Hands down, the most embarrassing piece of “journalism” I have seen in a long, long time:
Where do we start?
1.) The fundamental misunderstanding of what a referendum is. The notion that there is something mutually exclusive in a referendum on Obama and a reminder of where we were when he took office is sophist gibberish at best. A referendum on an elected official is precisely that- you look at where we were, you look at the policies of the administration, and you look at where we are now. Every single President in history has done this. Sometimes they do it for self promotion, sometimes they do it to attack others. Like, for example, this:
You see what he did there? It was a referendum on Carter AND AT THE SAME TIME asking people to look at where they were several years ago. What a concept. Or, exactly what team Obama is doing. And despite Tapper’s insistence, team Obama is doing this not to run away from their record, but to embrace their record, because they (and anyone with a functioning noggin) would agree.
2.) The stuff about his odds for re-election being better if he makes this not about him is just nonsense. If it is about him, you wouldn’t look at job approval (and for some reason, he won’t even use his own news organizations poll numbers), you would make it about personal approval rating, which is still in the 70’s.
3.) The unemployment rate data is absurd- unemployment climbed because we were in a global economic crisis. He took over while the economy and employment were nose-diving, and it has been improving ever since. Tapper wants to blame Obama for a crisis he did not create:
4.) Gas prices were at $1.84 because we were in a global economic crisis, and the bottom fell out for demand:
Remember $4 gas? Soon it will be $2 gas.
As the nation’s economy worsens, the demand for oil and gas wanes. As a result, prices drop. And drop. And drop.
The price of gas fell overnight Sunday for the 60th consecutive day.
The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline fell 2 cents to $2.105 a gallon, according to a survey released Sunday by the American Automobile Association.
A gallon of gas has dropped nearly in half since hitting an all-time high of $4.114 on July 17. It’s been nearly two years since prices were this low, according to AAA figures.
Gas prices were much higher prior to the economic collapse:
In the midst of the global economic crisis, they plummeted. Pointing that out and thinking you are on to something is as stupid as noting that bags of ice were probably pretty cheap during the ice age. Pure, unadulterated wankery.
5.) Housing prices? Housing prices? Has our intrepid reporter never even heard of the housing bubble which CREATED THE GOD DAMNED CRISIS:
And many, many economist and experts still believe housing values are still overinflated. Pinning that on Obama is hackery of the first order.
6.) Republicans aren’t motivated in the least bit- it is the Democrats who are energized. Hell, Republican primary voting is millions below what it was in 2008. Don’t believe me, Jake? Ask Huma Khan. You might know her, as she works for ABC News.
I’ve defended Tapper in the past (as well as launching haymakers) and I really do think of the press pool, he is one of the best, refusing to take bullshit answers and showing a tenacity the others lack. But this was the worst piece of journalism I’ve seen outside Breitbart or the WSJ op-ed page. Pure, unadulterated hackery.
This report was devoid of any context, stripped of any insight, and more than likely left viewers dumber than they were before they saw it. In other words, a perfect example of modern journalism. Hell, this wasn’t a news report. It was an audition for Fox News or Politifact. Or maybe to be the future director of RNC commercials.
This piece was Halperinesque.
JMG
Like every network TV news talking head, Tapper knows that under Obama, he’ll pay more in taxes in 2013. Why kid ourselves that’s not a big part of American political journalism? Also, as a big time political reporter, we can take it as a given that not only is Tapper wholly ignorant of economics, he’s innumerate.
cathyx
Maybe he’s always done this and now you’ve finally noticed it.
JPL
How long before Tapper shows up to defend himself.. I’m still amazed that after the economy contracted 8.9 %, somehow we had a President that stopped us from going over a cliff.
Take that Jake…………………………………
Greg
The talking heads need a horse race. And it’s becoming a little too obvious that Obama may cruise to victory, so here’s one way that they’ll try to put a finger on the scales and even things out.
clayton
Like many other wing nuts, Tapper remembers that Obama was president in 2008. With that in mind, the rest makes some sense, I guess.
David Koch
Typically Villagers.
They can’t simply talk about the campaign video. Oh no, that would be biased. So in order to be “balanced” they throw in GOP talking points, no matter how slanted.
For example, he says Obama’s approval rating is under 50 percent, yet ABC’s very own poll has Obama’s approval rating exactly at 50 percent.
So he won’t even use his news organization’s own poll because that’s inconvenient.
