I have nothing against partisan media. I think Fox should make a better effort to be journalists (and a few over there like Shep Smith do), but there’s nothing that wrong with a show, or even an entire network, having a specific ideological point of view.
I feel differently about programs and reporters who support a specific candidate. I never liked having Carville on tv in 2008 as if he were an independent Democratic analyst when it was clear he’s in the bag for the Clintons. Likewise, I didn’t like the fact that much of the rest of the media supported Obama in the primaries by failing to conceal its hatred of the Clintons.
Partly, I feel this way because of the possibility for payola. Republicans aren’t going to pay Joe Scar off to say conservative stuff because he says conservative stuff anyway. Likewise, Democrats aren’t going to pay Rachel Maddow to say what she already believes.
But when I watch something like this, I have to wonder what Nicole Wallace is getting from the Christie campaign (I think with Joe Scar is just a man crush, plain and simple). You can’t make a good argument that he’s the strongest general election candidate among Republicans anymore, so blatantly pulling for him isn’t partisan or ideological, it’s a sign that you support him over Rand Paul, Scott Walker, etc. and that you may be getting something from his campaign for going on tv to promote him.
I’ll give a summary: Joe Scar asks Todd “didn’t Chris Christie have a pretty good day yesterday?” Todd says “I guess it’s a good day that what? That he didn’t get, that more indictments didn’t come in.” Then Nicole Wallace starts yelling at Todd, saying he’s partisan. Todd explains that he doesn’t think Christie is necessarily a presidential candidate at all. Wallace continues to yell at him and call him partisan.
raven
“This is why Republicans are so brittle”. Ha-fucking-ha.
Schlemizel
I see no difference between being paid to say nice things and actually believing the nice things. The net result is identical. The same goes for ideological reporting – how do you tell that from stupidity or criminality? You can’t and the net impact on US elections is the same also. I’ll take reality-based reporting & let the chips fall where they may.
Villago Delenda Est
What I object to is airhead twits like Wallace (and the Palin git) being the MSM’s warped idea of what all women are.
Hillary Clinton could kick both of them all over the floor in a tag team matchup, and Hillary’s getting up there in years.
Also, too, Chuckles the Toddler is still a git as well. He can’t ungit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Like with his donut-eating moment on Letterman, I have to say Christie’s plays it pretty well when he’s got a tame or friendly audience– he compartmentalizes like a motherfucker, to bring back a political verb that was in vogue in the late nineties. The chairman of Motorola and a bunch of rich Illinois Republicans aren’t going to ask him what seems to me the most obvious (and only first) question: Why didn’t you ask Kelly what she was doing, why and who else knew about it?
I’m guessing like a lot of her fellow travelers in the GOP and MSM, she thinks the “moderate” Chris Christie is her ticket back to the party (two senses of the word) and the payroll. Steve Schmidt seems resigned to the fact that he’s gonna have to cover his bills on his own, at least for a couple of cycles.
Schlemizel
Just watched the clip – thank pasta I never watch this shit! The world would be a better place if all these jackoffs were lined up against the wall.
Epicurus
An argument between these two results in a “tale told by an idiot.” (Or two…) While Todd deserves every bit of criticism he gets, WTF is Wallace doing shilling for Christie?? It’s a puzzlement, to be sure.
Villago Delenda Est
Is Nicole Wallace another spawn gone wrong of Mike Wallace? Gosh, I hope not.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: My question would be, “How incompetent and out to lunch does one have to be to allow a sh!t storm the size of this one to happen?”
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemizel:
…and pelted with pies. For several days.
KG
@Schlemizel: those who actually believe nice things might change their minds, those getting paid will likely keep spouting nice things regardless of facts. That’s the only difference.
askew
Nicole is looking for a campaign job for 2016 presidential race and after she stabbed Palin in the back none of the tea party candidates will touch her. That leaves Christie as her only hope.
Yeah, Schmidt isn’t getting another campaign manager gig after the disaster of the McCain/Palin campaign. There’s a reason he is a commentator on MSNBC. Not even Fox News would touch him after that debacle.
kindness
Who TF is Nicole Wallace?
