MSNBC

Hillary Clinton’s Hypocritical Pimped Out Rage

Posted by on February 8, 2008 at 5:43 pm. 4 Comments :

[Updated with new Clinton response]
First things first. when David Shuster asked, “…doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” he couldn’t have been more wrong. It was inappropriate, demeaning, and unprofessional. In the wake of those remarks, he has apologized on air twice, expressed his regrets personally to the Clintons, and been suspended from broadcasting for an undetermined period of time.

That said, Hillary Clinton’s latest response to NBC News President Steve Capus is rife with hypocrisy and calculated outrage. From the Clinton letter to Mr. Capus:

“Nothing justifies the kind of debasing language that David Shuster used and no temporary suspension or half-hearted apology is sufficient.”

I’m not sure what criteria she used to assess the apology as “half-hearted,” but the ones I heard from NBC, Shuster, and Keith Olbermann all sounded pretty whole-hearted to me. Yet Clinton seems to be leaving open only one option – to fire Shuster. She may have an ulterior motive for this which I will address later. The letter continues…

“I would urge you to look at the pattern of behavior on your network that seems to repeatedly lead to this sort of degrading language […] Surely, you can do your jobs as journalists and commentators and still keep the discourse civil and appropriate.”

What I’d like to know is, how on Earth can Clinton ask that of MSNBC without holding Fox News to the same standard?”

That said, there needs to be some measure of perspective inserted into this affair. The term “pimp,” like many other rhetorical incivilities, has been been recast by contemporary social applications. Nobody thinks that MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” is pejorative in context. Pimping has assumed a colloquial definition of either enhancing or promoting the subject. That’s not to say that the traditional meaning is moot, and that is why Shuster is deserving of criticism.

However, Clinton’s response is wholly out of proportion. To threaten to cancel debates on MSNBC because of these comments raises an obvious question: Why did she happily agree to debates with Fox, despite the fact that they have said far worse for much longer about her and pretty much everyone in her party? If the Clinton campaign was truly concerned about not patronizing networks that disparage them, she would have canceled both network’s debates. Her selective outrage reeks of political chicanery, rather than maternal protectiveness.

For me this is not about the Shuster comment which is universally reviled. It is about the Clinton response that is inconsistent and not applied equally to her detractors at Fox whom she has embraced. And while Shuster deserves and has accepted the consequences of his verbal blunder, Fox stubbornly stands by every slur they’ve ever uttered.

While inartfully executed, Shuster’s point was not far off the mark. Politicians have been been likened to whores on more than a few occasions in the last thousand or so years. They engage in campaigns that are drenched with money from those seeking favors. They sell their votes and influence for cash, endorsements, appointments, and attention. And they are certainly not above exploiting their families.

Tucker Carlson RatingsFinally, no one should ignore the supreme irony of Shuster being suspended for offensive remarks he made while filling in for Tucker Carlson. Carlson is well known for making offensive remarks repeatedly, never apologizing, and yet he has never faced suspension. This is a particularly egregious oversight in light of the fact that his show has no business being on the air in the first place. It is a perennial ratings loser to his competition and is the worst performing program on the network. Yet his offenses have yielded nothing, but Shuster, a reporter with a long history of journalistic integrity and achievement is suspended.

This isn’t the first time Shuster was compelled to issue an apology. On the prior occasion, however, his bosses at MSNBC forced him to apologize for a mistake that, as it turned out, he didn’t make. It also isn’t the first time Shuster has butted heads with the Clintons. At KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas, and later at Fox News, he was assigned to the Whitewater investigation (h/t Chip Ramsey). Could this have something to do with the ferocity of Clinton’s attack on Shuster? It should be noted that when he left Fox for MSNBC he was unusually candid about his experience working for Murdoch and company:

“…there wasn’t a tradition or track record of honoring journalistic integrity. I found some reporters at Fox would cut corners or steal information from other sources or in some cases, just make things up. Management would either look the other way or just wouldn’t care to take a closer look.”

That rare moment of refreshing honesty will now be overshadowed by the drama that Clinton is stirring up, perhaps motivated by revenge. The right-wing media is already pouncing on this to hammer MSNBC as disreputable. But they should take note that at least this network has taken the responsible steps to repair any damage from the affront. When was the last time that Fox behaved responsibly? Yet Fox is being rewarded by Clinton for their irresponsibility. And speaking of double standards, Will Bunch at Attytood has posted what may be the definitive take on it:

…was it the worst thing ever said about Chelsea Clinton in the public arena? Not even close.