LosGatosCA
This wasn’t a news report. It was an audition for Fox News or Politifact. Or maybe to be the future director of RNC commercials.
I don’t think it’s a conflict of interest to hold positions at all three at the same time.
In fact, that’s called synergy
Every political reporter owns a set of golden kneepads. The ‘skilled’ ones just make you forget every once in a while. By ‘skilled’ I mean skilled at making you forget..
Journalism went out with Watergate. As Republicans say and act every minute ‘Never again.’
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
It’s false that republicans now are more enthusiastic about voting, more so than dems. And equally false that the dem base is deflated, or not solidly behind Obama, and have been in record numbers for a dem president, more than even Clinton. Tapper needs to not spend so much time scanning left wing blogs, and stop being a village idiot doing obligatory dem bashing with dubious factoids.
It was a MacMegan performance, technically true, collectively nonsense.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Greg:
Yup, I think you got it.
David Koch
Tapper says Democrats are “deflated” and republicans are “energized” — based on what?
On Tuesday, Obama received nearly 100,000 more votes in the Ohio primary than Mittens.
Heh!
beltane
Jake Tapper must have forgotten what the price of gas was during the 2008 Republican convention with the chants of “Drill, baby, drill!”. Too dazzled by Palin’s starbursts I guess. Or maybe he’s just another lying right-wing hack.
Does he dine at the McArdle residence often?
FuriousPhil
Once in a while ABC News runs something that isn’t newstainment. This is not one of those times, it seems.
Ever wonder why the nightly news is filled with pharmaceutical ads? Because old people watch network news.
In the Repub primaries, it was 90+% white and 50+ everywhere.
I feel as smart as Mr. X/Homer Simpson for putting this all together. S-M-R-T.
butler
Every time I hear that stupid talking point about how gas was $1.84 in January 2009 a little part of my brain dies. I fear I’m not gonna make it to November.
PeakVT
A referendum on an elected official is precisely that
Well, no, because a referendum is a not about a person, it’s about a specific policy matter or something similar. An election is simply an election. Some journalist somewhere probably thought they were clever when they first said “this election is a referendum on politician X.” Instead, they just mucked up our democracy more.
Mike Furlan
The dumb ones are auditioning for Fox, the “smart” ones the Cato Institute.
All just to provide “ammunition” for the 1% for pay.
Smiling Mortician
I really hate that Jake Tapper has a job. And I sort of want to throw things at Diane Sawyer too.
boss bitch
Wasn’t it Jake Tapper that called Fox News their ‘sister network’ when the Obama administration said FOX is NOT a news network?
In any case, get ready for more of this from the MSM. Once the general starts, they will bend over backwards to give Romney’s image a total 180. Then we’ll get more and more garbage about Obama not connecting or how we still don’t know who he is.
Rafer Janders
@David Koch:
Can we get a Politifact ruling on this?
Culture of Truth
Now THAT sir was uncalled for!!!
jl
I’ve read that white males who make over 100K per year are very enthusiastic about voting for Mitt.
So, I guess Tapper was doing one of those personal perspective pieces.
But, a crummy piece, full of half truths, misleading comparisons, and as commenter above notes, very doubtful speculation about which side has more interest this cycle.
Zifnab
You totally forgot to mention that winning remark at the end “Democrats are deflated and Republicans are much more enthusiastic about voting this November”.
Really, Jake? Really? Have you been to a Republican campaign rally? Ron Paul is the only candidate that can bring in the crowds, and he’s dead last in the race. And you only have to look at the fund raising numbers to get an idea of which party is getting excited about 2012.
Tools, the lot of them. ABC has made a hard right turn since 2006. I’ll be eager to see their sour faces this November.
Trentrunner
@Smiling Mortician: Diane Sawyer is like that divorcee down the street who lets her robe fall open while signing for UPS packages.
amk
You are a fool.
quannlace
Well, if by ‘energized’ you mean ‘panicky’……
Raven
Hey, let’s combine the Tweety and Tapper threads and have a real hoe down!
David Koch
The textbook definition of Yellow Journalism — one one hand Tapper lays the plight of home values on the President, yet on the other hand he denies the President any credit for the rise and recovery of the stock market.
Maria
Tapper is auditioning to be Romney’s press secretary. He enjoys the constant adulation he gets from the right. Try looking at twitter messages he gets from those bozos.
JPL
wow..the site has taken on a different atmosphere ..is this the redesign you really wanted?
