LEFTARD HAS A BET BOTH WAYS

A continuing theme of Antony "Leftard" Loewenstein's recent posts is the sad state of Australia's news media with particular emphasis on the obvious "pro-US, pro-privatisation and pro free-markets" bias of the Packer, Fairfax and Murdoch dominated press. (See the most recent example here with plenty more if you'd care to have a look around his archives.) Obviously Loewenstein sees himself as a purveyor of truth, counterbalancing the MSM's tilt. On the contrary, he's simply a lefty in the Margo Kingston mold, pushing an anti-Howard line.

In Loewenstein's offering in today's New Matilda, Fear Works, he gets stuck straight into Howard:

On the fourth anniversary of September 11, Prime Minister John Howard claimed (yet again) that the al-Qaeda attacks in New York and Washington 'were an attack on our way of life.' He's mouthed the same platitudes since that fateful day always hoping that a majority of Australians shared his perspective.

And sure enough, a recent World Vision report found that 31 per cent of Australians were worried about an increase in terrorism, while the worldwide average was 22 per cent. Howard and his media cheerleaders should be pleased with their efforts. They have created an environment that cleverly plays on people's fears about threats to our 'way of life' and our 'values'.

For liberal democracies, questioning and confronting this orthodoxy presents one of the greatest challenges since Cold War propaganda convinced millions that the (crumbling and inefficient) Soviets were actually determined to destroy our benign, capitalist, Western world.

Loewenstein's rewrite of Cold War history notwithstanding – Soviet desires to overwhelm the West and their inability to do so being distinctly different things – his attack on Howard as a purveyor of fear doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense because he has also alleged that involvement in Iraq has increased the likelihood of Australia suffering terrorist attack:

The Iraq war has created a terrorist threat far greater than existed before the invasion.

So, on the one hand, Loewenstein accuses the government of attempting to gain fear-inspired political advantage by overstating the terrorist threat. On the other hand Loewenstein claims the terrorist threat has actually increased and he actively spreads that message. It just doesn't make sense and doesn't have to because he's preaching to the converted.

Loewenstein's obvious manipulation of the truth doesn't bode well for the accuracy of his upcoming book. But if his current form is any indicator, it could be one funny read.

Update: Loewenstein describes his New Matilda column:

My latest New Matilda column is about Western "values", the media's war on terrorism and shameless propaganda...

Yep, he's a shameless propagandist alright.

Update II: In comments at Loewenstein's blog, commenter Anthony links to my post, describing it as a "review" of the New Matilda column. Loewenstein responds:

RWDB review? Er, that's one word for it. The man is going place, that's for sure...

Hardly the devastating rebuttal you'd expected from a journalist and author.