MAILBAG:

I’m tired of people complaining about the so-called liberal bias of the media. Chuck Cassity complains about how there was coverage of Sarah Palin’s enormous expenditure on clothes and her daughter’s pregnancy while the upcoming birth of a child by unwed Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez was ignored (“Mainstream media showed their bias,” Sounding Off, Dec. 9). He also mentioned the failure of the media to report on President-elect Barack Obama’s private jet to fly to Hawaii to visit his sick grandmother.

It may be a case of seeing only what you want. I saw several stories about Sanchez. And I should point out that it was the McCain campaign that first released the story about Palin’s daughter, which had been the buzz of the blog for days and not reported on by those evil liberals until the McCain campaign broke the story. As for Obama’s jet, I mean, come on. Is he supposed to fly coach when he is his party’s nominee? Especially considering that there have already been threats on his life because of who he is. Maybe Cassity forgets what happened in 1968.

As for liberal bias, where were all the “liberal” journalists when we went blindly into a war in Iraq and hardly anyone spoke out against it?

And, for that matter, where are all the “liberal journalists” on Fox? Maybe Cassity should just watch that channel and he will no doubt be happier.

But maybe four out of five journalists, as Cassity asserts, are liberal or progressive. Is that such a bad thing? The word “liberal” shares an etymology with “liberty” while the word “progressive” suggests a desire for progress, i.e. change for the better. I may not like all the news I read or hear, but it’s news because it happened.

Most journalists (way more than four out of five) I have met and observed, which is quite a few, try very hard to be fair and listen to all sides of a question and then present the same. Maybe they are “liberal” because they see what’s really happening.

Remember that it was so-called “liberals” who fought for a decent living wage, better working conditions, better schools, clean air and water, health standards and regulation of the meat packing industry, women’s suffrage, abolition of slavery and, yes, even American independence from Great Britain. This is only a short list.

The word “conservative” means keeping things as they are. It was conservatives who fought every one of the above-mentioned causes. Conservatives voted against the Civil Rights Bill. Conservatives were horrified by the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954 that ended segregation. Conservatives hunted innocent people in the communist “witch hunts” of the 1950s, and for that matter, the Salem witch hunts of the 1690s. Conservatives attempted to tear our nation apart when they seceded in 1861 because they didn’t want to end slavery.

You can run through the entire thread of American history and find that at every point of progress this nation has made in the cause of human rights, conservatives have almost always been on the wrong side.

I, for one, am tired of having the word “liberal” dragged through the gutter as though there was something wrong with someone who is liberal. I am proud to call myself a liberal; and each year as I become older and wiser, I become more liberal. And I am a better person for it.

Lenard Davis

Newport Beach