This morning I was rewinding a videotape, and CNN was on while that was occurring (in other words, don't think I watch their station regularly), and what do I hear? There is some sort of panel discussion about the economy and two of their "expert" talking heads are getting quite nasty with each other. One states that government spending never helped during a time of economic crisis, and the other asks for one example of a major, modern economy coming out of such a crisis without the government ramping up spending.
The other individual then goes on a rant about "capitalism" saving the economy, stating that the New Deal was a failure. This reminded me of Brit Hume's recent comment that was something like, "everyone knows the New Deal failed." I'd like to ask such people what history or economics books they are reading. All the textbooks I read stated the opposite. It's one thing to make your case, if you believe the New Deal was a "failure," but it's another thing to make up your own reality. It looks like the new mainstream media rule is that if you do this in concert with others (who dominate a major political party), you do not get labeled insane, as you would if you insisted that you were Emperor Augustus. All the person who was acting as a sort of moderator had to do was to say something like, "wait a minute, can you cite one example from any textbook being used at a state university or Ivy League school that contains this kind of statement?"
Instead, as I was hoping I would no longer hear (now that the elections are over), the CNN folks just let the wing nuts make obviously factually incorrect statements, without ever (to my knowledge) offering a subsequent apology or retraction on their TV station and on their web site. Are they doing this for ratings? Wouldn't it be more entertaining if their people pointed out that such ridiculous claims were being made? Or were they given a directive to be "fair and balanced," and fear getting reprimanded by their superiors? One thing I know for sure - I've got to do a better job of avoiding their station, even for a minute or so!
UPDATE: One thing I do remember, starting in high school social studies classes, is the fact that the conservative Supreme Court of the time undermined FDR's New Deal policies, and that FDR wanted to appoint more Justices to undermine them. If the New Deal "failed," most if not all of the blame could be placed on conservatives, not "liberal" FDR.