The absence of liberal outrage over Barack Obama’s decision to reject public financing for his presidential campaign took a jaw-dropping turn on the hard-left Pacifica Radio network and its show "Democracy Now!" Host Amy Goodman, who regularly welcomes long screeds from Bill Moyers and his fervor about our bought-and-sold elections, welcomed two campaign "reformers" on Monday, and both failed to criticize Obama or his decision. Goodman proclaimed: "I have to say, it’s interesting to hear campaign finance groups be so uncritical of this decision when this is the very issue that, for example, you, John Rauh, have set up your organization around, Americans for Campaign Reform, and particularly around the issue of clean money and elections and cutting down the role money plays in elections."

This raises the question: have liberals been touting campaign finance "reform" out of genuine socialist conviction, or has it all just been a cynical pose that only lasts as long as they perceive conservatives and Republicans will have a campaign fundraising advantage? Where is Bill Moyers on this? He skipped the fire-and-brimstone sermonizing about it on his Bill Moyers Journal last Friday, a day after Obama’s announcement.

So much for the alleged conservative conglomerate media. Broadcasting & Cable magazine reports leftist actor Tim Robbins drew a standing ovation last week before the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas for attacking the corporate media for distracting the country from real (liberal) issues with Britney and Hasselhoff stories.

How left-wing is taxpayer-supported radio? WBAI-FM, the New York City home of the radical Pacifica Radio network that gets roughly $1 million each year in federal funds, is asking for contributions and offering a premium for $100 donors: a President Bush trash can that says "White Trash" on it.

In the musty but hallowed halls of the Old Media, the first item for target practice is often the New Media, the ones formed and made popular by the atrocious biases of their predecessors. The Old Media continue watching their numbers bleed away; continue to paint themselves as fair and balanced, despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary; and continue to smear the New Media, especially talk radio, as the divisive haters and fact-manglers ruining civil discourse in America.

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw is on the publicity tour for his new book "Boom!" about the 1960s. On the November 26 Laura Ingraham show, when he was challenged with his soundbite broadsiding talk radio as "instantly jingoistic and savagely critical" of war protesters, Brokaw quickly put his anti-radio rant back into rotation.

He suggested incivility was a "big cancer" on America, and talk radio is the number one tumor. Front and center in Brokaw’s pathology was Limbaugh: "My problem with the whole spectrum is there is not -- you know what Rush’s, what his whole drill is. He doesn’t want to hear another point of view. Except his."

Pacifica Radio defines the idea of ideological pork barrel. Every year, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting offers community-service grants in the area of about $1 million to Pacifica stations like WPFW in Washington, DC and KPFK in Los Angeles to spew their radical politics. Their flagship show "Democracy Now" celebrated the Fourth of July with an hour with Pete Seeger, the radical socialist folk singer.