I just did a little piece about how media was going the way of National Enquirer. Now, I was somewhat limited in my disdain since I was relying on the internet for my news. Apparently, the sexual innuendo wasn’t limited to the internet. Anderson Cooper had this to say about yesterday’s demonstrations:
“It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging,”
David Shuster wasn’t about to be outdone:
- “Teabagging day for the right wing and they are going nuts for it.”
- He described the parties as simultaneously “full-throated” and “toothless,”
- “They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending.”
Now, I gotta admit, I had never heard of teabagging in the mode they were using it. Now I do thanks to a live news broadcast aired into the homes of children. I wonder how many kids across the land were asking their mommies why they didn’t go teabagging.
Class act David and Anderson. If there was ever a need for the FCC, now seems to be it. But, they won’t do anything. CNN and MSNBC won’t do anything. I guess the only real option is to block CNN and MSNBC so my child won’t be exposed to stuff I’d rather my six year old not be discussing at this time.
That’s nuts, guys. ( Heh,get it? Nuts? )
Is it a coincidence that both pieces I wrote today on media’s dissolving ethics involved MSNBC?
10
Mar
Newsbusters is having all kinds of fun with Rachel Maddow of MSNBC. Here’s what Jack Coleman is having all kinds of fun with:
Now, according to popular myth, and espoused whole-heartedly by Rachel Maddow, Hoover did nothing during the Great Depression. He froze federal spending and simply watched The Great Depression dig the country deeper and deeper into an economic mess.
Jack then points out that Hoover didn’t freeze government spending. He increased it. In fact, he increased it a lot.
So, let’s fact check, shall we? Jack and Rachel have thoroughly conflicting stories of what Hoover actually did.
According to GPO, this is what federal receipts and outlays were from 1929 to 1932:
| Year | Receipts | Outlays | ||
| 1929 | 3,862 | -1% | 3,127 | 6% |
| 1930 | 4,058 | 5% | 3,320 | 6% |
| 1931 | 3,116 | -23% | 3,577 | 8% |
| 1932 | 1,924 | -38% | 4,659 | 30% |
Bottom line, Hoover increased spending 49% by my math over four years trying to prop up the economy and get things back on track. His smallest increase was 6%. To date, Obama’s budgets have increased spending by about 5%. Seems Rachel doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about. So, this year, Rachel will defend Obama for spending wildly, which is not quite as much as Hoover actually did. Then, if things still don’t get much better, but Obama does indeed cut spending as he’s promised, she’ll defend Obama anyway. She’s an idiot. How do these people get paid to be on MSNBC? Really, I can make stupid unsubstantiated claims too. However, they bug me. I like dealing with facts. Facts don’t come back and bite you in the butt and make you feel stupid if you verify them.
The fact of the matter is nothing Hoover did or tried to do would have mattered. The entire world was mired in an economic downturn and there were no recourses available to insulate our economy from the rest of the world. What kicked the US out of the Depression was not the New Deal or any work program. It was World War II. Not only did we make stuff for our armies, we made stuff for other armies. This brought revenues and jobs to the US. When the war was over, most of the world economies were devestated and the US stood pretty much alone in being a manufacturing mecca for the planet. Because of that unchallenged manufacturing base, financial resources came to the US in droves. This has brought prosperity to the US since WWII.
Now, if Rachel advocates a global conflict to assure Obama’s place in history, that’s about as nutty as claiming Hoover didn’t try spend his way out of The Great Depression. However, given her protection on MSNBC, I wouldn’t rule it out. Bush was bad for going into Iraq, but I’m quite certain if Obama started a war, it would be just fine with MSNBC.
Bottomest line of this post, looking at the history MSNBC and others are re-writing
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.
