Jon Stewart

Lying Is Easy, Comedy Is Hard

Posted by on June 9, 2009 at 3:20 pm. NO Comments :

Anyone who has ever tried to make an audience laugh knows how deceptively easy a talented comic can make their job look. The truth is, it is so difficult to do well that there is a famous (but difficult to source) quote reportedly made from an actor’s deathbed: “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”

It’s going to get a lot harder for people like Jon Stewart. The competition is heating up with some of the most hilarious, and unexpected, entrants into the field of funny. Republicans from around the country are trying out their best material in an effort to amuse and deceive audiences nationwide.

First up is Republican National Committee Chairman, Michael Steele, who cracked up a room of College Republicans with his famous “Hat” routine. The premise is that it doesn’t matter how you wear your hat (to the side, backwards, etc) so long as it is a GOP hat:

I’m asking you to go out and ask your friends to wear our hat. The hat of an idea.

For this bit, Steele had four students stand so that he could pretend to put imaginary hats on them. Steele intuitively knew that the bit would be much funnier with audience members standing there for no purpose other than to grin and display their naked heads. And I have to admire the deeper meaning of the invisible hats of ideas that obviously represent the GOP’s absence ideas.

The setup included a dire admonition that Barack Obama “has asked your generation to wear his hat.” I must have missed that speech. But I did see Steele’s previous speech where he promised to deliver “change in a tea bag.” How does he keep coming up with this brilliant material?

And then there is Bill O’Reilly. In a sidesplitting debate over torture and abortion, O’Reilly challenged Juan Williams to explain why liberals object to torture but defend abortion providers like Dr. George Tiller. Williams attempted, through O’Reilly’s interruptions, to answer saying that torture is against both domestic and international law, but Tiller’s work was entirely legal. To which O’Reilly responded:

“You can dance the law dance all day long. And laws are passed by men. Laws can be revoked. They can be passed.”

The joke, as O’Reilly sees it, is the law itself. It’s just a dance and we don’t really need to comply with it because it’s just stuff that some people came up with in legislatures and courtrooms. Just imagine the comical scenarios that would ensue if we extend O’Reilly’s view of the law to burglary, rape, and terrorism. I can see O’Reilly now, defending Osama Bin Laden before a military tribunal, doing a jig while testifying that he can “dance the law dance all day long.” After all, the laws against flying planes into buildings could be revoked.

Almost as funny as his legal pirouettes is his contention that “the attorney general ruled waterboarding was not torture. It was legal.” As if the attorney general has the judicial standing to make such a ruling. He isn’t a judge. The best he can offer is an opinion, and you would think that O’Reilly has enough of those of his own. And to compound the laugh factor, O’Reilly seems perfectly satisfied to accept the constraints of the law (as he misinterprets it) with regard to waterboarding, even though he dismisses the law as it applies to abortion. Who’s dancing now?

This brings us to Newt Gingrich who made this declaration last night:

“Let me be clear. I am not a citizen of the world!”

I’m going to guess Plutonian, because he is just so out there, stretching the comedy envelope. He is objecting to a part of Obama’s speech wherein he referred to himself as “a citizen of the world.” I wonder if Gingrich knows that John F. Kennedy, George H. W. Bush, and even Ronald Reagan used the very same phrase. Gingrich also mined comedy gold by railing against the “fact” that our nation’s school curriculum doesn’t include American history. Makes you wonder how closely he was paying attention.

It’s going to be hard for working comics and satirists to compete with the new Republican Rubber Chicken Society. Not many people are better at spinning lies…er…stories than desperate Republican politicians and pundits. It may be too much to ask our professional laugh-smiths to create humor from scratch when the GOP can just pull it out of their butts. I mean, how can you compete with headlines like:
“Fox Newser Accused of Dragging Cyclist Through Central Park.” And:
“Peter Doocy [Steve’s boy] Joins Fox News.” And:
“Sarah Palin Mystifies and Annoys the Republican Establishment.”
“Coburn’s STD Lecture to Congressional Interns Put On Hold Due to Pizza Dispute.”

Yes, those are real. And so is the danger that reality will make comedians obsolete. Thanks GOP.

Republicans Flub The Double Reverse Alinsky

Posted by on May 22, 2009 at 10:31 am. 7 Comments :

For degree of difficulty, I’ll give them a ten, but Republicans are far too incompetent to have risked the political Jujitsu required by their recent exercise.

