Remember yesterday when all the wingnuts were screaming that the White House was shutting out Fox news:
Allahpundit (who has now gone full metal wingnut) was apoplectic:
Decide for yourself what the most disgraceful aspect of this is. Was it the fact that Gibbs told Jake Tapper explicitly on Monday that the White House wouldn’t try to dictate to the press pool who should and shouldn’t be included — before doing precisely that? Was it Anita Dunn going out of her way to say she respects Major Garrett as a fair reporter — before the administration decided he didn’t deserve a crack here at Feinberg? Or was it the repeated insistence by Dunn and Axelrod that of course the administration will make its officials available to Fox — before pulling the plug today?
The Weekly Standard was aghast:
The White House sent out an alert today to the press pool that “Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg would be doing a press availability— a round robin with the major news networks, in which Fox is customarily included. The administration specified that everyone was invited except Fox News, according to Bret Baier on “Special Report” tonight.
You know where this is going, don’t you? IT NEVER HAPPENED. Fox made the entire thing up. Take it away, TPM:
TPMDC dug into it, and here’s what happened.
Feinberg did a pen and pad with reporters to brief them on cutting executive compensation. TV correspondents, as they do with everything, asked to get the comments on camera. Treasury officials agreed and made a list of the networks who asked (Fox was not among them).
But logistically, all of the cameras could not get set up in time or with ease for the Feinberg interview, so they opted for a round robin where the networks use one pool camera. Treasury called the White House pool crew and gave them the list of the networks who’d asked for the interview.
The network pool crew noticed Fox wasn’t on the list, was told that they hadn’t asked and the crew said they needed to be included. Treasury called the White House and asked top Obama adviser Anita Dunn. Dunn said yes and Fox’s Major Garrett was among the correspondents to interview Feinberg last night.
Simple as that, we’re told, and the networks don’t want to be seen as heroes for Fox.
TPMDC spoke with a network bureau chief this afternoon familiar with the situation who was surprised that Fox was portraying the news as networks coming to its rescue.
The question- when will these guys get tired of being made fools of by their media sources and their leaders?
Oh, look. Ed Morrisey. Wrong about everything. Remember when he even tried?
And more here.
dmsilev
Never?
Simple answers, etc.
-dms
ruemara
what dms said. & vote for bitsy.
Polish the Guillotines
Never. That would require self-awareness. When a wingnut looks in a mirror, he wonders how that other guy got into the room.
JGabriel
Not only is Fox News not news, it’s no rock and roll fun.
.
Eric U.
I’m sure this will keep going for a week. If you listen to Hannity, there are still lies that he tells about Clinton that were debunked back in the mid ’90s.
Maude
The lies help them play victim.
I’m fed up with the Fox nonsense. They got called out and they can’t answer with facts, so they attack.
valdivia
even more important will the NYT and CBS correct the stories they did that were totally credulous of this?
El Cid
Okay, maybe the incident per se didn’t happen, but it still proves that Obama is 30 times worse than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Barbra Streisand combined times eleventy bajillion.
Just Some Fuckhead
It’s too late. The right-wing emails demonizing Obama in the Fox matter have already been circulated to old white people. It is now fact.
Snopes will be addressing this in a year or two.
El Cid
Also, I think it is very clear that should this end up looking bad for FoxNooz, then it was all caused by ACORN and Jimmy Carter with the CRA.
calipygian
They will NEVER get tired of being lied to by their leaders.
Here is just a tiny example from a notorious liar, fascist apologist, introducer of Iranian intelligence agents into the White House and someone deemed “unreliable” by the Defense Intelligence Agency in Senate testimony.
Take it away, Michael Ledeen: The Obama “thesis” Hoax.
It was true to Ledeen because it was “plausible”.
And somehow, he’s supposed to be an “academic”. Last time I checked, “academics” don’t just pick up any old thing they find on the internet and pass it on as fact.
trollhattan
7,733. Don’t know about those other canine upstarts.
dmsilev
@calipygian: That was kind of funny to read about. Makes you wonder how many ostensible third-tier conservative bloggers are actually deep-cover liberals whose goal it is to get the higher-profile conservative media to pick up on and amplify utter nonsense.
-dms
The Grand Panjandrum
These are the same people who think Dick Cheney still has credibility when he’s talking about national security.
@calipygian: I guess this supersedes Obama’s nuclear disarmament thesis. They’ll never be happy. They were looking for ways to discredit Clinton for eight years. The real treat is that the internet is a level playing field and all the BS gets debunked within minutes … Let them keep going and just being obstructionists. Not much of a platform to run on and most people know that.
El Cid
They sure damn do if they’re good patriot American conservatives trying to save this country from the Islamo-Kenyan ACORN beast. Maybe if all the librul academics would stop thinking about stuff so much we’d get more shit done.
calipygian
@dmsilev: I wonder about that myself, but Ledeen is no secret liberal.
He is a genuine threat to American democracy because he is stupid, gullible and has access to the inner corridors of power on a regular basis for some weird reason.
C.F. Manucher Ghorbanifar for more on the stupid gullibility that has lead to catastrophe.
demkat620
You know it is one thing to get upset by shit people do, it is another to lose your mind over something that never happened but you continue to pretend it did.
@dmsilev: Never. That’s right.
JGabriel
@calipygian:
No, but apparently Southern Republicans do, at least according to this map of state-by-state gonorrhea rates.
.
Scott de B.
So I go to breakfast and come home to find a big crowd of teabaggers setting up literally outside my window. By ‘big’ I mean about 75 or so. They have big tea party banners, some are holding anti-Obama signs, and there are red,white and blue balloons. There is also a stand selling Ohio State apparel, for reasons unknown.
The signs I’ve seen: “No we won’t!”, “Why?” and “The Lord of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob shall rule over the House of Israel and over the House of America, in the name of Yahweh and Adonai, Amen” and on the other side a lot of Biblican verse in tiny cursive ending with “and the Lord’s enemies shall Vanish Like Smoke!” The teabaggers are all middle-aged and white, but then that’s the demographics of this area to begin with. A few did bring their kids.
El Cid
@JGabriel: O noez! You kin git gonorrhea on the internet now?
Krosp I (a.k.a. Kryptik)
They got nearly every single news outlet, even those that were actually there for that whole wrangling and negotation, to parrot Fox’s line and come to their defense publicly.
Who are the fools, the liars or the ones that follow despite knowing the truth?
slag
Well, if Obama weren’t so Capone-like, no one would believe he would do something like that. Or maybe it’s because he’s so Carter-like that everyone believes. Ack! I’m so confused!
MattF
Just to note that Obama turned on Fox a couple of days before everyone else in the political universe discovered that the tide had turned in the health care debate. Coincidence? I think not.
El Cid
The “liberal” major media would 100% repeat its anti-Clinton hatred, the Whitewater / Ken Starr scam, and the march to invade and occupy Iraq 99 out of 100 times if right wingers told them they’d be cool if they did and traitors if they didn’t.
I wish Joan Kroc had left her hundreds of millions to Pacifica instead of NPR, but then again I wish I’d win the lottery, and I haven’t.
