Lawmakers must investigate right-wing media

If you're like me, you dream every day about Brit Hume being grilled and humiliated in front of the whole country by a panel of tough, progressive legislators. I hope that someday soon, members of Congress or a state legislature will have the guts to start a committee to do just that to right-wing media figures far and wide.

Once upon a time, there was something called the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Although the committee's name was quickly tarnished by lawmakers who abused it to advance their own Red-baiting agenda, the committee was actually conceived in 1938 with a noble purpose: to investigate industrialists who supported the Nazis. In fact, it had a predecessor known as the Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities - a name that was a bit long but was less ambiguous about its target.

To avoid being hijacked by the McCarthyist Right, a new legislative committee should have an unambiguous name that identifies it as a tool to investigate right-wing extremism. But one thing is clear: A committee like this must appear somewhere - whether in Congress or in one of the statehouses.

Despite their phony claims to patriotism, the allegiances of the right-wing media are not recognizably American. This has become clearer than ever in recent months, as they've swiftboated Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and Montana's Sen. John Walsh. America's Far Right also has a long record of supporting foreign dictatorships that hate Americans, like in the Singapore flap of 1994. And why do they support offshoring American jobs and moving corporate headquarters overseas to avoid paying American taxes?

Old Glory is made of tough stuff. But we need legislators and public officials who will stand up for the good ol' U.S. and A. instead of running it down like the right-wing media is so intent on doing.

My idea, incidentally, is not a form of McCarthyism of the left. The committee that I propose would gather facts to fight a real threat - as the House Committee on Un-American Activities was originally intended to do before the paranoid Right ruined it. That committee unfortunately went on to do some unsavory things after it was taken over - but a repeat can be avoided if the name of our new committee more clearly reflects our goals. Make no mistake: The right-wing press is a true menace to our republic - perhaps the most serious threat in modern times.

Don't hold your breath if you want to see the broken U.S. House start a committee to probe right-wing media. But that doesn't mean congressional leaders shouldn't be pestered until it happens.