Liberal Intolerance Gone Wild: Cuomo, de Blasio, Ailes

Remember the days when liberals were advocates for free speech and a tolerant attitude to ideas and people?

Today we are witnessing a disturbing trend. More and more "mainstream" liberals and Democrats seem to be moving to the intolerant fringe.

I don't want to tar and feather all liberals here. Many remain committed to those positive ideals. Superlawyer Alan Dershowitz comes to mind.

Shocking, however, were the comments made by New York’s Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo during a recent interview on Albany's The Capitol Pressroom radio show.
He said about conservative Republicans: "Right-to-life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay — if that's who they are, they have no place in the state of New York because that's not who New Yorkers are."

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In my book, young Cuomo had always seemed to fall into the "sensible Democrat" category. He had been pro-business and seemed to understand you can’t tax New York into economic success. But his recent comments were not only unreasonable, they were wholly inappropriate.

Soon, newly elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio chimed in, saying "I agree with Governor Cuomo's remarks.

"I think he's saying that the attitude of those who want to continue the status quo on guns or want to challenge and deny the right to choose does not reflect the values of New Yorkers. He is absolutely right to say what he said."

The Cuomo and de Blasio comments were eerily similar to remarks made a few years ago by then-New York Gov. David Paterson.

After conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh denounced Paterson's tax hike on the wealthy and announced that he would be packing up and leaving town, Paterson commented: "If I knew that would be the result, I would've thought about the taxes earlier."

The recent Cuomo and de Blasio comments got some media attention, but not enough.
Let's put the shoe on another foot and see how it fits.

Imagine if Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced that anyone in his state who is pro-choice and for gun control should leave Texas, that they were no longer welcome there.

Had such a comment been made, it would have elicited howls of protest by the media. Al Sharpton and Rachel Maddow would be demanding boycotts of the state, and the story would not blow over easy.

And frankly, I think such criticism would have been justified.

I myself would criticize a Republican governor if he were to do such a thing. But for the most part, the mainstream press were largely silent in the wake of Cuomo and de Blasio's intolerance.

This is the same media that can't figure out why Fox News keeps trouncing all its cable news competition combined.

I thought a new book about Roger Ailes, the founder of Fox News and its longtime chairman -- "The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News — and Divided a Country," might shed some light on Fox's success.

But author Gabe Sherman, who has done some solid reporting at New York magazine, seems to have fallen into the same intolerant trap regarding Roger Ailes. I was hoping this book would give us a "fair and balanced" perspective on Ailes.

Instead, it reads as though Sherman interviewed every disgruntled person who ever worked with Ailes during his more than four decades in media.

Sherman thematically offers Ailes as a man who is dominating (is that unusual for a CEO?), a bully (because he fights back?), and paranoid (perhaps the Sherman book justifies that!).

There is so much I wanted to know about Ailes.

This is a man who took Rupert Murdoch's vision and became the architect of the biggest force in news today, creating an asset worth $10 billion or more. Yet the portrait Sherman paints is a fairly negative picture of Ailes that tells little about the real man.

Sherman does note that when Ailes left NBC to start Fox News, 89 employees at NBC quit their jobs to join him. Yes, 89 people left high-paying jobs with all the security NBC offered to go work on a start-up.

This passing reference screamed out to me: Tell me more!

This mass movement of employees, to me, is unprecedented. What type of man engenders such loyalty and support from his colleagues? I can’t believe that a controlling, paranoid bully would cause 89 people to so dramatically change their lives and risk their livelihoods. Sherman's book falls far short in telling that story about Roger Ailes and much more.

The message out of New York these days is pretty clear: if you're a conservative don’t expect a “welcome” mat from liberal politicos and their pals.

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Christopher Ruddy is CEO and editor of Newsmax Media Inc. Read more Christopher Ruddy Insider articles — Click Here Now.