Saul Alinsky was an activist and author who has been called the founder of modern community organizing. He is said to have been an early influence on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. His book, Rules For Radicals, outlined a program for effecting social change by building organizations that restored the balance of power from the elite to the people.

Early in last year’s presidential campaign, Republicans sought to exploit Clinton and Obama’s connection to Alinsky, implying that there was something frightful about his advocacy of empowering the poor and middle classes. More recently, his name has begun to reappear in a new, seemingly coordinated assault on the President, the press, and any stray progressive activist that might saunter along. The problem is that these conservatives swing so wide of the mark that they only succeed in making asses of themselves. Their approach is so pedestrian that not only do they fail to make their point, the point they make is often antithetical to what they intended. For example…

Jim Geraghty wrote an article for the National Review, The Alinsky Administration, that seeks to associate Obama with the first of Alinsky’s rules: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. But Geraghty’s limited comprehension distills the concept down to nothing more than the allegation that Obama is a politician who seeks to attain power. Shocking, isn’t it?

Geraghty: “As conservatives size up their new foe, they ought to remember: It’s not about liberalism. It’s about power. Obama will jettison anything that costs him power, and do anything that enhances it.”

In addition to missing Alinsky’s point entirely, Geraghty also contradicts the vast conservative confederation that has been hammering away at Obama precisely because of his intransigent liberalism. So while everyone else on the right is trying to convince us that Obama is taking us down the road to Socialism, Geraghty contends that the ideology is expendable in the pursuit of power.

Then Geraghty turns up on the Hannity show and invokes his version of Alinsky’s fifth rule: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. But in making his case, Geraghty has uncovered a heretofore unknown conspiracy that is under the direction of Obama:

Geraghty: “[H]e’s got everything from ‘The Daily Show’ to ‘The Colbert Report’ to, you know, liberal bloggers, entertainers, Bill Maher. He kind of outsources that aspect of the Alinsky operation.

It may come as a surprise to Jon Stewart et al, to learn that they are mere puppets of the White House Overlord. The administration’s army of comedians must keep a lot of Republicans up at night. And, Heaven knows, the President himself loves to laugh. Bill O’Reilly also picked up the ridicule angle and added NBC as an instrument of Obama’s plot:

O’Reilly: “Enter far-left philosopher Saul Alinsky […] Before he died, Alinsky wrote a book called ‘Rules for Radicals,’ and here is where the politics of ridicule was defined. According to Alinsky, in order to change America into a far-left bastion, traditional Americans must be marginalized.”

Of course, O’Reilly made up virtually all of that. Alinsky not only did not advocate for marginalizing “traditional Americans,” he was their biggest advocate. Then again, O’Reilly’s definition of a traditional American is a wealthy, white, Christian, corporatist, social Darwinian, who gets off on torture and loofahs. But my favorite part, personally, is where O’Reilly says, “Before he died, Alinsky wrote a book…” As opposed to the books he wrote after he died? Thanks for making that distinction, Bill.

If the Republicans are sensitive to being ridiculed, it is only because they make it so easy. However, their disingenuous sniveling is hard to take seriously when they are just as guilty of the practice as the left. O’Reilly has a daily feature on his show wherein he calls people pinheads. The RNC repeatedly cranked out campaign videos mocking Obama as a celebrity, a media darling, or “The One”. Glenn Beck has a recurring series on the “March to Socialism”. Rush Limbaugh devotes most of his daily three hour rant to nothing but ridiculing one Democrat or another. The Internet is awash with images of Obama as everything from a terrorist to a Messiah to Hitler.

The flood of references to Alinsky is threatening to drown out all other political discourse. It has been taken up by everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Michelle Bachmann to Karl Rove. When you hear Republicans condemn Democrats for some breach of civility, you can lay odds that they are doing the very same thing. Their capacity for projection is legendary. This is no less true with regard to their allegations concerning Alinsky’s rules. But their execution is atrocious. They are so bad, in fact, that they are even contradicted by their own side. Last year, John J. Pitney Jr., also writing for the National Review, penned a column entitled, “The Alinsky Ticket,” wherein he exposed the real perpetrators of this pinko scheme:

Pitney: “Radical activist Saul Alinsky has had quite a season, especially for somebody who has been dead for 36 years. The two Democratic finalists had Alinsky links […] But the candidates who have most effectively applied Alinsky principles are John McCain and Sarah Palin.”

