In today’s Salon, Rick Perlstein (fellow Chicagoan and author of Nixonland) has a fascinating interview with Thomas Frank–author of the hit (and great example of high impact) What’s the Matter With Kansas? and the new, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule. The interview hones in on specific stories from Frank’s new book on the rise of conservative power over the last 100 years, including examples of how the right economically benefits from both fighting the left AND (ironically) subsidies and some interesting tidbits about Jack Abramoff’s ties to South Africa apartheid.

At the end of the interview, Frank has his own take on the ways of the MSM as they fight the “liberal bias” label falsely foisted upon them by the right. Frank notes some MSM journalists run for the caves to hide from the label by speaking in equal measures about the two parties. To me, it’s not about equal time with either party (although that clearly doesn’t happen), it’s about journalists rooting out the systematic development, power and corruption by or of either party. This is also what Frank alludes to in the quote below.

What they prefer instead is to talk about “both parties,” and always to assume that everything in American politics is done simultaneously and in precisely equal measure by both sides. Believing this closes off all kinds of inquiry to you, blinds you to all sorts of not-so-subtle nuances and imbalances in the system.

There’s also the problem that the things I focus on — for example, that conservatism tends to be an organic product of business interests — are things that disturb them. Journalists might be social liberals, but there are damned few of them who are ready to scrutinize the power of business or the benevolence of markets. Or the motives of entrepreneurs, even when they call themselves “political entrepreneurs.”