Pro-right wing bias in the liberal media?

Here's an interesting thought.

Former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges (author of American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America) has a thought-provoking Op Ed in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. He's fed up with the left for having sold out to "respectability" and to corporatism. And, in a charming echo of such conservative luminaries as Dobson, Coulter, and Buchanan, he's urging principled leftists to walk away from whoever the Democratic Party candidate is and support third party candidates:

The failure of the American left is a failure of nerve. It has been neutralized and rendered ineffectual as a political force because of its refusal to hold fast on core issues, from universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans, to the steadfast protection of workers' rights, to an immediate withdrawal from the failed occupation of Iraq to a fight against a militarized economy that is hollowing the country out from the inside.

Let the politicians compromise. This is their job. It is not ours. If the left wants to regain influence in the nation's political life, it must be willing to walk away from the Democratic Party, even if Barack Obama is the nominee, and back progressive, third-party candidates until the Democrats feel enough heat to adopt our agenda. We must be willing to say no. If not, we become slaves.

It's an entertaining read. And for reasons more strategic than principled, I have to agree with Hedges that it's a shame that so many leftists have sold out for respectability and corporatism.

Right!

Let the Left be the Left. Let Obama unload his real thoughts. The people will then flock to him and he'll be elected in a landslide!!!!

Please.