It's All Greek To Us

(CBS/AP)

Anyone who spends much time reading blogs, watching cable television or listening to talk radio can tell you, there's a political divide in this country. Heck, who are we kidding, anybody with their noses stuck in architectural digests can tell you that. We've been wrestling with this for some time now, paying attention to the debates over bias in the media and whether true objectivity is even possible. Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan weighs in on this today with a look at the Chris Wallace-Bill Clinton flap and what it says about the state of discourse in America:

We are talking past each other, the left and right in America. I suppose we always did, but I'm noticing it more. We have different intellectual styles (rather too emotive, arguably too linear), start with different assumptions, and recognize different data. We could be speaking different languages.

Noonan points out the benefits of the new media – more outlets, more points of view, more voices. But will they ever speak the same language again? Read it all, but Noonan ends:

I spoke with a network producer a few weeks ago, an old warhorse who was trying to explain his frustration at the current ratings race. He wrestled around the subject, and I cut with rude words to what I thought he was saying. "You mean it's gone from the dictatorship of a liberal elite to the dictatorship of the retarded."
Yes, he said. And it's not progress.

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