Kirsten Powers: Liberals Shun Opposing Views Because They're Used to Controlling the Media
More and more, Fox News's left-leaning contributor Kirsten Powers is becoming a must-see analyst on the network.
Appearing on The O'Reilly Factor Wednesday, Powers said, "I think liberals because they are so used to controlling all the media...when they hear things that don't jibe with what they want to hear, it's very disconcerting and unsettling" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL O’REILLY: Personal Story segment tonight: New study out of George Washington University says that liberal people using the internet are less tolerant than conservative net users are. Also 71 percent of Americans younger than 25 believe what they see on the net is as or more trustworthy than what they get from the mainstream media. Joining us now from Washington, Kate Obenshain a Republican strategist, and Kirsten Powers, Democrat and Fox News analyst.
Powers, I always knew that liberal people were more sensitive, more sensitive to criticism, more sensitive to disagreement, and according to the study, 22 percent of liberals have ended digital relationships, whatever they are, because somebody disagreed with them politically. For conservatives the number is 15 percent. And you say?
KIRSTEN POWERS, DAILY BEAST: You know, I have to say this actually jibes with sort of real life experience that I have found, especially as I came into more contact with conservatives as I got older because I used to really live very much in a Democratic bubble when I worked in politics. I did find that they were much more open to sort of hearing other viewpoints, where I think liberals because they are so used to controlling all the media pretty much, academia, that for them when they hear things that don't jibe with what they want to hear, it's very disconcerting and unsettling to them. And it doesn't surprise me that they’re really less interested, whereas conservatives are kind of used to it. They’ve lived in a world where pretty much, you know, the whole media has been sort of liberal.
O’REILLY: So they’re used to the joust more than the liberals are?
POWERS: Yeah, I think they don’t, they just have a sort of, they just sort of expect it, where the liberals are sort of taken aback because they feel like, “What are you talking about? Everybody knows that what I think is right and nobody thinks differently.”
Growing up in a liberal part of the country and in a perilously left-leaning household, this very much rings true to me.
It seems that so much of what liberals see and read in the media today totally supports their view of the world thereby making it inconceivable to them that they could possibly be wrong.
Just this week I got into an email argument with a childhood friend of mine - someone I've known since kindergarten - who claimed emphatically that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush each created more federal debt than Obama.
When I pointed out the actual statistics supplying a link to the Treasury's website for confirmation, he refused to believe what he was seeing and changed the subject.
What's become clear of late is the liberal media's propaganda machine is so strong it's impossible for some in our nation to accept the truth.
Even worse, when they're confronted with facts, they strike out demanding the conversation end immediately threatening to dissolve the relationship if it doesn't.
Scary stuff when you think about it.
(HT Mediaite)