“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”
— Sen. John McCain, speaking to a Republican dinner, June 1998.

[…snip…]

Maybe MSNBC should ban John McCain from appearing on the network for a while. And given Hillary Clinton’s strong stance on the matter, I assume she won’t be debating McCain this fall, either?

So one stupid slip by an otherwise outstanding reporter draws threats of a boycott, but years of premeditated character assassination earns a personal appearance on a televised debate that will bring viewers, revenue, and prestige to the offending network. Fox has already started touting the victory of snagging Clinton for the debate, even though there may not be one as Sen. Obama has yet to accept. That didn’t stop Fox’s Chris Wallace from telling A Daily Show’s Jon Stewart that “The dam is broken now that John Edwards is no longer in the contest.” The dam has been broken at Fox for a long time, and here’s a sampling of what has been pouring through:

Note to Hillary: Cancel both debates or SHUT UP!

Sub-Prime(Time) Meltdown Hits Fox News Where It Hurts

Posted by on February 4, 2008 at 6:11 am. NO Comments :

Over the past year there has been a broad array of economic and political indicators that have been trending generally downward. In the U.S. jobs having been declining, as have exports. Construction has pulled back and property values have fallen. Wages are not keeping pace with inflation. At the same time, approval ratings for President Bush have cratered and Republican Party registration is down. GOP primary voters are showing up at the polls in significantly lower numbers than Democratic voters.

Not surprisingly, this social climate crisis is also being reflected in the market performance of the Fox News Channel. For 2007, Fox News squeezed out a meager ratings increase of 4%. While that was enough to beat the somnambulent CNN’s 2% gain, it was far short of the surging 32% rise enjoyed by MSNBC.

Fox 2007

The new year didn’t produce much to brighten Fox’s spirits. Despite the abundance of news, Fox still managed to lag far behind its competitors. Here is a sampling of some of the important events that took place in January:

  • Primary contests in six states
  • Nine nationally televised debates (two of which were on Fox News)
  • Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in the last days of 2007
  • Deadly violence increased in Iraq
  • Bush delivered his last ever State of the Union Address
  • The stock market suffered historic declines (the worst January for the Dow in 7 years, 17 for the S&P 500, and the worst ever for the Nasdaq)
  • Britany was committed.

This sort of activity usually triggers increased viewing for news networks. Indeed, that was the case for CNN which rose 42% for the month, and MSNBC which nabbed a 37% gain. However, Fox pulled up the rear with a paltry 9% uptick. At a time when viewers are tuning in to news with greater frequency, Fox is being left behind while its competitors are reaping rich rewards.

For those seeking an explanation for the disparity between Fox and the rest of the news purveyors, you need look no further than the content and style for which Fox has become famous. The influence of rightists in the government and the media is dissipating. As it does so, the noise level on Fox News is swelling to an earsplitting shriek. They are descending (and condescending) into a desperation fueled by their own crumbling credibility. They are finding it increasingly difficult to lure fair-minded commentators and public figures to appear on their tainted air. The refusal of Democrats to participate in Fox-sponsored debates is having a real impact on both the network’s performance and their perception as the Republican house organ. That effort must continue and broaden to include ANY appearance by Democrats or progressives (Starve The Beast) The result of this cold shoulder is an over-reliance by Fox on plainly biased personalities like their newest contributors, Tony Snow, Rick Santorum, and Karl Rove. I expect we will also be seeing a lot more of Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, and Bill Kristol, as the Foxians resort to just interviewing one another.

The current stable of Fox News hosts are becoming noticeably more shrill. Chris Wallace recently branded Democrats as “damned fools” for their refusal to be abused by Fox demagogues. Bill O’Reilly went positively crackers as he shoved an aide to Senator Obama because the aide was blocking his view. John Gibson didn’t see anything wrong with making offensive and homophobic jokes about Heath Ledger on the same day the actor died.

Fox News is in a sort of journalistic death spiral of its own. The more people tune them out, the higher they turn up the volume on their idiocy amplifier (and they’re already way past eleven). Then even more people tune out. This process will continue until no one is left but the brain-damaged spawn of a Coulter/Limbaugh clone experiment gone horribly awry.

