William Kristol Fails Upward

Posted by on December 30, 2007 at 1:19 pm. 1 Comments :

Another member of the PEP Squad (Perpetually Erroneous Pundits) has been promoted despite his consistent failures as an observer and analyst. The New York Times just announced that William Kristol, Fox News personality and editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Weekly Standard, has been hired as an opinion columnist.

Attempting to speculate as to the Times’ justification for this is bewildering, to say the least. In their own announcement they point out Kristol’s disdain for the paper and that he believes that “The Times is irredeemable.” They also note his statement that the Times should have been prosecuted for disclosing government programs to spy on the international banking transactions of American citizens. On that score he seems to agree with Ann Coulter who went so far as to advocate a firing squad for the Times’ treasonous editors. The very same editors who just hired Kristol.

The Times’ editorial page chief, Andy Rosenthal, is defending his new personnel move by calling his critics (i.e. readers) “intolerant” for not accepting Kristol as a “serious, respected conservative intellectual.” But why someone who has been so consistently wrong deserves to be regarded as serious, respected, or even intellectual, is not addressed in the defense. Rosenthal furthers his dissembled argument saying…

“We have views on our op-ed page that are as hawkish or more so than Bill. The whole point of the op-ed page is to air a variety of opinions.”

Precisely! If you already have views that are as hawkish or more so than Bill, then what does his hiring do to promote a variety of opinions?

Kristol, who is also a founder of the neo-conservative think tank, Project for a New American Century, has an abundance of pride for the influence of the Weekly Standard. Despite losing a million dollars a year, Kristol brags that “Dick Cheney does send over someone to pick up 30 copies of the magazine every Monday.”

Just a few weeks ago, that other bastion of liberalism, the Washington Post, hired Karl Rove to pontificate at their Newsweek subsidiary. So now, while the Times’ editor complains that his critics are intolerant, and conservatives continue to whine about the so-called liberal media, Bill Kristol, one of the most profound failures of punditry assumes his new perch at America’s Paper of Record. And don’t forget that Rupert Murdoch just completed his purchase of the Wall Street Journal with which he has vowed to bury the Times. Now he has his own man on the inside.

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John Bolton Blames America First

Posted by on December 29, 2007 at 2:58 am. 3 Comments :

nullThere is a Society of Conservative Demagogues (SCD) who specialize in spewing a sort of Patriopathic™ zeal that is really not much more than low grade sanctimony. They are descended from Crusaders and Witch Burners and the defective souls who have convinced themselves of their own infallibility. Their contemporary Cardinals are TelePundits preaching from their TelePulpits of the heathens (i.e. Liberals) whom they dismiss as traitors. They rally the faithful (i.e. fearful) with liturgies expounding on the Infidels whom they say always blame America first.

Yesterday, a charter member of the SCD helped to prove the old saying, “If you hate something enough, you become it.”

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton made the rounds at Fox News to offer his assessment of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and to point his accusatory finger at the U.S. of A.

On Hannity & Not Hannity (video): “I think by acceding to Benazir Bhutto’s desire to get back into the game in Pakistan, seeing her as somebody who is an alternative to Musharraf we, in effect, helped precipitate this dynamic which has led to her tragic assassination.”

On Fox News (video): “I think that in part the United States is responsible for this by pushing Musharraf, trying to cut a deal with Benazir Bhutto, by encouraging her to go back in the country, by trying to act like we could have a democratic election campaign in a situation of great instability”

I never heard Bolton express such an aversion to democracy with regard to Iraq where there is a fair measure of instability as well. While Bolton blamed America, Bhutto blamed Bolton’s pal, Musharraf. He continued his analysis by recommending a “timeout” that would “require a period of martial law.” What a great way for the U.S. to promote freedom throughout the world.

The conservative taunt of “Blame America First” appears to have originated with Ronald Reagan’s UN Ambassador, Jeane Kirkpatrick, in a speech before the Republican nominating convention for Reagan’s second term:

“…the San Francisco Democrats didn’t blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States. But then, they always blame America first.”

Four years later Reagan himself used it at the RNC’s anointment of George H. W. Bush to tarnish Democrats for…

“…policies of tax and spend, economic stagnation, international weakness and accommodation, and always, always, always, blame America first.”

In the interim it has been employed by everyone from House Minority Leader John Boehner to Culture Warrior Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly even adopted Kirkpatrick’s swipe at “San Francisco Democrats”, which at the time was a reference to where the Democratic National Convention was held the same year, not a regional insult as is intoned by O’Reilly.

