What makes the media so credulous when it comes to reporting on liberal progressives who would readily muzzle them and deprive them of their First Amendment rights if they said the wrong thing? Lester Jackson, on Accuracy in Media, thinks he knows:

The media reports only one side, not out of ignorance or incompetence, but because it is largely populated by those who know that their unpopular values cannot be achieved in open democratic debates and elections, but must be imposed in the dark by unelected and unaccountable judicial activists.

Of whom the prime example may be Justice John Paul Stevens, often referred to as a “moderate” even by self-designated “conservatives,” but who is anything but:

The other side of the story has barely been mentioned, leaving unreported critical facts and unrefuted misleading statements (recently, even by Stevens himself). This is of great significance. Media misrepresentation and outright concealment of shocking truths about the Supreme Court is an essential requisite for enabling any five justices to usurp the democratic process and impose their own values upon the American people, against their wishes.

Jackson reports Stevens’s true record on vital issues like the death penalty, free speech, and the proper purview of the judiciary—and the so-called “moderate” justice simply fails to measure up:

. . . .while repeating the meme that Stevens was “moderate” and “modest,” recent reports failed to ask or explain how this squares with his assertion that he “always thought I had the right answer”; or with Scott Pelley’s recent report that “Stevens, at an early age, saw how a judge could change the world.” Pelley did not question that this is a judge’s function.

This is no surprise to those familiar with Stevens’ averring that his “own experience” should determine the constitutionality of the death penalty and also that the “judgment” of any five justices, including himself of course, as to the “acceptability” of a criminal penalty is superior to and trumps that of the American people.

Jackson’s article — “The One-Sided Media Coverage of Justice Stevens” — is here.