Some of us actively avoid these shows and really do enjoy being oblivious to the Talking Heads of the media (as opposed to the Talking Heads which we actively followed in it’s day).
ranchandsyrup
It’s a zero sum game for true believers like Wallace. She’s doing “God’s” work by appearing on the enemy network and disabusing the heathen lamestream media consumers of their “low info” viewpoint.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“Rachel’s not on till nine”? Rachel, who is nicer to Nicole Wallace than I am to sisters, may have a question about that.
I have to say, I agree with that MSNBC has been waaaay overdoing this story, especially for the last week. Rachel Maddow spent two entire segments recapping that last three weeks to build up to an interesting but hardly earth-shattering “scoop” about what the state leg is looking for (info on Kwon and Baroni’s testimony preparation)
Patrick
@kindness:
Amen. You couldn’t possibly pay me enough to watch MJ or anything else on FoxNews. Life is too short to listen to idiots with a right-wing bias.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You don’t ask a question that you know will result in an answer that you don’t want.
Those guys know that Kelly didn’t do any of this shit on her own initiative. She was directed to do it, and Wildstein was executing a plan that was formulated in Christie’s own personal office.
Christie chose to do the Ronald Reagan “gosh, I had no idea these people were doing these things!” route, but Reagan being a daft old grade Z movie star could get away with it. Christie, on the other hand, carefully created an image of a “hands-on” manager and was forced to trash it when the scandal got too close to him personally. Thus even those on the right are saying that Christie is toast, specifically because he’s been caught in a lie that there’s no way out of.
kindness
@Schlemizel:
Freedom (of sorts)! My preference would be guillotines though.
J.D. Rhoades
A professional shill like Wallace taking ANYONE , even Chuck Todd, to task for not being objective is ridiculous.
jl
@kindness: I can’t keep them all straight either. I have no idea who most of these people are or why we should care. I know who Mika, Scarborough and Chucky are because they are headline ‘news stars’ the networks flack in their promotions, but I wish I did not know who they are.
Some one more eloquent and persuasive than I should try to explain to DougJ that news talkies long ago became total BS cheap reality show stuff. The producers really don’t care what the guests say, as long as they can make a pro forma case for ‘balance’ and there is some ‘conflict’ so the guest have some excuse make enough racket with noises that resemble meaningful English closely enough to get the viewer’s attention in time for the next commercial. That is about it with this kind of garbage on U.S. TV.
gf120581
Maybe Nicole Wallace is trying to be Christie’s Jennifer Rubin, if Rubin wasn’t already auditioning for the job herself.
I’m afraid that those like Wallace and Scarborough are desperately trying to salvage their dream of Christie being a viable national candidate (kind of hard to do so when the latest polls had Hillary beating him by 20+) and so they’re grabbing on to any scrap of good news they can get to keep the dream alive. Even an Illinois appearance where none of the gubernatorial hopefuls wanted to be seen in public with him and where his most notable comment was praising Dubya (yeah, that’ll go over real well with the general public).
Villago Delenda Est
@jl:
As long as the “news” is entertaining and attracts eyeballs which can then by monetized through the selling of advertising time, it’s all good, as far as the networks are concerned.
The days of “news” being a loss leader for prestige are long gone. The changes wrought during the 80’s insured that.
Anybodybuther2016
yeah the media sure did love them some Obama huh? That’s why they ran “goddam merica” on a loop before the Pennsylvania primaries. STFU.
ranchandsyrup
@kindness: @jl: If you guys saw Game Change on HBO about McCain/Palin, Nicole was the person that McCain assigned to coach Palin up. Didn’t go so well for Wallace or Palin.
Schlemizel
@KG:
And how will we know they changed their minds? Perhaps they only were paid to think something else.
Schlemizel
@ranchandsyrup:
I might not hold that failure against her. Baryshnikov himself could not teach Porky to dance Swan Lake or even the Watusi.
raven
@ranchandsyrup: She’s an Cal undergrad and masters from Northwestern. It’s a mistake to think she’s stupid.
schrodinger's cat
I like Nicole’s haircut, Todd on the other hand seems to have lost quite a bit of his hair since I saw him last.
