A Media Truth More Damning Than A Lie

More and more, it seems that the mainstream media lives in a totally different world from either the real one or the one portrayed via alternative media.  For the MSM, this week's big story is ongoing reaction to Mr. Obama's recent health care speech and reverberating horror at Rep. Joe Wilson's shocking disrespect to President Obama whilst the speech was being delivered.

In contrast, the big stories online are a) the massive "Tea Party" protest last weekend, and b) the revolting and ever-expanding ACORN hooker scandal.  When presented with any story involving the word "hooker," the media is usually Pavlovian in its instincts to splash it all across the front page; not this time.

For those ill-informed readers who still mistakenly depend on the mainstream media as their primary news source, a brief recap is in order concerning the story that our so-called major media did not deem to be either news or fit to print.

An enterprising and imaginative group of conservative documentarians decided to stage a sting on ACORN offices nationwide.  Recall that ACORN is dedicated to the proposition that everyone deserves a government check for any reason or none; one primary ACORN function is helping people get the paperwork filled out correctly so as to turn on the spigot of taxpayer dollars.  This comes quite naturally to ACORN, since it itself receives billions in Federal funds.

As reported extensively on Andrew Breitbart's site BigGovernment.com, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles presented themselves to an ACORN office as just the sort of entrepreneurs who would appeal to a thoroughly corrupt and amoral organization: a pimp and a hooker, respectively, wishing to open a house of ill repute profferring illegally-immigrated and underage El Salvadorean prostitutes.  One might think this would be just the sort of business that should not attract a federal subsidy; one would be wrong.

One would be wrong, at least, according to ACORN: the Baltimore staff thought that a low-income Federal home mortgage would be just the ticket to get the brothel off the ground.  They helpfully supplied advice both useful and pertinent: use an falsely-low income to qualify for aid; claim only three of the child prostitutes as dependents on their income-tax returns, lest the presence of 13 dependents around the same age set off alarms; report occupation as "performance artist" rather than "whorehouse madam;" and, wisely, bury the ill-gotten cash in a plastic container in the backyard rather than run the risks of getting caught with it in the freezer (Rep. William Jefferson) or the bank (Eliot Spitzer).  If the ACORN staff had any concern at all, it was that these two should join ACORN as paying members as soon as possible.

Naturally, as soon as the secretly-videotaped recordings of this depravity hit the Internet and Fox News, ACORN executives decried the whole affair as a setup and, in any case, the actions of a few, low-ranking, poorly trained minions who've now been fired.

So the next day, O'Keefe released another video of a different bunch doing the exact same thing in ACORN's Washington DC office.  And the next day, once again, in New York.  We are told there's more coming, even better; the imagination quails as to what sort of revelation could be even more pungent than gladly assisting monsters who provide young girls for sale as sexual slaves.

In what counts as news in its own right, Congress, contrary to all past evidence, seems to have a sense of shame that can be reached: the Senate has passed a bill denying any government funds of any kind to ACORN, its affiliates, subsidiaries, or anyone else who works with them, with the House soon to follow.  Likewise, the Census Bureau summarily stripped ACORN of partner status.  Not before time!

We will leave it to Breitbart and Michelle Malkin to cover the details of this grippingly sordid tale.  News it may be, but a surprise it is not; it's been apparent for months if not years that there is no fraud to which ACORN will not stoop.  It's also not news that the leftists who run our government wish to ignore the story; after all, they owe countless fraudulent votes to their friends at ACORN and hope to receive more of the same in every election henceforward.

For all the transparent leftist bias of the media, however, this still has all the hallmarks of a story that's simply too juicy not to be covered.  Why the silence?

Well, WLS-AM Chicago talk show hosts Don Wade and Roma happened to have ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson on their radio show yesterday, and straight-up asked him why ACORN's crimes weren't news.  His answer?

I didn't even know about it. Um. So, you've got me at a loss. I don't know.

There are only two possibilities here:

a) Mr. Gibson is lying - he did know about the story, but spiked it because it might harm the left politically.

b) Mr. Gibson is telling the truth - he honestly hadn't heard about this explosive, devastating, ongoing, nationwide scandal.

Of the two... which is worse?  Liars on TV we are used to, and the MSM has become so legendarily biased that even liberals don't trust it anymore.

But if the anchorman of a major news network does not even know about the existence of a story of this size, what possible use is he?  What possible use is his network?  Why are people watching the "news" when it presents anything but?

For his own sake, we'll give Mr. Gibson the benefit of the doubt, and assume he was lying.  It's the most generous view we can take.