Bubblegum Tate
Indeed, that is central to their point.
gravie
And now there’s a poll circulating on Facebook with the question: “Should the Obama administration shut down Fox news?” I can bet with 99% certainty that it was launched by a right-winger hoping to insinuate the idea that the Obama administration might want to do that, because the first responses I’ve seen are “NO — Free speech is free speech” as if that were actually an issue here.
Radon Chong
@calipygian: This comment, from your link, is absolutely perfect wingnut:
Radon Chong
@Radon Chong: stupid blockquote. I said that last bit.
slag
@Bubblegum Tate:
Fascist.
Comrade Jake
@MattF:
It’s all a big diversion? Seems entirely plausible to me. The whole thing does seem uncharacteristic of Obama otherwise.
sloan
How long until this enters wingnut folklore as “The Secret Service escorted Major Garret off the White House grounds”?
(With obligatory references to “Chicago style politics” and the “Obama thugocracy”.)
askcherlock
FOX should stop pretending they are a news network. They are an entertainment vehicle whose only diet provides fiber for the viewers.
calipygian
@Radon Chong: I looked at that comment and thought, “This can’t POSSIBLY NOT be satire!”
Then I thought, “How on earth could this comment BE satire?”
Then I cried.
Just Some Fuckhead
Just more proof the Obama administration hates our troops..
El Cid
I heard that live on TV ACORN agents killed Major Garrett and even beheaded him but nobody will report on it ’cause they’re all afraid of Obama !!
dmsilev
@sloan:
Fixed for proper wingnuttiness.
-dms
NonWonderDog
Wait, so if I’m reading this right…
Fox News reported that they asked for an interview and the White House said no until pressure from other networks caused them to relent.
What actually happened was that Fox News was offered an interview that they didn’t ask for, because someone in the White House press room thought it would look bad if they weren’t there.
Am I getting this right? Because that kind of blows me away. Fox News isn’t usually that blatant.
calipygian
That sounds very plausible. /Michael Ledeen.
Fern
Where I live, a media outlet like Fox would run into a bit of trouble when it came time to get its broadcast license renewed.
licensed to kill time
But this is just what they do – take a tiny kernel of factiness, twist it and bend it and inflate it into a Huge Conspiracy to make them Victims of some Fascist Overlordian Nefarious Government Plot.
It’s such sweet agony to scream while your face is being crushed by an imaginary jackboot.
Midnight Marauder
@NonWonderDog:
Are you sure you’re talking about the same Fox News?
Scott de B.
The teapartiers’ ranks have swelled, to around 150 I would guess. Lots of Gadsden flags, some angry yelling. There is a musical group but I can’t tell what they are playing.
sloan
@Just Some Fuckhead: Isn’t it disgusting? Multiple sources have confirmed this.
The Secret Service complains they don’t have enough money to protect POTUS but they have the money to take away our First Amendment rights?!?!?!
This is a job for James O’Keefe! To the Batmobile!
kay
@calipygian:
The thesis hoax was everywhere. Everywhere. It’s spawned a related theory: he couldn’t have written the books if he wrote that thesis. It’s ALL coming together….
They’re absolute chumps. They’ll believe anything.
Liberals could have a lot of fun with this. There should be a hoax a week. They’ll be spinning in circles. They are spinning in circles.
calipygian
@Scott de B.:
It isn’t Hi Caliber, is it?
Hi-Caliber makes Scott Stapp look and sound like Mozart.
calipygian
@kay:
Hmmm……
sloan
@calipygian:
This video is now posted on Gateway Pundit.
NonWonderDog
@Midnight Marauder:
But there’s usually some underlying factual situation to provide ass-cover when the Fox press guys lie. The commentary guys make stuff up out of whole cloth, but the news guys take pride in blowing some kernel of fact into a grand controversy that the Democrats must respond to RIGHT NOW!!
Here it looks like they just reported exactly the opposite of what happened. I guess I’m mostly surprised that the other networks went along with it.
Cain
Sounds like they hate the music. Why else would they be angry? I mean it’s a great day to be tea bagging, amirite?
cain
Just Some Fuckhead
@kay:
The thesis hoax only ever had credibility in the first place because after years of the dumbest human being imaginable in the oval office, it was just assumed presidential aspirants couldn’t be capable of such a thing.
kay
@calipygian:
How freaking lazy are they? They didn’t make one phone call to check the thesis theory or the Treasury theory?
“We’re running with it!”. They deserve a hoax a week.
Not to mention the Chamber of Commerce, last week.
Did you hear why reporters thought it was authentic? Because the environmentalists used the same boilerplate paragraph at the end of the email to the press that the Chamber uses. That’s it. That was sufficient.
Midnight Marauder
@NonWonderDog:
But there’s usually some underlying factual situation to provide ass-cover when the Fox press guys lie. The commentary guys make stuff up out of whole cloth, but the news guys take pride in blowing some kernel of fact into a grand controversy that the Democrats must respond to RIGHT NOW!!
Peter Griffin: Leave it to me, I read a book about these people before.
Brian Griffin: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn’t…nothing?
Peter Griffin: Oh, yeah.
Midnight Marauder
Stupid fucking WordPress.
@NonWonderDog:
I’ll give you that, I suppose. The only thing I would say about it is that the “kernel of fact” you talk about is often times not a fact at all, and instead, pure speculation dressed up all pretty like it’s a fact. It reminds me of this classic exchange from Family Guy between Peter and Brian:
licensed to kill time
@Midnight Marauder:
That’s why I called it a “kernel of factiness” up above @licensed to kill time:
The corollary to Colbert’s truthiness.
MikeJ
How do you hoax them? We aren’t even trying and they’re hoaxing themselves.
calipygian
I’m thinking along the lines of a photoshop of the President’s desk with a couple of the kids’ drawings on it. Malia’s drawing should be a stylized Hammer and Sickle and Sasha’s drawing should include trains, a camp and smoke stacks.
Koz
1.) Fox is not a news organization. Period.”
Oh jeez, like repeating the same lie over and over again is supposed to make it any less of a lie.
Fox is obviously a news organization. It’s a credible one, too. But leaving aside whether it’s credible or not, it’s still a news organization.
This kind is like Darkness at Noon by Koestler, where not only are people expected to lie for partisan political reasons, but they are also expected to lie in circumstances where the truth is obvious to any reasonably knowledgeable observer.
What’s worse, as best as we can figure out, the Obama Administration is carrying out its war against Fox News as a boob bait maneuver for its liberal bubba supporters, but also because Fox is a credible news organization. In particular, that Fox was the first mainstream outlet to carry Van Jones’ sleazy truther connections and the ACORN exposes. The first one was Fox’s own work, the second was largely following BigHollywood. Anyway, this particular Obama jihad is intended prevent MSM coverage of malfeasance by government officials, or government funded organizations in ACORN’s case.
Then again, we knew that liberal opposition to government malfeasance was all talk anyway.
El Cid
When is the librul medja gonna cover the ACORN White House beheading of Major Garrett? We need to have Major Garrett be on Fox News 24 hours a day to denounce his awful Islamo-Kenyan murder at the hands of Kanye West.
Midnight Marauder
@licensed to kill time:
Yeah, I just went back and saw that. Very well played, indeed.