Fox has already destroyed any pretense of credibility that they might have hoped to use to delude the weak members of the herd, and now they are simply becoming a parody of themselves. They still have a surplus of habitual viewers that may take a while to wind down. But the time is coming when their ratings will be struggling to keep up with the Bass Fishing Channel. And their programming will be just as exciting and newsworthy.

Bush League Justice Under Investigation At MSNBC

Posted by on December 10, 2007 at 6:02 pm. NO Comments :

Dan Abrams will be hosting a series of programs this week focusing on the abuses of the Bush Administration, particularly with regard to the Department of Justice. This is an important subject that gets far too little play in the press, but impacts everything from civil rights to political corruption to First Amendment freedoms of speech and religion, and so much more. The article announcing the program, penned by Abrams, covers all of these issues with the indignation of someone who loves the law and the fair administration of justice. Here are some selected excerpts:

“‘Bush League Justice’ is a series (airing Monday-Thursday at 9 pm on MSNBC) that stems from my increasing frustration and outrage over how the Bush Administration has politicized the usually apolitical Justice Department.”

“…this President has flipped the goals and mission of the [Civil Rights] Division and allowed it to become a tool of the radical right […] almost half of the new hires in that department who had ‘civil rights experience’ had ‘experience’ only in defending employers or -fighting- affirmative action.”

“The President has effectively declared the right to disobey more than 750 laws. From the interrogation of prisoners to torture to investigations by U.S. officials in Iraq, President Bush has added a caveat that says, ‘I will only enforce this if.’ So he is effectively telling Congress thanks for your advice on this law, but I reserve the right to ignore this law.”

“Maybe the most obvious betrayal of the public trust has been politically motivated prosecutions. A University of Minnesota study conducted this year shows that for every elected Republican investigated during this President’s tenure, there were seven elected Democrats investigated.”

“This series is long overdue. The scandal with the firings of the U.S. Attorneys under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales exposed the underbelly of this administration’s penchant for putting politics over objectivity and qualifications.”

The tone set by Abrams is both surprising and promising. He does not have the reputation of a firebrand activist, but he is clearly expressing something heartfelt in these comments. He was trained as a lawyer and his father, Floyd Abrams, is one of the most respected First Amendment attorneys of the 20th century. So perhaps Dan’s genetics are kicking in.

These issues are desperately in need of a champion, someone who can do for justice what Lou Dobbs does for immigration. And the protection and preservation of our Constitutional liberties is far more important than the racist scapegoating that demagogues like Dobbs engage in.

We’ll see, as the series unfolds, if Abrams’ passion for the law results in a broadcast that forthrightly exposes Bush’s contempt for fairness and equality in the administration of justice. There is a cornucopia of criminal misconduct to explore produced by both intent and incompetence. The scandals of the Alberto Gonzales era at DoJ have fallen from the media radar, but they are just as toxic to our nation’s future as ever. The political firings of department attorneys, the distortion of the mission of civil and voting rights prosecutions, the hiring of more than 150 lawyers from Pat Robertsons Regent University, the justification for torture, the disrespect for Congress and the doctrine of equal powers, the debasement of the Supreme Court – all of these matters need to be remembered and acted upon if our democracy is to endure.

An honest presentation of the record is indeed long overdue. An honest presentation should put to rest the question of whether impeachment ought to be on the table. I hope that these programs will finally provide what has been sorely lacking from a somnolent media for the past seven years: an honest presentation.

Rachel Maddow Poised To Replace Tucker?

Posted by on December 10, 2007 at 12:27 am. 7 Comments :

TVNewser is passing on reports (that are not much more than rumors at this time) that MSNBC has taped a pilot for a new program featuring Rachel Maddow and Bill Wolff.

Maddow currently has a talk radio program on Air America and she guests frequently with Keith Olbermann on Countdown. She is an attractive, articulate, razor-sharp political observer and analyst. Her courageous progressivism, honesty and insight would propel her instantly to the top of the pundit pack on cable news.

Wolff is presently VP of Prime-Time Programming for MSNBC. He also appears on Tucker as a fill-in for Willie Geist where he mostly cracks jokes about entertainers and pop culture. He is married to another MSNBC personality, Alison Stewart.

