Are the Dems, or the Major Media, Arianna's Army?

In March, the nation’s leading Democratic presidential contenders backed out of a debate sponsored by Fox News Channel, even though Democrats consented to two FNC presidential debates in the last electoral cycle. This time, leftist Web sites like MoveOn.org sent around petitions demanding that the nation’s liberal party provide no bow of respect or prestige to Fox News, since it was a “mouthpiece for the Republican party, not a legitimate news channel.” Leftist bloggers like Matt Stoller of MyDD.com were explicit in their censorious desire that Fox News should not exist: “The lies of FOX News and Roger Ailes have no place in public discourse, journalism, or the Democratic Party presidential debates.”

Instead, this week, as MoveOn showed their outrageousness by attacking Gen. David Petraeus as "Betray Us," the Democratic presidential candidates who spurned Fox for being too coarsely conservative consented to a debate – or “candidate mashup,” as the sponsors called it – with the search site Yahoo and the liberal Web sites Slate and The Huffington Post. So why would the Democrats award their respect or prestige to The Huffington Post? Their “place in public discourse” is very coarse, indeed.

Our new MRC report is a small sample of their vilest hate-filled, profanity-laced, Cheney-death-wishing content. Do the Democrats endorse this blog as a legitimate media outlet, worthy of the honor of hosting their presidential candidates as they pledge to unite the country? Will the national media expose the fierce and factually reckless incivility on the site? If the past is any indication, the Democrats’ HuffPost toasts will be painted by them as a bow to the high-tech “new media,” not a round of applause for the lowest-common-denominator left.