Well, now the cat’s out of the bag. Pitney dropped the dime on the GOP. How can they assail Obama and the Democrats for a strategy that they are employing themselves? Actually, they can do it very easily. In fact, it is rule number one in Karl Rove’s Rules For Reactionaries: Conduct a campaign of dirty tricks, but accuse your opponents of doing it first.

Rightists are now trying to adapt that rule to Alinsky’s teachings, and to disparage Obama and the Democrats. Unfortunately, their ineptitude is so advanced that they can’t execute a successful program. All they are accomplishing is a reaffirmation of their own desperation and lameness. Nothing illustrates this better than the recent proposal by the RNC to rebrand Democrats as the Democrat Socialist Party [shakes head and sighs].

Watch for more hilarity as Republicans continue in their quest to complete the perfect Double Reverse Alinsky – no matter how many times, or how miserably, they fail.

Rush Limbaugh Leaving New York?

Posted by on April 2, 2009 at 11:44 am. 7 Comments :

When Rush Limbaugh says something, you can take it to the … well, the AIG subsidiary that manages credit default swaps.

On his radio program yesterday, Limbaugh went on an extended tirade over taxes in New York. Seeing as how hundreds of millions of dollars, and villas in New York, Florida, and probably more, aren’t enough to satisfy his thirst for opulence and Oxy-Contin, he is threatening to abandon the Big Apple and relocate elsewhere:

“I’m gonna look for an alternative studio somewhere outside New York. I’ll sell my apartment. I’ll sell my condominium. I’m gonna get out of there totally because this is just absurd, and it’s ridiculous.”

I’m going to go record now as being completely and utterly skeptical that Limbaugh will keep his word and flee the city. It is just another example of his boorish posturing that is more theatrical than truthful (which pretty well describes his whole act).

Although I don’t for a second believe that Limbaugh will bail, Jon Stewart (and millions of New Yorkers) are hoping that he will:

Go on Rush…we DARE you!

The Horror Of A Laughing President

Posted by on March 23, 2009 at 12:21 pm. 4 Comments :

It’s really sort of pathetic how utterly humorless modern conservatives have become. Following Barack Obama’s interview last night on 60 Minutes, a torrent of indignation was released across the mediasphere that blew past Politico, Drudge, and countless right-wing blogs. What had Obama done to unleash such fury, even causing interviewer Steve Kroft to inquire if Obama was “punch drunk?” He laughed. Yep, that’s it. He laughed.

To any rational viewer, the moment merely demonstrated the President’s amusement of the relentless curiosity of media figures that don’t get it. At worst, he was just using laughter as a stress reliever. That’s something that many real people do during anxious times. For critics who have been hammering him for weeks about being too glum, it is absurd for them now to assert that a gentle laugh suggests that, all of a sudden, he is too flippant and detached.

All of this fits right in with the sorrowful character of conservatives. They were dismayed when they thought Obama did not do enough to assuage their grief. Now they are disturbed that he is not exhibiting enough grief of his own. Either way they are consumed by their incessant grieving and blaming it all on Obama.

The lack of humor on the part of the right is reaching epidemic proportions. Their comic heroes are Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. How sad is that? Last week Tucker Carlson presumed to lecture Jon Stewart on the art of comedy. This weekend, Bill O’Reilly’s column attempted to bring the funny, but missed miserably. The article is a collection of fake headlines (something O’Reilly and Fox News should be adept at), aimed at mocking the liberal media. But there are two significant problems with O’Reilly’s comic foray. First, it isn’t remotely funny. Second, the only thing he succeeds at making a mockery of is himself. In the first paragraph he says:

O’Reilly: The other day, left-wing muckraker Seymour Hersh went on MSNBC and said he had information, provided by the usual anonymous sources, that Dick Cheney was running an assassination squad out of the White House.

However, the Pulitzer Prize winning Hersh never went on MSNBC with this story. So in an article seeking to ridicule the liberal media for making up news stories, O’Reilly actually made up a story of his own in the part of the article that he presented as factual. Is there any part of his wretched reality that doesn’t put satire to shame?

So where are the funny conservatives? Where is the right’s Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Chris Rock, Tina Fey, George Carlin (RIP), etc.? Is Rush going to have to be both the head of the Republican Party and the chief conservative comic? Or will it be the indecipherable Dennis Miller or Fox’s Greg Gutfield, who just got a few yucks at the expense of dead Canadian soldiers? There is, of course, the hysterical escapism of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, but if you don’t already suffer from acute paranoia, do you really want to assume that risk?