I just love that particular Family Guy quote, though. It seems to sum up the recurrent freakouts and repeated “OMG THIS IS HUGE–oh, wait, nevermind” stories that constitute the march towards the Wingnut Event Horizon better than anything else ever could.
kay
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I’m putting together my own theory.
Chamber hoax + balloon boy hoax+ thesis hoax+ Treasury/Fox hoax = lazy-ass useless press.
I’m in western Michigan and half the public schools were closed Friday because they had mass public panic on H1N1.
No one in the country understands H1N1. The US press? Busy chasing a fucking ballon.
calipygian
@Koz: Actual image of Koz as he was composing his post.
((Concept shamelessly stolen from Atrios))
El Cid
Fox News is a credible news source in the way that a chocolate bar can be part of a balanced nutritional breakfast.
licensed to kill time
@Koz:
HAAAhahahahahahaaaaaa….oh wait, this isn’t snark?
wingnuts to iraq
any notice that while the right-wing has been going to vapors over this, health care with a robust public option is closer to being passed then ever?
Is Obama the most epic troll ever?
Ash
Nope, sorry. Fox News is a credible news organization in the same way that Froot Loops is a healthy breakfast.
licensed to kill time
@Midnight Marauder:
Yeah, it’s like Epic Flail.
Scott de B.
I ended up heading to work. When I left, there were around 200 teabaggers, with more arriving. A pretty good turnout on a blustery day. There was a stand selling T-shirts saying “Don’t Tread On Me”, “Obama Sucks” and something about Obama being a Communist. One guy had a shirt saying “Messiah isn’t spelled O-B-A-M-A”. Another had a souvenir teabagging shirt from New Jersey.
Just Some Fuckhead
Leave Fox News alone!
Bubblegum Tate
@Scott de B.:
I think these will be ironic hipster-wear in a year or two.
Legalize
Yes. A ton of noise and bluster signifying approximately nothing. Covering the wingnut freakout over the latest non-existent wingnut boogyman is not news.
JGabriel
Koz:
I award Koz a 7.3 for his attempted Full Hoeskstra.
.
Brick Oven Bill
I know that there is a War on Glenn Beck because I have observed it coming from Rahm ($16 million AT&T/GM Chairman Whitacre ‘I don’t know anything about cars’) and David ($3 million ‘Astroturfing’). They are punishing FOX because of Beck.
Normally, you cannot trust observations from the TV, as the image delivered to your eyes, and the sound delivered to your ears, can be modified by electronics. But in this case Rahm and David controlled the electronics, and put out their message. Other Obama staff specifically complained about the 5pm (Beck) and 9pm (Hannity) slots.
But there is no reason for a Logical person to fear Sean Hannity. There is therefore a War on Glenn Beck and it is real. But Beck the German, outmaneuvering his opponent, has successfully sowed dissention behind the enemy’s lines, by having a secret informant in the inner circle.
This must drive Obama nuts. What drives him even more nuts is the mocking. He does not know how to process this as nobody has ever told him ‘no’, let alone mocked him.
But Beck’s primary weapon is the Truth, which always prevails, as it attracts Virtue, which in turn attracts Talent, which in turn effectively channels energy.
Everything makes sense when you think about it. Come join a Winner. Sign up with your local 912 Chapter.
Charise.
JenJen
You know what’s interesting to me is how easy it has been for the assknobs at Fox News to get their legions of useful idiots (see: Koz, et al) to take to the streets with pitchforks and torches in order to defend them. It is mind-boggling to watch. What is it, exactly, that Fox News gives wingnuts? They all seem so emotionally invested in what is essentially an entertainment channel. I mean, I love Comedy Central, but if Karl Rove said something mean about Jon Stewart it’s not like I’m going to seek out some right-wing website’s comment section, or Twitter, to defend him.
“Get a life, people. You… you must be at least 30. Have you ever even kissed a girl?” – William Shatner
Brick Oven Bill
Glenn the Dog Cute Vote #7875 Duly Registered.
Chad N Freude
@Koz:
FIXED.
Just Some Fuckhead
Cmon folks, go vote for Charise in BOB’s Cutest Nazi Competition.
El Cid
McDonalds is a vendor of healthy, nutritious foods.
Shell
Was this supposed to be another Tea Party day? So hard to keep track of ’em.
And as far as ‘how long…?’ Are you kidding. The daily outrage/hissy fits against the Muslim usurper must be maintained! And that takes constant material, it’s too exhausting to keep up that level themselves
Notorious P.A.T.
Now I know what I’m getting Ross Douthat for Christmas:
youtube.com/watch?v=_VVmMWJVwjk&feature=player_embedded#
(hope no one else posted this)
Chad N Freude
@Ash: Now hold on there. I heard that Froot Loops has been reformulated to have more fiber and less sugar. On the news.
Martin
@Koz:
So, is the Daily Show obviously a news organization? Over the course of its half-hour, I’d say it successfully commits acts of journalism (and equally solid acts of journalism as I usually see on CNN) at the same rate as Fox does over the course of its 24 hours.
Periodically doing journalism on a news channel and periodically doing propaganda, or comedy, or satire, or just general entertainment doesn’t make you a credible news organization. I’d apply that to MSNBC as well.
Chad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill: Man, I have to hand it to you. This is Dada satire at its finest. A bit obscure to the masses perhaps, but really funny to the connoisseur.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Chad N Freude: Regardless, the tasty morsels of cereal are no more loops of fruit than Fox News is news about foxes.
calipygian
@Martin: In fact, I’d argue that you’d learn more about Iran in a week from watching Jason Jones’ original reporting on The Daily Show than you’d learn about Iran from Fox Noise in 10 years.
Notorious P.A.T.
@Scott de B.:
Is there so much as a clue about what they are protesting? “No, we won’t!” Well, that’ll show ’em!
Chad N Freude
@JenJen:
Fixed for political correctitude.
Chad N Freude
@Just Some Fuckhead: Not clear to me from your response. You did get that it was snark, didn’t you? There are clues.
kay
How long are national media going top spend on who did or did not sit next to Major Garrett at the Treasury briefing?
What did Jake Tapper say? Chip Reid’s snappy rejoinder? America wants to know.
This goes beyond “inside baseball”.
They’ve just completely abandoned any pretense of covering a subject that isn’t “them”.
I know delivering factual information is boring. To reporters. I know that. I learned that in the health care debate, when we spent 4 full weeks on “death panels” and never got to the grown-up phrase, which is “advanced directives”. A discussion on advanced directives might actually have been practically useful to people, but we ran out of time. I get that.
I think we have to insist they spend a little time on it anyway.
Chad N Freude
@kay: You left out “Will Chuck Todd shave his goatee?”
Koz
“Yes. A ton of noise and bluster signifying approximately nothing. Covering the wingnut freakout over the latest non-existent wingnut boogyman is not news.”
Yeah, I don’t know what world you’re living in, but it’s pretty clear to anyone who’s watching that Fox had the goods on both of them.
Midnight Marauder
@Chad N Freude:
That was one of the more aggravating things I saw during the course of this week when I would cruise through HuffPo. It came in as a close second to “UPDATE: Chuck Todd NOT Shaving His Goatee.” Are you fucking kidding me? It’s an indictment of a whole lot of people that I don’t feel like identifying right now, but needless to say, we know who they are, and more importantly, they know who they are.
