Here we go again. Jack Cafferty writes for CNN:
Now, I only have one problem with this. It’s the same problem I’ve always had. People do stupid things when they’re drunk, they do much more violent things when they’re cranked up:
On and on and on it goes. That research wasn’t even hard to do. It’s headlines from THE LAST WEEK. It’s not even all of the headlines, I got tired of cutting and pasting what Jack Cafferty probably has already seen. So, the problem isn’t so much people sitting around peacefully, popping their favorite drug of choice, and watching The History Channel. It’s the problem that these people lose their mind and do crazy violent things. Simply enabling them won’t solve the problem if the local five and dime is closed and they run out of cocaine or meth. If anything, it will just make the problem worse as they’ll be able to work up that addiction as bad as they want it to get. So, until people like Jack Cafferty can tell me how we can deal with the effects of addiction, he’s not going to win his argument with me.
Reaction to Obama’s speech in the media is about as predictable as you’d expect. Fox is finding all kinds of problems with it, CNN is lauding how their poll reaction was. MSNBC couldn’t contain themselves during the Republican response. I’d run a poll here, but I know most of my readers don’t like Obama, so what would be the point?
There are however, polls that go beyond politics and reflect the sentiment coming from DC in a purely unbiased form. The Dow Jones, NASDAQ, et al. They’re not worried about partisan politics, they’re worried about bottom line. Sure, there are individuals within the markets that have personal political preferences, but overall, the bottom line is their life, and when spread out over the thousands of companies in these markets, you get a good picture I think of the real sentiment. Bottom line for Obama’s speech?
- Dow down 80 points.
- NASDAQ down 15 points
- S&P down 6 points
Now, to me, that’s a real-life poll going on. The markets may recover as the day goes along, but that seems to be the initial reaction.
Now, this is juicy stuff that makes for a made-for-tc movie and endless headlines on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, etc….
Wrong.
If you didn’t see it here:
You probably would never have known. That’s a local Buffalo station report.
Now, as others have suggested, let’s replay this incident and substitute a Catholic or any other demonination as the source of the story. You know, like that chick who killed her preacher husband a few years ago. Hers wasn’t quite as gruesome. She just shot him. Mundane stuff that got played in the media for months. This guy beheads his wife in a public arena and no one says a word.
What is going on in this country?
I sure wish I had an inside to CNN. I’d love to know why this is not front-page stuff when the beer tax in Oregon is? Is CNN that afraid of Islam?
Well, apparently Fox isn’t. However, the silence of others is almost preferable to Fox’s headline.
WSFA is reporting that Birmgingham, Alabama mayor Larry Langford has been arrested by the FBI on some pretty serious charges. At this point CNN nor MSNBC feel it’s a story worth printing.
If you read the local story, it’s pretty lengthy. It gets into what the background of the investigation is, who’s involved, and some of the odder aspects of Larry Langford. What it doesn’t tell you is what party Larry Langford is a member of. Wanna guess? For the record, this is Larry Langford:
Mayor Larry Langford
He’s a Democrat.
The body count in Nancy Pelosi’s Culture of Corruption just keeps piling up. She, of course, will still tell you no Democrat had anything to do with Larry Langford’s criminal activities. Keith Olbermann will still tell you that Larry Langford must be innocent because Nancy Pelosi says no Democrat has anything to do with criminal activities. CNN, MSNBC and most media will still do everything they can to protect the Democrat Party by omitting painful facts by claiming they don’t have anything to do with the story itself. What Langford is accused of doing makes Ted Stevens look lame. It’s so egregious, from initial reports, it’s on a scale of William Jefferson.
And, we all know what happened to William Jefferson, now don’t we?
30
Oct
Some media are having a difficult time reacting to the charges by McCain that they are completely and unashamedly pushing their candidate. They have discussed it, they have debated, and some to a small degree, have admitted it. If one has any doubts at all, all they need to is go to CNN’s front page this morning and look at the headlines:
Obama is featured in no less than SIX headline articles. Joe Biden’s mentioend in one. The only mention of John McCain is CNN finding members of his own party criticizing him.