However, you never hear rightists complain when one of their own resorts to blaming America. For example, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson wasted no time in assigning the blame for 9/11 to a broad swath of American citizens and institutions:

Falwell: I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way…I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’

Robertson: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we’re responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.

But I’m sure this will all be rectified when O’Reilly returns from vacation and lets John Bolton know that such irresponsible rhetoric will not be tolerated and that America-haters like Bolton should either straighten up or shut up. That’s right…I’m as sure of that as I am that O’Reilly will kiss Keith Olbermann full on the mouth the next time he runs into him at Sylvia’s restaurant in Harlem.

The pseudo-rectitude of the “Absolve America Always” crowd flies in the face of our nation’s traditional values. This country was founded by rebels who felt so passionately about the right to dissent that they enshrined it in the very first amendment to the Constitution. And true Americans will always prefer to align themselves with those who condemn torture and tyranny, as opposed to those who condone it in the name of patriotism.


John Edwards Not Playing Rupert Murdoch’s Monopoly

Posted by on December 27, 2007 at 1:20 pm. NO Comments :

John Edwards isn’t shy about letting Rupert Murdoch know how he feels. When asked a question about media consolidation at a recent campaign stop, Edwards said:

“I am not particularly interested in seeing Rupert Murdoch own every newspaper in America.”

Nicely done, John. This answer responds directly to the heart of the question and points an incriminating finger at the industry’s worst offender.

Edwards continues to solidify his position as the candidate most committed to media reform and supportive of efforts to rollback consolidation. He has spoken out on many occasions on the need for independence and diversity in the press and he has been a leading voice of opposition to the FCC’s policy of weakening regulations on ownership caps. He was also the first candidate to refuse to participate in Fox News-sponsored primary debates.

But every time Edwards takes a principled stand, the pundidiots can’t help but crack-wise at Edwards expense. In the item linked above, James Pindell of the Boston Globe follows the Edwards quote with this bit of irrelevancy:

“It should be noted that Edwards received nearly $800,000 in a book contract from one of Murdoch’s companies, HarperCollins.”

Why, pray tell, should that be noted? It is not a political contribution or evidence of electoral support. It is a payment for publishing rights to an author from a book publisher. It is the free market at work. And if anything is notable about it, it is that Edwards will act on his principles even if it is contrary to the interests of corporations who lay out big bucks to do business with him. In other words, they can’t buy him.

This isn’t the first time this canard has been raised. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post felt it necessary to note the same book deal after Edwards called on his opponents to refuse donations from Murdoch. Never mind that he was not admonishing them to refrain from doing business with News Corp., just from accepting the sort political funding that can be seen as buying influence. And lest anyone think that the book advance in itself has purchased any slice of Edwards’ soul, just look to these statements for proof that his independence and integrity is in tact:

“High levels of media consolidation threaten free speech, they tilt the public dialogue towards corporate priorities and away from local concerns, and they make it increasingly difficult for women and people of color to own meaningful stakes in our nation’s media.”

“It’s time for all Democrats, including those running for president, to stand up and speak out against this [News Corp./Dow Jones] merger and other forms of media consolidation.”

“The basis of a strong democracy begins and ends with a strong, unbiased and fair media – all qualities which are pretty hard to subscribe to Fox News and News Corp.”

Contrast that with Hillary Clinton’s qualifying remarks following a rather commendable statement against media consolidation:

“I’m not saying anything against any company in particular. I just want to see more competition, especially in the same markets.”

While Clinton takes pains to soften the blow against her Foxic benefactor, Edwards comes right out and says what he thinks. For this he is often tagged in the press as a phony. That is the same characterization they make of him when he advocates for the poor – something the media apparently believes rich folks should never do. And for his trouble he is ganged up on by sanctimonious pundits that would rather point a finger at targets of their imagined hypocrisy than left a finger to help those less fortunate.

If you’re paying attention it’s easy to see who the phonies really are.


L. A. Times Promotes Tim Rutten

Posted by on December 26, 2007 at 2:09 pm. 1 Comments :

The Los Angeles Times is moving Tim Rutten from the Calendar section to the Op-Ed pages beginning in the new year. This is a promotion that is long overdue for one of the paper’s best columnists. While I’ve had a disagreement of two with Rutten, he is the most consistently honest and insightful writer the paper employs – particularly since they traded the brilliant Robert Scheer for the brain-dead Jonah Goldberg.

