A Spork in the Drawer

Question

Why is Maureen Dowd employed by the New York Times?

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The Liberal Media Strikes Again!

Ten of the 15 questions in today’s press gaggle focused on Jenna’s wedding

They know what's important.

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Stay White, CNN

Time-Warner's "news" network thinks this guy is great:

In the segment, Beck brought on a fictional caller by the name of “Honky Whitesville,” who alleged that he was “working with the Obama campaign.” Beck billed the apparently humorous skit as a way to “make the Obama’s seem a little more relatable to the average person”:

WHITESVILLE: I’m working with the Obama campaign and I’m very white. And I’m white. Ever see toothpaste? You know the tube with toothpaste out? That’s sort of my color. … I was looking in the mirror yesterday after I looked up and I was like, oh, no, I have toothpaste all over my face but actually I just had face all over my face because my face is white, and just so everyone knows, I work at the Obama campaign and I’m white but my first name’s Honky.

It gets worse from there.

"The most trusted name in news," indeed.

Audio at link.

(Just to be clear: This occurred on Beck's radio show but CNN/Time-Warner thinks it's all good.)

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Going To The Dogs

Even canines have an opinion about our corporate "news" media. Karen Tumulty:

During this morning's security sweep of press corps gear before we boarded the Obama campaign plane, the bomb-sniffing dog urinated on my laptop bag, purse and raincoat.

Smart dog.

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Aaand...Still Not Liberal

On the heels of the liberal CNN's hiring of professional propagandist/BushCheney flak Tony Snow the liberal CNN has made up for it by hiring BushCheney Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend.

Stay fair and balanced, CNN!

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Explaining The Trinity To Aztecs

Pierce:

Part The Second -- Anyone who missed Hardball on Monday night missed one of the great moments in political television. Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker tried to make the arguable case that the whole Obama-Wright affair was eight pounds of guilt-by-association bulls**t in a five-pound bag, and that the "journalism" being spouted about it was less than savory. You had to have seen the reaction of his co-panelists to believe them. Jill Zuckman of the ChiTrib got all fluttery and accused Lizza of being "high-minded." (Oh, yes, she did. I'm not making this up.) And Matthews? Well, he'd been drowning himself in sweaty honky outrage for the previous 40 minutes and he was not going to stop now. Lizza had sailed in from the Land Beyond Punditry. I swear to god, he looked like a missionary trying to explain the Trinity to a couple of freaking Aztecs. He's lucky they didn't rip out his heart and wave it at the sun.

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Our "News" Media

Athenae:

Ever notice they only ever protest the limits of their power when they're trying to get out of covering something they know they should have covered? Ever notice that? When they're whipping up a frenzy over some bullshit Obama or Hillary controversy, then it's FEEL THE SIZE OF MY MANGIFICENT PRESS MANHOOD but when somebody asks them why they can't be arsed to spend more than ten seconds at a crack on any one issue of interest to, say, a whole swath of the country that's been hurricaned into oblivion, then out come the timid protestations of but we just didn't have the time and it hurts, mommy, stop paddling me. Fuck me blind, the level of self-absorption and responsibility-avoidance in action here is enough to stop a moose in its tracks.

Read the whole thing.

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Better Copy Editors Please

Misleading (to say the least):

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove. The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt.

That makes it sound like FDR was an extraordinarily unpopular president. He wasn't. What they mean is that presidential popularity polls began since he was president.

That's the sort of thing a competent editor catches.

Now for the good bit:

President Bush has set a record he'd presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll.

[...]

The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952, when the United States was enmeshed in the Korean War.

Furthermore, ARG pegs George's approval rating at 22%.

272 days.

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It's A Rupert World

Ad we're forced to live in it:

Tribune Co has reached agreement in principle to sell Newsday to News Corp (NYSE:NWS) for about $580 million in what would be a joint venture, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Under the terms of a deal, Newsday would be part of a joint venture with News Corp's New York Post and other News Corp assets, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. News Corp would own most of the company and Tribune would keep a stake of less than 5 percent.

Australia was colonized because Great Britain needed an empty* place to dump its criminals. Now those criminals our colonizing our "news" media.

Funny how the world works.

*Aborigines? What Aborigines?

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Still Not Liberal

CNN/Time-Warner:

Former White House press secretary Tony Snow will join CNN as a conservative commentator beginning today, it was announced by Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S.

Get ready to laugh:

"In the White House, Tony brought a remarkably human touch to the discussion of public policy, which he will continue to do as part of the Best Political Team on Television," Klein said. "He will contribute a unique breadth of political and journalistic expertise to what is already the most provocative and wide-ranging political analysis on the air."

If by "remarkably human touch" Klein means "unrepentant lying" then, yes.

And just think of how much this makes CNN/Time-Warner's campaign coverage "fair and balanced"!

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Monday Poll

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Fair's Fair

Since this morning's This Week will feature only one guest - St. John (what a shock!) - Cliff Schecter, author of The Real McCain, offers up 12 questions that Snuffleupagus should ask but won't. An example:

3. Doesn’t your confusion regarding basic facts about the war in Iraq, including repeatedly citing a nonexistent Al Qaeda-Iran alliance, make you unfit for command?

