Month: July 2009

SNL Faceoff: Victoria Jackson vs. Al Franken

Posted by on July 8, 2009 at 11:05 am. 7 Comments :

Andrew Breitbart’s Big Hollywood is providing us with an intimate look into what has become of a couple of former Saturday Night Live cast members and how their paths have diverged.

First we have Al Franken who holds a degree from Harvard in political science. And while he ended up pursuing a career in comedy, he often featured political content in his work, hosted a radio show on Air America, and authored several books. In short, he was never too far from his academic focus or from the public debate over important issues that faced our nation.

Then there is Victoria Jackson. Jackson is a graduate of Palm Beach Atlantic University, a faith-based institution, where she received a degree in theater. She achieved star status by reciting poetry while doing handstands and portraying an array of ditzy blonds.

Franken went on to become a United States senator. Jackson went on to appearances on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club and a reality TV show for overweight celebrities (Celebrity Fit Club).

Now we can see an example of Jackson’s unique insight into public affairs and political discourse in an article written for Breitbart’s Big Hollywood. Amongst her revelations are accusations that “Obama legally kills babies and now he can legally kill Grandmas!” She continues…

“Hitler did this. He killed the weak, the sick, the old, and babies and races/religions he didn’t like. Hitler also controlled the media. (Where’s the public debate between scientists on ‘Climate Change/Global Warming?’) Hitler had the VW bug invented as the state car. What will O’s nationalized car be? So… kill off the weak. That’s the plan. Tax the workers to death. Erase the middle class. Sounds like the evil governments we studied in high school long ago. The evil governments were : kings, oligarchies, facist, socialist, and communist. Now it’s called the Obama Administration. Sounds like candy or a rock band.”

Jackson is just another in the lengthening list of Tea Baggers who compare Obama to Hitler. But she does so in a distinctly demented tone that disparages Volkswagons, puts climate change deniers on equal footing with peer-reviewed scientists, and seems to think that the Democrats’ proposals to rollback tax cuts for the rich is somehow going to harm workers and the middle class.

To top it off, Jackson relates a tale wherein she harangues the proprietor of gift shop in Burbank with her paranoid delusions. She is surprised that the store’s owner and employees are less than anxious to jump on to her crazy train. After failing repeatedly to get a rise out these poor folks, she writes that she drove away thinking “Ignorance is Bliss.”

She oughta know.

A Sad Day For Bill O’Reilly – Courtesy Of Senator Franken

Posted by on July 6, 2009 at 10:12 pm. 2 Comments :

O’Reilly: “In a sad day for America, Al Franken is now a U.S. Senator.”
It’s not sad for the majority of Minnesotans who voted for him, and the millions of Americans who believe in Democracy.

O’Reilly: “Franken is a blatantly dishonest individual, a far-left zealot, who is not qualified to hold any office.
Except that of U.S. Senator, as determined by the voters. O’Reilly is a blatantly dishonest, far-right zealot, who is upset that he can’t pick all the senators himself.

O’Reilly: “A man who trafficked in hate on his failed Air America radio program.”
I wonder if O’Reilly could inject any more hatred into his allegation that Franken traffics in hate?

O’Reilly: “With people like Franken on the hill, this country is in deep trouble.”
Translation: With people like Franken on the hill, O’Reilly is in deep trouble.

O’Reilly saved this little tirade for the last 15 minutes of his show. Glenn Beck never mentioned Franken at all. And he didn’t mention Palin either. Carl Cameron, earlier in the day reported that Franken used to have a program on the “disfunct (sic), bankrupt Air America.” Of course Air America is neither disfunct nor even defunct. It just had its fifth birthday. I wonder if Cameron ever bothered to report that Fox News lost money every year for at least its first five years.

Palin vs. Sotomayor

Posted by on July 6, 2009 at 7:33 pm. 1 Comments :

So Sarah Palin can no longer abide attacks by political opponents. So she is unwilling to endure the unconscionable smears from the media. So it has become too much to ask her and her family to stand by idly as she is demonized and disparaged. All of these laments were included in Palin’s resignation speech on Friday.

Her defenders in the rightist media concurred with her and launched a PR campaign to spin Palin’s cowardly retreat as an unconventional response to an environment wherein she was mercilessly battered and besmirched. They condemned what they characterized as unfair attacks against the poor defenseless governor and conservative icon.

I wonder if those same Palin defenders will now condemn Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, who is promoting a campaign to defeat Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor with the flier pictured here. The flier that this image comes from describes Sotomayor as “a radical supporter of child-killing.” I wonder if they will consider it to be an unfair and disgusting personal attack. I wonder if they will condemn the rest of her far-right critics who have cast Sotomayor as a racist, or stupid, or Marxist, etc.

