Media's Selective Treatment Is Telling

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues in fits and starts, revelations of its habits and behavior are slowly coming to light. It's not pretty. Reports of deaths, rapes, drug overdoses, assaults, destruction, intimidation and a general climate of lawlessness and disregard for the rights of others are becoming routine. But, always, there is a media emphasis on "the bigger picture," "the overall perspective," the notion that, somehow, the cause is terrific and it's just a few outliers who are causing problems. Perhaps. But consider this: If this outrageous body of work was the MO of last year's Tea Party participants, can you imagine the mainstream media outcry? Can you picture the absolute condemnation of that citizen political effort? There would have been no hesitation, no free pass whatsoever. It would have been a cascade of negative press right from the get-go. That's the nature of the info beast today. We're all used to it by now. But it is instructive nonetheless.