On four occasions in one month, you confused friend and foe in Iraq by describing Sunni Al Qaeda as being backed by Shiite Iran. Then you showed a misunderstanding of the U.S. chain of command when you claimed you would not back shifting forces from Iraq to Afghanistan “unless Gen. [David] Petraeus said that he felt that the situation called for that,” a decision which Petraeus himself told you and your Senate colleagues only the week before rests not with him but with his superiors. Doesn’t your lack of understanding and judgment when it comes to basic facts of America’s national security disqualify you as commander-in-chief?

If video is more your thing Robert Greenwald offers up a fantasy version of the interview.

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ADDED: Now St. John is whinging about being quoted accurately.

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Catapulting The Propaganda

Yes, it's 11 pages long but this will be - at least should be - the major news story for the next week.

It's a bit more important the flag lapel pins.

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Alternative History

1858:

DOUGLAS: When I was 11, my grandpappy and I chopped wood and shot bears.

LINCOLN: Ahem, I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect slavery will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you love America this much (extending fingers), this much (extending hands slightly), or thiiiiiis much (extending hands broadly)?

LINCOLN: I think we covered this…

GIBSON: If I may interrupt…

LINCOLN: Please.

GIBSON: I noticed, Mr. Lincoln, that your American flag pin was upside down…

LINCOLN: Yes, the wind caught it. Now, as I was saying...

[Via C&L.]

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Piling On ABC/Disney

An open letter:

For 53 minutes, we heard no question about public policy from either moderator. ABC seemed less interested in provoking serious discussion than in trying to generate cheap shot sound-bites for later rebroadcast. The questions asked by Mr. Stephanopoulos and Mr. Gibson were a disgrace, and the subsequent attempts to justify them by claiming that they reflect citizens' interest are an insult to the intelligence of those citizens and ABC's viewers. Many thousands of those viewers have already written to ABC to express their outrage.

Matt Stoller:

The ABC debate was part of a trainwreck of a network. Remember 'Path to 9/11', a movie designed to pin 9/11 on the treasonous and cowardly Bill Clinton and his administrative cronies who obviously hate America? It's not as if ABC/Disney has changed its business practices, but the public has moved. Organically, thousands of people angrily emailed ABC last night after the shameful debate.

I really don't see how the media industry changes of its own volition at this point. There is nothing, not torture, not the theft of hundreds of billions and the blood of hundreds of thousands, not a thousand stories of petty corruption or deceit, none of that can impact the coddled world of these wealthy spoiled brats or the CEOs who keep them well swaddled in tiny luxuries and a tuxedoed social world.

Be sure to click the links.

And by way of attaturk, Mike Luckovich's take:

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Yet More

Tony Norman on ABC/Disney and the media in general:

Barack Obama's problem is that he still has a lingering belief in an orderly universe where rational first principles have more sway over the news cycle than the primitive, reptile-brained instincts of the media establishment.

Alas, very few within that elite circle of hell believe in the rationality of the voters. If they did, they wouldn't harp on questions about flag pins, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, patriotism, Louis Farrakhan, "guns and God" or even Mrs. Clinton's sniper debacle at the expense of more substantive issues mere days before a crucial primary.

It was an infuriating spectacle executed with an unconscionable air of smugness by two media professionals who should have known better.

And ABC/Disney's take? Guess:

For its part, ABC News was proud of its effort.

"We thought the debate was excellent, substantive, probing and interesting and I have no doubt that there are people who have strong opinions on both sides," said Jeffrey Schneider, senior vice president of ABC News. "We see our job to ask probing, tough questions and that's exactly what we did."

The comments thread over at ABCNews.com now has 19764 mostly negative responses.

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Ringer

Any doubt that ABC/Disney has a political agenda is now erased. Josh:

Remember that woman from the debate last night who the moderators showed videotape of asking whether Barack Obama "believes in the flag"? Her name is Nash McCabe.

[...]

Now, it does seem like McCabe is not a fan of Sen. Obama's. And I think we can assume that it's not a coincidence that McCabe managed to show up featured in the Times and also as the sole outside questioner in the ABC debate. Presumably, a researcher for ABC or Gibson saw the piece in the Times, figured, hey, this lady hates Obama and is seriously ginned up about the lapel issue. Let's send a camera crew Obama and film her slamming Obama to his face. It'll be great in the debate.

So this was hardly the voice of a random citizen; ABC/Disney sought out someone with full knowledge that she'd go after Obama. Ethical? Does it matter anymore? (Josh also wonders about another "citizen" questioner who was a "former" supporter of Hillary.)

Turning to the NYT story Josh mentions we find this:

Ask whom she might vote for in the coming presidential primary election and Nash McCabe, 52, seems almost relieved to be able to unpack the dossier she has been collecting in her head.

It is not about whom she likes, but more a bill of particulars about why she cannot vote for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

“How can I vote for a president who won’t wear a flag pin?” Mrs. McCabe, a recently unemployed clerk typist, said in a booth at the Valley Dairy luncheonette in this quiet, small city in western Pennsylvania.