As a programming exec, Wolff has good reason to be testing new talent. His schedule is currently being dragged down by Tucker Carlson, on whose show Wolff was once the executive producer. While it is long past time to cut their losses on Tucker, there is no evidence that this pilot, if it exists, is intended as a replacement for him. If it is, Maddow would be an inspired choice who would bring intelligence and charm to the line-up – in other words, exactly the opposite of what Tucker brings.

Wolff himself seems to have a pretty good sense of humor, but I’m not really sure what he would add to a show with the substance for which Maddow is well known. Also, I can’t say that I particularly like this trend at MSNBC where their management casts themselves in roles on the network. Previously General Manager Dan Abrams gave himself a show following Olbermann’s Countdown. But if this is what it takes to get Maddow on the air, and Tucker off, I’m all for it.

Hillary Hostage Affair Addendum

Posted by on December 1, 2007 at 1:18 am. 1 Comments :

With the conclusion of the harrowing incident in New Hampshire, where hostages where taken at a Hillary Clinton campaign office, this may be a good time for a round up of how the media performed.

Guess what?

Fox News managed to commit some amateurish, and possibly dangerous, mistakes. First off, they identified the suspect as Troy Stanley whom they described as a paranoid schizophrenic. It’s bad enough to broadcast such inflammatory characterizations while the crisis is still in progress and an unstable perpetrator may be watching on a TV inside the crime scene, but it’s even worse if you finger the wrong guy. The actual perp is a New Hampshire resident known to local police as Leeland Eisenberg.

John Ehrenfeld at Brave New Films notes that Fox reported an end to the event at 4:15PM EST, announcing that all of the hostages had been released. There would be nothing wrong with that except that another hostage was released over an hour later at 5:37, and then another at 6:13. Once again, Fox’s mistakes had the potential to put lives at risk.

Finally, when the incident actually did conclude, Hillary Clinton gave a statement and held a brief press conference that was carried live on CNN and MSNBC. Fox News chose not to air Clinton’s remarks live, instead continuing with their “All Star Panel” discussion on topics unrelated to the breaking news.

However, Wanker of the Day Award goes to MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson. In a discussion with FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt, Tucker responded to an assertion that Eisenberg was driven to the hostage taking because he felt there was no other way to make himself heard, by saying:

“He should do what a lot of other mentally ill people do in this country and start a blog.”

Very funny, Tuck. In one fell swoop you’ve trivialized the horror that the hostages just endured, discounted the gravity of mental illness, and disparaged everyone who exercises their right to free expression on the Internet. The Doofus Trifecta.

Save Tucker ?

Posted by on November 26, 2007 at 10:06 pm. NO Comments :

Time for bit of comic relief…

A couple of guys in Florida have launched a campaign to Save Tucker Carlson. How pathetic does your life have to be to descend to rescuing one of the lamest programs on TV? The web site alleges that Tucker’s rumored cancellation is…

“…part of a move by MSNBC to swing left and become “FOX for the Liberals,” dropping any pretense of objectivity or balance.”

Well, maybe it’s actually part of a move by MSNBC to … um … have an audience bigger than the Milli Vanilli Fan Club.

Tucker Carlson Gets A Vote Of No Confidence

Posted by on November 23, 2007 at 1:34 pm. 1 Comments :

MSNBC has been accused by many rightist pundits of adopting a liberal editorial policy. The sole basis of this charge appears to be the existence of Keith Olbermann’s Countdown. In an interview with NPR, MSNBC Sr VP Phil Griffin denies the charge saying that it is the host’s personalities, not their positions that make them popular. So Tucker’s already starting at a disadvantage. Griffin acknowledges that the network is trading on the audience identifying with the program’s anchors.

“Keith Olbermann is our brand; Chris Matthews is our brand. These are smart, well-informed people who have a real sense of history and can put things in context.”

That is an unequivocal expression of the faith Griffin has in Olbermann and Matthews. But when he is specifically asked whether Tucker Carlson is also their brand, he pauses and says…

“He is right now.”

Not exactly a vote of confidence. Griffin seems to be hinting that his answer might be different if you ask him again in a week or two. Looks like the only thing Tucker has to be thankful for is his well-connected family and a contract for an upcoming TV game show pilot. I still can’t get over this project – a remake of “Who Do You Trust?”

The remainder of the segment featured a couple of choice comments from Olbermann:

On his righteous cynicism: “We gave these people every benefit of the doubt. Our naturally contentious political arrangement in this country was silenced for well over a year after 9/11. We got hosed. We were manipulated. That trust that we put in these people, they did not deserve.”

