INTIMIDATION

I read this post by Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake and I was struck by this part where she quotes Paul Krugman:

Jon talks at some length about the media, and in particular about the Republican ability to get journalists to harp endlessly on supposed character flaws of Democrats, while their own candidates get a free pass. He emphasizes the right-wing echo chamber, but there’s more to it than that. It’s also – as I can report from my own experience – a result of asymmetrical intimidation. Quite simply, if you point out character flaws in a conservative, there will be an all-out effort, involving major media as well as blogs and talk adio, to discredit and ruin you, personally. This just doesn’t happen on the other side.

The Extremist Right, and by that I mean what is pretty much the GOP's base, has used intimidation to silence those who don't go along with their agenda. David Brock in The Republican Noise Machine noted on page 134 that:

Another critical difference in approach is that while liberal opinion writers for the most part are content to let the right wing have an unobstructed say in the marketplace, the right-wing media works to narrow the spectrum of opinion by chilling and intimidating their opponents. When Times columnist Paul Krugman issued a sustained critique of Bush administration policies and delineated its pattern of lies, he was targeted and ridiculed by the right-wing media machine as payback. According to CNN's Tucker Carlson, who was trained as an editorial writer in the right-wing editorial apparat under Paul Greenberg at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and then at The Weekly Standard, Krugman, a Princeton economist who is considered a future Nobelist, is a "partisan" with "no credibility." Carlson - who quotedGeneral Wesley Clark on Crossfire, saying that the general had complimented the leadership of George W. Bush, when in fact Clark had beenr eferring to Bush's father - berated Krugman while claiming to be "an objective observer" himself. Andrew Sullivan calls Krugman an "ideologue"and a "fraud." Sullivan's Web site has posted such items as a photo of Tom Daschle saluting the flag with his left rather than his right hand, an Internet smear circulated by right-wing hoaxsters that Sullivan presented as true before later disavowing it; and Sullivan has admitted making false accusations against General Clark because he was "writing off" the Drudge Report. Rush Limbaugh, who has spoken on the air of receiving directives from the Bush White House by e-mail, called Krugman "a daily regurgitation of the Democratic Party fax machine." National Review Online runs a"Krugman Truth Squad," headed by a California investment consultantnamed Donald Luskin. "I have looked evil in the face," Luskin wrote aftertrailing Krugman at a book signing. "I've been in the same room with it. I don't know how else to describe my feelings now except to say that I feel unclean, and I'm having to fight being afraid." According to The NewYorker, "Krugman occasionally receives death threats"; in fall 2003, he "started turning ominous e-mails over to the FBI." 22


On page 333, Brock lets us know that FAUX News plays right along:

FOX also aided the Republicans in an attack on the freedom, integrity, and patriotism of journalists. In response to a column by Helen Thomas naming President George W. Bush "the worst President in all of American history," the Republican National Committee instructed its supporters to "call her out," urging them to e-mail, phone, and fax complaints to Hearst, which syndicates Thomas. 14 Right-wing Web sites were filled with invective, calling Thomas "the dumbest bitch of them all." Brit Hume referred to Thomas" who had peppered the White House spokesman with skeptical questions about the war" as "the nutty aunt in the attic of the White House press corps . . . [asking questions] not of the kind that any professional journalist would ask."


Brent Bozell's Media Research Center was even more explicit about its agenda (Brock, p. 99):

With George W. Bush in the White House, the MRC moved from press critic to censor. After September 11, 2001, the MRC adopted a strategy of questioning the patriotism of TV networks that it saw as insufficiently supportive of Bush"s war aims. According to Columbia Journalism Review, Bozell sent out a fund-raising letter declaring: "We are training our guns on any media outlet or reporter interfering with America"s war on terrorism or trying to undermine the authority of President Bush."