Villago Delenda Est
@ranchandsyrup:
Given that Palin is basically uncoachable, I don’t think Wallace had a chance of making any improvements.
Schlemizel
@kindness:
I agree that the visceral enjoyment of the sound of the blade falling and the splat of the head into the basket would be much more satisfying. But it just does not have the modern ring of “UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHER FUCKER!” Hell, I’d be up for an old fashion stoning if it didn’t take so long, the back up would get to be quite long.
Redshift
@Villago Delenda Est: Everyone can tell Christie is lying about being involved because he saw voluntarily making himself look like an incompetent boob as a better alternative than coming clean. If he’s lucky, he may be able to stonewall enough to stay in office and out of federal court, but he’s not going to be president.
ranchandsyrup
@Schlemizel: Ha! Well done and true.
@raven: Yeah I just think she’s a true believer.
trnc
My only question – how do we make sure Wallace is able to do this more in the near future? Is there a clown car fund to which I can contribute?
Socoolsofresh
For example, this website is definitely partisan media. Not a mention of yesterdays ‘Today We Fight Back’ protest, which isn’t surprising, as most commenters here lose their shit over any NSA stuff.
Also, the US plummets in global press freedom rankings:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-stearns/us-plummets-in-global-pre_b_4770182.html?utm_hp_ref=media&ir=Media
But ya, the link is huffpo so some of you geniuses won’t click the link even though the ranking comes from an independent organization.
It also makes Obama look bad too. So ya, that’s why its easier to continue to mock Fox news rather than have a real discussion about the clamp Obama has put on press freedoms. So keep on laughing at Fox news, its a great side show.
Bill E Pilgrim
Nicole Wallace just has that I’m-so-furious-that-any-Republican-is-treated-unfairly-liberal-media-ooooh-I-can’t-stand-it! air about her that it looks more like that exploding than any sort of calculation to me, but I could be and probably am wrong, probably on the Christie payroll yeah.
Particularly funny since Todd was essentially incoherent from the first word, his failure was lack of cheerleading enthusiasm for Christie which is clearly obligatory in her mind on the Scarborough show. She went nuts because he hesitated, basically.
“Uh, I guess”
“You monster!”
Schlemizel
@raven:
Its stunning – Gretchen Carlson graduated cum laude from frekkin Stanford! Yet you would be hard pressed to find someone playing dumber on TV. I would love to know how they do this, smart, capable, women who lower themselves to play the buffoon, the air head, the ditz for TV. Is it all about the money? Are they such true believers that they sell their soul thinking it is the way their side can win? Does Roger have pictures of her performing at the Blue Fox Lounge in Tijuana with a donkey?
Villago Delenda Est
@Socoolsofresh:
Still a worthless sack of glibertarian shit, aren’t you?
Cervantes
@Socoolsofresh:
Actually, I think I saw one reference to it in the comments, as feebly contemptuous as you’d expect.
raven
@Schlemizel: It’s a living.
raven
Man U and Arsenal comin up!
Disco
OMG they’re all such fucking morons. Not a fan of Chuck Todd (he of false equivalence derangement syndrome), but he appeared to be genuinely surprised and flummoxed by her bullshit.
El Caganer
@Socoolsofresh: I didn’t see much mention of that protest anywhere else, either.
different-church-lady
@Socoolsofresh: Hey, how’d that go? Does the NSA shut down their offices this week or next?
Disco
Also, I don’t blame Rachel for overdoing it. She (and the other evening hosts) have to fill 45 minutes, five nights a week. That can’t be easy. Keep in mind that they don’t have the luxury of just unloading a dumpster of bullshit every night like Fox does.
Cervantes
@El Caganer: Try this.
Bokonon
Given what the rest of the GOP’s candidate field looks like, I think that Chris Christie is the great white hope of the GOP establishment – and people like Nicole Wallace (or Joe Scarborough) are desperate to keep him viable – because otherwise, they are political toast. The tea partiers do not accept them, and I think they are genuinely anxious about what will happen if a Tea Party true believer becomes the GOP’s nominee. As opposed to an establishment candidate (like Mitt Romney), who knows better, and merely mouths the extreme line in order to get elected.
