You aren't entitled to your own facts, but that doesn't stop some people from trying

I believe it was Daniel Patrick Moynihan who said, "You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts."

Apparently, some conservatives don't accept this. The Bush administration has been a Godsend for partisans of Newspeak. War is peace. Chaos is liberation. Fear of leaving one's home is safety. Not having the basic necessities is freedom. Big government is small government.

Another part of conservative orthodoxy (and this pre-dates the current administration) is that nearly all major institutions have a liberal bias. Network news is liberal. Cable news is liberal. Newspapers are liberal. Magazines are liberal. Public radio is liberal. Public primary and secondary school teachers are liberal. University professors are liberal.

Only Fox News (sic) Channel, yap radio and a few 'respectable' newspapers like The Washington Times and New York Post provide moderate, balanced reporting that's an antidote to the liberal crusade of outlets owned by the giant corporate media companies (the corporate establishment being a known hotbed of far left radicalism).

With nearly every major domain in public life, save churches and the military, have this grotesque liberal bias, there must be some sort of Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy to coordinate their anti-Christian, anti-American agenda.

Of course, charges of a Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy or systematic bias from these institutions is pure nonsense (with the possible exception of some universities). Corporate media is a notoriously conservative institution. Not conservative as in right-wing but conservative as in not wanting to rock the boat, not wanting to offend anyone. That's why corporate media news is bland and has no nutritional value.

The more interesting question is this. Do conservatives actually believe that these institutions have a systematic bias? Or is it part of an organized campaign to intimidate these institutions into being more conservative as a way to appease conservative criticism?

My guess is that it's a combination of the two. And it's worked. For two decades or more, conservatives have consistently attacked the media for mythical liberal bias. So when the Bush administration made its now-discredited case for the aggression against Iraq, the "liberal" media didn't challenge it. It accepted the administration's fantastical assertions that Saddam Hussein was a threat to Americans without blinking an eye. Why? Because they didn't want to appear "liberal" by overly questioning a "war president" or his decisions. They didn't want to appear unpatriotic by asking questions or pushing Americans into thinking before doing. I'm sure corporate media journalists didn't want to be sycophants, but they were cowed into playing that role.

The fact that many elected Democrats accepted the president's b.s. gave the media a perfect excuse not to investigate seriously. If it's "bipartisan," it must be right! Which is exactly why we need to start electing smaller party candidates to get a real diversity of opinions on serious issues, rather than the current false dichotomy.

The corporate media didn't bother asking any serious questions until a couple years after the Aggression was launched. By then, the war was going badly enough that they had the political cover to ask serious questions. But by then, the damage was done.

Not content with smearing the media and educations, conservatives have found a new strawman to invent bias allegations about: Wikipedia.

Now I have to say that Wikipedia's an interesting experiment, so long as you take its entries with a grain of salt. I think its entries can give you a good guide to things you don't know much about, so long as it's a jumping off point to other, more credible sources.

But conservatives apparently aren't happy about a website where everybody, including liberals, secularists and other heathens, can influence things. They want their own version of the facts in an unchallenged way. Maybe they don't think they can win a fair fight. Who knows.

So what happens when a poor sport has to follow the same rules as everyone else, he takes his ball and goes home. In this case, conservatives didn't like Wikipedia so they invented their own site. Screw you, Mr. Moynihan!

The site is called Conservapedia. Its motto: A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.

The site offers a list of 32 alleged examples of bias in Wikipedia. Many of them come straight from the conservative culture war manual. Abortion. The mythical war against Christianity. "Intelligent design." America-hating. The usual nonsense.

An example of this alleged anti-Americanism? Wikipedia occasionally permits [cue Darth Vader voice]... British spellings of words.

OH THE HORROR.

All Americans should take offence at this encylopaedia!

Conservapedia also whines about an "extreme form of Anglophilia that characterizes many entries in Wikipedia."

Britain supported the conservative-instigated Aggression against Iraq so you wouldn't think Anglophilia would be a great crime in their eyes.

What's the #1 example of bias? [insert menacing music] Wikipedia uses B.C.E. and C.E. instead of B.C. and A.D. to refer to years.

Now I agree that BCE and CE are silly because they are both based on the year of Jesus' birth anyways, but if this is the worst example of bias in Wikipedia, the one that is at the top of the Conservapedia hit list, then they're reeeeeally grasping at straws.

Conservatives can invent their own encylopedia if they want. If they wish to preach to the converted, it's a free country. But somehow I doubt most non-conservative Americans are going to flock to this overtly conservative encylcopedia, just because Wikipedia once "lacked any entry on the basic concept of an elementary [mathematical] proof."