This article brings to mind those occasions when NPR moderators are forced to interview conservatives: it's fun to hear the trajectory of those mellowy hushed voices turn reedy and then ratchet up to tense until they spring hysterical.

This article provides the background for that sound arc.

As no doubt you realise, the same phenomenon obtains in the UK - perhaps throughout the Western media. But can anybody source the origin/s of this scourge? I suspect it's all part of the Gramsci-inspired culture war, organised within the halls of academe during the last half-century. The mind set has been assimilated by osmosis through three generations and it's doubtful that many so affected are aware of the roots of their affliction. How to reverse it and it's irrational consequences? Seems irrevocable to me; the disciples are now inextricably intertwined in the vital organs of the body politic. It may mean the end of Western civilisation as we know it, Jim, because its side effect is the facilitation of Islamic Jihad by the treasonous Western media. That and the demographics will do for us. One hoped for a while that the blogosphere could reverse the trend, but as the MSM has now invaded it in force, together with the overload of WWW caused by video and music download means that the polemical force of anti left-liberal blogs has been diluted. But we shall see. In the meantime, keep soldiering on Gerard; you are one of my main sources of hope, slim though that hope remains.

How to reverse it?

Dan Rather has a news job.

I don't think there's much more to say about "reversing the flow" just yet.

Something's got to give. There are too many "shouldas" behaving as objective influences, and the system will not sustain them forever.

On a related note, I awoke to my ABC radio network news to hear that Alan Greenspan considers it "right and proper" that the Feds (the Government, not THE Fed) intervene in and "ease" the mortgage/credit disaster.

Thanks, Mr. Greenspan. You are a classroom demonstration that people who actually lived through the depression didn't learn shinola about economics from it.

Good day to you, sir.

It all gets down to this: The left is simply the most intolerant political body. And intolerance stems from fear.

In the case of the left, fear that the world they have built since FDR will be exposed as the ruinous government construct that it is if one measly conservative view is heard.

When this fear started to ratchet-up to the ridiculous levels we have now I’m not 100 percent sure but it seems to me that it started in earnest with the Clinton era and Republican control of Congress. When Newt and his buddies got Bill to sign welfare reform and when they started to take aim at fixing Social Security the alarm bells and red lights went off in Leftyland.

Up to that point, the left was comfortable in their belief that their worldview was universally accepted and safe from the marauding hordes of the right. Shortly after, McCain/Feingold brought us 527s and the Daily Kos era of blitzkrieg politics.

The newsrooms are simply echoing these political realities. In fact, I’m sure they see themselves as keepers of the flame or protectors of the leftist status quo.

I ended my subscription to the Times when they went to morning delivery. I had been dissatisfied with their reporting view for some time and this was a good excuse to say goodbye.

On a lark I took out a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. At that point I realized what I had been denying myself by reading the Times. That was about 12 years ago or so and I don’t even miss the comics.

When the P.I. and Times finally fold, I’ll be waving a dry-eyed goodbye. See ya!

I still say it's more than anything else because American journalists are shitty writers.

WaPo is reporting that CBS execs Moonves and McManus 'are not sure what else can be done to close the ratings gap'. Speaks volumes about the mindset, does it not?

Reminds me of the Washington Post's radio ads, their elitist liberal jingle:

The Washington Post, If you don't get it, you don't "get it".

Great comment and post. I imagine you could apply the same template over the academic world, and make all the data points line up the same way.

"Tolerance Fever - Catch It, Or Else!"