A Spork in the Drawer

The Maddow Knows

Rachel bests Larry King and Glenn Beck in the teevee ratings wars.

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Working The Refs

MSNBC/NBC/General Electric pulls Keith Olbermann (and Tweety) from presidential debate coverage:

But as the past two weeks have shown, that success has a downside. When the vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin lamented media bias during her speech, attendees of the Republican convention loudly chanted “NBC.”

[...]

The McCain campaign has filed letters of complaint to the news division about its coverage and openly tied MSNBC to it.

So once again the forty-year campaign to demonize and delegitimize the news media scores a hit. Rather than show some backbone in the face of rightwing bullying the first instinct of any "news" organization is to whimper and retreat. Note that bullying from the other side never produces this sort of response; the corporations that control the media are by nature conservative and have extensive dealings with the government - in this case, MSNBC's and NBC's owner, General Electric, is and has long been a major defense contractor. Not exactly a company that is going to possess a great deal of socially and politically liberal ideals.

Beyond that, no amount of simpering will save the "news" media from these sorts of attacks from the right because, and it's really quite simple, the attacks work.

Athenae:

THEY HATE YOU because it is convenient, because it helps them maintain a worldview at odds with reality, because it sounds good to scream at top volume during a video of the Twin Towers crashing down, because that's who they are. You're incidental, you're somewhere on the list with the black commies who do community organizing, the Clenis, and Jeremiah Wright. You're barely there, to the bully, except as a target. Sooner you all get that through your heads, easier it becomes to do your jobs.

Precisely. But it won't get through their heads because it's not in their interest. The real money - and that's what we're really talking about - is on the right. And in the end that order for fighter jet engines is a lot more lucrative than a television hothead, a cheerful lesbian, or Tweety.

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Finally!

Rachel Maddow given the 9pm slot on MSNBC, says Keith Olbermann.

An actual liberal on the teevee.

Shocking!

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They're Terrified

That's the only explanation for the massive freakout by the RNC and Barbecue McMaverick over this perfectly accurate ad by the DNC:

They know that the more people hear about McCain's "100 Years" the more people will turn away in horror. (Then again, Paul "Comblicker" Wolfowitz claimed yesterday yesterday that the US occupation of Iraq ended nearly four years ago so...)

Oh, and how can we miss the delicious richness of the Republican National Committee complaining about 'distortions." When they saw that ad they probably said "rats!".

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Stupider And Stupider

Fingergate.

I'm not usually a fan of Meghan Daum but I think she gets it right today:

What's more, a lot of people who harbor an intolerance for complexity see it not as a character flaw but a cognitive virtue. That's because they've fallen into the trap of believing that complicated ideas ("complicated" now constituting anything that requires reading, watching or listening to in its entirety) are the purview of the "elite."

I've run across people who not only openly admit that they don't know jack about whatever but are proud of their ignorance. It never ceases to boggle.

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Stretching

David Gregory praises George:

If [Obama] talks about what you do in response to a crisis, either you have the right intelligence and you have the right response. Well, there’s not a lot of argument that Bush had the right response to 9/11. He didn’t jump to invade Iraq even though there was some argument that he should do that in the room.

Oh, good for George.

It would seem that MSNBC traded in the inane kneebiter Tucker Carlson with the inane kneebiter Stretch Gregory.

A fine state of affairs, indeed.

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Why I Don't Watch The "Debates"

Steve Benen:

Within a few minutes of the interruption, Ezra said, “It’s almost impossible for me to convey the damage Tim Russert and Brian Williams are doing to the republic this evening…. It’s literally the worst moderation I’ve yet seen. It’s not moderation. It’s trivialization. 28 minutes in, there’s not been a question about any issue, any cause, any problem.”

I’m not sure if I’m prepared to say it was literally the worst I’ve seen — the CNN debate in November was pretty offensive — but by any reasonable measure, last night was breathtakingly bad.

The "news" media is always Public Enemy #1 for me. The damage they're doing is incalculable and the examples of that are too numerous to mention.

It's worth watching again Jon Stewart's famous slapdown of the "news" media on CNN. Begala and Carlson simply have no idea how to respond:

Relatedly, read CNN's John King semi-coherent missive to Glenn Greenwald. Comment Glenn:

Most of this speaks for itself, but it's worth noting how often journalists' responses to criticisms contain so many of the same elements which King's email contains. They always want you to know that they never read what you write and that you're an Unserious, biased, partisan amateur (without any recognition of the glaring contradiction between those two claims).

The "news" media truly are a work of art.

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MSNBC Update

It looks like we won't be seeing any Rosie.

Dodged a bullet, we did.

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Doing The Right Thing The Wrong Way

For years it's been obvious that the attempt by the newsnets to imitate FOX "News" has been a silly failure. No matter how many Glenn Becks and Tucker Carlsons the CNNs and MSNBCs hire the right will still consider them to be Muslimonazifascist fellow travellers. The obvious (and correct) strategy has always been to move to the left, to provide an alternative, especially given the success of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

Now comes the news that MSNBC has gotten a clue and decided to dump Dan Abrams at 9pm and replace him with a nominal liberal.

So who are they going to put into that slot? David Shuster? Rachel Maddow? Perhaps a surprise such as Cenk Uygur?

No.

Rosie O'Donnell.

Kill me now.

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Accuracy

JMM:

Ahhh, great moments in real-time cable news. MSNBC cites White House praise of Falwell. Only it's from whitehouse.org, well-known anti-Bush White House spoof site. D'oh ...

Whitehouse.org

(No doubt some winger will come out of the woodwork and claim that MSNBC did this on purpose in order to denigrate George.)

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ADDED: Josh has the video. It's even worse - and more hilarious - than you can imagine.

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