Rutten is unafraid of taking on the powerful, even if that means his own bosses. His last “Regarding Media” column for Calendar is a good example of this. While he has a much more optimistic view of the Times’ future under new owner Sam Zell than I do, he is also unambiguous in his contempt for corporate media:

“The era of corporate accumulation has been an unmitigated disaster for American journalism. Money has flowed like a fiscal Mississippi into the pockets of investors and fund managers, draining one newspaper and TV station after another of the resources necessary to serve their communities’ common good.”

There are a couple of unanswered questions surrounding Rutten’s promotion. Is some other progressive opinion columnist being let go to make room for Rutten’s op-eds? Will a less courageous writer, or a worse, a Big Media apologist, replace Rutten as author of “Regarding Media”? Time will tell. But all in all, I will be looking forward to Rutten’s work in the section of the paper where it really belongs. Two years ago I wrote an article praising Rutten’s criticism of a speech by Dick Cheney. I closed by noting the difference between Rutten’s substantive analysis and the relative intellectual vacancy of the Times’ Opinion writers:

“Perhaps I should turn first to the Calendar for insight into the news, then pick up the opinion pages for entertainment, where their newest columnist, Jonah Goldberg, is best known for his fiction.”

Beginning next year, it may be safe to read the Opinion section again.


Christmas In Iraq

Posted by on December 25, 2007 at 11:32 am. NO Comments :

Here are a couple of perspectives of America at war during the holiday season. The first is brought to you by the propagandists of Fox News. The second is courtesy of Reality.

So for the deluded viewers of Fox News, you don’t need to worry about our soldiers in harm’s way. The are actually enjoying themselves. You don’t have to be concerned about the risks they face, and don’t trouble yourselves with their families who are missing them.

The front lines in Iraq are not an assignment fraught with danger as the “liberal” media would have you believe. They are just another joyful destination for the Crusade of Freedom that our caretakers in Washington are bestowing on the world.

Relax and rejoice and enjoy your Christmas dinner. As you can see, if you stay tuned to Fox News, our troops are doing the same.

For another perspective, here is Cass Dillon singing a new song by Billy Joel, Christmas in Fallujah.


Fox Pews: The Right Before Christmas

Posted by on December 24, 2007 at 7:46 pm. NO Comments :

The Right Before Christmas

Twas the day before Christmas
And all through the news
The networks were vying
To peddle their views

The Secular Media
Pretending to care
Broadcast their services
Over the air

CNN’s query for
Me and for you
Was what would Lord Jesus
Himself really do

MSNBC
Wants to share with us all
The party from Radio
City Music Hall

But one network more
Than the others declares
Its devotion to
Christianity’s prayers

From 24 hours
Its schedule was sliced
To give almost half
To the glory of Christ

Which compels one to wonder
Regarding Fox News
T’would be better to hail
The net as Fox Pews

On this holiday eve, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the programming served up by the big three cable news networks. Not surprisingly, they all offered specials related to Christmas. It is, of course, entirely appropriate to produce programs that will be of interest to such a prominent percentage of TV consumers on a day of great national significance. But it was nonetheless a little jarring to discover the extent of Fox News’ sermonizing.

Christian content consumed nearly half (11 hours) of the 24 hour period pre-Christmas. The programs included an airing of “Miracles: Facts, Fictions, and Faith,” two airings of “One Nation Under God” hosted by Newt Gingrich, three airings of “The Birth of Jesus,” and five airings of “The Rick Warren Christmas Special.”

Despite the declaration of victory issued by General Bill O’Reilly, the War on Christmas is still raging and Fox doesn’t appear ready to stand down. After all, both Rupert Murdoch and the White House sent out “holiday” greetings this year. So as an extra measure of security, Fox is implementing its own surge strategy by scheduling nine straight hours of Gen. O’Reilly himself on Christmas day. Who better to spend the Lord’s birthday with than the man who proclaimed that:

“Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born. Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable.”

Now that’s Christmas spirit! I wasn’t even aware that companies had knees. But it is uplifting to know that Jesus was born to increase profit margins. Never mind those moneychangers in the temple.

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Rudy Giuliani: American Fascist

Posted by on December 24, 2007 at 12:11 am. 1 Comments :

Rudy Giuliani is blazing a trail for himself in Republican circles as he vies for the nomination of his party for president. The former mayor who marched in gay pride parades and supported abortion is now reinventing himself as Mr. Conservative. Unfortunately for him, some conservatives aren’t waiting to welcome him into their ranks. The American Conservative magazine, co-founded by uber-rightist Pat Buchanan, is featuring America’s Player on the cover of its current issue. Their characterization of him as a fascist 9/11 monger isn’t particularly flattering. And neither are the articles accompanying the illustration.

