Terms Of Surrender

Stanley Kurtz offers terms to CBS.

We need to arrange a trade. This nation would be released from continuous conflict over the question of media bias if our major news outlets were roughly equally divided between liberals and conservatives. So to put this needless battle over media bias behind us, I propose that we convene a summit of liberal and conservative media leaders. These distinguished representatives of both ideological camps could solve our national dilemma by dividing up the media pie on a far more equitable basis. Just as the Congress of Vienna was able to apportion territory so as to establish a stable balance of power in Europe after the fall of Napoleon, so a congress of American media notables can establish a stable balance of power between liberals and conservatives in the newspapers, magazines, and airwaves in the wake of the Rather Affair.

To negotiate on behalf of conservatives, I nominate Paul Gigot, editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page; Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News; Rich Lowry, editor of National Review; William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard; and Rush Limbaugh, dean of conservative talk-radio hosts. To represent the liberal media, I suggest Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger, chairman and publisher of the New York Times; CBS news president Andrew Heyward; Peter Jennings, news anchor at ABC; NPR senior news analyst Daniel Schorr; and Al Franken, aspiring deacon of liberal talk radio.