In analyzing why, in the 2004 election<\/strong>, all the media interest in President Bush\u2019s Air National Guard service seemed to make no difference, the Washington Post\u2019s TV critic, Tom Shales wrote: \u201cIt\u2019s common knowledge that Bush was a spoiled little rich boy who did not serve with any great distinction, so this story wasn\u2019t exactly a blockbuster.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Think about that for a minute.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s common knowledge that Bush was a spoiled little rich boy\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Let\u2019s think about this:<\/strong> George W. Bush had no more choice in being born to a wealthy family than did Ted Kennedy or John Kerry. In fact, for all the blueblood he was born into, he was not raised on a compound on the briny, exclusive coast like Kennedy, and did not spend summers on a private island like Kerry. He grew up in a basic middle-class house in a dusty town in Texas and went to public elementary school.<\/p>\n But the thing is, beyond that, this gentleman \u2013 Tom Shales \u2013 who writes for a prestigous newspaper, reviewing television a couple times a week, for which he is very likely compensated well beyond an average middle class salary, and whose children very likely attend private schools, is sneering and calling someone a \u201cpoor little rich boy.\u201d This writer works in a field where he his associates are extraordinarily wealthy people like Katie Couric and Barbara Walters and Ben Bradlee, gazillionaires all, raising or having raised children in very elitist company. Would he for one moment consider referring to any of their children as \u201cpoor little rich kids?\u201d Would he blithely accept hearing their children, or his own, referred to in that way?<\/p>\n Of course he would not.<\/p>\n This is something that bothers me now and then:<\/strong> that people in the press quite rightly take great pains to shield their children (and for that matter their own parents and siblings) from cameras and gossip, but rarely stop to consider that they make careless hay with other people\u2019s children, or parents, or siblings. Oh, they are careful, sometimes. They gave Chelsea Clinton and Al Gore Jr, and the other Gore daughter who is so protected, I don\u2019t even know her name, enormous amounts of privacy \u2013 as well they should have. The press can manage it, if they really want to.<\/p>\n But what I am really struck by is how Shale\u2019s thoughtless throw-away line about President Bush being a \u201cpoor little rich boy\u201d says so much about how the media seem to feel that other people\u2019s children \u2013 as opposed to their own \u2013 are merely inconsequential nothings or exploitable fodder.<\/p>\n I\u2019m thinking about how Matt Cooper called Karl Rove in tears<\/strong>, worrying that his young son would be \u201cconfused, if Daddy went to jail.\u201d Yes, Daddy going to jail would be a lousy thing for any child to deal with. Rove apparently took that to heart and said, \u201chey, I did nothing wrong, go ahead and report on our emails and our talk.\u201d<\/p>\n So that Daddy wouldn\u2019t have to go to jail, so that a little kid would not have to endure that.<\/p>\n At which point Matt Cooper wasted no time in contributing to the fake outrage<\/strong>, confusion and obfuscation of \u201cPlamegate.\u201d I wonder, if while Matt Cooper and Chris Matthews and all the rest of them were talking, on camera and off, about \u201cgetting<\/em> Karl Rove,\u201d if while Lawrence O\u2019 Donnell and countless columnists were calling Rove a \u201cTreasonous, Nazi, Evil, Robot, Traitor, Vampire, Liar, Darth Vader, Goebbles\u2026\u201d if any of them stopped to think about what hearing all of that must be like for Rove\u2019s kids.<\/p>\n Matt Cooper\u2019s son doesn\u2019t have to deal with Daddy going to jail, and Sandy Berger\u2019s kids have not once had to endure hearing or reading anyone in the MSM use the word \u201ctreason,\u201d about their father, but Karl Rove\u2019s kids have had to listen to that crap for 5 years. And on a made-up scandal that the press itself told the court involved no criminal activity<\/a>.<\/p>\n If, in fact, Karl Rove had \u201coutted\u201d a real-live still-undercover agent who had been deeply submerged, and if the press had proof of it, then yeah\u2026the press had some room to vilify him while reporting on the story. But when you have a \u201cscandal\u201d made up of whole cloth, when you know that you\u2019re simply playing a game\u2026shouldn\u2019t you stop and consider that this man, like you, like Matt Cooper, has children he loves, who love him, and who are subjected to all of this mindless we-hate-him-and-we\u2019re-out-to-get-him-so-he-deserves-it prattle and spin?<\/p>\n Do people in the press remember, at all, that the people they are writing about are also human?<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n Bloggers do it too, to an extent. I know that I sometimes; over-generalize, when I\u2019m tired or not thinking clearly \u2013 or when I am angry \u2013 and I should not do that. It becomes so easy, sometimes, to stop seeing the people you are writing about as people<\/em>.<\/p>\n But we must try to remember. And I think perhaps the press should try to remember it, too. They, who love their children and want the best for them, and who would protect them from confusion, harm, fear, sadness, malice, jeering and uncertainty, might try to consider that the people they hate also love their children and want the best for them, and want to protect them from all the same things. And that the children of Karl Rove are every bit as innocent and entitled to their innocence, as the children of Matt Cooper. Or Katie Couric. Or Tim Russert.<\/p>\n Matt Cooper loves his son, and loves being a hero to that little boy, and he didn\u2019t want anything in the world to destroy that.<\/p>\n Karl Rove, it seems, understood.<\/p>\n Matt Cooper, and his associates, it seems\u2026still need to learn it.<\/p>\n UPDATE<\/strong>: Speaking about treating your opponents like they are human beings with families \u2013 Take a look at the \u201ctolerant progressives\u201d last night<\/a>. John Robert\u2019s kid was cute, the president smiled and refrained from laughing, the harried mother, having taken the kid offstage looked a little distressed at the mention of the kid\u2019s name \u2013 ergo \u2013 HE MUST BE GAY!!!! And\u2026\u201dLet\u2019s see what we can dig up on him!!!!!\u2019<\/p>\n No\u2026he\u2019s simply an exuberant 4 year old. Got that?<\/p>\n This man is a human being, people, as are his kids\u2026they are more than simply expendable political fodder to be aimed where it is most politically expedient! GROW THE HELL UP!!!<\/p>\n And for the record, it\u2019s a great time to ask it: Who<\/strong> is it that makes a big deal, all the time<\/a> over whether or not someone is gay???WHO?<\/strong><\/p>\n Michelle Malkin has more<\/a> MORE:<\/strong> Stones Cry Out notes that since the press can\u2019t find out much on Roberts, they are going after his wife<\/a>. Once again \u2013 someone\u2019s spouse and children are \u201cfair game\u201d if it is politically expedient. Captain Ed is also pretty peeved about it<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nas do:
\nDirty Harry<\/a>
\nBetsy<\/a>
\nInstapundit<\/a>
\nRight Pundit<\/a>
\nPolipundit<\/a>
\nThe Great Satan<\/a><\/p>\n