Freedom of Press for Me, Not for Thee

John Kerry announced today on Morning Joe that he believes the media should take some responsibility for keeping the Tea Party and its ideas out of our public discourse:

And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely. The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it's exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual.

It doesn't deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do. And the problem is everything is put into this tit-for-tat equal battle and America is losing any sense of what's real, of who's accountable, of who is not accountable, of who's real, who isn't, who's serious, who isn't?

After watching the interview, and recalling the excruciating hours of television news Kerry has occupied over the years, I was tempted to agree that not everybody deserves a seat at the media lunch counter. I was nearly convinced to not write these very words.

Until, that is, I recalled the words of a certain senator and former presidential candidate:

It's healthy in a democracy to have multiple opinions being heard so people are well informed and well-educated and make up their own minds.

And then I remembered: wrong or right, I do in fact believe in that unreal, unserious, and absolutely absurd notion: a free press.