I mean, hey … those people are truly CRAZY and RADICAL, as opposed to just being good power-hungry cynics!! You can’t do BUSINESS with them!!
RobertDSC-iPhone 4
@raven:
>Moyes
>6 (six) years.
LOL.
negative 1
@J.D. Rhoades: But you may as well take your wonderful moments where you get them. Chuck Toad is pretty awful, in that he has a really important position and is really awful at it. He has never asked a tough question. He has never challenged one single Republican’s version of the truth. He has never looked for evidence to backup or challenge a politician’s view on anything. Never. So I don’t care if it’s Satan himself challenging Chuck Toad for being horribly fucking incompetant at his important job, at least someone did.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
The weather in England’s pretty rough tonight. Kickoff in the Stoke City-Swansea match is delayed, while Manchester City-Sunderland and Everton-Crystal Palace are postponed because of high winds in Manchester and Liverpool. Man U-Arsenal and Fulham-Liverpool are still on, though.
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: They’re just acting.
Punchy
@raven: “Man U” sounds like a gay bar in a college town.
Sly
He’s not from a fly-over state. Big Media conservatives and self-professed centrists are generally not from fly-over states. Yes, this is also the reason why Big Media liberals focus on Chris Christie, as they are also generally not from fly-over states. It’s also the same reason why Big Media people of all stripes thought Rudy Giuliani was a shoe-in for the 2008 Republican Presidential Nomination when practically nobody ended up voting for him; a fact that should have surprised no one given that Rudy Giuliani had no major constituency (at least not numerically major).
El Caganer
@Cervantes: Well, that certainly explains why I didn’t see much. I’m in Philadelphia, and there were no Philadelphia media in that Google search.
shortstop
It’s Nicolle with two Ls. Not being pedantic; I just want to laugh at that spelling.
Agree she believes Christie is the updated version of her man McCain — a “moderate” Republican who will save her party from certain destruction. Every time I see her on Maddow, I get the impression Wallace thinks all this psycho teabagging fury is a curious, term-limited aberration that will go away if we just steadfastly pretend it doesn’t exist…and never, ever acknowledge that the GOP courted this disaster by arrogantly thinking it could control this monster it created. She’ll take a shot or two at Palin, but never admit that her boss is the man who made Palin — and, by extension, large chunks of the insane right — possible.
Amir Khalid
@RobertDSC-iPhone 4:
Moyesy’s plainly out of his depth at United. The club might wait till the end of the season to fire him, but by then the damage will have been done. If they’re not in European competition next season, they’ll have trouble getting the players they want this summer.
negative 1
@Schlemizel: I would bet that it’s the money. They may be inclined to vote Rethug anyway, but they will say whatever to keep getting paid. It’s not like they’re only making $45K a year. It’s a lot of money. Before getting that job, do you think Gretchen Carlson was on the verge of being paid like she is right now? I don’t see how. It’s like hitting the lottery. She is a great symptom of the disease of having so much money involved in political campaigns, because it spills over into ancillary industries like propaganda and ‘consulting’. If she was only making normal amounts of money for being a competant reporter, she probably wouldn’t be quite so disinclined to rock the boat (I’m using her as an example, I have no idea if she’s a true believer or not). But if she does it now, she’s kicked off of the gravy train.
Patrick
Just curious; since Wallace is so concerned about people being partisan, has she ever watched FoxNews and complained about them being partisan?
gogol's wife
Todd really has aged.
? Martin
@Socoolsofresh:
There was no mention of my daughter’s “I’m not going to eat that cheeseburger” protest either, which may have been a principled stand for animal rights for all I know.
The protest is fine in terms of their goals. They’re realistic and all, but the label, projecting everyone as victims to SkyNet isn’t going to win people over and all of the people I know that support the goals are offended by the label and refusing to participate. We’re not interested in being cast as insurgents against the US government.
jl
@Bill E Pilgrim: I agree. From what I read of Christie’s speech, it was not a thoughtful discussion of inequality. Instead, it was a jeering dismissal of inequality as an interesting and legitimate topic of inquiry or discussion.
