Define "Center"

It's long been suspected by myself and others of the, ahem, center-left persuasion that to right wingers "media bias" was defined simply as anyone in the media disagreeing with them, no matter what the topic or facts happened to be.

By changing the very definition of the word "bias", the noise machine has succeeded in cowing most of the media into an acceptable quiescence. Fresh off that triumph, then, it seems that they have set off in search of new frontiers of redefinition. I've mentioned before their attempts at rewriting history (here for example) and there are many others, but that doesn't seem to be an entirely fulfilling activity for our friends on the right. Rewriting history is no fun. It doesn't really fight back, just waits until you've ignored it long enough and then wreaks its subtle revenge. So, instead, they've turned their guns on a live target (no, that wasn't a Dick Cheney joke). Captain Ed:

Normally I enjoy George Will's columns; he isn't exactly a hard-line conservative, but he usually covers the center-right well enough. In today's effort, though, Will starts off on a rant that not only goes far off the tracks, it doesn't even start on them. He argues that the Bush administration has become "monarchical" in its handling of the war and his argument is primarily based on a misinterpretation of FISA...[my emphasis]

George Will not conservative enough!! Forget all of his past body of work where here's faithfully put forward a consistent conservative view point. Forget all that. He disagreed!!

And, as TBOGG points out, that wasn't even Ed's original post. Originally, the post said "he isn't really a conservative".

Huh?

Is the Right now attempting to redefine "conservative" as some kind of antonym to "bias"? Do we need to do a "conservative speak" post here? Something like this:

Biased (adj.)-anyone who disagrees with anything the president does.

Conservative (n, v, adj., adv., prep. and everything else)-Someone who understands that this administration is INFALLIBLE and therefore ALWAYS RIGHT.

Left, Leftist, Liberal, Progressive, Center-Left (doesn't matter)-the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Center-Right (who cares)-second up against the wall when the conservative revolution comes.

Whatever. The best part is the fact that Ed apparently didn't bother reading Will's entire column which ends like this:

Immediately after 9/11, President Bush rightly did what he thought the emergency required, and rightly thought that the 1978 law was inadequate to new threats posed by a new kind of enemy using new technologies of communication. Arguably he should have begun surveillance of domestic-to-domestic calls -- the kind the 9/11 terrorists made.

But 53 months later, Congress should make all necessary actions lawful by authorizing the president to take those actions, with suitable supervision. It should do so with language that does not stigmatize what he has been doing, but that implicitly refutes the doctrine that the authorization is superfluous.

So, basically, Will still refuses to lay the blame at the one and only place it can possible lie: with the person who broke the law, President Bush.

Congressional Republicans, who seemed like they might be-against all odds-growing some rudimentary spine, have now, like Will, basically decided to simply retroactively legalize whatever the President wants. Never mind the unconstitutionality of ex post facto laws. When you've been in a supine position for so long I guess it must start to get comfortable.