On O’Reilly’s dementia: “As usual, Bill-O’s King Lear act, in which he threatens somebody with terrible consequences and boycotts and plagues of locusts, has produced nothing tangible other than making the object of his impotent rage richer.”

Speaking of Bill-O, his frantic efforts to disparage NBC and his nemesis Keith Olbermann (whom he refers to as “the smear guy”) are butting up against reality. O’Reilly has been falsely bashing NBC as a network in total decline, but the truth is that NBC News beat ABC and CBS in total viewers for the 2006/2007 season. And on the heels of Brian Williams’ appearance on Saturday Night Live, NBC has won the 25-54 demo for the month of November so far. O’Reilly’s analysis, as usual, is worthless, unless you’re really into childish fiction.

Falling For The Myth Of The Liberal Media

Posted by on November 19, 2007 at 6:14 pm. 3 Comments :

Tim Rutten is the media columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He is rare bright light in a dark media sky. I have written approvingly of his insight on several occasions.

That’s why I’m somewhat surprised at an article he published this weekend. Much of it accurately portrayed some of the media’s obtuse gyrations to mold itself into whatever they think the audience wants, but on one point he was so far off the mark that the mark became a microscopic speck in a distant universe. Here is Rutten attempting to describe the current cable news landscape:

“…we now have a situation in which the three all-news cable networks each have aligned themselves with a point on the political compass: Fox went first and consciously became the Republican network; MSNBC, which would have sold its soul to the devil for six ratings points, instead found a less-demanding buyer in the Democrats. Now, CNN has decided to reinvent itself as the independent, populist network cursing both sides of the conventional political aisle — along with immigrants and free trade, of course.”

Indeed, Fox was first, but it didn’t become the Republican network. It was conceived and hatched as such. There was never any intention for the network to be anything other than a voice for rightist rhetoric and a counter balance to what their delusions told them was a “liberal media.” Their air is dominated by Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, John Gibson, Bill Krystal, Geraldo Rivera, Charles Krauthammer, Ann Coulter, etc. Even their managing editor for news, Brit Hume, is overtly dismissive of Democrats and liberal points of view.

But Rutten stumbled when he wrote that MSNBC has assumed a Democratic posture. The only support he gives for that view is the presence of Keith Olbermann. It doesn’t take much observation, however, to erase the image that Rutten is painting. Countdown is a one hour daily program. Conversely, Joe Scarborough, the former Republican congressman, hosts three hours every morning. Tucker Carlson, the conservative son of the director of the Scooter Libby Defense Fund has his own hour. Chris Matthews, although he was an aide to Tip O’Niell, has become a reliable basher of progressive policy. And the guests on all of these programs run the gamut from neo-caveman Pat Buchanan to Pat Buchanan (seriously, is he the only number in their Rolodex?). And there is nothing notably liberal in their handling of straight news.

Rutten similarly tags CNN as reaching for a “populist” stance based solely on the blathering of Lou Dobbs. Beyond that the only identity CNN achieves is as a boot-licker for any symbol of political power. And if you extend the CNN profile to include it’s little sister, Headline News, you’ll find law and order priestess Nancy Grace, and the stupidest man on television, Glenn Beck.

Rutten cites a PEW study on the partisan make-up of viewers for the three cable news nets as proof that they are being divided by ideology:

“Republicans outnumber Democrats by two-to-one (43% to 21%) among the core Fox News Channel audience, while there are far more Democrats than Republicans among CNN’s viewers (43% Democrat, 22% Republican) and network news viewers (41% Democrat, 24% Republican).”

But all this really proves is that Fox News is wildly out of touch with mainstream America by attracting such an imbalance of Republicans. The viewership of CNN and the other networks actually are closer to representing the nation’s political mood as revealed in another survey by PEW:

“Today, half of the public (50%) either identifies as a Democrat or says they lean to the Democratic Party, compared with 35% who align with the GOP.”

Therefore, the fact that more Democrats than Republicans watch CNN and MSNBC is simply because there are more Democrats than Republicans. The fact that the numbers are reversed for Fox News is because Fox blatantly solicits Republican viewers via the conservative agenda planted in their reporting.

