Tonight was the Minnesota Republican Party’s annual Elephant Club dinner. Former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer was the speaker. My wife and I were luckily seated at the head table. Ari did a very good job, speaking mostly on the topic of his recent book, Suppression, Deception, Snobbery, and Bias: Why the Press Gets So Much Wrong―And Just Doesn’t Care. His speech included a Power Point with egregious examples of press bias and a two-minute CNN video that was about the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

After the event, I chatted with Ari and told him I am one of the Power Line guys. As you might expect, he remembers us pretty fondly, especially for Rathergate. So the least I can do is plug his book. I got a copy tonight, and of course haven’t read it yet. But based on his talk, I am sure it is good.

In his speech, having documented the absurd level of bias in the formerly “mainstream” press, Ari talked about the growth of independent and conservative media. His message was, in part, that the liberal press is self-destructing and conservatives need to rely on, and build up, our own outlets. I couldn’t agree more.

I told Ari that my organization has an email list of more than 118,000 with an unheard of 50% open rate, we publish a quarterly magazine with a circulation of 115,000, and use every known medium, plus an average of nearly one live event per week, to reach more people than any “mainstream” news source in our state. So media bias is an issue that, in my view, is in the rear-view mirror. All of that said, I recommend buying Ari’s book.