It is instructive to note how these two very different women respond to the slings and arrows of public life. Palin, who has a record of quitting when the kitchen gets too hot, is fleeing the scene and leaving the state she pledged to serve in the lurch. Sotomayor is soldiering on and will soon take her place on the nation’s highest court.

The truth is that everyone in public life has had to dodge mud and worse. The only way Palin can expect to avoid getting hit is to stay out of the ring. Yet she seemed to imply that a higher calling compels her to further service on her country’s behalf. Does she think that when she reappears there will be no one who disagrees with her policies or agenda? And when they do, as they inevitably will, is she going to quit again?

Hopefully the lessons learned from these confrontational days are that the real heroes are those who stand for something. The true role models are the ones who don’t back down from adversity. In the future women, and all Americans, will be able to look up to Justice Sotomayor with pride. And, in the best case scenario, we will look back at Palin and laugh.

Brent Bozell To GOP: Set A Torch To That Big Tent

Posted by on July 6, 2009 at 1:36 pm. NO Comments :

Brent Bozell, the president of the uber-conservative Media Research Center, has issued a bit of advice for the Republican Party that ought to make Democrats everywhere ecstatic.

“Incoming memo to the GOP: Set a torch to that big tent of yours. People are flocking from liberals’ failing policy and ideals.”

The impetus for this counsel is new polling from Gallup that says that Americans in recent years have become more conservative. Bozell’s knee-jerk reaction typifies the shallow and partisan analysis for which he is known.

The Gallup poll cited by Bozell does indeed show that 39% of Americans consider themselves more conservative than they did a few years ago. What Bozell fails to reveal is that a significant majority of those who say they have become more conservative were conservative to begin with.

Plus, it is mostly Republicans whose views have shifted more to the right. So what we are seeing is primarily a hardening of ideology by those who were already on the right side of the scale.

In addition, a prior Gallup poll showed that Republicans already reside in the smallest of tents, with 73% describing themselves as conservative and only 4% as liberal and 24% moderate. Democrats, on the other hand, breakdown to 38% liberal, 40% moderate and 22% conservative, a much more balanced community.

The obvious conclusion from the data in this poll is that there isn’t any advantage for officeholders or candidates to swing to the right. Even if the American people are sliding slightly rightward, that doesn’t mean that they will vote Republican. Just take a look at the results of last November’s election when Democrats took the White House and added seats in both chambers of congress. And contrary to Bozell’s contention that “people are flocking from liberals’ failing policy and ideals,” Gallup explicitly debunks that claim in their polling on specific issues.

Consequently, Bozell’s advice to the GOP to circle the wagons and become more exclusionary than ever can only help Democrats, who are presently viewed as more tolerant of diverse opinions. The public still blames Bush for the economy and Iraq; still prefers Obama’s approach to healthcare and immigration; and still has a 63% approval rating for the President.

So light up your torches, Republicans. Fan those embers of your party’s support. Feed the flaming rhetoric of your right flank. You are only going to burn down your own house.

The Sarah Palin Show Set To Premiere On Fox News?

Posted by on July 3, 2009 at 1:53 pm. 13 Comments :

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has just announced that she will not seek reelection. Even more surprising, she also says that she will be resigning from the office that she has held for less than one term.

Were this merely a politician choosing not to run again, there could be several explanations including, most likely, an intention to run for higher office. But the resignation throws that theory right out the window. Either she has some serious scandal about to erupt, or she got an offer from Rupert Murdoch.

The timing is suspect as well. It seems like an odd choice to make a significant statement like this on the day before the fourth of July. Especially when competing with other sensational stories like Michael Jackson and Gov. Sanford. Why couldn’t this have waited a week? Fridays are generally considered to be news graveyards – where stories go to die. Why make an announcement that has any positive content at a time usually reserved for bad news? Could it have anything to do with the fact that many of the opinion-casters are on vacation this week? Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, even Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are not around to comment. Coincidence?

Remember, she was a sportscaster before going into politics. She studied journalism in college (but must have forgotten much of it because she couldn’t tell Katie Couric a single newspaper that she read). And her appeal in last year’s campaign was mostly connected to her alleged personality – it certainly wasn’t her experience or intelligence. Since folks like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have proven that those qualities are irrelevant to a career as a Fox pundit, Palin may believe that now is the time to cash in. Her resignation speech even included a reference to the $500,000 dollars in debt that she has accumulated defending herself against criminal and ethics complaints. So it’s fair to say that she could use the money a broadcasting job would provide.