Rutten does make some good points including that CNN has become a “traveling wreck of a journalistic carnival” (Good one, Tim). But he closes his column by tying together Olbermann, O’Reilly and Dobbs as “the three points of what amounts to an ethical Bermuda Triangle.” The problem with that analysis is that there are many O’Reillys and Dobbs’ across the TV dial, but there is only one Olbermann. Nowhere on any of the news channels is there a such a reliably left-of-center voice – even on MSNBC which Rutten characterizes as the liberal point in the triangle.

The big question then is…Why not? Since we know that Democrats outnumber Republicans; we know that a majority of Americans rate Democrats higher on every major issue including Iraq, health care, the environment, the economy; we know that the Republican president’s approval rating has sunk to historic lows; knowing all of this, why is there only one program that serves the majority of the viewing audience? Some media critics claim that the partisan slant of the media is due solely to the marketplace and that if the public wanted more liberal views, the media would supply them.

Oh yeah? By any objective standard, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Tucker Carlson Flips/Signs Off MSNBC

Posted by on November 8, 2007 at 4:11 am. 2 Comments :

Last Friday Tucker closed his show by saying:

“That does it for us. Thank you for watching as always, we mean that sincerely to all eight of you.”

That sounds ominously like a farewell. This will come as no surprise to News Corpse readers who are well aware of the train wreck that Tucker’s show is on MSNBC’s schedule. I published my analysis of his subterranean ratings last August, and followed up with a prediction of his demise in September.

Now Jacques Steinberg at the New York Times is citing a source at MSNBC as saying that Liar Tuck “…is in real danger of being canceled.” Thanks for the news flash, Jack. What gave it away? (The remainder of the article is a pile of nonsense that posits a leftist tilt at the network, supplying as evidence the liberal contributions of Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough and Dan Abrams. They’re about as liberal as Limburger is fragrant).

FTVLive has an explanation for why Tucker has lasted this long. He allegedly agreed to cut his salary in half in order to save his worthless program and persist in dragging the rest of the schedule down with him. Why MSNBC would think that that is a good deal is beyond me. FTVLive also elicited a response from Tucker himself, saying that reports of his show being quietly canceled are, “complete and utter bullshit.” This is reminiscent of his response a year ago to the same speculation when he said that…

“It’s bullshit. It’s total bullshit. I talked to Abrams last night. I’ve got another year on my contract. That’s my comment: Bullshit.”

Well that was a year ago and now the chickenhawks may be coming home to roost.

MSNBC: The Luckiest Network On Television

Posted by on September 28, 2007 at 2:41 pm. 4 Comments :

MSNBC may be the luckiest network on television. Republicans are threatening to boycott the cable net. That’s kind of like having lepers threaten to not French kiss you.

It all began when David Shuster asked Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) if she could name the last soldier from her district who was killed in Iraq. She could not, so he told her who it was. It was later reported that the soldier Shuster named was not from Blackburn’s district and Shuster apologized for the error on air. Now it turns out that Shuster was right in the first place. But being right was never a major article of concern for the right and they are still hammering Shuster. Even Brit Hume at Fox News participated in the pile on.

Now, according to Politico, Republicans are escalating the battle to new heights:

“We don’t mind skipping MSNBC. No one watches that channel anyway,” says a high-placed Republican consultant.

Word is, a growing number of GOP lawmakers have become mysteriously “unavailable” when asked to appear on MSNBC.

This would be a sublime development. I have long been advocating that Democrats and progressives swear off of Fox News (see Starve The Beast). Rupert Murdoch and his media megaphone is openly hostile to our agenda and our representatives. They will only use these appearances to distort our message and derail our mission. Studies have proven that their audience is unreceptive, and even antagonistic, to us and by appearing we will be rewarded more with ridicule than respect.

It has been difficult to advance this strategy because the siren’s call of the TV camera still lures people to Fox. Now, ironically, it is Republicans who are openly promoting the concept in reverse. If their effort has the residual effect of causing a reciprocal boycott of Fox, it will be well worth it. They won’t miss MSNBC and we won’t miss the further propagation of their propaganda.

Reminder: It has already been reported that Republicans have been more reluctant to appear on many programs regardless of network. Plus, they have refused to participate in televised debates sponsored by Gays, African-Americans, Unions, and even YouTube (on which they eventually agreed to appear).

Update on Shuster: It appears he was strong-armed into the premature apology by his boss.