I think Christie is trying to parlay his Joizy-thug problem into a selling point in the primaries. Unlike Putin, however, Christie will probably not take his shirt off or try to fly a super light aircraft to guide some endangered geese to a safe migratory haven. But Christie will be saying “See, you thought I was some sissy moderate, but I’m a goddamn oldstyle tighty-whitey OG who kicks him some wimpass butt, you betcha.”
And, I also agree that Todd was completely incoherent. Looks like he was going to emit some noises that simulated meaningful human linguistic communication behavior in a display of horse race cynicism, but he was thrown off by some one who could string two or three thoughts together into a rudimentary argument. The argument, from what I read, was totally wrong, but hey, it was an actual coherent argument by Wallace.
Nutella
@Schlemizel:
There’s a lot of money to be made playing an anti-feminist PR woman.
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: Receding hairline is receding!
OT: Bobo wants you to move on
raven
@Amir Khalid: My friend in Scotland has been briefing me via Facebook. He said the game should be “a cracker” so it took a while to “sort” that out.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
You’re learning to appreciate real football. Good.
raven
A soccer game where they didn’t walk out with a bunch of little kids!!!! Yes.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Hell, I started the local youth league here 28 years ago. I always thought it was a great game for kids and I especially like it because stupid ass, loudmouth parents we better behaved back then. I still don’t get the finer points but I still like it.
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY:
I am more than willing to believe that – WHY are they acting? Is it money, fame, true belief or blackmail? Is there a possibility I didn’t include?
Amir Khalid
The BBC liveblog has posted a selfie, taken today at Goodison Park, by a Malaysian fan of Everton. He was all excited about seeing his first Everton match in person, too. Alas …
jl
@schrodinger’s cat: Thanks, I guess, for the think the Brooks latest hilarity. Funny that such a public intellectual could ponder, in his first class exemplar of excellence officious establishment white man way, and not think of ‘crummy job market’ or ‘weez broke’ as partial explanations for decline in mobility.
Of course, back in the day when America had self-confidence and vision, and men were men, and wimmins and others knew their place in the hierarchy of merit, people identified themselves by their state of birth which they seldom left, and militias would not cross state lines wen ordered to do so, even when they had placed themselves in the service of the federal government.
So, whatever. Brooks is spewing again, and he is an embarrassment to his kind.
Schlemizel
@negative 1:
Whores I can understand but damn the money has to be better than the high 6-figure I expect. To be willing to turn such disgusting tricks would require huge piles of cash to wash away the pain. But who knows maybe they have no soul and whore for cheap.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Is that you?
MikeJ
Much like a debate on Joey Scar’s show, I’ll cheer for injuries.
Schlemizel
BTW – a while back Ms. Carlson came up & a friend looked at her wiki page – she claims she was babsat by ol Batshit herself! It is possible Bachmann dropped her on her head but then that would make Stanford hard to believe. Mre likely it is Stockholm syndrome & poor little Gretchen had unspeakable things done to her that she is still repressing.
That would explain a lot
geg6
@different-church-lady:
I want to marry this comment.
schrodinger's cat
@Schlemizel: There always have been women who have made excuses for patriarchy and made life hell for other women.
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
Good God, no. I’m a fan of THE Liverpool Football Club. Everton is the other football club in Liverpool.
ETA: Besides, I’m at home in KL.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Sorry, no offense meant, I know as little of English version of football as I do about the American one.
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
No offence taken.
ruemara
@Cervantes: The contempt that is felt for turning over your personal information on web portals, to protest personal privacy from your basement, is probably more than that so-called “protest” deserves.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: British spelling is British!
raven
@Amir Khalid: What did these teams play in before there was a BPL?
Schlemizel
@Amir Khalid:
This makes me curious. If you don’t mind my asking – answer some none or all if you want – how does one become a fan of the Premier league in KL? How do you follow the games (are they on TV there or is it satellite/cable like it is in the US). It is just starting to get regular coverage around my neck of the woods & I wondered how it became such a big thing around the rest of the world
balconesfault
Cool. A video of someone yelling at Chuck Todd!