13
Jan
Here we go. The members of the US Senate class of 2008 haven’t even been fully seated and we are already sepculating on 2010. CNN has already decided the Republicans are in trouble in 2010 simply because, get this, they had trouble in 2006 and 2008. Logical huh? Wikipedia references something called the Cook Political Report as the official word on what is going to happen in 2010. Their breakdown has it looking something like this:
| DEMOCRATS | 17 HELD SEATS | ||||||
| SOLID D (11) | LIKELY D (5) | LEAN D (1) | TOSS UP (0) | LEAN R (0) | LIKELY R (0) | SOLID R (0) |
| Lincoln (AR) | Boxer (CA) | Bennet (CO) | ||||
| Dodd (CT) | Reid (NV) | |||||
| Kaufman (DE) | Dorgan (ND) | |||||
| Inouye* (HI) | Murray (WA) | |||||
| IL (Obama) | Feingold (WI) | |||||
| Bayh (IN) | ||||||
| Mikulski (MD) | ||||||
| Schumer (NY-A) | ||||||
| NY-B (Clinton) | ||||||
| Wyden (OR) | ||||||
| Leahy (VT) | ||||||
| REPUBLICANS | 20 HELD SEATS | ||||||
| SOLID D (0) | LIKELY D (0) | LEAN D (0) | TOSS UP (4) | LEAN R (2) | LIKELY R (2) | SOLID R (12) |
| FL (Martinez) | KS (Brownback) | OH (Voinovich) | Shelby (AL) | |||
| Bunning* (KY) | Specter* (PA) | Coburn (OK) | Murkowski (AK) | |||
| Vitter (LA) | McCain (AZ) | |||||
| MO (Bond) | Isakson (GA) | |||||
| Crapo (ID) | ||||||
| Grassley* (IA) | ||||||
| Gregg (NH) | ||||||
| Burr (NC) | ||||||
| DeMint (SC) | ||||||
| Thune (SD) | ||||||
| TX (Bailey Hutchison) | ||||||
| Bennett (UT) | ||||||
Basically, it’s a pretty simple chart. If you’re a Democrat, you’ll likely win. If you’re a Republican, it could be a toss-up. For instance, it lists Kentucky as a toss-up because the sitting senator might be retiring. That’s based on actions Bunning made in 2007. In 2008, he’s running. That’s how accurate these things are at this point.
Most people are painting the Republicans in trouble primarily because of what happened two months ago. However, history tells them, and me, that things are probably not going to be as easy in 2010 as they were in 2008. There are several things people need to take into consideration before lumping the Democrats unbeatable forever.
- Most pundits, especially the slightly more liberal ones like ABC, CNN and MSNBC, predicted Democrat super-majorities based on the 2008 elections. That didn’t happen. In Kentucky particularly, the Republican Senator won and Obama lost. So, these coat-tails that some media have been assuming is there never has been in some places. The Republicans did surprisingly well in Kentucky given that Kentucky is a 2.5 to 1 Democrat state and the head of the Democrat ticket was being lauded by all media as the greatest candidate of all-time. Something went wrong somewhere.
- History has been brutal on the majority party during the first election following a presidential election. The wildly popular Bill Clinton had his legs taken out from under him in 1994. The exception noted by CNN and most people was 2002. However, there was an event in very late 2001 that affected the elections of 2002. Barring some catastrophe in 2009, I expect history to repeat itself for several reasons. Partially, in large part, because the “wildly popular” Bill Clinton was never truly “wildly popular”. The media just loved him. The majority of people in the United States did not. 43% of the vote just isn’t a terribly long coat tail.
- The dynamics of the 2008 election have been horribly abused by the media. Although the Democrats nominated someone farther to the left than is typically successful, the Republicans nominated a moderate that failed to capture the base of his own party. This left the Republicans putting more resources into the presidential race as the presidential candidate was unable to compete financially with the Democrat. As such, their efforts in the Senate races were not well coordinated or financed. In 2010 the Republicans will not have this distraction and typically outspend the Democrats. Whether people like it or not, money talks very loudly in local races. Expect a much more coordinated effort from the Republicans in 2010. Because:
- Obama is pro-civil rights to the point of being extremely anti-business. A lot of his views border on Marxism. Sure, I know that has been tossed around a lot, but it is true. What little legislation we’ve seen coming out of the House in 2009 so far has been pro-civil rights, anti-business. Even with the economy in the tank, the liberal arm of the Democrat party is in full socialist mode, attacking businesses. That will bite the Democrats very quickly.
- Nancy Pelosi is in charge of the House. She got to where she is as a one trick pony. However, that one trick is now biting her. Running on purely ethics issues and against “the worst president ever”, she now has neither issue to fall back on. In addition, she is as liberal or moreso than Obama, and purely committed to partisan politics. Her stance that no Democrat ever had anything to do with the economic mess we’re in now flying squarely in the face of reality should mean something more if the economic situation continues into 2009. A very simple campaign platform for the Republicans would be that this mess didn’t occur until the Democrats took over the House. If it’s not resolved by election time, look for a lot more people to believe that argument.