+3
Midnight Marauder
@Legalize:
Yes. A ton of noise and bluster signifying approximately nothing. Covering the wingnut freakout over the latest non-existent wingnut boogyman is not news.
@Koz:
The point. It went that way.
Koz
“You know what’s interesting to me is how easy it has been for the assknobs at Fox News to get their legions of useful idiots (see: Koz, et al) to take to the streets with pitchforks and torches…”
I don’t care about Fox News that much, or even watch it for that matter. It’s obvious why Obama wouldn’t like it. But it’s still lame for him to attempt a maneuver that depends on his supporters among the public to brazen out an obvious lie. It’s lamer still for you idiots to actually do it.
Midnight Marauder
Damn you, WordPress.
@Legalize:
@Koz:
The point. It went that way.
Koz
So, is the Daily Show obviously a news organization?”
No, of course not.
licensed to kill time
Glenn Beck is to Truth as
Both effectively channel energy, which is quickly dissipated and turns to fat, clogging the arteries and also the neural pathways that speed up critical thinking. Prolonged exposure to either can Supersize(R) the stupid.
kay
@Chad N Freude:
I don’t think their individual names should be the Big Story.
That, to me, would be a huge, waving red flag that I had somehow lost my way in my role as “witness” and “reporter”.
They are this story. They can’t credibly report on it.
We now need an unbiased source, because clearly they are personally and professionally invested in a certain result here. They have a HUGE conflict.
JenJen
@Just Some Fuckhead:
OK. But only if she changes her name to Rachel Maddow.
gwangung
Then why are you even commenting?
The folks you’re responding to just MIGHT know more than you.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Koz:
Fox News is a news organization because they claim to be. See how easy that was? The Daily Show does not claim to be a news organization and so they are not. Ergo, ad hoc propter.
Me, I have a 19″ glistening black cock, big around as a boys’ leg. Now, clearly that is the case since I just said it was. And now I’m going to go outside and ride it like a pogo stick.
Silver Owl
Wingnuts were raised to be made fools of. lol It will be generations before they get rid of that mental defect.
Just Some Fuckhead
@JenJen:
That seems fair. BOB, can you talk to your Nazi friend and see if she’d be willing to change her name to Rachel Maddow? We’d like to help her win the Cutest Nazi Competition but, ya know..
Chad N Freude
@kay: The names aren’t the Big Story (or BS, as we like to abbreviate it), but the concern over the fate of Todd’s goatee illustrates the frat-boy focus of all of the media (maybe not so much PBS and Rachel M). They waste ink and bandwidth talking about one another to the exclusion of any — oh, you know — reportage and analysis of actual events.
Whenever it rains, I think it must be Cronkite and Murrow weeping.
Scott de B.
Not really. There was a Glenn Beck-9/12 provided banner that said that it was a rally in favor of limited government and financial responsibility, but it looked like mostly an expression of general disdain for Obama. One guy who looked to be an ex-vet was carrying a flag mounted upside down, a la the movie “Amerika”.
Chad N Freude
@kay: I agree with you about the conflict of interest on this, but that does not preclude the possibility of a press organization reporting and analyzing it properly, as unlikely as that seems. I haven’t checked, but the BBC and British newspapers could certainly take this on.
Chad N Freude
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I won’t believe it till Fox reports it. With video.
Koz
“The folks you’re responding to just MIGHT know more than you.”
Yeah, I think we can safely discount that possibility.
JenJen
@Koz: So you don’t care much about Fox News, and you don’t even hardly watch it. Yet, you wrote at length about “sleazy” Van Jones, and ACORN, and also cited the genesis of such stories.
You know this probably isn’t the best place to be sowing bullshit. I can only speak for myself, but really, I’d have more respect if you would just go ahead and own it. I don’t know why, after writing that defense, you would suddenly want to distance yourself from Fox News altogether. What’s to be embarrassed about?
Koz
“Fox News is a news organization because they claim to be. See how easy that was? The Daily Show does not claim to be a news organization and so they are not. Ergo, ad hoc propter.”
You keep using that word. But it doesn’t mean what you think it means.
Martin
@Koz:
But if they turn out factual journalism at the same rate as Fox, why would Fox be ‘obviously news’ and the Daily Show not?
What’s the criteria for someone to be a news outfit – that they call themselves one? Remember this moment? I’d argue that Crossfire was, on the whole, better journalism than Fox is, on the whole, yet Stewarts takedown basically ended the show.
Chad N Freude
Speaking of depth and intensity of press coverage of important news, has anybody clocked the amount of airtime devoted to the admission by Balloon Boy’s mom that the whole thing was a deliberate hoax? I think it may be hovering around zero, maybe a little bit less.
Koz
“You know this probably isn’t the best place to be sowing bullshit. I can only speak for myself, but really, I’d have more respect if you would just go ahead and own it. I don’t know why, after writing that defense, you would suddenly want to distance yourself from Fox News altogether. What’s to be embarrassed about?”
I don’t want to distance myself from Fox News, I just don’t watch it (at least not very much). But it’s obvious that Fox News broke the Van Jones thing (and for the MSM) ACORN too, which is why the Obama Administration is doing what it is (confirmed by other media sources, including NYT and National Review).
corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDIxMDVjYTU3OTM5MDk3ODIyNTBiZmRhZTkzZDVjOWU=
Brick Oven Bill
1. Charise will not change her name. This is non-negotiable.
2. Sun Tzu tells us there are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:
(1) Recklessness, which leads to destruction; [Ed. not yet, but in time. This will be the JNM, or ‘Jack Nicholson Moment’]
(2) cowardice, which leads to capture; [Unknown, some of these guys are crazy]
(3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults; [Check, double check]
(4) a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame; [Check check check check check but substitute mockery for shame]
(5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble. [Check]
These are the five besetting sins of a general, ruinous to the conduct of war.
When an army is overthrown and its leader slain, the cause will surely be found among these five dangerous faults. Let them be a subject of meditation.
You will note Glenn’s brilliance in his Mao phone line, followed up by the pigeons. ‘Call me.’ This is called turning your enemy’s energy against him. I think this is from Judo.
JenJen
@Koz: What, exactly, is the administration doing, though? I mean, it sounds to me like they spent a little time last week bitching about unfriendly coverage. Do you think that administrations aren’t entitled to do that? Were you as deeply concerned when the previous administration singled out what they considered unfriendly coverage, and bitched loudly about it?
I mean, just briefly skimming a few of your posts here, it sounds like the Administration has somehow done something to Fox News. In your initial post, you actually called it a “war.” Ummm… seriously? A war?
Beauzeaux
I, for one, won’t be a bit surprised when that highly credible and widely respected news organization known as Fox News announces that they have found Gilligan’s Island.
JenJen
@Brick Oven Bill:
Well, I’m out, then. And frankly, I’m kind of surprised, because if I had an aging-burlesque name like “Charise” you’re damned straight I’d be open to changing it.
Napoleon
This is another good reason for Obama to be very aggressive on the issue of pointing out that Fox is not a news organization and ignoring the concern trolls in the media (including some usually level headed people like Kevin Drum). Force the other media outlets to either begin to ignore Fox or defend them, and if they defend them at some point they will realize they are defending scum that delegitimatizes their own media outlet and quit. This issue is pure win for the left.
