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Democrats Know Best

Originally Published in the Frederick News-Post

Government Transparency

by Marta Hummel Mossburg

OP-EDS

I'm confused. Aren't Democrats supposed to be the party of the people? Why then are Democrats so undemocratic on a regular basis? The latest example is Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who said Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that the media should not give equal time to the tea party.

"... I say this to you politely," said the $7 million yacht-owning, tax-dodging liberal. "The media has got to begin not to give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual."

My favorite part is "politely," as if it's important to be civilized when advocating quashing other people's First Amendment rights. Readers may remember he made it quite clear he does not like to answer fact-based questions about why he docked his 76-foot yacht in Rhode Island to avoid paying Massachusetts taxes.

But that is beside the point. Since when did politicians think it is OK to tell the media what is news and what is not?

We live in a society where the loudest voice often gets airtime, regardless of value. The stories about Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones are a recent example of the quantity of coverage being in egregious disproportion to the person's significance to American and international culture and current events.

But Kerry was not waxing philosophical in front of a graduate journalism class. He was speaking on national television in a stream-of-consciousness, no-filter-from-brain-to-mouth style favored by conservative commentator Glenn Beck.

And he was advocating that a group he opposes be blacked from media coverage because "everybody" knows they make stuff up. What's next, ordering a police raid of U.S. offices of Standard & Poor's because he didn't like the credit downgrade on the U.S. issued by the agency? Italian officials last week raided the Milan offices of S&P and Moody's, allegedly to make sure the two credit rating agencies were following that country's regulations at a time when Italian debt could be downgraded.

Kerry may not like the tea party's message, but the fact that its members in Congress use math instead of class warfare to discuss U.S. finances hardly qualifies them as deceivers. If anything, it is the Democrats who want to perpetuate the big lie that half of Americans do not have to pay federal income taxes and a capitalist society can support an ever-expanding welfare state.

Worse, is Kerry so caught up in the truth of his side that he can't see the lies of his own party? Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said earlier this summer that the Republican plan for Medicare was to "throw you to the wolves" and let insurance companies deny coverage. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said earlier this year that Republicans would let cancer patients "die sooner." Where do those comments sit in the truth meter?

The bigger issue is why Democrats think they own the right to decide what is true and false. Dictators do that, not American political parties.