Can we find some video of people hitting him next?
schrodinger's cat
@jl: It is funny how he ignores the obvious.
Seanly
NPR was doing their usual Christie fluffing this morning. There must be a lot of rug-burned knees in their studios.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
Before the English Premier League, the Football League in England had four divisions dating back to the late 19th century. In the early 1990s, the original First Division went independent and became the Premier League, leaving behind the First, Second and Third divisions. Then the new First Division did the same thing, becoming The Championship, leaving behind Leagues One and Two. Below League Two, you have the semi-pro clubs of the Conference, whose league structure I’m not familiar with, and the amateur game.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Thanks. The teams still move up and down between those leagues depending on their records, right?
Seanly
Also, too, that lady’s voice might be more grating than Sarah Palin’s…
Amir Khalid
@Schlemizel:
The big European leagues, which have the most money (because they’re in the richest countries) and attract the best players from Africa and South America with huge piles thereof, have fans all over the planet. I’ve been watching English football matches on TV since I was a child. They’re on satellite TV here.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
Yes they do, and that’s one difference between football around the world and the big American pro sports, where the teams in the top league are fixed and there’s no promotion/relegation.
raven
@Amir Khalid: That’s because we are rugged individualists! :)
slippytoad
I’m visualizing a haughty, upper-middle-class family at the shopping mall, and little Chrissy has made a giant fucking mess all over the place, but because these rude, loud, arrogant bully parents of his are screaming at security staff and the victims of his reckless antics, there’s this sudden reversal, this upside-downness of the order of things, and for about 45 minutes the shopping mall is ordered and dictated by the whims of a pants-shitting, drooling, shrieking toddler, and the adults are ALL FUCKING WORRIED ABOUT WHAT’S ON LITTLE CHRISSY’S MIND BECAUSE FUCK ME WE CAN’T MAKE THAT LITTLE SHIT UPSET CAN WE? HIS PARENTS ARE GIGANTIC ASSHOLES!!!!
That’s my opinion of this. Little Chrissie needs to get his fat little butt in timeout and shut up, five minutes ago. Why are we all fucking worried about his hurt fee-fees? Because his ASSHOLE parents are bullying us into letting up become down, so they don’t have to discipline him.
I remember when Governor Going Hiking and AWOL (Sanford?) went off the reservation, how the front page of Redstate lit up with a hue and cry of “we’ll take care of our own” followed by an entire website holding its breath until it turned blue. This is the same. Folks lining up to defend Chrissy are 100% part of the problem that gave us a self-entitled fucking jerk governor in the first place. The minute they pipe up, I put them on intellectual ignore. Fuck whatever they have to say.
J.D. Rhoades
@Seanly:
I thought I remembered that voice:
http://jdrhoades.blogspot.com/2008/09/vice-presidential-nominee-talk-to-press.html
Amir Khalid
@J.D. Rhoades:
For a spokesperson she’s got one hell of an irritating voice. And an incredibly rude habit of talking over other people.
Also: What the fuck is wrong with Kolo Toure?
Turgidson
@jl:
Say what you will about the tenets of National Soshulism, dude…at least it’s an ethos!
Cervantes
@El Caganer: Sure. If you know anyone in the local media, you could forward that search — and your observation — to them, if you are so inclined.
El Tiburon
This has never been an issue with anyone anywhere.
The issue has two components:
1. For the longest time Fox News refused to admit they had a bias.
2. More importantly, to back up their ‘ideological point of view’ they MUST LIE all the fucking time.
So, I don’t have a problem with my conservative friends beliefs. I have no grief with ‘lower taxes on less government’. We can all get behind that. But we understand what that means as far as funding the government and having corporations do as they please.
The right has to get to ‘lower taxes on the wealthy’ will benefit us all, which is demonstrably false and a lie.
So MSNBC is liberal in the evening. Other than minor miscues here and there – where do they lie? Where do they deceive to push an agenda?
