KEY POINTS:
As Henry Kissinger was fond of saying, "even paranoiacs can have real enemies."
His boss Richard Nixon was a good example: so paranoid that he kept a list of enemies, some of whom were unquestionably real.
Paranoiacs are convinced others are out to get them even though they've
done nothing wrong, so they avoid asking themselves the question: why do these people dislike me?
In Nixon's case, he was dishonest, vindictive and lacked social graces - and that was when he was sober.
What brings Nixon and his deserved unpopularity to mind is the ongoing debate over the media's role in the presidential election in the United States.
Fox News has been beating this drum for some time while pugnacious commentator Ann Coulter is promising to expose the media's 'love affair' with Barack Obama in her new book.
This week Time's Mark Halperin weighed in, calling the bias against John McCain disgusting and likening it to the media's docile complicity as America was railroaded into war in Iraq.
Coulter, who shouldn't be taken too seriously, believes the theory of evolution is bogus science and equates liberalism with treason. In American political parlance, she's a 'whack job'.
Halperin cited the New York Times' profiles of the candidates' wives, insisting Michelle Obama got kid gloves treatment while Cindy McCain got shredded.
But as was pointed out, it was hardly the newspaper's fault Mrs McCain had an affair with her husband while he was married to someone else, stole money from her own charity, became a drug addict and lied about the circumstances of adopting a child.
The two women were profiled because of the peculiar but significant role the First Lady plays in the nation's affairs, so what was the Times meant to do? Self-censor by ignoring Mrs McCain's chequered past? Bung a few fictional scandals into Mrs Obama's background just to even things up?
Facts are facts. It's not the media's role to suppress or massage them to preserve the appearance of neutrality.
There's a misconception the media has an ethical or even legal obligation to be scrupulously even-handed in election campaigns. It doesn't.
To take an extreme scenario, such a requirement would have obliged media covering the recent Zimbabwean election to gloss over the fact Robert Mugabe has led the country to rack and ruin because they couldn't find something equally appalling to pin on his opponent.
The media's obligation to inform means it can't just report what the candidates say and leave it at that. What if the arithmetic underpinning one party's economic policies is flawed or deceitful: should it turn a blind eye to forestall accusations of bias?
The media did treat Obama more favourably and so it should have. Unlike McCain, he was uplifting, gave some great speeches, ran a disciplined, coherent campaign, attracted huge crowds, raised loads of money, wasn't mean-spirited, didn't select an unqualified running mate and didn't co-opt the spurious Joe the Plumber.
It's ironic the right, which champions merit and is suspicious of government interventions aimed at reducing inequality and creating a fairer society, should in this instance be arguing that merit should have been taken out of the equation in the interests of fairness.
Meanwhile in London, a sore winner was also laying into the media. No fair-minded person could dispute Graham Henry's contention the All Blacks' 2008 record vindicates his reappointment, or begrudge him giving his critics a metaphorical two-fingered salute.
But does he really believe the whole controversy was a media beat-up or that the Kiwi media "wanted us to lose"? He claimed he'd never had a "face-to-face negative from anybody in the public."
To which the obvious response is: you should get out more. Don't those who squawk about media conspiracies realise how batty they make themselves appear?
Earlier this year, I poked fun at the Roman Catholic Church, prompting the Catholic Bishop of Auckland to burst into print, foaming about a co-ordinated media attack on Christianity that occurs every Easter "like clockwork."
To me, Easter means hot cross buns and Easter eggs, not the annual call-up from Atheism Central.
Media conspiracy theorists either haven't spent much time around journalists or are too busy being adversarial to see what makes them tick. Most journalists would make hopeless conspirators: anything requiring more secrecy, discipline and the ability to impart instructions than organising a stripper-gram for a colleague's leaving do would be a bridge too far.