@Radon Chong:
So in their world they can make something up and if you don’t deny it it is true.
@Comrade Jake:
I actually wondered if it was a big diversion aimed at the liberal base by rallying them against a common enemy while the sausage making on the health bill was ginding forward.
Robertdsc-iphone
This thread is full of win. Well done, people.
/goes back to printing more Medicare Advantage books.
Koz
“any notice that while the right-wing has been going to vapors over this, health care with a robust public option is closer to being passed then ever?”
I don’t want to forget this one.
politico.com/news/stories/1009/28651.html
Note especially that Speaker Pelosi is talking about the House, which has no filibuster rule. Getting a successful supermajority in the Senate is obviously more difficult.
Unfortuately for your theory, I fear it’s closer to the exact opposite of the truth. You’re not getting cap-and-trade, you’re not getting health care, you’re not getting a pullout from Afghanistan, you’re not getting a shutdown of Gitmo. You have to get something, so this is it. I hope you’re happy with it.
Martin
You realize that those have been proven by other, more credible news outfits to be essentially fabricated stories?
That’s not helping your case at all.
dmsilev
@Koz:
As with so many other things, Shakespeare sums up your post best: “it is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”
-dms
JenJen
@Koz: (Damned edit button is gone… sorry for multiple posts)
Wanted to add… that link from The Corner, Koz? I know Rich Lowry is super-awesome and everything, but I do hope you didn’t just take his edit of that NYT article in good faith, and instead read it for yourself. There are about 18 paragraphs that follow his ellipses, and they’re not friendly to Lowry’s conclusion.
Koz
“Ummm… seriously? A war?”
Uhh, no, not literally. Pick a different word and I probably won’t object. In any case let’s be clear about one thing: I don’t object to the President attempting to discredit his perceived political opponents.
I do object to him attempting to strongarm other media organizations who are at least nominally not supposed to be under his control. I also object that this maneuver depends on coopting the liberal base in an obvious lie.
Chad N Freude
Obvious to some, perhaps, not so obvious to others.
This, by the way, is called “fact checking”. You and Fox News might want to try it some time.
Disclaimer: I am not endorsing World Tribune’s reporting, just showing that maybe the obvious needs to be probed a little bit more deeply to find out the … what’s that word … Oh, yeah, TRUTH.
MikeJ
Isn’t the ultimate answer to “is Fox news” the U of MD study done a few years back that showed that watching Fox actually made you less well informed?
Just Some Fuckhead
@JenJen:
You’d think Nazi BOB doesn’t care who wins the Cutest Nazi Competition, right? I have a theory he has secretly entered himself. Someone peruse the photos and see if there’s an older white male, visibly drunk and dressed like Eva Braun going by the name “Rachel Maddow”.
dmsilev
@Koz:
Sheesh. If you’re going to quote from the classics, at least get it right.
-dms
Svensker
@Koz:
What about Geoge Soros? What about SEIU? (What the hell IS SEIU, anyway?) What about the farce of global warming? Huh? You can’t talk about the threat of ACORN and leave that stuff out. Oh, yeah, and what’s that guy’s name, Saul Alinski? What about him? I mean FOX basically showed the truth of all this stuff and proved that Obama is just a big commie cypher who is committing jihad against America in a cypherish sort of way. Amirite? Amirite?
USA! USA! FOX! FOX! FOX! No we won’t! 9/12!
Svensker
@JenJen:
Plus, Rich Lowry is SUCH a reliable source on everything, especially starbursts.
JenJen
@Koz:
1. Fox News IS a political opponent of the President.
2. What media organizations (including Fox News for sake of argument) has the President strongarmed? How has the President strongarmed media organizations? Specific examples, if you don’t mind.
3. What “obvious lie” are you talking about, and how is it that the liberal base has been coopted?
I’d really like to have this conversation with you, but a lot of what you’ve said so far is just nonsensical. Can you clear it up?
Blue Raven
@Brick Oven Bill:
Blonde English girls with ghetto names. I really dig that shit.
My thanks for sparking one of my favorite earworms, BoB. You’ve actually done someone a favor here today. Good job.
gwangung
@Koz:
Why? They watch it, you don’t.
Stupid statement.
licensed to kill time
@Koz:
As Midnight Marauder said:
as in, you are missing it. The Van Jones and ACORN “stories” were much ado about nothing. The “war” on Fox, to borrow a now loathsome term, ditto. There is no there there. No one is censoring Fox or creating an enemies list or storming the station and turning off their cameras.
Merely pointing out that Fox’s “news” is questionable, slanted, and quite often factually challenged if not outright fabricated. The blurring of the lines between news and opinion is such that their viewers come away sadly misinformed about the most basic news, and whipped up into an incoherent emotional anger about things that really have no basis in reality or impact on their actual lives.
I do not see hordes of angry “liberal bubbas” waving poorly spelled signs outside Fox TV stations.
kay
The Obama Administration has been completely above-board on this, and they may be the only actor in this drama that has stated their opinion and objection publicly and honestly.
They said, “we believe Fox is the PR arm of a political opponent, and we intend to treat them that way”.
They’re an interested party, but they’re not pretending they’re not.
Media are interested parties too, but they’ve decided to ignore that and forge on with this bullshit, and it ain’t gonna work.
Media has a duty here that the White House doesn’t. They intend to defend each other personally while ostensibly covering the broader dispute. I don’t think they can do that.
Just Some Fuckhead
@licensed to kill time:
Did you see a guy, naked from the waist down, riding what appeared to be a giant black penis like a pogo stick? Because I claimed it could be done and therefore it has happened.
Maude
@Napoleon: What ever happened to Who, What, Where, When, How, Why?
These self obsessed fools believe that are more important than anything or anyone.
This started with Raygun. The image and the stupidity.
Fox is in a bad position. Obama isn’t a liar.
The press got lazy with Clinton and just did Monica all the time. They are indeed ignorant and don’t know it.
Those who say that there are two Foxes, opinion and news are barking up the wrong tree. The problem is that people can’t tell the difference.
Marv The Blogger
*shakes head*
This is so ridiculous. The MSM should be following THIS story. They should be talking about how the Fox GOP Channel made up this whole story to progress their “the White House is trying to destroy Fox” story.
Ash Can
@NonWonderDog:
According to what I read this morning (and I’m linking to a DKos article because it contains links to all the different sources needed to make this story come together), it’s even better than that. I’ll repeat what I posted in an earlier thread here this morning:
When Treasury announced that Feinberg would be doing the interview, a number of networks asked to be allowed to bring in video equipment along with their reporters. Treasury said fine, and made a list of those networks.
Fox wasn’t on that video list, because they didn’t make the request.
In the meantime, the video-requesters figured out that everyone scrambling and squeezing to get their equipment set up in the room would just be one gigantic pain in the ass, so they decided to go with just one pool video set-up. Treasury forwarded its still-Fox-less list to the networks’ WH reporting pool. The pool guys noticed Fox wasn’t on the list and said that they needed to be in order to get a pool video set up (apparently the pool has the rule that if any networks are excluded from the pool video, even by their own (non)request, a pool video can’t be set up and each network has to furnish its own equipment). Treasury called the WH about it, and Anita Dunn said to go ahead and include Fox on the pool video list. (Note: This was the extent of the WH’s involvement in this whole phony kerfluffle.)