Fred
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “…MSNBC has been way overdoing this story.” I’ve thought that but if FOX et al can swing public opinion by beating lies to death maybe beating the truth to death might just be ripe for a try. If there is a hope to keep this crap from disappearing down the memory hole maybe raggin on it till the cows come home is it. Rachel and MSNBC, god bless em and keep em.
Cervantes
@Disco:
She’s a Rhodes Scholar. She gets paid millions of dollars to think. Is “easy” all we should expect from her? It’s difficult to believe she can’t come up with real content when she needs to.
El Tiburon
Oh, and DougJ, don’t think I missed the Point Blank song reference.
Nicole remains one of my all-time sentimental favorite songs. Lots of good songs off of that album.
Cervantes
@? Martin:
That’s fine, you should ignore them in that case — but what should the mass media do?
(Given that you think the protestors’ goals are realistic, etc.)
Cervantes
@Schlemizel: Money — and, perhaps, narcissism.
Cervantes
@Schlemizel: Football league tables were published in colonial newspapers for decades, all around the empire. And nowadays it’s even easier: many matches are available on TV.
drkrick
@Fred:
Amen and amen.
AxelFoley
LOL, really, Doug? The same media that talked nonstop about Rezko, Wright and Ayers? And failed to call out the dog whistles from Palin? Hell, from Clinton’s camp, for that matter?
Please, Obama won in spite of the media, not because of it.
Cervantes
@ruemara:
I love non sequiturs but sometimes we need more. Can you elaborate? What do you think the protest is about? What are its goals? What is the history behind those goals?
(Thanks.)
Corner Stone
@Cervantes: Good luck.
Patrick
@AxelFoley:
Don’t forget Saturday Night Live, which inexplicably made skit about how nice the media was to Obama compared to Clinton. It seemed like they were so clueless as to what the reality was. As you said, it is like they had never heard of Wright and the non-stop 24/7 coverage that went on at the time bad-mouthing senator Obama.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone: Why, thank you.
But you know, luck is tricky. People who conceive of luck as an external factor and an unpredictable influence in their lives tend to be less mentally healthy.
AxelFoley
@Socoolsofresh:
Oh, the same press that does about 90-95% negative reporting on him?
Please shut the fuck up, asswipe.
Cervantes
@AxelFoley: So if President Obama hasn’t stopped Sean Hannity and Jake Tapper and others from saying idiotic and/or racist things about him, do you conclude that, therefore, there must be no meaningful restrictions on the press?
That’s a very odd position to take. Just how stupid do you think the President is?
Turgidson
@Patrick:
I think it’s hard to argue that Obama got extremely good press coverage until maybe around Super Tuesday in 08. Then the Rev. Wright thing got started, and he’s been dealing with varying amounts of BS ever since. I also think, since he took office, he’s let his lack of admiration for the press’s boobery become clearer to them. Unlike Bush, he’s not a playful asshole about it, he’s just distant and indifferent to them. So, juvenile twits that they are, they try to drag him down into the muck with silly and/or fake drama and gotcha question nonsense.
But, just like the “liberal media bias” canard, or the “tax cuts increase revenue” hustle, the idea that Obama has the media eating out of his hand became an accepted fact that “everybody knows.” Lots of totebagger and firebagger types I talk to believe it. The GOP obviously thinks the media is in the tank for Obama because they’re not constantly reporting on BENGHAZI and the IRS and all the other fever swamp bullshit they know to be true. Low-info voters probably don’t care. Which of course perpetuates the cycle of morans like Ed Henry thinking they’re being brave journamalists confronting a power-mad president and trying to take stupid gotcha-question whacks at him whenever they get a chance to ask him a question.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes: Well, if you actually get any reply, much less a coherent one, then I will assign it to your tenacious and studious preparation.
Cervantes
@Turgidson: I agree with your first paragraph. The second one is more complicated. When you say:
I think you may be taking the Republicans at their word. This is not a good idea. They may want people to think “the media is in the tank for Obama” and they may even act as if that’s true — and they may want people to believe all sorts of nonsense — but as for their internal beliefs as to what is true, I’m more cynical than you are and I’m not prepared to just believe what they say about it.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone: Truth be told: for various reasons, I don’t expect any reply.