- Harry Reid is in charge of the Senate. His ineptness and flip-flopping on issues has not only confounded people outside of Nevada like myself, it’s apparently tiring people in Nevada to the point where some are questioning whether he can even hold his seat. Some pundits are even calling Reid the most vulnerable Democrat up for re-election. If Reid is vulnerable in 2010 as the Senate Speaker under the most popular elected president in the history of the world, something’s amiss. If his leadership is so out of touch that it jeapordizes his long held seat, that could present problems for the DNC in 2010.
- Balance of power. This country has been unkind to the party in power. Bill Clinton had it all of two years. George HW Bush had it for a few years and lost it as well in 2006. It would most likely have been earlier, but the dynamics of the 2002 elections were skewed, and the Democrats shot themselves in the foot repeatedly in 2004. By 2006, things returned to normal and the people voted for balance. I’m not saying we’ll have that balance by 2010, but I think people will be working towards it.
- Failed expectations. People set the bar way too high for Obama. He can’t meet all those expectations. It’s just impossible. He can do well. But, well isn’t good enough. Because of that, expect some backlash over time as people realize he is not the messiah. He’s not at this point even controlling his own party. As much as he preached bipartisanhip, Nancy Pelosi has put the screws to that already. I expect he’ll survive. But, expect some backlash with the constituency.
- Iraq. If the troops aren’t out of Iraq by 2009, look for serious backlash.
- Economy. If the economy’s not back on track in 2009, look for serious backlash.
- National security. Obama painted a picture by choosing Leon Panetta as CIA director. If there is a major terrorist issue in 2009 or early 2010, expect that to affect things.
- Scandals. A lot of the gains the Democrats made in 2006 and 2008 were based on self-inflicted wounds within the Republican party. However, those players are out of the spotlight and now we’re looking at Democrats such as Blago, William Jefferson, Sheila Dixon, and others.
I could go on and on. Each race will have its own dynamics. However, the bottom line to me is this could be 1994 all over again. The only question to me at this point is if the RNC is capable of capitalizing. Now, I’m moderate. However, I’m not moderate on any real issue. No one is. The Republicans hung their hat on conservative issues with Reagan, and that’s what got them in charge. Over time, people confused conservative values with a reliance on religious values. That eroded some of the base. Abuses of power, inept leadership, and in-fighting took them down. However, the culmination was running a moderate for president. He appealed to me to some degree, but wasn’t anything I could get real excited about. It’s hard to get excited about any moderate. That’s just the nature of the beast being open to any issue. When Clinton won, he had to be more moderate, but won on liberal views. When Bush II won, he won on conservative values but had to move to more moderate views as well. Now, Obama has won running on extremely liberal credentials but moved to the middle during his campaign, and I expect will lurch even moreso to the middle once the realities of his decisions hits him ( which I think they arlready have ). I think this is a lot of the reason for the second year curse that seems to hit most modern presidents. As the figurehead abandons the ideology that got him and his minions elected, the public revolts in the democratic way. Obama can not possibly remain as liberal as he ran and was perceived and be an effective president. He’s already abandoned several campaign issues ( we’ll be in Iraq a lot longer, his tax incentives will be moderated ). As such, I expect the revolt to begin in 2010.
That’s all I have to say about that. Today.
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?
This is precious.
Immediately after the election, a few networks ran with the story that McCain campaign workers were claiming that Sarah Palin did not know Africa was a continent, among other ludicrous claims. Turns out, MSMBC’s source for the claim was one Martin Eisenstadt.
Turns out, Martin Eisenstadt isn’t real. He’s a fictional character.
Some people were quick to blame the creators of Martin Eisenstadt for the faux pas. However, the creators were quick to blame the shoddy reporting of MSNBC.
I agree with the creators of Martin Eisenstadt. There was nothing outside of the fictional blog to suggest Martin Eisenstadt had anything to do with John McCain or Sarah Palin. With no verification from anyone, MSNBC, and others, ran with the story as if it were fact. Now, faced with the fact that their source was a fictional character, rather than very publicly recanting the story, and apologizing to Sarah Palin, they’re attacking a fictional character. That’s the very sorry state of major media today.
Been out of action for a few days. Decided to take a mini-vacation. Came back to this side-splitting “headline”:
Her “character attacks” are mentioning people Obama has hung out with that just don’t look so good now that he’s running for president.
In my world, a “character attack” is attacking one’s character. You know, something like Bernhard calling her a “turncoat b***h”. That’s a character attack. Criticizing Obama’s choice of associates is most definitely not.
However, I’m sure, MSNBC, reeling from the obvious criticism of their non-stop character attacks on Palin, felt like leveling the playing field in a way only the media can. By distorting the truth.
Think I’m stretching it a little bit?
I’m not.
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?
