David Limbaugh Column: Doctoring Videotapes Just the Tip of the Liberal Media Iceberg

Editor's Note: This was originally slated for publication on Feb. 1. We apology for the delay | Many have rightly condemned MSNBC's serpentine editing of a video to make it appear that certain gun rights activists heckled the father of a 6-year-old victim of the Sandy Hook shooting massacre, but let's not pretend this was a one-off event.

The liberal media long ago forfeited their respected role as watchdog over the government and have voluntary descended to the status of a public relations arm of the Democratic Party and various liberal causes.

It doesn't do it justice to call them cheerleaders, for they are active participants, every bit as much involved in bringing about the events as the party with which they collude.

They no longer merely report the news. They deliberately influence it to advance the liberal political agenda. So while they engage in plenty of deceptions on the micro level, they daily engage in a category of sin that far exceeds the despicable doctoring of videos.

For what they're about is grand deception on a macro scale. They aren't watchdogs, and they aren't just cheerleaders. Cheerleaders wear uniforms and are readily recognizable. These progressive media mavens are cloaked in a disguise of pseudo-neutrality and pseudo-objectivity, such that when they root for the political team that is assaulting America's founding principles and driving us headfirst into national ruin, many in their unwitting audience have no earthly idea they've got skin in the game.

The liberal media's fraud is so pervasive that by presenting the news through a distorted, progressive prism, they've created an alternate reality that bears little relationship to actual reality. What has emerged is a new normal, foisted on us by a cluster of malicious manipulators who long ago abandoned their honor and their professional calling.

This manufactured pseudo-universe is what allowed President Barack Obama to win re-election despite presiding over (and largely causing) the longest period of high unemployment since World War II and the worst recovery in 50 years. It's what enables him to enjoy a 60 percent approval rating despite being conspicuously radical, hyper-partisan, consciously divisive and dogmatically uncompromising.

Just ask yourself whether Obama could have won if the media had reported on his economy objectively and let the facts speak for themselves. But they did much worse; they apologized for him and his failures every step of the way, shamelessly conspiring with him to scapegoat his predecessor, President George W. Bush, even four years after his term ended. This was as immoral as it was preposterous, but they did it with such faux earnestness that those who rely on them for their news lapped it up and digested its poisonous seed.

These are media that appointed themselves the chief prosecutors against Bush for his alleged mishandling of the federal cleanup operation in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They were on that story 24/7 from the outset, not to apprise the public of the conditions in New Orleans and other stricken locations but to cause premeditated political damage to President Bush. Contrast that with their orchestrated cover-up of the Obama administration's selective negligence for some of Hurricane Sandy's victims and affected areas.

This is a press whose superstars, with exceptions, insinuated themselves into moderating the presidential debates and actively interceded on behalf of President Obama, both in their questions and in their improper injections.

These are the "professionals" whose job is to hold our governing class to account with legitimate, pointed questions and follow-ups. Instead, they offer French kisses and free passes, despite the smorgasbord of corruption, scandal, mismanagement and policy failures that would be a welcome feast for journalists with a modicum of integrity.

Whereas they aided Democrats in constructing false scandals against the Bush administration, they wholly ignore very real ones under Obama, from the dismissal of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case to "Fast and Furious" to Benghazi.

From the corruption and waste in the president's stimulus plan to myriad green energy schemes to the fraudulent calculation of projected Obamacare costs to their protective reporting on the administration's handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the media have done this president's bidding.

Worst of all, Obama's media cohorts are helping him get away with not addressing the major culprit in our impending national financial catastrophe, entitlement spending. If it were not for the media's complicity, we could avert this imminent national calamity, but they simply will not perform even their rudimentary duties so as to expose this president as the uncompromising spendaholic ideologue he is.

So while we justifiably complain about doctored videotapes, let's not miss the larger point: that if this nation goes over a Greek-style financial cliff, we need look no further than President Obama's comrades in the institutionally corrupt media, without whom his destructive path could be deterred.

David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book, "The Great Destroyer," reached No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction. Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at www.davidlimbaugh.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.