Did anyone really think that the media was going to follow the rest of America into the hopeful, inspiring world of Barack Obama?
Their mission has always been to destroy whowever the Democratic candidate was going to be. The media, and their Corporate employers, decided long ago that the Dem race would be these two candidates. Why? Because they knew they could easily destroy them both.
This is from December of 2006. That's two-thousand-SIX.
Well if you thought the hate-wing e-mail being spread around wasn't enough, well none other than the Associated Press has now decided to do what the press did in 2004 and "cover" the Swiftboat-style lies being promulgated by the extreme right-wing liars in our country.
Yes, they're giving credence, not only with the body of their story, but with their headline, to the "Obama may not be patriotic" smear. Check out this headline:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Barack Obama's refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin along with a photo of him not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem led conservatives on Internet and in the media to question his patriotism.
Last night in the Republican debate Tim Russert asked John McCain about a statement he’d made:
"I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."
McCain pretended he’d never said any such thing:
"I don’t know where you got that quote from, I’m very well versed in economics."
Except that he had said it. Russert plucked the statement from this 2005 puff piece on McCain in the WSJ:
On a broader range of economic issues, though, Mr. McCain readily departs from Reaganomics. His philosophy is best described as a work in progress. He is refreshingly blunt when he tell me: "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." OK, so who does he turn to for advice? His answer is reassuring. His foremost economic guru is former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm (who would almost certainly be Treasury secretary in a McCain administration). He's also friendly with the godfather of supply-side economics, Arthur Laffer.
You’ll probably find that information about McCain’s economic advisors less reassuring than reporter Stephen Moore did. In any case, McCain has said similar things about his economic ignorance several times over several years...and as recently as last month. His admissions of ignorance are well known and sometimes quite spectacular.
So, just another case of McCain the liar.
How contentedly American journalists suck at the teat of that mother of all political myths: John McCain the straight-talker. Disgusting, sure, particularly if you have any direct experience of McCain the liar, as I do.
Take for example this slobbering interview by Michele Norris on NPR recently. She spits up all over herself trying to portray a simple opinion about economics as emblematic of McCain’s honesty and candor, assuming these things as if they were fact (rather than journalistic fictions):
Michele Norris: One of the things you’ve been spending a lot of time talking about is the faltering economy, particularly in Michigan. You were very honest, and you were very straight with the voters, you said many of the American jobs, the US jobs that we’ve lost, are simply not coming back. Mitt Romney seemed to look at that and see a big fat pitch over the plate. He started saying that, yes, those jobs can come back, in fact he has a plan to bring them back. And he painted a much more optimistic picture of the future economy. Does that suggest that voters aren’t always ready for straight talk? Is that one way to read those results?
John McCain: No, I think that voters want straight talk. That’s why we won in New Hampshire, that’s why we’ll win here. I’m not pessimistic, I’m optimistic about the future of our economy...
Michele Norris: That’s a courageous stance to take, though, to stand up to voters and say you know we have to face up to the fact that some of those jobs might not be coming back.
John McCain: Look, voters are smart, they’re not uninformed...
Damned you Senator, admit it already, you’re politically courageous. Why don’t you stop being so evasive and fess up to being a straight-talker?
Standing up to voters?! Truly a pathetic performance, but characteristic of so much of the reporting on McCain by American journalists. For example, in this report from last June we learned that McCain’s exposure as a corrupt hack during the Savings and Loan crisis of the late ’80s led – no, not to jail time, get a hold of yourself. His exposure as a crook led to the straight-talking politician we know today. Heh.
The image of John McCain has long been something of a straight-talking maverick.
Some of those qualities were forged following an early chapter of McCain's political life, when he was one of the so-called Keating Five...
"What had been one of the most happy-go-lucky senatorial offices suddenly seemed to have an aura of political death about it, because it was John McCain himself — it hit him so hard, the idea that his honor was being questioned," (biographer Robert) Timberg said.
To McCain, honor was everything.
Sure it was, and the shame of being exposed as a politician on the make turned McCain into the truthiest of truth-tellers.
After McCain's election to the House in 1982, he and his family made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, three of which were to Keating's Bahamas retreat. McCain did not disclose the trips (as he was required to under House rules) until the scandal broke in 1989. At that point, he paid Keating $13,433 for the flights.
A miraculous transformation practically overnight, from cheap crook to straight-shooter. Never mind that McCain continues to lie about his role in the Savings and Loan scandal and avoids taking responsibility for the financial wreckage he helped to create, nor that he continues to exploit his influence to benefit campaign contributors. No, your role as a patriotic American reporter is to convince the public to overlook all the evidence of McCain’s long, tawdry record of deception and disingenuousness.