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
So, like Reporters Without Borders, do you feel that the jail sentence for Chelsea Manning is proof that freedom of the press is under siege in the US?
different-church-lady
@Cervantes: Well, that’s what you get for asking serious questions about important topics, instead of just trolling.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne: Sorry, I’m not prepared to respond to your paraphrases of what other people say.
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
Here’s the link. If you want to defend the premises of a known troll like socoolsofresh that the US has no press freedom, then defend them.
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
And I’m not sure why you expect ruemara to explain the goals of a movement she doesn’t belong to while refusing to defend your own defense of socoolsofresh. As I’ve noted before, you’re very inconsistent about demanding answers to your own questions but refusing to answer questions that people ask of you in turn. If you’re not prepared to answer questions about an issue, don’t ask them of others.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne: Here’s my permission for you to neither read nor respond to anything I say.
Apparently, you need it.
Corner Stone
Capt Mnemo and The Cray Crays strike again!
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
Just pointing out why you are developing quite a few non-fans. But if you’d rather play the martyr and pretend that you have no idea why people react badly to your JAQing off, be my guest.
Turgidson
@Cervantes:
Point taken. I suppose it depends which wing of the GOP we’re talking about. The talk show radio types seem to sincerely believe every bad thing they hear about him. A decent chunk of the House GOP caucus believes completely insane things about him.
The “Romney shocked he lost (despite the polling overwhelmingly predicting a solid Obama win)” thing made me wonder if the GOP has been using its bullshit puke funnel for so long that even the insiders and strategists actually believe a fair amount of the nonsense these days. But sure, they probably realize for example that Benghazi wasn’t Obama’s Watergate times infinity.
Cervantes
@Turgidson: I do not listen to talk radio or C-SPAN’s call-in programs — other than a few specific instances, at most I’ve heard about an hour or two of such things at random over the years — so I’m not an authority — but if you’re arguing that the people who call in to these shows believe what they say, I’d agree.
It’s the hosts and the panelists and the other such clowns whose pronouncements I do not take as literal representations of their own beliefs.
Re the House Republicans: I agree, nowadays there does appear to be a contingent actually stupid enough to believe the nonsense it radiates.
Re Romney on election night: I’d guess it was wishful thinking combined with raw inability to understand the relevant analysis.
Thanks for your thoughts.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Socoolsofresh:
The US has ALWAYS been shit for global press freedom. You, like Snowball, only recognize that when there’s a blah in the White House.
Take a walk, loser.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
Yeah. we went from 47 to 32 to 46. I suggest you look further back socoolsofresh.
Ass/
JosieJ
@Cervantes:
Actually, I think it’s because he ran his campaign “like a business,” as he was so fond of saying he’d run the country. Instead of a grassroots campaign, he ran a top-down, bloated and unresponsive organization, and instead of surrounding himself with smart–albeit partisan–advisers and experts, he surrounded himself with yes-men, ass-kissers and flunkies. Anything that didn’t fit into their worldview they simply ignored, including math and reality.
Cervantes
@JosieJ: Yes, thanks. I meant to speak of the campaign as opposed to only Romney.
Corner Stone
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
How is that an acceptable thing, you stupid douchecanoe?
Cervantes
Mnemosyne:
Here’s the assertion you were originally asking me about: “Like Reporters Without Borders, do you feel that the jail sentence for Chelsea Manning is proof that freedom of the press is under siege in the US?” I said I know better than to trust your paraphrase. Now you say “Here’s the link,” except nowhere on that linked page does Reporters Without Borders make the assertion!
You keep doing this sort of thing and I shall have to start ignoring it.
1. On the contrary, I expect no response (as I said above).
2. Show me where I was offering such a defense to begin with.
3. Yes, you’ve used the word “demand” before, and no, you still don’t understand it.
4. I answer the questions I find interesting. Who are these “people” whose questions I’ve refused to answer? (Careful.)
You spend too much time thinking about irrelevancies.