In Declaring Forever War, Michael C. Desch writes that “Giuliani has surrounded himself with advisors who think the Bush Doctrine didn’t go nearly far enough.” Desch is no wild-eyed liberal. He is a professor at the George Bush School of Government at Texas A&M. His article reminds readers of Giuliani’s national security failures as mayor such as:

“…his decision to locate the city’s counterterrorism center in the World Trade Center, which had already been the target of an al-Qaeda terrorist attack in 1993; his failure to integrate the fire and police communications systems; his penchant for surrounding himself with sketchy characters like Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik […] He dropped out of the blue-ribbon Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group because it cut into his paid speechmaking.”

Tom Piatak is the author of GOP Loses Its Life. Piatak warns that a Giuliani victory would spell defeat for the social conservatives that have propped up Republicans since the Reagan years:

“If Giuliani becomes the party’s standard-bearer and is then elected, the informal prohibition against pro-choice candidates within the GOP will be shattered, and the power of social conservatives within the party will inevitably decline.”

Surprisingly, Glenn Greenwald, a well-respected progressive, was accorded the space to opine that “…it is hard to imagine a more toxic combination than Rudy Giuliani and the Oval Office.” His column, Authoritarian Temptation, is a frightening account of how Giuliani’s dictatorial style would translate should he ascend to a White House that has been altered by eight years of Bush era precendents:

“Giuliani, when he was merely in charge of New York’s garbage collection, zoning rules, and a municipal police force, developed a reputation as a power-hungry, dissent-intolerant authoritarian, obsessed with secrecy and expanding his own power.”

The fact that a magazine called American Conservative is taking shots at the Republican front-runner is worthy of notice. But even more noteworthy is the theme that Giuliani is viewed by conservatives as a tyrant in the making. This is consistent with the conclusions of Rachel Morris’ Washington Monthly article, Rudy Awakening, that claims that “As president, Giuliani would grab even more executive power than Bush and Cheney.” It is also consistent with Giuliani’s own perverse vision of freedom:

“Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”

Freedom is about submission. And Orwell is spinning in his grave.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.


Giuliani: Still Corrupt, Still Immoral

Posted by on December 21, 2007 at 5:51 pm. NO Comments :

Last month The Politico published a story that escalated into one of the sleaziest scandals of the current campaign season. The story revealed that Rudy Giuliani had been secretly slipping off to the Hamptons with his mistress, Judy Nathan. There were also allegations that the costs of those trysts were improperly charged to obscure city offices.

This morning, the New York Times weighed in with its own account of Rudy’s accounting. The Times seems to conclude that it was unlikely that there was any mischief in Rudy’s travel expenses. [Link to graphic scan of the article]

This quasi-revelation has set off a mini-storm of rash exclamations of vindication and denunciations of the “liberal” media for their unscrupulous attacks on America’s Player, er…Mayor. Web sites like the PowerLine Blog and Townhall are shocked – shocked I say – at the mistreatment Giuliani has suffered.

There’s only one problem: Giuliani has not been vindicated at all. The only thing the Times has uncovered is that the majority of the funds spent on Rudy and Judy’s holidays were charged to the Mayor’s expense account. How exactly does that excuse him from spending city money on seaside sex romps? The Times doesn’t even rule out the possibility that some of the expenses were indeed charged to agencies that regulate lofts and assist the disabled. The article even admits that up to $40,000 is entirely unaccounted for.

In light of this, why are rightist bloggers asking “Where Does He Go to Get His Reputation Back?” Why is Chris Matthews asking an even more idiotic variation on this inane theme, “Where Does He Go to Get His 10 Points Back?”

Setting aside the fact that Giuliani is still guilty of misusing city funds, his apologists are conveniently forgetting the moral component of this story. Let me remind them: Rudy Giuliani was cheating on his wife. In the Republican Party that is probably a more heinous crime than robbing the city treasury.

Giuliani is not entitled to his reputation back (such as it was) because he is still culpable for making his constituents finance his romances. And he is not entitled to any polling points back because he lost them due to his slack morals, which are still in evidence. And hacks like Chris Matthews ought to think things through before making bigger asses of themselves than they were to begin with.


Celebrity Of The Year: Stephen Colbert

Posted by on December 21, 2007 at 12:40 am. 1 Comments :

Congratulations are in order for Stephen Colbert who the Associated Press has just voted Celebrity Of The Year. Colbert eeked out a well-deserved victory over J.K. Rowling and Al Gore. In his acceptance email he said:

“It is truly an honor to be named the Associated Press’ Celebrity of the Year. Best of all, this makes me the official front-runner for next year’s Drug-Fueled Downward Spiral of the year. P.S. Look for my baby bump this spring!”