It really is pathetic how desperate and forlorn the right has become. They appear to have nothing left but to invent outrage where non exists, and to cling to leaders who offer only obstacles. And when the human spirit requires uplifting more than ever, they are stuck with clowns who have painted on permanent sneers. And even worse, their melancholy is magnified merely by witnessing the horror of a laughing President. It makes me sad just thinking about it.

Tucker Carlson Gives Jon Stewart Tips On Comedy

Posted by on March 18, 2009 at 10:47 pm. 3 Comments :

Tucker CarlsonIf nothing else, Tucker Carlson’s latest column for the Daily Beast is a fount of unintentional hilarity. The notion that the former bow tie twerp has anything enlightening to say on any subject has long since been debunked. But for him to have the audacity to presume that he can school Jon Stewart on humor is endlessly humorous.

Carlson starts out by asserting that Stewart’s critique of Jim Cramer makes no sense:

Jon Stewart’s recent attack on CNBC’s Jim Cramer was so brilliantly performed, so smoothly produced and cruelly compelling, almost nobody noticed that it didn’t make sense.

Of course, it’s inevitably predictable that it is Carlson who ends up making no sense.

Stewart summed up the significance of what Cramer had said on the tape: “You can draw a straight line from those shenanigans to the stuff that was being pulled at Bear and at AIG, and all this derivative-market stuff,” he said sternly.

Except that you can’t draw any such line. In the video, Cramer hadn’t mentioned derivates [sic] or securitized loans or credit-default swaps, or any of the other exotic financial instruments that caused the fall of AIG and the current recession. There’s no evidence that Jim Cramer had anything to do with any of that, and Stewart didn’t offer any.

If only Carlson could comprehend that the point Stewart was making was simply that the “shenanigans” engaged in by shady Wall Streeters were the cause of our problems, not the specific ones in the clip Stewart showed. It’s called an “example.” Carlson goes on to describe as “even more farther-fetched,” Stewart’s accusation that business media at CNBC and elsewhere were negligent in their coverage in order to retain access to newsmakers. It’s as if Carlson knows absolutely nothing about the industry he is trying desperately to be a part of. What’s more, Carlson accuses Stewart of being “real.” And, yes, he meant that as a criticism.

…nobody as funny and sophisticated as Jon Stewart could possibly be getting that mad on TV over something so abstract. A fair assumption, but wrong. Stewart really was enraged. It was all entirely, strangely real.

At the Carlson school of comedy one must never display an honest emotion. This is beginning to explain why Carlson has never made anyone – ever – laugh.

But wait, it just gets funnier. Because next, Carlson brings up an epic moment in the worlds of comedy and media – Stewart’s appearance on, and subsequent demolition of, CNN’s Crossfire, starring Paul Begala and little Tuck Carlson. Why he would bring up this moment of shame for him, I can’t begin to surmise. But bring it up he did, and he admitted that even now, he doesn’t understand Stewart’s lament that he and Begala were “helping the politicians and the corporations.” So in his confusion, Carlson’s big complaint is that Stewart didn’t leave the building quickly enough after the show:

Unlike most guests after an uncomfortable show, Stewart didn’t flee once it was over, but lingered backstage to press his point. With the cameras off, he dropped the sarcasm and the nastiness, but not the intensity. I can still picture him standing outside the makeup room, gesticulating as the rest of us tried to figure out what he was talking about. It was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen.

First of all, why should Stewart “flee?” The show was not uncomfortable for him, it was Carlson who must have felt ill at ease. Remember, he was correctly identified for posterity, on national television, as a “dick” who needed to go to journalism school. Secondly, I think the weirdest thing for me to have seen would have been Carlson and crew trying to figure out what Stewart was talking about. I can picture them now, scratching their cocked heads, raising an eyebrow, and whimpering softly as they struggle to overcome their innate ignorance.

Much of the rest of the column is an exposition of Carlson’s jealousy and bitterness. Clearly, he has never gotten over the pounding he took from Stewart on Crossfire. His long-winded retort is just an extenuated version of “I know you are but what am I?” On CNN yesterday he even called Stewart a “partisan hack,” which is what Stewart called him on Crossfire lo those many years ago.

Carlson seems to get a little thrill from confusing the roles of news media and comedians. He repeatedly cites instances of Stewart asking his guests less than hardball questions. He admonishes him for not engaging in balanced mockery. And he is livid at the thought that Stewart’s audience appreciates him. What Carlson apparently doesn’t grasp is that Stewart’s job is to entertain first – something Carlson may never understand. Nor is he likely to enjoy an audience who appreciates him.