But why should Fox let the facts stand in the way of an opportunity to trash Obama?
Treasury has been running around trying to tell anyone who’ll listen that the Fox story is complete bullshit. Let’s see how many of the real news networks report Treasury’s story and, in doing so, be forced to admit that Fox “News” played them all for chumps.
P.S. I really wonder how people like Katie Couric and Jake Tapper feel now. I’ll emphasize my final point: Fox played all these people standing up for their so-called sister organization for chumps. I really wonder what they’ll have to say this evening, tomorrow morning, or at all.
Cat Lady
Remember when Obama said that Republicans should stop listening to Rush in a one sentence throw away line? The next several weeks were taken up with every pundit and bobblehead weighing in, with the vast majority concern trolling how big of a mistake was it – huge, large or just very big? This past week, I saw a poll that measured the lowest percentage of self-identified Republicans since the ’80s, I think it was. Fox doth protest too much, methinks, and if they were smart (hah!), they’d start reporting some favorable Obama stories to buttress their own defense.
JenJen
So, now Mediaite is weighing in, and they seem to agree with the Fox News account of what happened. Also, Fox News’ Michael Clemente claims to have already received a WH apology, from Gibbs and others.
mediaite.com/tv/white-house-admits-to-fox-news-pay-czar-interview-exclusion-a-mistake/
Reading Mediaite’s article, I don’t see any new information outside of the Clemente quotes. They also don’t seem to have received any independent confirmation, or more importantly, confirmation from the White House, that Major Garrett did indeed receive an apology. Of course, that didn’t stop the outlet from running with the headline, “White House Admits To Fox News: Pay Czar Interview Exclusion “A Mistake.”
licensed to kill time
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Your pogo stick image is inappropriately burned into my brain. I snorted tea out my nose and it throbs now, not unlike how your pogo stick must be throbbing after all that pogo-ing.
Napoleon
@Cat Lady:
Which is why it is so smart to chain Fox to the Republican Party. 60-70% or America will come to think Crazy Old Uneducated White People = No Plan For/Not Like People Like Me = Republicans = Fox News.
Midnight Marauder
@Ash Can:
Well, we know that most of them don’t, but if they had even the slightest shred of decency and/or self-awareness, they would feel rightfully humiliated.
It’s just like the old high school dynamic, where the popular jerk cheerleader/jock befriends some lowly kid for highly suspicious reasons. And all of their old friends keep telling the kid “Hey, this doesn’t smell right. You should probably get out while you can. This person doesn’t really care about you. They’re just using you for some as-yet-unknown purpose, but rest assured that when it is known, you will be left holding the very short end of the stick.”
And the poor ol’ lowly kid just keeps ignoring the sound advice of the people who know better, and before you know it, that poor ol’ lowly kid is left feeling like less than dirt, holding that short end of the stick, while everyone else just looks at them saying “Well, what else did you expect?”
But again, this is The Village we’re talking about, and despite how disturbingly high-schoolish their behavior consistently is, I sincerely doubt that the wankers will learn any kind of lesson from this incident. It would be nice, but it would be foolish to believe such a thing.
It certainly will be interesting, though, to see how the rest of The Village treats the next poutrage from Fox in their battle to stave off marginalization.
catclub
It’s a real shame – even a horror, that Obama’s ACORN ninjas
destroyed all FOX transmitters and killed the staff in his
war on FOX. Rupert’s and Ailes’ heads on pikes will really put the fear of God in other reporters when dealing with Obama now.
Oh… they didn’t?
JenJen
@Ash Can:
Don’t know about Katie Couric, but you don’t have to wonder about how Jake Tapper feels. He’s easily the most loquacious Twitter-using MSN journalist, and he feels just fine about taking one for
Fox Newsthe team.Unrelated to Tapper’s willingness to be FNC’s stooge, judging by his feed over the last 24 hours, he went on a veritable Twitter rampage against his tweeting critics. Tapper’s kind of weird.
JenJen
Ummm, wow. I was actually able to persuade Steve Krak of Mediaite to change the headline of the story I linked to up in post #140.
I’m rather impressed with Steve Krak all of a sudden!
licensed to kill time
@JenJen:
Tapper’s tweeting Twitter twat? Totally tool.
geg6
If you want to know all you need to know about our MSM, head on over to Salon and read Joan Walsh’s latest on what she took away from reading the Taylor Branch Clinton tapes book. Joan nails it, with the extra added whipped cream of trashing Russert’s reputation as a “serious” journalist. It’s simply beautiful and made me love Joanie almost as much as her retort to Dick Armey. Of course, we’ll probably never see her on Tweety’s show again after this, but I plan to send her a love note that might, in some small way, soften that blow. I won’t describe it, just go on over and read it. Good stuff. Bravo Joan!
LD50
I think this freakout on behalf of wingnuts like Koz is this: they know what THEY would do if there was a Republican in the White House and a leftwing equivalent of FOX (and no, Koz, there isn’t one) attacking him. So, they can’t imagine that a Democrat can be in the White House and is NOT trying to do like they would do by ‘shutting down’ Fox.
John Cole
You have to be kidding. After it became aware to even dolts like me that the Bush admin used the media, and used them badly, David Gregory insisted the tough questions were asked in the run-up to Iraq.
And then he was promoted to host MTP.
Digby, Dougj, GG, and Atrios are right- the path to the top in DC is shitting on Democrats.
Napoleon
@geg6:
I have not read the book but heard 2 long interviews with Branch and although I didn’t hear him discuss those particular episodes in general what Joan talks about is what you take away from the interviews. In a lot of ways it is a very timely book.
By the way I am convinced her opinion on Gore’s campaign is dead on and the greatest example every of how completely clueless the MSM and Villager’s are and how it likely cost Gore the presidency to do anything other then the exact opposite of what they thought. I think that is one of Obama and crews strongest points.
kay
@JenJen:
Because it was a mistake, a misunderstanding, and could (technically, I guess) merit an apology.
They weren’t on the list, thus weren’t included when the plan changed. That part happened.
And that’s the wiggle room between the truth and a lie that Fox will weasel around in, and rely on to claim that they “were right!”.
I’m still glad he changed the headline to reflect the truth, though.
I know it doesn’t matter: the subtle shadings of Fox “truth” get lost all the time, but I’m glad you pursued it.
Jake Tapper should show some professional restraint and stop tweeting about himself. He crossed a line about 24 hours ago.
He’s now completely eclipsed the story he set out to cover. That’s a failure, all by itself.
ironranger
@geg6:
Joan is one of my favorites. That was a good piece. She is so right on. The majority of our media lets us down over and over and over again. A pox on them all.
Blankfrank
Oh yeah, I know where I’ll be at 5 and 9 , I’ll be watching FOX!
Let’s go Yanks!
General Winfield Stuck
Haven’t read the thread cause i’m lazy, so if this has been mentioned, oh well.