PTirebiter
Filling on ABC’s This Week, Jake’s the guy who said his father in law thought Palin’s death panel post was ” political genius.”
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Trentrunner: And she’s wearing a pair of panties with a picture of Richard Nixon on them.
master c
Okay my weekend is off to a great start-between this and the Cars thread yesterday…you go John Cole. I am at the very least-a fan. What you have created here makes my life better in the suburbs of Dallas-for reals.
Raven
@JPL: looks the same to me
JPL
On chrome..BJ is normal but on my firefox is it is anything but normal. Any one else noticing differences?
Libby
Thinking Jake is doing penance for outing Heritage Foundation on their bogus claim that Prof. Bell went to the White House to plot the great radical overthrow of Amurika with Obama. Turned out it wasn’t the new demon du jour Derrick Bell, but some other Mr. Bell who went there for a White House tour. Jake even dissed them for failing to disclose all the columns in the log that clearly showed that it was a tour and not a meeting.
It was actually a good hit on Heritage so of course he had to balance it with a hit piece on Obama.
Raven
@JPL: FF on mac
David Koch
GOS took apart the “enthusiasm” meme the Village loves to spout:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/24/1067833/-7-Days-in-January-A-Photo-Diary-
While Mittens played to an empty Ford Field, 3,000 “deflated” Obama supporters camped out overnight to see the President.
MikeJ
@JPL: Getting the mobile site? People have been complaining that it switches modes unrequested.
amk
@JPL: The site is fucked up in ff.
Apparently “www.” is somehow a monster that wreaks the mobile version.
JPL
@Raven: My FF on windows has black on each side with a small strip of the blog in the middle. Very avant garde in a weird way. Chrome is fine but I feel very alone if no one else experienced that.
MikeJ
@David Koch: Chiat had a good article about the fear driving Republicans. Hard to call it “enthusiasm”. The follow up article is pretty good too.
Raven
FF 10.2 Mac 10.7.3
It’s exactly the way it was yesterday.
JPL
Sorta OT…Romney won’t win a primary state in the south but he will win the south. People down here don’t want a dem and they certainly don’t want a kenyan, muslin, dem…
edit…IMO
Raven
In other news, the new iPhoto allows you to delete pics in Photostream!
Hawes
I knew Jake in college. After college we hung out a few times in LA. My car got broken into outside his apartment.
I blame him.
Anyway, he was a really clever cartoonist and we took some creative writing classes together. I never did see him in any history or gov classes. Jake’s a bright guy, but that economics stuff is HARD.
I know McArglebargle’s innumeracy is kind of humorous, but where it’s scary is the political press.
smintheus
Tapper can’t even decide whether the comparison point is the fall of 2008 or January 2009.
Anyhow, it’s clear from the way this was framed that it amounts to a Republican critique of Obama’s film rather than a dispassionate analysis of it.
pseudonymous in nc
It’s Friday, John: Crapper Tapper phoned it in and ordered his first martini of the night.
David Koch
@Hawes: Oh, that’s right, i forgot about that.
Jake, Jake, Jake — how corrupt you’ve become since your days at Salon.
eemom
@amk:
He’s gotta say that though, cuz otherwise someone might remind him of the time Tapper showed up here, got his ass handed to him, and Cole spent the rest of the day ranting about what an ungrateful bunch of assholes we are.
Oops.
Yevgraf
Jake who?
Arclite
I know it was shooting fish in a barrel, John, but I appreciate the comprehensive rebuttal.
JPL
@eemom: that was a funny day..although cole wasn’t that bad..
I’m actually hoping Tapper will show up tonight so I can ask him how the hell Obama stopped us from falling over the cliff.
BTW..suck on whatever jake..
RD
3.) Really grinds their gears.
I cite it as often as possible.
smintheus
@MikeJ: Have there been any Republican primaries where more GOP voters showed up this year than in 2008? The opposite was true in all the earliest primaries, but then I stopped paying attention because all the signs so clearly are that Republicans are depressed about their candidates.
Raven
Gov. Chris Christie argued with a former Navy SEAL Thursday over the state’s plans to reconfigure public universities in New Jersey — resulting in Christie calling the man an idiot.
Birthmarker
Cole-mentum–love it!
JPL
@Raven: Probably the only reason he didn’t call him an ass… was because he was a Seal..so the guy should take it as a compliment.
