THE WISDOM OF SPIRO AGNEW

Simon's link to the John Podhoretz piece in the Weekly Standard has caused me to look up quotes from Spiro Agnew, former governor of Maryland, former Vice President of the U.S. under Richard Nixon. Tell me these things about the MSM couldn't have been said yesterday.

A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.

(The Liberal News Media are) A tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government.

In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.

They have formed their own 4-H club - the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.

"Yippies, Hippies, Yahoos, Black Panthers, lions and tigers alike - I would swap the whole damn zoo for the kind of young Americans I saw in Vietnam."

"A small group of men, numbering perhaps no more than a dozen anchormen, commentators, and executive producers, settle upon the twenty minutes or so of film and commentary that is to reach the public. This selection is made from the 90 to 180 minutes that may be available. Their powers of choice are broad. They decide what forty to fifty million Americans will learn of the day's events in the nation and in the world. Is it not fair or relevant to question its concentration in the hands of a tiny and closed minority of privileged men, elected by no one and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government? I am not asking for government censorship or any other kind of censorship. I am asking whether a form of censorship already exists.

Some newspapers are fit only to line the bottom of bird cages

Agnew resigned on October 10, 1973, while under investigation for accepting bribes during his tenure as governor of Maryland in 1967: the payments were kickbacks in return for government contracts. Before resigning, Agnew had insisted he was innocent, but then pleaded nolo contendere (no contest) to a single charge of failing to report income. Knowing what we know today one wonders if Agnew wasn't framed by the press. I hope some enterprising reporter will look into it. Lyndon Johnson warned Agnew not to fight with the media news monopoly. The MSM monopoly got him.

For the latest MSM tissue of lies, this time from AP, see Powerline piece.