If there is one thing I can say about the reaction to Barack Obama’s first 60 days in office, it’s that conservative media has been trying far too hard to make mountains out of mole hills. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that it’s very important for the press to expose government waste and abuse, but the conservative news outlets keep jumping the gun.

Take the fairness doctrine for example. It had the potential to be a powerful, high profile piece of ammunition. If it had been considered, even only in committee, it would have revealed the hypocrisy of its author and any co-signers. If it had made it out of committee, it would have been political gold. Instead, the talk show pundits hammered the fairness doctrine into their audiences before any sort of legislation had even been proposed. Now that fairness doctrine is one of the issues, its supporters now know better than to introduce it. Instead, they are likely to use the FCC or an amendment to a funding bill to try to push a similar policy through in a form that is harder to recognize and harder to sensationalize.

The talk show hosts, who rode this issue into the ground now might come off as a little paranoid to those of our fellow citizens who are on the fence: “All that talk and no one even introduced the legislation? Crazy conservatives…” If these same people had allowed this bill to quietly make its way into Congress, they would have had some fantastic political firepower. How can anyone in Congress justify limiting the freedom of the press in today’s day and age? The opposition that these hosts could then have generated and actually put to good use would soon have made most of Congress uncomfortable and the bill would likely never have passed anyway.
   
There are many other examples, but I want to talk about Barack Obama’s recent “gaffe” on Leno. In case you don’t know the story, the President appeared on Leno and compared his bowling to the Special Olympics. Initially, I hoped that this might be a crushing blow to political correctness, but I was disappointed and horrified to see Fox pick up on the issue and focus on the childish issue of a double standard for conservatives and liberals when it comes to political correctness. While that point is somewhat valid, it hardly matters in our country’s struggle through trying times and Fox failed to recognize the situation as the gift it really was.

This was a perfect opportunity to crack the armor of Political Correctness. Barack Obama, an immensely popular person, made a harmless and funny joke that was slightly politically incorrect. What the conservative media should have done is congratulate Obama on moving beyond the ridiculousness of political correctness. O’Reilly and other commentators should have sent him a personal note congratulating his wisdom and good sense of humor. If a conservative made a similar comment in the future, the conservative media could easily have pointed out that Obama himself seemed to feel that political correctness was absurd and this would put politically correct busybodies in quite a quandary. Instead, they jumped all over him the same way the liberal media would jump on a conservative.

Their argument is that there is a double standard. So what?  As conservatives are so fond of saying, “are we in kindergarten?” This was a fantastic opportunity to defeat political correctness, but it was squandered in a mad scramble attempt to embarrass the President. President Obama, I offer you my humble congratulations and respect for recognizing that a joke is a joke and we, as Americans, do not have the right to be free of discomfort or insult. I say shame on the conservative media for jumping on this like a 4 year old angry that a classmate got an extra cookie.