Raven
@JPL: He did tell him to shut up, with his security boys in tow of course.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
Looks the same on Safari.
muddy
I declined dessert at dinner and came home to this post instead. Excellent head of steam, John, thanks. (eating frozen GS cookies anyway)
eemom
I have a vague recollection that Tapper ever got into the press corpse at all because he dated Monica Lewinsky. Is that wrong?
Baud
I have a feeling you’ll be seeing a lot more embarrassing pieces between now and November.
muddy
Damnit, now you made me think of him as Tap her. ew
japa21
I am glad you put journalism in quotation marks. The fact is, that with rare exceptions, and definitely not to be seen on regular media, there has been no journalism practiced in this country for decades.
MonkeyBoy
Is there somewhere we can complain to about why this collection of right-wing framing and talking point appeared on ABC as news?
Mike E
OT but Rachel Maddow just announced booking Sen James Inhofe (R-Banjoes) to come on her show and refute Climate Change next week, using his understanding of Genesis 8:22 (only God can change the Earth) and a paperclip
CT Voter
Jake Tapper is still annoyed that his story about the whiff of smoke he thought he detected from Obama didn’t stop the presses. Jake and Chip “Why didn’t Reagan get a Nobel Prize, WHY? directed to Robert Gibbs, Press Secretary” Reid, Mark “Obama’s played golf eleventy millions times” Knoller, and now, unfortunately, Chuck Todd are all of a piece. Out to get attention. And smarting from the fact that the WH Press Corps moniker just doesn’t mean much any longer. So Jake Tapper is reheating talk from several months ago. Sadder, yet.
It’s going to be a long long stretch until November, and it’s going to get uglier and uglier.
muddy
@MonkeyBoy:
On their online version, in Breitbart’s obit, they said how one of his accomplishments was that he had exposed Acorn’s child sex slavery scandal.
I didn’t even get a form letter in response to my email about that.
Comrade Javamanphil
Jake always seemed to me like a guy way more interested in people calling him clever than in discovering the truth. It’s a game to him. The fact that people are affected by the results is too much to bother his pretty little mind.
Raven
ATLANTA — The lieutenant governor of South Carolina, Ken Ard, resigned on Friday and pleaded guilty to criminal charges of spending campaign funds on personal expenses and fabricating donations.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Zifnab:
Correct. ABC is Fox News lite. Wouldn’t surprise me if the business plan for their news divsion is to overlap the same audience while being more respectable for advertisers who don’t want to risk being associated with something along the lines of L’Affair Limbaugh with no advanced warning, and to attract viewers who want right wing news but are on average more upscale than Fox viewers (and thus attractive to advertisers) and thus think of themselves as “better than that”; in other words ABC News is methadone to Fox New’s heroin.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Libby:
Yes, I read that today, and fair is fair, Jake did a decent job of reporting the facts on the Derrick Bell visits to the WH, that weren’t the same man, and the visits were for tours of the WH.
It is when he or the others do this kind of skit on Obama’s mini movie, or whatever it is, and it seems their antennas are tuned into reporting how they think viewers out there will process it, and not giving a straight up analysis, all of the facts, and let folks decide for themselves. I think most of it comes from the infection of profiteering with news and keeping the horse race even.
This style keeps watchers as low info, instead of teaching them what things are and what they mean as stand alone facts, without an endorsement one way or the other.
rikyrah
Cole,
for your pleasure.
Steve Benen chronicles Willard Romney’s Lies every Friday.
here is this week’s segment.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/09/10624620-chronicling-mitts-mendacity-vol-ix
David Koch
Last week President Obama invited ABC News reporter Bob Woodruff to attend the White House state dinner for Iraq veterans.
Obama additionally gave Woodruff an exclusive interview.
Tapper must be pissed that Woodruff got the dinner invite and not him.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
@David Koch:
now this makes sense.
there is no issue that rises to the level of national import, nor personal ideology, nor corporate overwhoredom, like good old fashioned pettiness amongst the media.
ChrisNYC
Tapper had a busy day today. There was this hard hitting substancey piece as well:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/did-professor-derrick-bell-visit-the-white-house/
Tapper writes 7 paragraphs — referring AS FACT to “yet another instance of President Obama’s association with radicals” and cheering that the Heritage Foundation “showed some pluck” for stupidly searching WH visitor logs for Derrick Bell’s name — only to come up with “No. Prof Bell did not visit the WH.”
He’s a bastard and you and DougJ should quit him.