Carlson’s lessons on laugh-craft is strewn throughout his article. Here are some nuggets of his comedy curriculum:

  • Humor requires ironic detachment.
  • No one this earnest can remain an effective satirist.
  • Sanctimony is the death of humor.

Remember that, young jokemakers. It is the wisdom of a detached, earnest, sanctimonious, dweeb, who knows a thing or two about the death of humor. And who better to take comic tips from than a failed pundit. But Carlson isn’t through informing us. Approaching the end of this diatribe, he asks of us if we can recall the last time Stewart said anything with which we might disagree, because, after all, that is the hallmark of comedy. Then he closes by declaring that it is all over for Stewart, and it is too late to recover from his comedic collapse:

The great comedian is gone, maybe forever. Jon Stewart is stuck in lecture mode.

But one irony worthy of note still remains. At the beginning of his column, Carlson actually lauded Stewart as brilliant, smooth, and compelling. Then he spent the remainder of the piece characterizing him as confused, obsequious, and unfunny. Yet Carlson says it’s Stewart who is not making sense. There is only one thing to do after reading a piece like this from an envious, pathetic, loser, whose career is careening downhill faster than a stock recommended by Jim Cramer — Laugh!

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post Attacks Jon Stewart

Posted by on March 17, 2009 at 3:44 pm. 4 Comments :

In another example of Rupert Murdoch using his financially disastrous New York Post to whip people with whom he disagrees, the Post’s Page Six published a ridiculous hit piece on Jon Stewart.

The article points an accusatory finger of shame at Stewart for the sin of talking to his brother:

JON Stewart, the scourge of Wall Street and bane of CNBC, may have had a secret weapon in his corner to help him prep for his grudge match with “Mad Money” host, Jim Cramer – his older brother.

As the Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, Stewart’s brother, Larry Leibowitz, is head of US Markets & Global Technology at NYSE Euronext.

In effect, the Post’s Richard Johnson is criticizing Stewart for conducting research. You know, the sort of thing that reputable journalists are supposed to do. If you have a big interview coming up, you study the subject so that you are prepared to address it intelligently with your guest (assuming your guest is intelligent). Johnson, not surprisingly, wouldn’t know anything about this because it is, as I said, done by “reputable” journalists.

What’s more, Johnson’s assertion that Stewart was coached isn’t even borne out in the article. He simply states that Stewart has a brother in the financial business, but offers no proof that they ever discussed Cramer. However he does attack the brothers for engaging in some sort of undefined conspiracy:

“What a routine they have. One brother pretends to kick Wall Street’s butt by crucifying Cramer on his show, while the other brother is down on Wall Street kissing it.”

For good measure, Johnson closes the article by disparaging Cramer’s ratings, without bothering to mention the conflict of interest that he has as an employee of a corporation that also runs Fox News, a competitor to Cramer’s CNBC.

Keith Olbermann Was Right About TVNewser

Posted by on March 17, 2009 at 11:47 am. 5 Comments :

In the recent dust up between Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and CNBC’s Jim Cramer, TVNewser inserted itself into the controversy with an anonymously sourced item that asserted that MSNBC was told to refrain from stories on the matter. TVNewser’s Steve Krakauer did not reveal who told MSNBC to do this, nor who told him about the instruction.

Keith Olbermann responded to Krakauer’s claim in a posting on Daily Kos. He denied that any restrictions were placed on him, and he noted Krakauer’s and TVNewser’s reputation for partisanship and for regurgitating Fox News PR:

“Frankly, the guy who posted this, the site’s Associate Editor, Steve Krakauer (‘SteveK’), is well known around the industry as being entirely in Fox’s pocket […] Rachel [Maddow] could get the cover of Newsweek and he wouldn’t link to it.”

Well, this morning TVNewser is featuring two stories on its front page on Glenn Beck (both by Krakauer), including one that links to a Beck interview by The Daily Beast. But no mention that Rachel Maddow was on David Letterman last night.

Good call, Keith. I have previously documented other incidents of blatant bias by TVNewser. In one story about the marital infidelity of politicians Krakauer cited Hillary Clinton (who has never engaged in infidelity) and John Edwards (who, at the time, was the subject of unsupported rumors in the National Enquirer). He didn’t bother to mention the multiple marriages and notorious philandering of John McCain, Fred Thompson, and Rudy Giuliani. The other story offhandedly referred to Al Franken as “a rabid leftie.”

