What does it take to be called a “New Action Hero” by Time magazine? A left-wing political agenda that includes global warming, publicly-funded stem cell research, radical gun control, government-subsidized housing or an 18 percent tax hike sometime during your term in office.
Those were the gushing words Time Magazine’s Michael Grunwald used to describe New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – both Republicans in name, but were deceptively labeled “social liberals” by Grunwald. That characterization minimized the way such liberal positions expand government and cost taxpayers.
The June 15 article confirmed that left-wing politicians get preferential treatment from the media when they embrace radical environmental causes.
“Look at global warming,” wrote Grunwald, “
Time portrayed Bloomberg as brilliant for suggesting a congestion fee for driving into
Similarly, Time lionized Schwarzenegger for his posturing on the climate change issue.
“With his Hummers, his private plane and his conspicuous delight in conspicuous consumption, Schwarzenegger is an unlikely environmentalist, but he's become a global salesman for the war on carbon,” wrote Grunwald, “His message, as usual, is that the naysayers are wrong: you can clean up the environment and still have a growing economy with big houses and big cars.”
Grunwald’s article comes as the liberal media tries to frame left-winged issues for the 2008 presidential election. Time’s corporate counterpart CNN showed their true colors when Wolf Blitzer lobbied GOP presidential contenders to be more like Schwarzenegger at a recent Republican debate.
Time’s “New Action Heroes,” Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg, are credited for acting like liberals on domestic issues, especially when the federal government won’t. Grunwald praised Schwarzenegger for moving forward on climate change.
Along that same line, Time quoted Bruce Katz, who said, “Nature abhors a vacuum. And the vacuum at the national level is immense.” Katz is the director of metropolitan policy at the left-wing Brookings Institution.
Bloomberg was given credit, instead of criticism, for raising property taxes an incredible 18 percent “to attack the deficit” left behind from Rudy Giuliani, who had just dealt with the Sept. 11 attacks.
Time also credited Bloomberg with engineering a hostile takeover of the city’s schools, but as Fred Siegel and Michael Goodwin pointed out in the May 16 issue of The Weekly Standard, despite an incredible $4 billion in additional spending and an annual budget of over $16 billion, student performance has not significantly increased – something the Time Magazine article neglected to point out.
Schwarzenegger has not proved to support smaller government either. He pushed a $3 billion referendum to adopt
Time Magazine has campaigned on the issue of global warming in recent weeks. Last month, the magazine featured former vice-president and global warming activist Al Gore in its cover story.