I don’t want to ever hear CNN make the claim they are an unbaised, fair, reporting media again. Ever. They’ve gone beyond biased to the point of poisoned.
This is getting too predictable to ignore. However, the media in general pretty much has. See if you can follow me on this.
In 2000, we were definitely changing presidents. It was a neck and neck race with two very politically diverse candidates running. One was a staunch conservative Republican and the other was a wide eyed radical liberal Democrat. The market had been kinda shaky as the dotcom bubble was bursting. People were kinda iffy about the housing market. A crash had been predicted for years, but hadn’t materialized.
In September, the race was really heating up. At that point, CNN had the race looking like this:
CNN Tracking poll
The liberal Democrat was ahead.
From that point on, the Dow gave up 11% of its value in a constant downslide that many people contributed to everything from lousy lending practices to speculative start-ups, to of course, the failed economic policies of the outgoing lame duck president. At the end of the race, the conservative Republican made a sudden lurch to pull ahead in the polls, and the Dow went up suddenly. The economy didn’t get any better, but the Dow did.
In 2004, we may or may not have switched a president. However, the incumbent pretty well held his own all the way through the race. Things were close tho. As the challenger, a wild eyed liberal Democrat led at times, the Dow gave up 4%. When it became evident the conservative Republican was going to win, once again a week or so before the race was over, the Dow recovered.
Fast forward to 2008. We’ve got a moderate to conservative Republican running against a wild eyed flaming liberal. The market was cruising pretty well going into the final three months. However, there has been a huge anti-Republican sentiment mostly in the media. The assumption of course, is that the Republican could not overcome this media/Hollywood revolt of all things Republican. The polls pretty well sort of reflect this monumental anti-Republican sentiment by having the liberal Democrat ahead going into the final three months. The Dow since that point has given up 25% of its value since 9/2/08. As the polled numbers got worse for the Republican, the slide has been incredible to watch, dropping nearly 700 points at a time.
So, what do I see from Zogby today, almost on cue?
|
Three Day Tracking Poll |
10-7 |
10-6 |
| Obama |
47.1% |
47.7% |
| McCain |
45.2% |
45.3% |
The race is tightening again.
Expect a recovery on the Dow tomorrow.
A lot is being made over the Republicans, me included, complaining how biased the media has been. I could cite evidence all day and night if I felt like it. I’ll just cite a couple of quickies from my own observations in no particular order:
Sarah Palin has been scrutinized mercilessly, criticized, and editorialized relentlessly over the fact one of her children is pregnant. Earth shattering stuff that is huh? Quite a few people are questioning whether she can handle the pressure of holding a job AND being a mother at the same time. Not like that’s been tried before huh? But, did you know Joe Biden has kids too? Did you know one of Joe Biden’s boys is in serious legal trouble?
What’s that? His brother’s in cahoots as well? Won’t see that on CNN or MSNBC any time soon I’m sure.
Then of course, there was always the non-story of how Obama provides for his half-brother:
The Italian edition of Vanity Fair says it tracked down George Hussein Onyango Obama living in poverty in a rundown shack in the violent town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi.
That link’s not to the New York Times. It’s to a source in AUSTRALIA. The reason no one knows who George Obama is is because CNN and MSNBC and most media would just as soon no one find out.
But, Sarah Palin’s daughter is fair meat. She hasn’t broken any laws. And, her family, unlike Barack, is standing behind her. That’s the media for ya. That’s disgusting.
