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Liberal Lingo: "Anti-Semitic,
Homophobic, Racists"
Thursday, January 16, 2003
By Gordon Bishop
“Anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist!”
That ugly description was constantly used by Star-Ledger political editor/columnist David Wald every time someone stopped by my desk to see me.
Wald and I sat side-by-side in the City Room of the Star-Ledger for more than 15 years.
At first, Dave and I were close colleagues. I even wrote a column on him when he was a reporter covering the State Board of Public Utilities in Newark in the 1970s. Dave was good at what he did.
Dave and I had fun poking fun at those who made it into our columns on the OP-ED page of The Ledger. My columns ran on Wednesdays. Dave’s columns ran on Sundays.
Around 1992, I started writing columns against the environmental extremists who took over the legitimate environmental movement that I had covered at The Ledger since I arrived at the newspaper in 1969. I evolved into The Ledger’s first, last and only environmental reporter/columnist. (The Ledger always had a political reporter/columnist on the editorial pages.)
Suddenly, Wald started calling me names because of my attacks on eco-extremists who represented the far left – liberals, socialists, Marxists and Communists.
The environmental movement had been co-opted by the liberals and the Democrat Party, just as the Democrats did with the unions, the feminist extremists, and blacks.
That’s how liberals operate. They really believe they represent ALL of the members of those groups. Again – another liberal lie!
As long as Wald and the liberals at The Ledger assumed I was like them – a “liberal” environmental reporter/columnist – I was their colleague, their friend, their ally in arms.
But when they sensed I was becoming a patriotic conservative, I was branded the “enemy” in the editorial department.
I listened to Rush Limbaugh in 1992-93, and that turned them into an “angry gang” against the lone conservative Bishop. I had suddenly become a traitor to their cause: The liberalization of America!
Even U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, when he occasionally appeared on my weekly syndicated TV show NEW JERSEY ISSUES from 1988 to 1996, resented my questions that were couched in conservative language. He even wrote me a note once on his Senate card, telling me to “come back home” to the Democrats, where he thought I was all along.
I was never a Democrat. As a newsman, I had always been an independent fiscal conservative. That simply means I was for less government, not more government. One day Senator Bill Bradley stopped by my desk, and Wald told the Senator, “Why are you talking with that anti-Semitic, homophobic racist?” Bradley looked at me, shook his head, and then stepped toward Wald’s desk. Bradley and I had a special relationship over the years. I had produced a couple of TV documentaries with Bradley, and he had successfully nominated me for several national environmental awards.
But Bradley, the World Champion basketball star and pragmatist, had to give Wald a press release on some political issue. “Big Bill” didn’t want to get caught in a crossfire between Bishop and Wald, especially in a City Room where all desks are out in the open and everyone can see each other.
What irked Wald was that I had an award-winning TV show – and Wald never won a journalism award at The Ledger. I had won more than 25 State and National awards.
When I asked Wald why he called me an “anti-Semitic, homophobic racist,” he simply said, “all Republicans are.”
Every political editor/columnist I knew at The Ledger from 1969 through 1996 was a Democrat. In fact, The Ledger endorsed the “illegally elected” Lautenberg for the U.S. Senate this past November.
Today, we know that more than 90 percent of the mainstream media is liberal.
One thing I learned from liberals: Destroy your enemy with foul name-calling, even if it’s false. That’s not my style. So much for truth.
As a syndicated columnist, I could never ever work in America’s liberal mainstream media. It’s a sick environment corrupted by lies, deception and ugly name-calling.
Wald is now on liberal U.S. Senator Jon Corine’s payroll, where he feels right at home. He followed in the footsteps of other Ledger political writers who went on to work with Democrat Governors Brendan Byrne and Jim Florio, and Democrat Senators Bradley and Lautenberg.
The Ledger is New Jersey’s largest newspaper. New Jersey is predominately Democrat. What an unholy alliance!
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