“Oh those plucky racebaiters over at Heritage!” Jake chuckles to himself, “They are such adorably rascally rascals.”
Suffern ACE
God. Upper middle class white people are funny. Take on 400k debt to buy a home, and expect the value of everything they invest in to go up.
chrome agnomen
@David Koch:
that is a terrific posting.
kay
These wild swings of political media and pundits feel like dealing with addicts, to me.
They went off on another embarrassing tear, the Bell non-story, and now they’re shamefaced and defensive, so they have to pretend they give a shit about housing, or whatever, “issues”, until next week, when they’ll be chasing down the White House visitor logs again, looking for “radicals”.
It’s exhausting, but so predictable I could plot it on a graph.
The day after they finished that wall to wall coverage of Trump’s birther rantings they all looked and acted like people who had been up all night drinking and found themselves still awake but sobered up at 5 AM.
Remember that? They all denied it, too, the Trump insanity, after it was over.
“We were discussing foreign policy the whole time!”
Yeah. Sure you were.
Jeff Davis
The Republicans are going to get pasted in November and the major media is desperately trying to give Romney a chance to make this a horse race. The farce of the two party system must be maintained!
samara morgan
oh plz.
Tapper is just a garden variety professional shit-stirrer.
i guess you missed his Epic “Hey conservatives, Obama just called you teabaggers!” Post.
Tapper cozies up to both sides for material and stirs shit on both sides of the aisle.
He is not your friend, Cole, but neither is he a friend to Allahpundit.
Hes just stirring shit.
dogwood
@kay:
This, This. This. I was having lunch with a friend the other day and we were laughing about the feckless Republican candidates, the Limbaugh crap and the Harvard tape. I told her to get ready because we are now gonna see at least 3 weeks of Obama bashing from the media. I can’t even brag about being prescient here because it’s all so obviously predictable. What’s interesting about my friend is that she has never been much into politics before. Her husband is a staunch Republican, but these Republicans scare her to death. She considers herself a conservative; she voted for Obama in 08 and will do so again. Basically, she really likes the guy. What is really hard for lots of white guys to understand, and this includes the media types like Tapper, Todd, Halperin, Matthews, etc, is that the President is very attractive to women voters on many levels. This just doesn’t register with them. Remember these were the types who thought women were gonna swoon over Dan Quayle.
kuvasz
I think that if one recognizes that Mr. Tapper is not playing to the tv audience and is instead attempting to create a reality that dovetails to what reality ABC advertisers dictate, the internal structure of his obvious hit piece does look consistant. Actually, it is akin to appreciating the quality of detail and work of the Unibomber; you don’t necessarily agree with the person, but it sure is a piece of work.
Yutsano
@David Koch:
Considering Woodruff himself got injured in Iraq, this was a fitting choice. But Woodruff has had a pair pretty much his whole journalistic career. He reported Tiananmen while it was happening. In the middle of it. He’s definite old school.
MJ
@JPL: I also have noticed the weird formatting on FireFox. I just keep reloading until it goes away.
Crusty Dem
Yesterday Tapper was blegging Twitter (doughboy-style) for a pun to make about Tom Hanks narrating the video. So the awful “run, Obama, run” wasn’t even his (his were actually dumber), he got it from Eric Morse.
With bosom buddies, splash, bachelor party, the money pit, big, a league of their own, sleepless in Seattle, philadelphia, toy story, saving private Ryan, cast away, catch me if you can, and the davinci code to choose from, Tapper goes with the lame line from Forrest Gump?
Pathetic.
fasteddie9318
I believe the phrase you’re looking for is “the whore with a heart of gold.”
TG Chicago
I agree with Cole’s points 1-5, but I have an issue with 6. What Tapper said was that compared to 2008 Democrats are less enthusiastic about voting in 2012. I think that’s clearly true.
Now Tapper also said that Republicans are more enthusiastic now than they were in 2008, and Cole brings up a valid comparison there.
So basically, I’m saying I completely agree with Cole’s post except for the phrase “it is the Democrats who are energized” since I don’t think they are, compared to 2008. But Cole was way, way closer to the mark than Tapper.
David Koch
@TG Chicago:
How do you measure that?
Maybe by crowd size: his crowds are just as big and as enthusiastic. #1 #2
Maybe by contributions: He has more small dollar donations now then he did in 2008.