Krakauer is not only in Fox’s pocket, he is a former Fox News employee. The evidence of TVNewer’s bias is all over its web site. It’s apparent in what they chose to cover and what they chose to ignore. And, most of all, its community of commenters posting remarks to their articles is a buzzing hive of partisans so far to the right they would make RedStaters nervous. They congregate in items referencing Fox News and are devotedly defensive of anything and everything Fox does and says. Their boards are thoroughly useless as a forum for media discussions. Any comment that is contrary to the rightist hive-think is pounced on and assaulted in overtly personal terms.

TVNewser may eventually put up some notice of Maddow’s Letterman spot, but that will not resolve the larger problem that the site is infected with slanted coverage and lunatic rantings. It’s a shame, because there is a real need for a web site that offers balanced media news and informed discourse.

Update: Well, TVNewser did get around to posting a brief notice that Maddow appeared on Letterman. But they also followed it up immediately with a ridiculous Krakauer composed hit piece on Jon Stewart (more on that here).

Bill O’Reilly Is Scared Out Of His Mind

Posted by on January 23, 2009 at 2:15 pm. 2 Comments :

All the symptoms are present. The shameless self-glorification. The lashing out at perceived enemies. The mangling of reality. The desperate grasping for affirmation. Bill O’Reilly is scared out of his mind. To be a little more accurate, I should break that sentence apart: Bill O’Reilly is scared – and – Bill O’Reilly is out of his mind.

His latest journey into bombast is titled, “The Collapse of the Left-Wing Press.” In it he makes claims that illustrate the severity of his tunnel-blindness. As evidence of this imagined collapse, O’Reilly cites the financial misfortunes of newspapers like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Never mind the fact that the entire newspaper business has been hit by a perfect storm of a declining economy, an anemic advertising environment, and competition from the Internet, O’Reilly also ignores the troubles of conservative publications like the bankrupt Tribune Company. And he predictably attacks NBC/GE. They are a favorite target of his due to Keith Olbermann, who has challenged the Factor on the air and in the ratings. O’Reilly’s dementia produced this babble:

“General Electric, which owns NBC, has taken a sharp turn to the left in its corporate philosophy, while at the same time it watched its stock price decline from about 50 dollars a share to around $13. The fact that CEO Jeffrey Immelt still has his job ranks up there with the miracle of the US Airways water landing.”

First of all, GE is the largest defense contractor in the world. The notion that its corporate philosophy has turned sharply left is simply delusional. It is the sort of multinational conglomerate that benefits most from rightist politics and policies. What’s more, it’s the sort of patriotic institution that O’Reilly would ordinarily praise for supplying our soldiers with arms and equipment. All it takes for O’Reilly to turn on them is a cable network pundit mockingly calling him the “Worst Person in the World.”

Now, let’s take a look at the stock performance of News Corp, the parent of O’Reilly’s employer, Fox News. It has suffered an almost identical percentage decline from about $25 dollars a share to around $7. By O’Reilly’s own standard it is a miracle that Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes still have their jobs.

Next O’Reilly seeks to explain why America voted for Barack Obama and Democrats in congress. Essentially he boils it down to the economy, but hastens to add that the country is actually more conservative, the election results notwithstanding:

“Despite the power shift in Washington, America remains a traditional country that largely rejects big government and radical social change. The former hippies running the crazy left media will never get that.”

So the people didn’t really vote for change. It was just some sort of mass hysteria brought on by the reefer madness emanating from “Abbie Hoffman wannabes” in the press. O’Reilly’s Talking Points Memo last night went even further, asserting that the far-left media advocates a socialist economy and is filled with hate:

“And the hate the far-left media traffics in has alienated many folks. I mean, the disrespect shown to President Bush is disgraceful, and most decent people know it.”

Apparently O’Reilly doesn’t read Foxnews.com – or News Corpse. Yesterday I documented some repulsive comments on the Fox web site that called Obama the anti-Christ and wished for his family to be burned alive. O’Reilly doesn’t seem to care about that disgraceful show of disrespect. And he has no claim to decency when he himself has said that law-abiding citizens exercising their First Amendment rights are worse than Nazis and the KKK.

