Voice in the Wilderness

How CBS is like Sauron
They've got more in common than just a big, scary eye

Sauron is the evil spirit force of the "Lord of the Rings" books and movies. While not a corporeal being, he commands legions of minions to do his will by plying deception, manipulation, intimidation and fear. Yet, a massive blind spot in his thinking leads to his eventual downfall.

With the recent release of the CBS "panel investigation" report into the fake Bush National Guard documents story, many parallels can be drawn between these two villains sporting sleepless eyes.

Sauron

• Is a restless, evil spirit
• Holds others in bondage and servitude
• Craves to dominate others
• Uses power, force, manipulation, and control to dominate
• Uses deception and misrepresentation of the truth to trick others into believing lies and acting on them
• Sends the pompous Mouth of Sauron to denigrate his enemies and play on their insecurities
• Operates in the dark, isolated tower of Barad Dur
• Has his life force bound to the Ring of Power, which is used to control others. He desires power so badly that he's put his own existence in danger to obtain it.
• Is vulnerable because he can't perceive how he'll be destroyed. His worldview is all about acquiring power; he can't fathom that someone would actually give up power
• Is brought down by small, obscure, but determined hobbits

CBS

• Is driven by a restless, leftist spirit
• Craves to dominate public perception with its liberal worldview
• Uses half-truths, lies, one-sided spin, and sophistries to manipulate viewer perception and attitudes
• Uses it's near-monopoly power to widely promulgate its propaganda
• Sends pompous, paid mouths to condescend to viewers, stoke their antagonisms and play on their anxieties
• Operates in a dark, isolated, Madison Avenue high rise
• Has its life force bound to limited consumer choice. Its reason to exist (promulgate "news" according to its worldview) is predicated on its near-monopoly, a tenuous proposition
• Is vulnerable because it can't perceive how it will be destroyed. It can't fathom that someone would go outside of the monopolized, media echo-chamber to not only get news but question their news
• Is brought down by small, obscure, but determined bloggers

Turning a Blind Eye

Numerous conservative bloggers have already critiqued the CBS report. (Hugh Hewitt and Jonathan Last concisely capture the essence of the story). The consensus seems to be that the report correctly documents the problems in the process, but stops far short of identifying the true factors driving the fake documents story: overt liberal bias and institutional arrogance, fostered by years of cloistered, non-competitive groupthink, at CBS.

Sauron was defeated because his whole worldview was about power, force, manipulation, and control. Thus, the idea that someone, let alone a humble hobbit, would surrender power just does not enter his thinking.

Similarly, CBS decision makers were so driven by anti-conservative/anti-Bush animus and so insular in their thinking, that it did not occur to them that there was a large segment of news consumers who would seriously question the great eye. Former CBS reporter Bernie Goldberg made the point in his book, Bias, that if you gave CBS staffers a lie detector test and asked them if they were putting a liberal spin on the news, they would say no and pass the test. They are so isolated, they don't know they're liberal! Furthermore, CBS clearly did not consider blogs any sort of threat. As a former CBS executive said before the opinion storm, a blogger was just "a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas." Again, the idea that any other medium besides TV or the major newspapers would hold any threat was outside the realm of possibility in CBS' thinking.

The Two Powers

What this is really about is control. CBS and the rest of the mainstream media (MSM in blogspeak) desire so badly to manipulate the public's perception of the news that they, like Sauron and the Ring of Power, have staked their existence their ability to monopolize a critical mass of media space. In both cases, this desire for power has led to self-deception and eventual downfall.

The tragic difference, though, is that Sauron is just a figment of JRR Tolkein's fertile imagination. Why on earth would intelligent, well-educated, and experienced people (like those who run major media outlets) stake their reputations, companies, and livelihoods on such tenuous means (no monopoly lasts forever) so millions of people will be spun towards the leftist worldview?

Pretenders to the Throne

Communist-turned-conservative, David Horowitz, offers a clue in his book "How to Beat the Democrats". Says Horowitz, the left is driven by

...The religious nature of the progressive faith and the power of its redemptive idea. ...

It is an idea as old as the Tower of Babel, that humanity can build its own highway to Heaven. It is the idea of a return to the Earthly Paradise, the garden of social harmony and justice. ...

For self-anointed messiahs, the goal, social justice, is not about rectifying particular wrongs....Rather, their crusade is about rectifying injustice in the very order of things. ...

Because the transformation they seek is still total, the power they seek is total. ...The transformation of the world requires the permanent entrenchment for the saints in power. Therefore, everything, is justified that serves to achieve the continuance of Them.

Media manipulation, even to the risk of one's livelihood, is driven by the fallen desire to become God themselves. CBS (Moonves, Rather, Mapes, et al) and their humanist brethren in the MSM lie, spin, manipulate, entrench because they are the redeemers of society. Their mission is so important to the fate of humanity that it cannot be derailed by inconvenient facts.

That is why the CBS report does not go all the way to true cause of the Bush documents fiasco. It is not that they don't want to tell the truth, it is that they can't tell the truth! Their whole worldview and identity is based on the false premise that their ideas and mission are both righteous and right. To actually admit intentional bias and document forgery smashes the facade.

By not correctly ascertaining the cause of its downfall, I fear CBS and the rest of the MSM will fall deeper into self-delusion and, like Sauron, crash into the abyss, taking many minions with them.

And this is sad. Recriminations will be cast, livelihoods shaken, reputations hewn, careers splintered. All this for the false hope of heaven on earth and the devilishly irresistable temptation to make oneself god.

"You shall have no other gods before me." Exodus 20:3