It has been an interesting fortnight, one in which it finally became unanswerably evident that the main stream media is The 12th Man on the Democrat team.

 

For me, it all began with my firing from the San Antonio Express-News, when for “budgetary reasons” my column was suddenly canceled. Knowing something about the plight of newspapers, I offered to keep writing for free, but the editors weren’t buying it.

 

It was the first time in my entire working life – as soldier, scholar, or TV analyst – that I had ever been fired. Local Texas Congressman Lamar Smith – a longtime champion of media fairness – thoughtfully called to offer support. Gov. Mike Huckabee had been my choice in the Texas primary – outraging the Express-News – but now he wrote simply: “Fight on, soldier.” Good advice.

 

But the Express-News said nothing about my departure, showing special contempt for my readers. Word inevitably spread though, with readers asking why their local newspaper would silence a conservative –but avidly populist – voice while retaining one of my notoriously Left-wing university colleagues. Those puts-and-takes have been reprinted elsewhere on the FSM site: judge for yourself.

 

But can I quickly cut to the chase about my breakthrough moment? It’s taken quite awhile but:

 

 

Now I might be a moderate conservative rapidly being disabused of his last remaining illusions, but the mainstream media cannot any longer be considered a neutral referee thoughtfully moderating our national dialogue. In reality they are an ideological Fifth Column doing their level best to elect Barack Obama, while maintaining Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in their positions of incompetence.

 

That realization had barely solidified last Wednesday evening when I joined every other red-blooded American male in falling head-over-heels for Sarah Palin. I had first seen her picture late last year, wearing a camouflage t-shirt and taking target practice with the Alaska National Guard. Call me sexist if you want to but my first reactions – “Whoa! Babe! No wait, Governor Babe!” – were pretty close to what most guys will tell you unless forcibly compelled to lie through their teeth. (Usually out of obligatory political correctness or to preserve marital harmony).

 

But one of my hot-button issues in books and commentary has been the growing divide between American society – particularly its political and economic elites – and our military. In both the Falklands and Iraq, members of the British royal family have sought out front-line combat service. But there has been a notable absence throughout the war on terror by those latter-day scions of the Kennedys, the Clintons, the Bidens and, yes, even the Bushes. (And Obama? Oh, please!) But suddenly here was Sarah Palin, joining the only national ticket since God-knows-when where BOTH leaders sent their sons off to war. And she did it, looking for all the world like one of those Spartan mothers bravely telling her warrior-son to come back with his shield or on it.

 

And her speech: oh good Lord, that magnificently fiery, funny speech! I shouted, laughed, cried and shook my fist in triumph at the TV screen. She has already been likened to both Erin Brockovich and an American version of Margaret Thatcher, apt if premature comparisons after only one speech in the national limelight. But that roar you heard was an awakening from a part of America touched neither by Country Club Republicans nor persuaded by the Change Brigade of the Democrat Left. And in Sarah Palin they heard something they liked from a national leader, maybe for the first time in a long while.

 

So don’t be surprised when NBC anchors look downcast, when agenda-driven press munchkins descend on Alaska digging for dirt or when Democrat operatives like South Carolina’s Carol Fowler charge that McCain picked a running mate “whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.” These are all unmistakable, irresistible and deeply encouraging signs that Seabiscuit may have just entered this race.

 

 

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