I’ll never buy what they’re selling, though, since I’ve seen McCain in action. He’s a liar’s liar.
In 1993, when I was teaching at the US Naval Academy, it was being rocked by a series of scandals related to a failure in leadership at the Academy. This included the biggest cheating scandal in the Academy’s history. Very unusually, members of the Board of Visitors were invited to meet with Faculty in early June of '93 to discuss the crisis. McCain went along to this closed meeting and repeatedly expressed grave concern about what he was being told of the circumstances behind the scandals. After then going to talk to the Academy Superintendent, McCain emerged to discuss the faculty meeting with reporters (who’d been excluded).
McCain told the reporters that all the complaints he’d heard were trivial – the opposite of what he’d just said to us. JoAnna Daemmrich, the Baltimore Sun reporter who asked me for a response to his comments, didn’t appear to fall for McCain’s fake candor.
Just heard this on NPR (5hr delay here in HI) and almost had a cringe-cramp.
Go to this link and listen (click on the first audio link in the News Conference heading) to the Leader of the Freep World explain in tortured English (spoken and body - the video also has to be a keeper because you can actually, with a good sound system, hear him squirming on the radio feed) why his outright fucking lies are ample reason to praise him.
All Praise, Oh Cleverest of Presidents! (caption under the classic portrait at the link above - quick, someone grab it before Condi makes 'em take it down.)
Then listen (second audio link) as whichever whore Ron Elving grabs the company phallic symbol NPR mic and faithfully regurgitates the criminals' sound-bite explanation attempted cover-up, for trying to sell poisoned, used snake oil. No sputtering by the press corps of coffee all over the row in front of them when they say blather this shit, either, at least not on tape.
Hillary Clinton is frantically trying to disassociate herself from her longtime friend and former legal associate, Webster Hubbell, after Hubbell was recently indicted for fraud, conspiracy, tax evasion, and other charges. The story was already front-page news in every major American newspaper, and the top topic of discussion on every newscast and political talk show on radio and cable television, when it received even more attention after longtime Clinton friend Harry Thomases, in the paperwork for his lawsuit against Simon and Schuster, discussed Hubbell's criminal actions, and allegedly advised an editor at that publishing house to lie about Hubbell's criminal behavior if asked. "Hubbell's crimes could reflect badly on the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign," Hubbell warned. Clinton spent the majority of her time in the recent Democratic debate fending off tough questions about her connections with Hubbell, to the point where she was almost unable to address any of the issues she undoubtedly preferred to discuss. Clinton has canceled two fundraising appearances in recent days, and her entire campaign team is hunkered down, trying to figure out how to put out this raging campaign fire.
First, I am a John Edwards man and will be until the primary here in California. I need to state that at the outset since I am write this diary in absolute disgusted rage at Tim Russert and the deleterious impact he has on American democracy, most recently the Democratic debate a few nights ago.
What Russert did to Hillary Clinton during debate really has no place in American democracy. By hounding Clinton so ruthlessly, some of it via blatant cheap shot, Russert took his Beltway attack dog behavior to a brand new level, one where he has directly inserted himself into the Democratic race. It was sickening.
But worse, it wasn't the first time he had done so to Hillary Clinton...Take a look at this scary flashback, from her 2000 Senate race:
Unbelievable. It appears that 'Fox Lite' has decided to jump in with it's own 'Fair and Balanced' take on the Frosts' smear campaign. And who is to blame for all of this? Why the Democrats of course. John Roberts 'Reports':
Some of the accusations [against the Frosts] may be exaggerated or false. But did the Democrats make a tactical error in holding up Graeme as their poster child?
A tactical error? You gotta be kidding me. A family that is helped by a government program decides to speak out for the same program - using their own words - and according to CNN - It's the Dems fault that they are smeared.
The NY Post and others are reporting that NBC news will pay Paris Hilton $1 million dollars for her first post-jail interview. Thank you NBC, for helping to reduce Americans to gibbering morons. Thank you NBC, for turning your once respectable (yes, it was a long time ago) news division into a slightly gussied up version of the Enquirer. Thank you, most of all, for keeping us all ignorant, all the time. Thank you for being the whores that you are.
Thank you NBC, but no thanks.
Tell NBC that there is real f***king news out there to cover. That $1 million will do a hell of a lot of good at Walter Reed. That it is their moral responsibility shove this garbage. Tell NBC that you will ignore and disdain any program shovelling this sh*t. Tell them to be ashamed of themselves (oh, sorry, they're well past that).
Today@nbc.com for e-mails. Oh, and Paris, we love you sweety, and want to see you get the help you deserve. Call me dear. Ciao.