Mr. Obama has said patriotism is about ideas, not flag pins.

“I watch him on TV,” Mrs. McCabe said. “I keep looking for that lapel pin.”

This illustrates quite nicely our descent into collective madness. The election could hinge on a flag pin.

A flag pin.

Let's face it: Too many Americans are as dumb as dirt.

McClatchy has background on McCabe here.

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The Quiet Revolution

The HuffPo's Jason Linkins summarizes just who gives Snuffleupagus his marching orders:

The blogosphere has been up on this from jump street. On Tuesday, Democratic Underground was among the first to note that Stephanopoulos was "Taking Notes From Sean Hannity for Tomorrow Night's Debates":

Hannity asked George what kinds of questions they'll be asking at the debate tomorrow and they discussed a few things. When Hannity asked about the first question below about Ayers and whether George had plans to ask such a question, George replied, "Well, I'm taking notes now Sean." It did actually sound like he was pausing to take notes. And Hannity continued to feed him more:

1) Ask Obama about his relationship with Ayers and WeatherUnderground and Axelrod's comments, "They're friendly"

2) Ask Obama why he attended the Million Man March

Whether or not they had any advance notice of what was to transpire I have little doubt that the bigwigs in Disney's corporate offices were high-fiving each other last night (and probably in the corporate suites of Viacom, General Electric, Time-Warner, and, of course, NewsCorp). While Charlie and Stephy may have aimed most of their fire at Obama the result remains: St. John McCain was the big winner. Glennzilla notes:

National Review's Mark Hemingway excitedly declared that the winner was "McCain by a landslide." Commentary's John Podhoretz said: "Good Lord. Charlie Gibson Turns Into Larry Kudlow." Hemingway quoted one of his readers: "What's up with Charlie Gibson tonight? Especially on capital gains. He sounds downright conservative." Separately, Hemingway celebrated: "Halle-frickin'-lujah. Someone in the mainstream media finally mentions the William Ayers connection," praised Gibson for his questions about Jeremiah Wright, and the praised Gibson again for his questions to Obama about Bosnia sniper fire.

[...]

Notably, Charlie Gibson also hosted a GOP and a Democratic primary debate back in January and received rave reviews then, too . . . from the Right. The Far Right site NewsBusters heaped praised on Gibson back then for what they deemed his fairness and decency in questioning GOP candidates. So, too, did National Review's Mark Hemingway ("The Sober, Intellectual Tone of moderator Charlie Gibson and this whole ABC news production so far is very welcome"). The general consensus among Republicans in January was that Gibson did a superb job of moderating their debate, too.

Denunciations of the "Liberal Media" now ring more hollow than ever.

And a disgusted Michael Grunwald of Time writes:

Obama's memoir dripped with contempt for modern gotcha politics, for a campaign culture obsessed with substantively irrelevant but supposedly symbolic gaffes like John Kerry ordering Swiss cheese or Al Gore sighing or George H.W. Bush checking his watch or Michael Dukakis looking dorky in a tank. "What's troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics—the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial," he wrote.

The "petty and trivial" is precisely what Disney/ABC wants.

I know I harp on this constantly - and I'll continue to do so - but this is the behavior we'll be seeing from the "news" media straight through to November. The corporations that control the media (and so much else) simply can't allow for the slightest possibility that the government be composed of citizens who don't bow and scrape before them.

It's a truism that the first thing done in any revolution is to seize the means of communications. This thirty-year quiet revolution - abetted by the supposed guarantors of our rights and privileges - by a corporate oligarchy has accomplished that without a shot being fired.

Pathetic.

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Unmitigated Trainwreck

The reviews are in:

Worst. Debate. Ever.

-Richard Adams, Guardian

My God. It gets worse and worse. Just move the whole thing to Fox.

-Atrios.

Lee Atwater Lives!!!

-DHinMI, Daily Kos.

A shameful debate

-Greg Mitchell, Editor and Publisher

In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC

-Tom Shales, Washington Post

America just had a horrible night.

-Will Bunch, Philadelphia Daily News

And the debate thread at ABCNews.com has, as of this writing, 11032 - you read that right - comments and it's hard to find one that isn't attacking ABC. Sample comment:

I am an owner of Disney stock and I have never been more horrified of anything I have ever seen on a network news station than that piece of garbage you called a debate last night. You made Fox news look refined.If I were running your station I would be ashamed to show my face in public today.The performance last night was an embarrassment.Your station should never be allowed to sponsor a debate again.I will never watch ABC again.

Hell, my own mother called me twenty minutes into this travesty and screamed up a storm over Gibson and Snuffleupagus.

There's no reason whatsoever to think that ABC or the rest of the "news" media will get any better over the next 6+ months.

But no worries, it's only the future of the country at stake.

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"Debate"

Per Atrios:

Light'Em Up

Complain about this atrocity.

Main ABC switchboard: 212-456-7777

As bad as the Republicans are the real enemy is our "news" media.

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