel Maddow asked.

"He's on your liberal network," Murphy said.

"So how is that a one-party network?"

"I would take your prime-time and Fox prime-time and say it's the same dance toward dumbing the debate," Murphy said.

Frankly, I donÂ’t agree.

And neither would the founding fathers.

Take a look at the state of the press in the 1790s, when our Republic was established under the current Constitution. The press was explicitly partisan, and explicitly allied with one side or the other of the political factions of the day. Still later, the press was allied with the earliest political parties of the day.

We see remnants of that today with newspapers named the Whig, the Democrat, or the Republican in many cities around the country. Those names are indicative of the very partisan roots of the papers in question.

In short, the founders would have no problem with the existence of “biased” “one-party” media outlets today. They would likely suggest that it was unthinkable that it would be any other way – and that the very notion that we have an unbiased media is a conceit that is not borne out by reality.

Posted by: Greg at 10:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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