Some are doing it in a not-so-overt fashion, and I don’t even think intentionally or with any malice:
Now, Steven is saying that in responding to perceived media bias, the Republicans are going after a boogeyman that doesn’t exist and are therefore not addressing the true issues that the media is discussing that creates this air of “bias”. He even has several points of proof to support his point. That’s more than most do. However, I wrote a lengthy rebuttal to this one. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I’ll just pull it:
With the Democrat leadership popularity in the House and Senate in the teens, it can be very easily argued that the reality is that most people think less of the Democrat leadership than they do the Republican leadership ( being twice as popular at this time ). However, you will NEVER see that being mentioned by the “invisible, amorphous enemies”. So, needless to say, I think you are 100% wrong in your assumption that the only thing Republicans have to worry about are how “to fix the problems that the Bush administration has created”. They also have to worry about how to deal with the “invisible, amorphous enemies” that are broadcasting to the entire world every single day and minute on MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC. And, quite often, here. I don’t think McCain ever considered the “invisible, amorphous enemies” his base. They may have been friendlier to him in the past when he wasn’t a Republican figurehead, but I’m quite certain he realized that in a competitive situation with a liberal Democrat, he’ll lose every single time with the “invisible, amorphous enemies”. And, so far, he pretty much has. How often have you criticized Obama’s invisible, amorphous plan for the future? How often have you criticized the “invisible, amorphous enemies” for dogging Palin’s children while ignoring Obama’s starving brother and Biden’s criminal son? It’s not so much that the “invisible, amorphous enemies” are once again doing what every Republican expects, it’s just sickening how blatant the bias is this time while those proclaiming to be fair and balanced attack those that are disgusted with how blatant it has become. I mean, think about it, why was the only news media even interested in John Edwards’ being busted in a hotel late at night after seeing a new mom the National Enquirer? No other “invisible, amorphous enemy” would touch it even though they were ready to pounce on Palin’s baby boy possibly being her daughter’s based on nothing but a blog post on Daily Kos?
The gyst being that the evidence used to support the argument that media bias is a boogeyman is horribly flawed, obviously to the point of being, well, biased. Sure, Bush isn’t terribly popular, but Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are horribly less so. Any politician with one functioning brain cell could look and see that 30% is a LOT more than 17%. So, the justification that the Republicans are shooting the messenger and ignoring the message is just wrong. The messenger is dicking around with the message. The message is the Democrat platform is not working. The messenger chooses to ignore that message and tell the people the Republican platform is not working, regardless of the fact it has higher approval ratings. And then, when whenever someone claims the messenger is dicking around with the message, the messengers complain about it. So, how does the real message ever get delivered? In most cases, that’s the point.
However, some people haven’t bought into the “shock at all costs” skewing of “news” in order to dictate social policy that seems to be media’s business model since the inception of CNN. Here’s what I call some EXCELLENT reporting:
There’s a lot more, it’s an excellent read by Gary Andres. Now, it’s got a touch of bias. It talks about how novel Obama’s plan is, then points out it was first used by Bush.
The Bush campaign deployed the same tactic in 2004.
Now, how does one use the same tactic four years before someone else? So, have to take it with a grain of salt. But, for the most part, it just simply takes a piece of information and lays it out there for all to dissect.
I like that.
That is reporting.
We need lots more “reporting” and a lot less “editorializing”.
And we sure as hell need a lot less political interference by the media. No matter how much they whine about it.
3
Sep
Several in media have been insinuating that there might be a double standard at play regarding Sarah Palin. Let’s see. We’ve had a couple of very recent events to compare. So, let’s do, shall we?
- John Edwards ran for President as recently as early this year. He ran on ethics primarily. He lost but maintained a strong political position as Hillary and Barack possibly needed his supporters. The entire time of his campaign he was occasionally seeing a woman that might have born his child while he was screwing around on his cancer stricken wife. CNN, MSNBC, and others were not interested in the least. Dogged by The Enquirer and festering rumors circulating primarily in the blogworld, Edwards finally confessed his infidelity and national deception. One interview was given and that was that.
- Sarah Palin was accused by Daily Kos among others of not birthing her last child. But rather, adopting it to cover up the pregnancy of her daughter, who by the way, was pregnant at the time. There has been no indescretion on the part of Palin, or for that matter, her daugher. Regardless, her plight, or rather the plight of her daughter, has been non-stop media discussion for days as people debate very vocally on CNN, MSNBC, and others, whether or not Mrs. Palin can govern since her daughter is pregnant.