A Palin show on Fox News has always been a good fit for both her and Fox. Neither have an interest in, or reputation for, honesty or accuracy. And both have profited from exploiting controversy and sex. Plus, she wouldn’t be the first potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate with a show on Fox, would she, Mike Huckabee?

What more could Fox ask for than a former beauty queen who cheerfully calls the President a Socialist who pals around with terrorists? And what more could Palin ask for than a network gig that allows her to spew nonsense and practice her fancy pageant walkin’?

[Update 7/4/09] Foxnews.com got around to reporting the Palin news with a story mainly cribbed from the AP. In addressing Palin’s future they wrote…

…she will have a variety of potential platforms, from writing books to hitting the public speaking circuit to working directly with the Republican Party to get candidates elected.

In the process, she’ll also have the ability to make a lot of money — far more than the $125,000 or so a year she has earned as governor. She already had a deal with publisher HarperCollins to produce her memoirs, with publication planned for next spring.

They left a couple things out of that report. First, they failed to mention the possibility of a role on Fox News. Second, they didn’t think it worthy to note that HarperCollins is owned by Murdoch’s News Corp.

The Tea Party Tea Baggers Really Have Balls

Posted by on July 3, 2009 at 12:13 pm. 1 Comments :

Last April’s Tax Day Tea Party was by all objective accounts a massive failure. Estimates of national attendance hovered at something below 300,000. To put that in perspective, twice as many people went to see “The Hangover” last Saturday.

The dismal showing of Tea Baggers was achieved after having received millions of dollars worth of free publicity and promotion from Fox News. The network executed a wall-to-wall campaign promoting these events and their own participation in them. They shamelessly recruited viewers to take up the cause and sent their biggest stars out as enticements. And still they underperformed the expectations of their own organizers who predicted crowds in the millions.

So capitalizing off of that disaster, the Tea Partiers are back with a new sense of excitement and hope. Unfortunately, other than the most rabid disciples, the excitement is shared by very few. Even Fox News is offering tepid support. They have made a few mentions, and hosted a few interviews, but it is nothing comparable to the far-flung campaign they orchestrated last spring. Without the support of Fox’s mass media megaphone, it is unlikely that this ersatz movement will make much of a splash.

A story in the Washington Independent provides some interesting (and hilarious) details about the July 4, version of the Tea Parties. Organizers seem to have accepted the reality that prospects for the revolution they dreamed of have receded. One of the national organizers for the Tea Party Patriots is expressing her joy that a followup to Atlanta’s Tea Party in April (which she said drew 20,000 people) brought out only 70 TPers. This way, she feverishly rationalized, she could talk to every participant. Perhaps all sponsors of public protests should implore people to stay away so that this benefit could be enjoyed more often.

The organizer of the Dallas Tea Party is taking a different approach. He seems to want people to attend, even if that means he won’t be able to speak to all of them individually. To that end he is pulling out all the stops:

“We’re using the fireworks and the Monkees and the rest of that to attract people who never though they’d be at a Tea Party.”

Actually, it is just one Monkee, Mickey Dolenz. That should guarantee at least the 70 people that the Atlanta Tea Party pulled in. More interesting is the admission that he intends to dupe potential attendees with fireworks and celebrities on the Fourth of July holiday to get them to show up for a Tea Party that they likely would not have otherwise attended. How much you wanna bet that Tea Party organizers across the country will try to take credit for every municipal fireworks display, every holiday concert, and even every tailgate party and backyard barbecue, in an attempt to validate their movement?

The funniest part of all of this is the campaign by radio talker Phil Valentine to “Give the Senate Some Balls.” Inspired by those who thought sending members of congress tea bags was a good idea, Valentine is encouraging his listeners to send balls to senators. No, I swear, he really is. So after being mocked relentlessly for having chosen to engage in tea bagging, Valentine is compounding that unfortunate imagery with the vision of people sending their balls to the senate.

I am now officially speechless.

Don’t Believe The Hype About Fox News Ratings

Posted by on July 1, 2009 at 3:49 pm. 12 Comments :

As the numbers come in for the second quarter, cable news networks are all putting on their best spin to wrangle positive stories that promote how much better they are than their competition. It’s an age-old ritual that pits marketing flacks against one another as they jostle for position and advertising bucks. And nobody does this more relentlessly than Fox News.

Everywhere you look you can see the effect of Fox’s PR blitz. They proudly boast that they have increased viewership in the 25-54 demographic 50% over Q2 of 2008 (Monday-Sunday, primetime). Simultaneously, they taunt MSNBC and CNN for falling off 2.6% and 19.2% respectively. The core of their message is that, along with continuing their leading position in cable news, they are also outpacing their rivals in growth. That’s an argument that requires a little further exploration.

