“Ideology” exists only on the Right, …says the hyper-ideological Left

I’ve had this one in my pocket for a week or so, just waiting for someone to use the actual phrase again. I was confident I wouldn’t be waiting very long…

…and I was right. Courtesy of CNN:

Rep. Nancy Pelosi is a “visionary” leader who “never lets ideology cloud her judgment,” President Barack Obama told a crowd of donors in San Francisco Wednesday evening.

Obama is in the Golden State on the first fundraising swing of his second term, kicking off a series of events that will gather money for Congressional Democrats looking to regain control of the House in 2014.

This is reported in the article without the slightest hint of irony or push-back from the CNN reporter.

Just let that one quote sink in for a moment: Nancy Pelosi “…never lets ideology cloud her judgment,”? Seriously? How can that even be printed without eliciting guffaws?

Actually, it’s easy…IF you possess the same belief system as Pelosi. Leftists and Big Government Statists like Nancy have been getting a pass on their ideology for eons, primarily due to the like-minded Media which covers them.

Here’s how it works:

1. A partisan Leftist spouts some approved Lefty wisdom: e.g. Al Roker recently offering Superstorm Sandy as de facto evidence of Global Warming, or President Genius’ continual repetition of the factually dishonest statistic that 40% of gun purchases take place without a background check.
2. These statements then go unchallenged, and/or are not labeled as “ideological“.

But when someone who disagrees with such statements clears their throat and politely says something along the lines of, “Uhhh, …excuse me for just a sec, but you’re not being totally forthcoming with all the facts here…“, THAT person is immediately pigeonholed as being “ideological”, so that their opinion may be dismissed as irrelevant.

We see it over, and over, and over again.

Jonah Goldberg, whose book The Tyranny of Clichés we reviewed last year, thoroughly exposed this trick in a video on Dennis Prager’s “Prager University”. It’s relatively short but highly illuminating.

It’s like Jonah says: everyone has a particular viewpoint or set of values, which in effect makes up their unique ideology. Accordingly, they will tend to speak/think/write from that viewpoint, despite their best efforts.

So when various media types (or even more laughably, politicians) jump up-and-down, self-righteously proclaiming “I do NOT have an ideology!!”, it is they who (A) are in denial, and (B) I don’t trust.

If you pay attention, you’ll see examples of this constantly: Leftist ideological positions being accepted at face value or as outright fact, and Conservatives who dare to dissent from this accepted wisdom noted as “deniers”, or worse.

Try it tonight as you’re watching the news. It’s an even money bet you’ll see what I mean before you get to the second commercial break.

Any takers?

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UPDATE: Welcome, National Review readers!