Maybe by polling: http://a57.foxnews.com/img.foxnews.com/static/managed/img/fn-latino/politics/660/371/Poll%201.jpg
Maybe by votes cast: he received 100,000 more votes than Romney in Tuesday’s Ohio primary, without a single advertisement or GOTV effort.
People who say enthusiasm isn’t the same do so without any supporting statistics.
David Koch
@TG Chicago:
How do you measure that?
Maybe by crowd size: his crowds are just as big and as enthusiastic. #1
Maybe by contributions: He has more small dollar donations now then he did in 2008.
Maybe by polling: http://a57.foxnews.com/img.foxnews.com/static/managed/img/fn-latino/politics/660/371/Poll%201.jpg
Maybe by votes cast: he received 100,000 more votes than Romney in Tuesday’s Ohio primary, without a single advertisement or GOTV effort.
Xenos
An outstanding post, JC. Thanks.
Mike
Jake Tapper has not said one positive thing about the Obama administration since the inauguration. I take that back. He did say something positive when Obama decided to confront Republicans once. I think he was taken aback by that, as we all were at the time. He must have lost his bearings for the moment, since that was the first (and last) time he has ever said anything remotely positive about the president.
Anyways, other than that slipup by Mr. Tapper, he has steadfastly maintained his position as the heir to Mark Halperin at ABC–a clone of Fox “News”.
Tapper is definitely biased, and no one here should take him seriously.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Zifnab:
Someone ought to send Tapper a golfers cap with a knob on top and tell him to wear it on TV.
I hear it’s fashionable wear for conservative ball washers.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@fasteddie9318:
Fix’t.
J R in WVa
Some reporters report facts, and some reporters dig and dig and dig to find (aka fabricate) “facts” that validate their preconceived point for the day. Usually those reporters aren’t the good ones.
Shame about Jake… won’t miss him, tho.
Kathleen
@Comrade Javamanphil: Great summary of the cesspool also known as the “Main Slime Media”. And Diane Sawyer gets on my last nerve with her furrowed brow faux concern for the great unwashed when it suits the script. Actually, I can’t stand any of them. The so called mainstream networks are responsible for makeing right wing thuggery mainstream and acceptable.
Libby
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero): Late reply. I agree General. Them’s the rules. Got to keep the horse race going. And negative truth about GOPers must be balanced with negative narrative about Dems. To “prove” they’re just neutral observers.
Not excusing the hit piece, but good to remember that Jake isn’t the boss. He’s just another reporter who has to answer to the brass. He likes his job. He doesn’t want to lose it.
TG Chicago
@David Koch: Obama’s approval ratings are down amongst Democrats from 2008, are they not?
The small-dollar contributions stat is interesting. Do you have a link to a comparison?
Do you have backup for the crowd size point?
The points regarding polling and votes cast don’t speak to a 2008 vs 2012 comparison.
Julia Grey
Oh, he started rotting even then. Remember that whole piece on, “Gore’s campaign didn’t hold the plane for me, and that just shows the horrible, thoughtless kind of person Gore and his people are”? From then on he almost rivalled the Bitches on the Bus in his relentless undermining of Gore. Reminiscent of “I’m sure Obama lied to my face about smoking a cigarette,” and thus revealed to the astonishingly perceptive Jake Tapper that Obama’s essential character was irredeemably evil.
Apparently it’s all about Jake and who has dissed Jake. Too bad Bush didn’t have a chance to give him an insulting nickname and make a “joke” at his expense (“gee, you’ve got a face for radio, dontcha?”). Then we might have gotten some hostile coverage of Bush from our preeny friend Jake.
PJ
Jake’s been a shallow hack since the beginning, starting with his first piece of journalism in the Washington City Paper, a completely uninsightful account of a date with Monica Lewinsky written to cash in on the blowjob excitement.
waratah
@Crusty Dem: I thought the same thing, out of all Tom Hanks movies he went with the Forrest Gump. Jake rarely has any original thoughts even with his questions on press briefings.
Tim I
Tapper has always been a total f**king shill for the Republican Party. I can’r imagine why anyone would defend his shitty, biased reporting.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
@Smiling Mortician: his why, of the three major networks, I watch very little of ABC. Their news is superficial and retarded, while the rest of their programming is mostly abysmal too.
Joey Giraud
@Tim I:
Because he did write some decent stuff for Salon back in the days of Monica. Fish in a barrel stuff, pointing out the obvious.
No Joe Conason, that’s fer sure.