About a month ago, in this space, I told you The New York Times had rigged a poll about Americans wanting to pay higher taxes to fund government-run health care. The Times poll said 57 percent were willing to pay more tax and 37 percent were not willing to do so. But what the Times did not tell its readers was that 48 percent of those polled voted for Barack Obama. Only 25 percent supported John McCain. Of course the poll results would skew left.

Now we have another media deceit. The most recent edition of Newsweek magazine includes a nasty hatchet job on Sarah Palin by a guy named Rick Perlstein. The piece is presented as hard news -- not an opinion column -- and basically says that the governor is a moron who is supported by dimwitted conservatives at odds with smart Republicans. Perlstein also submits that I and other Fox News people lead the dumb GOP folks.

Anyone reading the story would think that a Newsweek correspondent put it together -- the magazine has a staff of trained journalists to do its reporting and analysis. But Perlstein is not a Newsweek correspondent and is identified only as an author at the end of the piece. Strange.

But it gets even stranger.

Turns out that Perlstein is a far-left zealot who blogs for a liberal site called "Campaign for America's Future." He lists one of his "interests" as "conservative failure." In 2007, Perlstein wrote: "I've just become a proud Fox (News) attacker. Now, you can, too. It's not a boycott. It's simply calling advertisers and informing them what Fox says. Fox can't survive that."

So Newsweek hired a far-left loon to do a hit piece on Palin, conservatives and Fox News, and did not inform its readers of his dedicated point of view. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham basically tried to disguise an ideological attack as news coverage.

Newsweek magazine is in dire financial trouble and is seeking to survive by cultivating a liberal, urban audience. There is nothing wrong with that as long as the editors are upfront about it. But this sneaky media stuff is harming America, and it must be unmasked.

With Barack Obama in the White House, the country is facing profound change. America is already on the verge of bankruptcy, and federal intrusion into private business, health care and the environment is unprecedented. The far left aims to create a huge federal apparatus that will promote income redistribution and "social justice." They also see a major opportunity to knock out Judeo-Christian traditions, replacing them with a secular philosophy.

In order to accomplish this, leftwing media are marginalizing people like Palin who oppose the strategy. Under the guise of hard news reporting, the media are pushing rank propaganda on the citizenry. Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, successfully developed this tactic in the 1930s.

Americans need to wake up and smell the corruption. If crazy ideologues have infiltrated the news business, we need to know about it. And now you do. Bill O'Reilly reporting.

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