If folks wonder about whether the blogosphere, or the wingnuttosphere and it’s viral wingnuttery isn’t a contagion, then
From CBS central, pol guru Jeff Greenfield. Prolly got it from Drudge or some other winger internet fool.
kay
However is shakes out politically, I’m glad the Obama Administration did this.
Because anyone who watched the Clinton frenzy unfold could feel it happening again, the press piling on, terrified of being accused of bias, not relying on any individual judgment or discretion, but instead acting on sort of a mob mentality.
ACORN insane rabid pile-on is exhibit A, and I’ve seen this movie before, and I know how it ends, and I don’t need to see “B”.
And what happened during the Clinton Presidency regarding the press was a goddamned shame, and hurt us immeasurably, because we didn’t address any problems, but instead chased balloons.
We wasted years in this country on that nonsense. Years. And there’s now a wide understanding of that, although there haven’t been apologies, we all know what happened.
So, it was time to try something risky. Let’s hope it works, or we’re going to be looking at 3 years of chasing balloons, and nothing gets done.
Napoleon
@kay:
My local paper ran a complete Glen Beck inspired hit piece as the lead story in last Sundays paper and I wrote them a long letter canceling them after 25 years for it. It ended with me telling them they needed to go bankrupt and they needed to end up in a soup line.
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
It’s evolving.
The original claim was ‘the White House”. Then it changed to the “White House involvement with Treasury”. That was a Politico correction.
Now it’s “the Treasury Department”, which is sort of outlandish, on it’s face.
I think we’re getting toward the truth.
If one reporter gets off their ass and makes a phone call before parroting something they read, we could speed this process up considerably.
They’ve now had 3 days, but they’re getting there!
We better hope like hell we’re not relying on them for anything timely and correct on H1N1, or, shit that might matter. We’d be better off with a phone tree. It’s faster.
Cat Lady
@kay:
Every Obama utterance that the MSM “reports” is digested in the blogosphere and the MSM is left behind because their egos apparently prevent them from looking beyond their own bubble. You can’t really blame them, because what they see about themselves ain’t pretty. The blogosphere meteor hit after Bush/Gore, and they STILL haven’t figured out that they’re the dinosaurs. I’m continually amazed at the beltway cluelessness.
JenJen
@kay: I was really surprised that Steve Krak responded so swiftly. Of course, he’s not up there in the Tapper and Chuckie T Kool Kidz Echelon yet. I’m sure he’ll turn into a dickwhisperer commensurate with MSM success. ;-)
Yeah, Twitter is just fascinating. I couldn’t look away from Tapper’s feed yesterday. He’s so completely full of himself, and condescending to the only people who should matter to him at all: his viewers and readers. I’m not surprised, of course, but seeing people like him just laying all of that bare online for anyone to see is still a little jarring to me.
kay
@Napoleon:
I read your post about that last week and was saddened, because it’s the Cleveland Plain Dealer, right? That’s a good paper, IMO. Or was.
I love newspapers. I get three, local, nearest city, and WSJ.
The reason I’m so upset about the press is because I love newspapers. I want them to do solid work. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t give a shit, right? Can they really not understand that? That we’re the people who 1. care and 2. buy the papers?
kay
@JenJen:
I can’t help thinking this is a mistake, for Tapper, professionally. He will be popular with his “co-workers”, but what about his objectivity? What about professionalism?
This is a crusade about the White House press corps. He’s a member. He has to step back. He’s mistaken his own self-interest for a Big Cause. That’s just deadly.
Press people are supposed to be, have to be, competitors and independent agents. That’s the only check on them. Each other. They can’t approach this as a solidarity issue. They’re showing us how personal this is. I didn’t want to know that they are a team. It explains a lot, but I didn’t want to know.
Anne Laurie
@Polish the Guillotines:
That’s why Fox News is so popular as the Wingnut Wurlitzer. You know how you can put a mirror in a parakeet’s cage and fool the bird into thinking it’s got a “friend”? FuxSnooze is that mirror for the evolutionary blind alley species, the Murican Birdbrain.
Napoleon
@kay:
Yes the PD.
It was a combination of things. They will PO me from time to time but last weekend when I needed to fill out my quarterly renewal they ran on Saturday a front page headline story about how many wonderful health care plans the Republicans have that was so bad that when I was fact checking my cancellation letter I happened upon the fact that the sole link on the Republican congressional leadership page on health care to a non internally produced piece was to the PD piece. It was so bad that after 9 months of talking about the health care bills in Congress the ONLY story the Republicans feel conformable linking to.
Sunday the ACORN piece ran and it was a complete return to how the press handled Whitewater by just vomiting up right wing fabricated talking points, all of which if even assumed to be true just didn’t matter. There main source was Rep. Issa though it was pure Glen Beck inspired.
So I explained to them all of the above then told them even when I was unhappy with them in the past I considered getting the paper “democracy insurance” but I had come to conclude that they were now actually a danger to public discourse.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kay:
Well after all, that is the only subject which they are reasonably well informed on. Lamp-posts, drunks, missing car keys, etc.
kay
@Cat Lady:
There’s this huge debate brewing within the Democratic Party regarding education. It’s been building for a while, and it involves civil rights, race, religion, urban versus rural, campaign donations and unions.
Big Stuff. Fundamental questions about , drum roll, Who We Are.
It’s highly emotional, because anything involving kids is, of course.
It’s fascinating, a real hot debate, and it’s applicable locally, because everyone has a public school. I hear from teachers and others all the time, and have for months. Some love the Obama education approach, some hate it.
The MSM completely missed it. They chose to cover ACORN.
We’re going to settle it without them. The policy will be in place and the battle over before the MSM bother to notice. What’s worse, it went BETTER without them.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Keep in mind that JSF is a three foot tall midget and the pogo stick line starts to make sense. He is truly gifted. ;)
kay
@Napoleon:
My stand-out memory during the Clinton impeachment was a real sense of despair. I tuned out, after that, for years.
I so believed (believe, actually) in the rationality of PROCESS that I was astounded it went that far. I count on the grinding, slow process making up for human error, and, as you know, a lot of times that works.
I assumed that at some point the big legal gears would spit it out, but by then it was well beyond “legal”, I guess, and had descended to “insane”.
tomjones
@JenJen: Still waiting for Koz’s answers to these questions. Masterful takedown, JenJen.
Chad N Freude
@kay:
Tapper and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Patsies have no interest in objectivity or professionalism. They may not all achieve the DSM definition of Narcissism, but it’s all about Them. All that matters is Reputation and Status, defined as getting air time and byline credit. Objectivity and professionalism are not in their vocabulary.
Self-interest is his/their only Cause, and so far shows no sign of being deadly to anything but an informed public, which we all know is irrelevant.
I want to know everything. I thrive on despair and anomie.
JenJen
@tomjones: Ha! I don’t know that I’d call it masterful. And yeah, wonder where he wandered off to?
