A Warning For Whom?

I'm not sure if this Calderone/Allen article in Politico is a warning to the Wingers that the media is getting tired of their antics, or if it's a warning to the media that the Wingers are going to determine the news cycle and the media better get with the program or else.

The right-wing media’s single-minded focus on a handful of targets over the past months and its success in pushing those stories into the mainstream have underscored the sharp divide between traditional news organizations and the bloggers and talk show hosts aggressively pursuing an ideological agenda on-line and on TV and radio.

From birthers to tea parties to town halls and ACORN, the scandal-plagued anti-poverty group — not to mention President Obama’s speech last week to school children and the background of former White House aide Van Jones — issues initially dismissed or missed entirely by the national media have burst, if only fleetingly, onto the national agenda after relentless coverage on Fox News, talk radio and in the blogosphere.

“If it wasn’t for Fox or talk radio, we’d be done as a republic,” Glenn Beck declared Tuesday morning on “Fox & Friends.” Beck, who’s aggressively pushed the Van Jones and ACORN stories, told the morning show hosts that he plans to devote his hour-long, top-rated 5 p.m. show to new undercover tapes of ACORN employees.

Last week, Big Government, a site run by conservative Andrew Breitbart, showed videos of undercover stings in three ACORN offices, where journalists posing as pimps and prostitutes were instructed by employees on how to skirt legal restrictions on housing. The tapes got big play on The Drudge Report—where Breitbart has worked—and right-leaning news outlets and commentary shows. But only after the Senate voted to cut off federal funding to ACORN on Monday did the story get more attention in the mainstream media.

ABC "World News" anchor Charles Gibson seemed caught off guard by the ACORN tapes on Tuesday when he told Chicago radio hosts Don Wade and Roma that he hadn't heard of them, in a clip flagged by prominent conservative blogger Michelle Malkin. Gibson added that "maybe this is just one you leave to the cables."

I'm leaning towards the latter. The Wingers are pretty pissed that the Village isn't playing ball 100%. It turns out there are lengths to which the traditional non-FOX media will not go to, and this story does seem to be a rather bold warning that the Village better snap to it or get left behind.

On the other hand, it does take the Village to turn one of these Winger outrage/apoplexy stories into a national scandal. When the Village does play ball, you get Van Jones and Jeremiah Wright. When it doesn't, you get Sonia Sotomayor and Rep. Joe Wilson. It's clear however that the Wingers want the Village on board and on board now, and for the rest of Obama's term at minimum. After all, they have a lot of crazy to spread. The Village, for its part, is finally beginning to see that these guys have no off switch on their derangement towards Obama, and they are getting increasingly uncomfortable in being involved in this little war, sensationalism or not.

But the Village has been making this bed since '94.