Perhaps this will make up for his bitter loss to Barry Manilow at the last EMMY Awards. It’s too bad we won’t be able to see him blow his own horn due to the writer’s strike. However, on that front, there is also news. Comedy Central has announced that both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will resume broadcasting January 7. A statement from the programs’ host reads…

“We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence.”

As I previously said, I truly believe that TDS/TCR are important contributors to our political discourse and that the nation suffers by their absence. Especially during an election season. So I am thrilled that they are coming back. I wish that they could come back with a contract, either through the Guild or independently. But it’s better to have them than not. And I would bet that their presence on air will support those on the picket lines. In fact, it may be the best thing for the writers to have Jon and Stephen pumping up their cause on national TV.

Movin’ on…


TVNewser Completes Its Descent Into Tabloid Drudgery

Posted by on December 20, 2007 at 3:02 am. 2 Comments :

Last night on the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric presented another in her series of Primary Questions to the candidates for president of both parties. The question for this installment dealt with marital fidelity and whether it should be a determinative factor when deciding for whom to vote.

This question, while not as elevating to the debate as questions about Iraq, global warming, the economy, or health care might have been, could still have produced some observable squirming from a number of the candidates. But in reporting on Couric’s broadcast, the rapidly deteriorating TVNewser was more interested in propagating rumors than in objective journalism. In an item by Steve Krakauer, who joined TVNewser last month and previously worked for Fox News, two candidates were singled out as having answers that would “be of interest.”

The first was Hillary Clinton, for whom a case could be made for a potentially interesting exchange. Although it should be noted that it was not Hillary, but her husband, who was guilty of infidelity. Since the context of the question was whether someone who was not true to their spouse could be trusted to be true to the country, it really did not apply directly to any behavior on her part. And despite their troubles, a decade has past since the affair and they have managed to keep their marriage and family together.

The second candidate Krakauer cited was John Edwards. And this is where Krakauer demonstrates either a woeful inability to mask his prejudice, or a professional immaturity that borders on incompetence. This is how he presents his next point:

“Also, with reports of a Sen. John Edwards extra-marital affair and subsequent pregnancy, his answer will be looked at more carefully as well.”

By referring to “reports” of Edwards’ “affair” Krakauer implies that there are credible allegations from responsible journalists and sources. The truth is that there is only a single allegation by an anonymous source as reported to the “National Enquirer” (to which I refuse to link) which is nobody’s idea of a responsible journal. And not a single reputable news organization has yet to follow the Enquirer’s smarmy lead, although Matt Drudge headlined it (good company).

The Enquirer’s story is fraught with ambiguity and error. Both Edwards and Rielle Hunter (the alleged other woman) describe the charges as untrue and ridiculous. Hunter, who is pregnant, has identified the father as Andrew Young, with whom she worked on Edwards’ campaign. Young confirmed his paternity, but that didn’t stop the Enquirer from asserting, with no evidence whatsoever, that everybody was just trying to cover up for Edwards. The Enquirer even faulted Edwards for not nipping the scandal in the bud early on by revealing the relationship between Hunter and Young. Of course Edwards could not have done that because he didn’t know anything about the relationship, as Young told the Enquirer.

This is the level of unsubstantiated innuendo that Krakauer pretends is newsworthy. In fact he is engaging in the most vile sort of rumor-mongering. He doesn’t even bother to explicitly inform his readers that his source is the Enquirer (he hides it in a link). And if all of this isn’t bad enough, in an article about the relevance of the breaking of marriage vows, Krakauer smears two candidates for whom there is no evidence of such behavior, but fails to mention others with known multiple marriages (McCain and Thompson) and notorious philandering (Giuliani).

So Krakauer thinks rumors spread by tabloid rags are interesting, but Mayors who keep their mistresses in the Mayor’s residence and use city funds to pay for trysts in the Hamptons are not even worth mentioning. What’s truly interesting and sad is how low TVNewser has sunk and how useless it has become. It is no better now than its new partner the Enquirer or, as I lamented in an earlier article, the Drudge Report. What an embarrassment for everyone involved.

Feel free to let TVNewser know what a pack of ethically-deprived journalistic lowlifes they are:

TVNewser
Chris Ariens, Editor, Exec. Producer
Laurel Touby, Founder, CEO