All of this suggests that O’Reilly is desperately afraid. Why else would he feel the need to repeatedly fluff himself and his ratings? Why else would he need to maliciously attack the lurking enemies he imagines around every corner? Why would he find it necessary to construct false and misleading arguments against those shadows that torment him? It is fear that has consumed him and is now his most profound motivation. It’s a fear that has clouded a mind that wasn’t all that sharp to begin with. And now that mind is MIA.

The truly sad epilogue to this story is that he is not alone. It seems that the entirety of the Republican establishment media has decided on a strategy of shock and awe aimed at the new administration. There has been a concerted and coordinated effort launched before the echos of the inauguration speech have faded from the Capitol Mall. It’s purpose is to discredit and diminish Obama and his team prior to their having even done anything. As usual, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has encapsulated this development perfectly.

Progressive Media In The Obama Era

Posted by on November 11, 2008 at 5:20 pm. 1 Comments :

With the election over, prognostications about the new administration of Barack Obama, and the fate of the losers, began in earnest. Almost simultaneously, speculation arose concerning the direction and prospects for the media in general, and the cable news networks in particular. The conventional wisdom (always conventional, rarely wise) is that Fox News will thrive in the role of a voice for the opposition and MSNBC will struggle for lack of drama. This analysis presumes that audiences respond only to conflict and that the Obama victory will put conservatives on edge and liberals to sleep.

There is some merit to this theory, but, us usual, it is too narrowly drawn to be enlightening. If contrarian politics were paramount then Fox would not have flourished during its early years of the Clinton administration, which it opposed, as well as the Bush years that followed, which it embraced. A common misconception about the success of Fox News is that it was driven by its conservative point of view. The only role ideology played was that it funneled all of the right-leaning viewers to one channel, allowing Fox to score higher in Nielsen ratings. The larger truth is that it transformed stodgy news delivery into thrill-inducing combat and soap opera. They created an us-vs-them, hero narrative that feeds on the same zealotry as a religious cult.

The race for president provided ample opportunity for the sort of melodrama upon which the new generation of cable news networks thrive. Fox took full advantage of this promoting, and even creating, friction where it otherwise would not have existed. Who can forget (despite how desperately we try):

  • William Ayers
  • Rev. Jeremiah Wright
  • Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher (the Plumber)
  • ACORN
  • Drill, baby drill
  • Elitists
  • Flag pins
  • Muslim Madrassas

The irrelevance of these phony issues is confirmed by how quickly they have vanished from the news scene. The campaign season stirred the pot, but the conclusion of the campaign is not the end of controversy. We are still mired in war, a collapsing economy, a climate crisis, and a multitude of other critical affairs that will define the next four years.

Nevertheless, cable news is going to have to undergo a post-election makeover. Brit Hume has already left the building. Some reports from Fox News insiders suggest that they will be taking a softer approach toward the President-elect (don’t believe it). Keith Olbermann’s Countdown contains segments like “Bushed” and “McCain in the Membrane” that will need to be retired. Political contests will likely play a smaller role in his program and others, and the void will have to be filled by something else. In the search for new themes, I would like to suggest one that is ever-present and exerts an overdue influence on American politics and culture: the Media.

There will always be political, social, and global controversies. They will erupt between and within party affiliations. The one thing that ties them all together is that they are fodder for interpretation by the media. The characterization of ideas can be instrumental in their acceptance or rejection by the people. Ideally, news organizations would be neutral providers of information and analysis, but those days may be long past. The modern era of television news seems to have irreversibly digressed into partisan advocacy. Even Fox News, the home of the “fair and balanced” fallacy, seems to have abandoned that pretense. Chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes was asked by Broadcasting and Cable Magazine about their post-election prospects:

B & C: [W]ill the news side of Fox News face an apathetic audience, compounded by being on the losing end of a national election?

Ailes: There may be certain elements of our audience that turn away between now and the inauguration. I think cable numbers overall will drop, although there is a fascination with Obama.

Notice that Ailes doesn’t object to the question’s premise that Fox was “on the losing end” of the election. The reality of Fox’s bias is so well established now that he doesn’t even bother to refute it. If Ailes’ response isn’t validation enough, listen to his executive VP, John Moody, from the same article, describing Obama as…

“…a once-in-a-lifetime politician and that means he’s smart enough to know that, despite his prescient 2004 speech, there are red voters and blue voters. And he wants to reach out and get the red ones, too.”

Here we have Moody blithely confessing that Fox is the venue for conservative viewers. This is something that Moody and Ailes would have vehemently denied in the past. Today it is treated as a foregone conclusion. That’s what makes observation of the media such a rich vein for the sort of melodrama that excites cable news programmers and viewers. The presentation of the news is so narrowly focused and poorly produced that it invites criticism, sarcasm, and ridicule.

