Topic: Newsmax
Here's how a March 7 Newsmax article begins:
In the days of the old Pravda, one could determine who was winning secret Politburo power struggles by just looking at the official Soviet newspaper. Those winning simply got better press.
Perhaps it may be no different here in the United States.
This week two of the heaviest guns in American media, The Washington Post and The New York Times, unloaded their missiles at Obama adviser David Axelrod while heralding White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel as a centrist and pragmatist.
Newsmax has no evidence of any palace coup, of course -- the article's anonymous writer has merely let his imagination run wild (perhaps that's why he has chosen to remain anonymous). Nevertheless, the article concludes: "Kremlinologists can see the handwriting on the wall. Axelrod will soon be ousted or sidelined. Rahm emerges, and so does a more pragmatic and moderate Obama."
The funny thing is, Newsmax acts in a rather Soviet fashion as well. Misbehaving columnists such as John L. Perry and Bernard Kerik were disappeared from Newsmax without explanation to readers -- one day they were there, the next they were gone. Similarly, columns deemed offensive post-publication quietly vanish into the ether also without explanation.