My advice to Tea Partyers

The rigors of newspaper deadlines require this column be finished and neatly tucked to bed before the big Tea Party gathering in Searchlight on Saturday.

But there a few things I think I can say in advance with some confidence.

First, it's going to be big. Citizens from far and wide will gather to hear Sarah Palin and others.

It'll be a political Woodstock, sans the drugs and with more lawn chairs.

There will, of course, be those who will want to take advantage of the patriotic passion that the Tea Party movement evokes. Republicans plan to show up in Searchlight in force, traveling in big ol' RVs hoping to direct some of that energy their way. More power to 'em, I say. That's the proper response organized parties ought to have to the effervescent spirit of movements like this.

Democrats, meanwhile, are scared spitless.

Like stuck-in-the-mud parents in 1969 who clucked their tongues watching news coverage of kids headed to Woodstock, they fear the energy of the Tea Party because they know the passion and the angst is primarily directed at them and their heavy-handed actions. To the Tea Party folk, the Democrats are "The Man."

To illustrate, consider this rant from a paranoid left-wing reader on my daily blog who wrote last week: "After the latest series of terrorist actions by purported members of the tea party I only hope that there are enough federal agents in the crowd to control the potential danger. This group must be watched very carefully given their propensity for violence."

American citizens plan to peacefully gather and this guy screams for "J. Edgar" scrutiny? It just goes to show you that, by and large, liberals today get the Tea Party movement like LBJ got the Grateful Dead.

Also, you can bet that some in the media will be in the crowd looking for trouble.

They think Tea Partyers are weird at best. They hope they can find something other than a peaceful political rally.

My advice to the Tea Partyers is let it be.

Conservatives must always remember (because too many oppressive liberals have long forgotten it) that a free and unfettered press is fundamentally what makes America tick, even when it is disagreeable or unfair. In the long haul, a free press is worth it.

Embrace the moment for all that it is. You are who you are and, who knows, the next generation may look back on Searchlight 2010 and say, "That changed everything."

Empire strikes back?

On a maybe not-so-unrelated topic, the left-wing media spin machine called Media Matters has targeted me and this newspaper for criticism. Essentially, we're getting the Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh treatment from an enterprise that makes no bones about raising money to criticize news organizations with which it politically disagrees.

The good news is that Media Matters doesn't mean much when it comes to actual readers. They've posted their bile for several days and only garnered five comments. Five comments? Hell, I can get five comments by posting a blog that says "the sky is blue." For the curious, you can catch my blog and other Las Vegas news at "lvrj.com."

But integrity, not readership, is the key point here. Getting criticized by Media Matters is a badge of courage. It means you're doing something right and fulfilling your role in journalism.

These days, Media Matters is little more than a tool of government.

The more troubling question that should interest independent minds is why Media Matters reaches all the way out to Nevada to squirt its partisan poison.

Might it have anything to do with Sen. Harry Reid's election woes? He has already said he hopes the Review-Journal, his chief critic in Nevada, goes out of business. And then Media Matters pops up to help? Maybe it's just a coincidence. You'll forgive me, however, if I brace myself for a "random" IRS audit and maybe a couple of unannounced federal inspections down at the newspaper.

This isn't my first rodeo.

Sherman Frederick (sfrederick@ reviewjournal.com) is publisher of the Review-Journal and president of Stephens Media.