Maybe it’s just me. But for some reason I really think John Edwards should have been thrashed publicly by the media and people should have congratulated Sarah Palin on her impending grandmotherhood.
That’s just not how media works apparently. There’s obviously a bias there. Is it because Sarah Palin is, you know, Republican?
I could be way off here in my assuming tho. How’s about a poll?
29
Aug
Now, my peeps here know how I feel about Condi Rice. So, I think, smarting from the Obama/Hillary dustup, Anderson Cooper decided to try and turn the wheels on McCain by planting the seed of discontent in folks like me over McCain “snubbing” Condi in the manner of Obama snubbing Clinton. Two serious differences here that should have been blatantly obvious to Cooper:
- Condi never showed any interest at all by attempting to run for president.
- Condi flat out said she was not interested in pursuing politics of any sort after she serves her time in DC. She’d rather be the NFL commissioner.
Bottom line, it was never an option. Now, the media put a lot into the “vetting” process. Some people claim that Condi was never even vetted ala Clinton never being vetted. Who the hell would see a need to “vet” either one?
I would have loved to have seen Condi on the ticket. However, as I posted a long time ago, I knew it was never an option. She’s just too smart to put up with dictators and political thugs for more than her time demands. In order to run for office, she’d have to knock her IQ down another notch or two. I just don’t see her ever doing that, or having a need to. Think I’m stretching the sarcasm a bit? Check out the comments on Cooper’s post. Check out how many of those people think Alaska has a population of 8,500. Check out how many of those people are basing their “informed” decision based on the fact she has never done anything but be a mayor of a small town. Check out how many think she’s never been out of the country before. Then, check this out:
Palin in Kuwait
That’s not Alaska, that’s Kuwait. Finding that pic took about five seconds. When people make up their mind, they’re not going to spend that five seconds to validate their opinion. It’s just made up and that’s that. In their mind, she has never been to Kuwait, the pictures don’t mean a thing. In their mind, either Alaska has 8,000 or so citizens, or she’s never been governor. Facts are irrelevent. They’ve made up their mind.
Alaska has 300,000 or so citizens, state employees, and a budget that makes most states look simple. Senators have small staffs, no real budget to manage, and are directly responsible for no one citizen. So yeah, the comments on Cooper’s post are sad. Real sad. Really about the only “support” most gave was she was not Joe Biden.
Condi’s too smart for politics. That is the ugly side of democracy. And, given her abilities, I don’t blame her.
Just a personal note to Anderson Cooper. I make it a point to challenge all statements made on my blog. If I get overwhelmed with comments, I close them until I can catch up. Sure, I’m biased, but not in what either party is usually offering me today. I can not understand how a “professional” like Cooper and others can honestly look at the tripe being thrown into their domain and just let it sit there. There are some incredibly stupid comments that are there for eternity testifying the level of intellect that is the Anderson Cooper reader. I couldn’t live with that. I don’t live with that. Someone says something wrong here, I correct it. If it’s right, I acknowledge it. If it’s intentionally inflamatory, I delete it. But, what I am not going to do is make the other readers here feel stupid by letting the quality level drop to sub-zero. You better think here. If not, CNN’s more than happy to accept it.
Immediately after it became known that Sarah Palin would be John McCain’s running mate, CNN ran a poll asking people if they had supported Hillary Clinton if they would now consider McCain/Palin. Approximately 41% at the last I saw it said yes. That’s enough to turn this election into a washout for Obama. So, CNN immediately changed their poll.
The new poll now asks who is the stronger VP candidate, Biden or Palin. So far, 69% are favoring Biden. So, I guess CNN will let this one ride for a while. However, this begs the question for me. What exactly are people looking for in Obama’s “change”? There’s no “change” with Biden. Biden’s been a DC insider forever. So, I’m perplexed that 69% of the people voting in this poll ever considered Obama in regards to any of the other primary candidates. He had by far the least experience and age and therefore was not the strongest candidate.
But, if I did all that thinking, I’d be doing exactly what CNN wants. And that is, forgetting about the poll they yanked. In the big picture, that’s the only one that mattered.