Fox News has typically been the slowest growing cable news network. Up until about a year ago, they were the only network that regularly posted declines, which they did for a couple of years running. So what happened in the last year that appears to have interrupted that trend?

Recall that during the second quarter of 2008, the Democratic Party was still embroiled in a fiercely contested primary for president. The Republican primary had been effectively over since February. So interest in campaign news tilted away from the GOP network (aka Fox). What’s more, Democrats had forsworn appearing in debates sponsored by Fox News. The result was that MSNBC and CNN benefited noticeably by their coverage of the most compelling news events of the season, while Fox had to be satisfied with interviewing themselves and squawking from the bleachers. Consequently, Fox’s ratings for Q2 of 2008 were 2.3% lower than the same period in 2007. By comparison, MSNBC was up 46.9% and CNN was higher by 21.7%.

By outperforming Fox so spectacularly, from a growth perspective, in 2008, it makes for difficult comparisons in 2009. So a far more interesting analysis would be to remove the unique circumstances of the 2008 presidential campaign year, and compare performance from 2007 to 2009. In that race, Fox still did pretty well gaining 47.2% over the two year span. However, MSNBC was close behind with a 42.7% gain. CNN, while not keeping stride with the others, was still not as far behind as represented in the single year comparison. They were basically flat (-1.7%).

None of this diminishes the fact that Fox is still the runaway leader according to Nielsen, an increasingly unreliable source that even Bill O’Reilly considers to be less than honest. And although he pretends to be opposed to big-government interference and regulation, he hypocritically declares that…

“The bottom line on this is there may be some big-time cheating going on in the ratings system, and we hope the feds will investigate. Any fraud in the television rating system affects all Americans.”

Fox’s ratings success is more likely due to the cult-like brand loyalty of the rightist, delusional demographic. But it is still disheartening because their ratings dominance rewards them financially for lying and advocating terrorism. However, on a positive note, MSNBC was the number one cable news network among 18-34 year-olds. This continues a trend that suggests that the next generation of news consumers will be rejecting Fox News and its ilk.

In the meantime, we’ll just have to tolerate Fox’s bragging while putting it into perspective. They still have fewer viewers than SpongeBob SquarePants. Their highest rated show (O’Reilly) still has about a third of the viewers of broadcast TV’s lowest rated news program (CBS Nightly News). And there is real consolation in knowing that, while they win on the Idiot Box, they are losing at the ballot box.

3-2-1 Beck: Another Bin Laden Attack Is America’s Only Hope

Posted by on July 1, 2009 at 9:01 am. 15 Comments :

It’s come to this…Glenn Beck and his guest Michael Scheuer have finally admitted their deepest yearnings. The ticking clock at the beginning of Beck’s show takes on a whole new meaning. It is a suggestion for a remedy for our diseased nation that is so far gone now that there is only one solution: Another 9/11.

BECK: Yes, sir. OK. So you have seen this. Do you really, honestly believe that we have come to a place to where those very senior people in the highest offices of the land, Congress and the White House, really will not do the right thing in the end, that they won’t see the error of their ways?

SCHEUER: No, sir, they will not. Not — the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it’s going to take a grassroots, bottom-up pressure, because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. Only — it’s an absurd situation. Again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.

BECK: Which is why I was thinking this weekend if I were him, that would be the last thing I would do right now.

I’m sure Bin Laden appreciates Beck’s advice. But isn’t it a bit shocking that Beck’s counsel to Bin Laden is to refrain from attacking the U.S. because it would benefit the country by motivating Americans to demand protection against such an attack? So he is saying that, while it is contrary to Bin Laden’s interests to attack us, it is in accord with America’s (and Beck’s) interests. He actually believes that the slaughter of untold thousands of innocent Americans is not only beneficial, but is “the only chance we have.”

Beck is now adding his voice to those of The Republican Advance Team For Terrorism. This is a group led by Dick Cheney who has been busily promoting the notion that America is “less safe” under the Obama administration so it would be a good time to attack. With Beck’s participation, it is now not only a good time to attack, it is also good policy.

And this guy is still on the air because…..???

[Update] The professional journalists of television news, whose contributions to the public store of knowledge are so indispensable, failed to cover this story. A former CIA terrorism specialist and a prominent cable news host agree that the U.S. needs to be attacked, and not one TV newsroom finds this newsworthy. The only place a television viewer would have seen this story is on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I don’t ever want to hear anyone complain again about The Daily Show being regarded as superior to the conventional media.