@kay: I don’t know, kay. I’ve thought since at least the mid-90s that the White House Press Corps was about as clubby as it gets. I dont’ see how Tapper suffers professionally for his emotional outbursts directed toward the critics which comprise his audience. I don’t expect the guy to just give in and say “You know, you’re right, Joe Schmo (or Jay Rosen!). If I had to do it over again I might have phrased the question differently.” But for him to just outright keep essentially insisting we’re all unqualified to judge what Fox News is… that’s infuriating and condescending. But c’mon, I still bet he gets a back-slap from Chuckie T and Major and all the other kids on Monday. I can somehow imagine Ben Smith at Politico emailing him to say “you go!” or his colleagues at ABC News stopping by his office to say “way to stick up for yourself!” They aren’t embarrassed at his Twitter behavior… they admire it.
Ash Can
@John Cole: I agree with what you’re saying, but you kind of missed my point. They got played by the Bush misadministration early and often, to be sure. And they’ll always get used and abused by the people they cover, because kissing the asses of their favorite politicians is how they define their brand of “journalism.” But this time around they got played by people who were supposedly their colleagues. This was their “sister organization,” their fellow club members, the people with whom they were all in the same boat, etc. The very people they were defending like Musketeers pulled the rug out from under them and then laughed at them.
Of course, it’s always possible that Couric, Tapper et al. aren’t bright enough to realize that Fox has hung their pathetic asses out to dry. In which case, the folks at Fox should take note; they should be able to bilk their poor, gullible “colleagues” out of anything.
TenguPhule
You can claim you were just trying to help that poor duck all you want, duckfucker.
TenguPhule
Every word in that sentence is a lie, including the and to.
TenguPhule
Citing from Politico automatically marks you as the loser in any and all debates, arguments and claims.
Spazzman Spliff
@Ash Can:
What they will have to say is…. (crickets)
The first rule of the MSM is: You don’t talk about the MSM.
The second rule is: You don’t talk about the MSM, or repeat anything anyone might say about the MSM that casts it in a less-than-flattering light.
The third rule is: Any transgression of Rule 1 or Rule 2 means that you will be purged from the guest lists of all future soirees, your by-line will become a fading memory on the amnesiac pages of the press, and your smiling visage will never again illuminate the TV screens of this nation, because you will have proved your unreliability and your patent unsuitabilty for a career in the MSM, whose iconic personalities have been constructed at great expense, and represent a corporate investment which must not be besmirched by the likes of you.
Any questions? I thought not. Now go, collect your princely paychecks, and report not, lest you be reported.
For those of you dim enough to need it, this is your ONLY warning!
kay
@JenJen:
I went to the NYTimes to see if they had anything on H1N1, because that’s what people are worried about and talking about.
I know practical information like that would be the province of local news, and there is some information available locally, but I would think the national press would be a great megaphone. Just the facts, calm people down, because people (here) are a little panicky. They’re closing schools not because of an outbreak, but because people are keeping kids home. That seems like panic to me.
They have a single article, under “politics”, where they speculate that any failure in flu “preparedness” might be comparable to Katrina.
Useless.
matoko_chan
Well…he has gone Full Interwebs Dark today….No AllahP on the front page at the Hotair Fart Force at all……I wonder if there will be a retraction?
matoko_chan
yeah kay….Wired is picking up the vaccination luddites cuz the MSM is fail.
I wonder….if that might just be a terrific selection gradient to suppress wingnut reproduction…..kinda accelerate their extinction process?
Great scifi story….the post-apocalyptic
bikerliberal world of the future where homosapiens wingnuttia has gone extinct due to vaccination ludditry.brian
i stopped watching fox when i saw how they treated ron paul.
most fail award to fox, yep their worse than comcast
Koz
Ok, this thread of comments has more life in it than I thought. First of all, I think most of you are misunderstanding some things which ought to be pretty basic. There’s nothing holy about news organizations: there’s nothing that says they’re more credible than anyone else or impartial or not pursuing subterranean agendas. But they are what they are, and Fox News plainly is one, no one in good faith should think any different.
Fox News has correspondents, newsrooms, studios, cameramen, etc., they publish reports and do broadcasts. This is one reason, aside from the general clubbiness of Washington, why the rest of the MSM is defending Fox. There’s been too many times where employee of MSM outlet X has been sitting in a lobby or somewhere, working on her laptop getting out a dispatch, next to a correspondent for Fox doing the exact same thing. She (and others in her position) know damn well this fiction about “not a news organization” is utter bullshit.
Koz
“You realize that those have been proven by other, more credible news outfits to be essentially fabricated stories?”
No, I don’t recall that at all. The way I remember it, Van Jones was forced to resign as green jobs czar because he was a truther and a Communist, allegations which haven’t been contested since Fox broke the story and which Jones himself more or less admitted to.
The same with ACORN, except there most of the evidence is actually on videotape and which the liberals have made little or no attempt to rebut.
How do you see it?
Koz
“I mean, it sounds to me like they spent a little time last week bitching about unfriendly coverage. Do you think that administrations aren’t entitled to do that?”
Sure he is. Pres Obama is just another pol complaining about adverse press coverage, which is particularly lame in his case, since he’s been a bigger beneficiary of uncritical favorable coverage than anyone I can recall.
My gripe with this particular campaign of animosity let’s call it, is this “not a news organization” business. I thought that I might be making too big a deal about it, except that so many liberals have been willing to coopt themselves into an obvious lie.
Koz
“There are about 18 paragraphs that follow his ellipses, and they’re not friendly to Lowry’s conclusion.”
That’s odd considering Lowry’s blogpost is almost entirely a direct quote from the NYT piece, and strikes me as being a reasonable summary. What else was in there that you think changes things?
Koz
“1. Fox News IS a political opponent of the President.
2. What media organizations (including Fox News for sake of argument) has the President strongarmed? How has the President strongarmed media organizations? Specific examples, if you don’t mind.
3. What “obvious lie” are you talking about, and how is it that the liberal base has been coopted?”
1. ok.
2. Ie, The idea that the Administration publicly suggests to how one press outlet ought to view another.
“The bigger thing is,” Axelrod said, “other news organizations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way. We’re not going to treat them that way. ” from
realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/19/white_house_crosses_line_in_attacks_on_fox_news_98777.html
3. The idea that Fox News is not a news organization, see above.
Koz
“Every word in that sentence is a lie, including the and to.”
F U
Koz
“Masterful takedown, JenJen.”
Heh.
Koz
“The Van Jones and ACORN “stories” were much ado about nothing.”
Then go ask Van Jones for some eco-friendly government job and see what happens.
Koz
“Reading Mediaite’s article, I don’t see any new information outside of the Clemente quotes.”
Really?
The fact that other MSM sources are going on record contradicting the narrative that most of you here seem to be invested in, is not registering at all with you?
LD50
Thank god for that, I hate to imagine what kind of spectacle Koz would be making of himself if he *did*.
SFAW
Rebut what? That her lame attempt at a joke caused the right wing to shriek in dismay as someone brought the fainting couch over? What law was broken?
Your memory must not go back very far. W got less criticism, for more havoc wreaked (wrought?) on the country, than anyone in recent history. And Obama hasn’t had a free ride since he won a caucus/primary. Except, of course, in the eyes of the wingnutosphere – a place where everything Obama does is either socialist, communist, Nazi, Islamofascist, just plain evil, or some combination of all of the above …. and why won’t the f’ing Lieberal MSM investigate him for EVERYTHING!
TenguPhule
A lie is a lie, of course, of course,
Denial just makes it worse and worse.