This is where progressive media can excel. The Rupert Murdochs of the world aren’t interested in self-examination or improvement. They have an agenda to pursue and they won’t let a little thing like truth get in the way. Witness the inveterate lying of folks like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity. Liberals are generally more predisposed toward ethical oversight and, thus, make better watchdogs. With the decline of political content in the news cycle, this would be an opportune time to jump headlong into media analysis and criticism.

Scrutiny of the press has the added benefit of expanding the audience base because those who are skeptical of the press are a diverse group. An honest appraisal of reporters and pundits will appeal to a broad swath of news consumers. Evidence of this is the popularity of a couple of programs on Comedy Central. The Daily Show and the Colbert Report demonstrate the appeal of programming that takes on the press. Many analysts misconstrue these shows as political satire, but that is not an accurate characterization. They are media satire programs. Everything they do is less a statement on policy than it is a statement on the absurdity and incompetence of the people who bring us the news. It is also noteworthy that conservative attempts at this endeavor have all failed miserably.

Drawing attention to the media is also fertile ground for effective reform. It is potentially the most powerful avenue for political change. Every issue that faces citizens and their representatives has to be disseminated through the media apparatus. So whether it’s healthcare, education, taxes, energy, etc., it is the press that will shape much of the public’s view. The more light that is cast on the press, the more likely they will modify their behavior. So if cable news figures like Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Campbell Brown, and even Fox’s Shepard Smith (who has been known to take swipes at his net’s coverage), step up and challenge their industry, they could have more impact, and do more good, then if they merely assume the posture of another kvetching pundit.

The next few weeks will tell whether the press has learned anything, whether it is interested in self-reflection and reform, and whether it is capable of fulfilling its traditional role as a check on a government that would much prefer to work in secret. This will also be an outstanding time to have media watchers illuminating the stage and exposing the imperfections and deceits of those who purport to inform us. Let’s hope they heed the call. Because, now more than ever, we need an open, honest, and diverse fourth estate to document the progress of what may be the most astonishing political achievement in this nation’s short history.

The John McCain Experience

Posted by on September 13, 2008 at 11:01 am. 2 Comments :

Much of the focus of John McCain’s campaign for president has been on his reputed experience (and just as often, the alleged lack of same for his opponent). But there has been sparse actual examination of how that argument should be measured. Is spending five and a half years in a prisoner of war camp 40 years ago preparation to run the largest governmental bureaucracy in the world? If so, then, as Jon Stewart said, “Guantanamo Bay isn’t a prison, it’s a leadership academy.”

Is 36 years in Congress the yardstick for executive readiness? Or is it two years as governor of the third smallest state in the nation, preceded by the mayoralty of a frosty township of 6,000? McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, appear to disagree on this issue:

For the record:

Palin: “[W]e’ve got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual and somebody’s big, fat resume maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment.”

McCain: “I am prepared. I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training I wasn’t a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn’t a governor for a short period of time.”

So Palin doesn’t think that McCain is qualified to be president, and McCain doesn’t think that Palin is either. This Mutual Unappreciation Society makes for a bizarre and foreboding ticket. And it has to raise the question: Why did he pick her to be a 72 year old heartbeat from succeeding him in the first place?

The paramount cause for concern stemming from this has less to do with Palin’s supreme inadequacy, than it does with McCain’s dangerously deficient judgment. Whether he selected her for her extra X chromosome, her missionary zeal, or her appeal to his base of Neoconderthals, it is clear that his determinative criteria was harvesting votes. He obviously considers winning the election more important than the well being of the country. For that alone he must be rejected.

As always, the media is about 26 miles behind the curve, and it doesn’t seem fit enough to run a marathon. There is a persistently ignorant thread running through the coverage of this race. There is an obsession with trivialities like “who is the pig?” and “what does lipstick represent?” Yet very little inquiry into how the so-called candidate of experience would put the fate of the country into the hands of someone who knows almost nothing about it; who has only crossed it’s borders once or twice; who only met with the top of the ticket once before being crowned. She had a more rigorous competition to become Miss Wasilla.

John McCain’s cynical and desperate ambition to be president borders on the treasonous. He confessed his intention following his first bid for the White House:

“I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president”

You know, if everyone just took McCain at his word, no one would vote for him.