This mantra, propagated by the anti-war left, turns out to be true. Not true in the sense that the anti-war voices are silenced. They are, if anything, grossly over-represented in the current media, compared to the culture as a whole. True in the sense that the left is using whatever power it has to keep dissident voices silenced. In Britain, left-wing journalists are in the forefront of this, although they clearly have less skill and subtlety than their American peers. The New Statesman has run anti-Semitic images on its covers and this week has a columnist offering money for someone to assassinate president Bush. But when a former editor of the magazine, John Lloyd, wrote a letter to the editor criticizing knee-jerking anti-Americanism, the letter was rejected. The London Review of Books also turned down a pro-Blair essay by David Marquand, because the far-left editor, Mary-Kay Wilmers, couldn’t in good conscience run any praise of Tony Blair’s conduct of the war. Marquand and Lloyd are not minor figures. They are leading lions of the sensible left in Britain. And they are not even allowed to praise a Labour prime minister! Censorship rules. And the left, as usual, is the most expert at it.
“EXCORIATING DISH”: Canada’s Globe and Mail has one of the best recent pieces on blogging and what it means for journalism. This site’s a favorite.
The Dish 