I have read "corruption" reports published since the Coup of 2000, 99% of the stories NEVER used party affiliation in the title (Republican). 50% of the stories NEVER mentioned the party (Republican) in the entire story. I know this because I had to internet search to find out the party which 99% turned out to be republican. This is a RECORD of HISTORY/FACT. Media Matters could prove this!
It's no secret how much I, and many people here, despise CNN. I mean, Glenn Beck? They actually PAY that guy? And I challenge Wolf Blitzer to prove that he's not getting paid under the table by the neo-cons. But now, today? They've decided to get into the foreign policy business outright:
(CNN) -- Pulling U.S. forces from Iraq could trigger catastrophe, CNN analysts and other observers warn, affecting not just Iraq but its neighbors in the Middle East, with far-reaching global implications.
Sectarian violence could erupt on a scale never seen before in Iraq if coalition troops leave before Iraq's security forces are ready. Supporters of al Qaeda could develop an international hub of terror from which to threaten the West. And the likely civil war could draw countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran into a broader conflict.
Be afraid! Be very afraid! Bush is right! Do NOT defy Bush!
But wait. Who are these people? "CNN analysts and other observers"?
Back in the dark days of 2000, before blogs and before there was any significant organized liberal presence on the internet (much less Democratic partisans), the traditional media acted as if they had nothing to answer for and little accountability for truth or fairness. And as bad as things often seem now, it was much worse then. As the Florida recount proceeded and talking heads blathered on about how Gore should concede for the good of the nation, Media Whores Online was launched.
I thought it would be fun to do a brief retrospective and tribute to the site that I woke up to every morning for a couple of years at the beginning of this decade...the site that "set out to bring the media to it's knees and found out they were already there."
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear...
OK, so now Bill Moyers has taken the cause we all know so well to the TV screens where so many more Americans can finally see what you've known for years.
That's a step.
But I've got a simpler fix. One step. Just one thing that will completely change the American media 180 degrees by the end of the decade. It will bring back their fighting spirit as an independent check on the power of the government.
Rep. C.W. Bill Young R-Fla., said catastrophe always follows when civilians turn a deaf ear to their military officers.
In the 2003 run-up to the war, Young said in an interview, administration officials dismissed a top Army officer's estimate that securing Iraq would probably require several hundred thousand troops.
"I just don't think that it's a good idea for us here in the Congress to try to manage the conduct of the war," Young, a military appropriations expert, told his colleagues during a meeting Monday.
I interpret this collusion by AP/Yahoo/Whore Young as... It was ok to lie, collude, racketeer, murder the US into the war but now that the moral Dems are trying to get us out AP/Yahoo/Whore Young are saying hands off we should let the generals make all the decisions. This would make Whore Young the Whore of all Whores. In fact his name should be changed to Satan "Shill" Young. AP/Yahoo and ALL other media need to be taken down. It's the only thing that will save the United States.
Before I discovered DKOS, and MyDD, and so many of today's good politics portals, there was Media Whores Online. During the dark days of Florida, MWO rallied the troops.
I watch Yahoo very closely. I believe it's more than one hundred murdered since the last time they had a titled story on a soldiers' deaths. This is a record of fact anyone can research. Why don't these Media Whores get sued? Fair and Balanced!
And the picture published with the story is children playing with soldiers! These kids are the main source of intelligence for the rebels.
After the damage he did shilling for Republicans during President Clinton's impeachment and during the 2000 elections, as well as fawning over Bush's theatrics in the years following nine-eleven, Chris Matthews had begun, lately, to function like an actual journalist. From his pursuit of the Cheney gang and their efforts to destroy Plame and Wilson, right up until a couple of weeks ago when he suggested that the neocons had committed war crimes, Tweety seemed to finally being taking his role seriously.
But media-whore Matthews was on the scene again Thursday following Alberto Gonzales' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. On a day when the Attorney General of the United States disgraced himself and the Bush Administration, Evil Tweety couldn't help but take some vicious swipes at the Democrats.
Yesterday, John Edwards rushed home to be with his wife for a doctor's visit, cutting short his campaign appearance in Iowa. He has scheduled a news conference for 12 Noon today, presumably to discuss her health and it's effect on his continued candidacy.
Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald were doing a so-so job of writing up a good story, the correct and proper persecution of that odious traitor Ellen Tauscher from our party by netroots activists, but right at the second-to-last paragraph they squat a huge dump of contemptible reason and reality, a stinking turd of DC arrogant, deliberately false diction that earns an instant reply here.
"She could work so hard to appease the moderates that she alienates her base. In fact, the left blogosphere is already grumbling that Democrats aren't doing enough to stop the war. And there's always the left cliff. Those moderate first-termers could be one-termers if Pelosi overplays her hand." [emphasis added]
