CNN

Dana Loesch: CNN’s Pro-Corpse Defiling Contributor

Posted by on January 14, 2012 at 11:26 am. 6 Comments :

This week a disturbing story emerged from Afghanistan in the form of a video of U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Afghans presumed to be members of the Taliban. Such behavior is repulsive and contrary to the standards of the Marine Corps. The acts portrayed in the video have been condemned by the highest representatives of the military.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta: I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey: Actions like those are not only illegal but are contrary to the values of a professional military and serve to erode the reputation of our joint force.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos: [The behavior is] wholly inconsistent with the high standards of conduct and warrior ethos that we have demonstrated throughout our history.

Nevertheless, CNN contributor Dana Loesch (who is also a Tea Party leader and the editor-in-chief of Andrew Breitbart’s BigJournalism) took to the air to exacerbate the offense and defend the soldiers saying…

“Now we have a bunch of progressives that are talking smack about our military because there were marines caught urinating on corpses, Taliban corpses. Can someone explain to me if there’s supposed to be a scandal that someone pees on the corpse of a Taliban fighter? Someone who, as part of an organization, murdered over 3,000 Americans? I’d drop trou and do it too. That’s me though. I want a million cool points for these guys.”

The subsequent controversy erupting from Loesch’s offensive remarks has generated a secondary controversy centered on the appropriate role of news analysts and the lines drawn for decency and civil discourse. Loesch, in a tacit acknowledgement that her comments crossed the line, sought to defend herself by claiming that she was not condoning the Marines, but ridiculing the media response. But the dishonesty of that excuse is apparent just by re-reading her statement. She explicitly says that she would do the same thing the Marines did and praises them for being “cool.” If that isn’t condoning the behavior, what is?

Loesch’s web site, BigJournalism has gone to work to absolve her sins, not by demonstrating that her comments were appropriate, but by attacking anyone who criticized her. They started with Politico, a news operation started by unabashed conservative journalists, and tagged them as leftists because of their article that merely reported that the controversy exists. John Nolte, editor-in-chief of Breitbart’s BigHollywood, desperately stretched to imply a bias by Politico because the article included this:

“I’ve reached out to CNN to ask for their response to Loesch’s comments, and whether or not it will have any impact on her role at CNN.” Nolte’s emphasis.

Most people would regard that as a standard inquiry in a situation where a news analyst’s big mouth got them in hot water. From there Nolte descended into an hysterical rant that accused Politico of “pushing to have Dana taken off the air or punished.” And he escalated that nonsense to claim that Politico had an even bigger agenda to “marginalize” and “silence” Loesch. The conspiracy in Nolte’s mind extended all the way to George Soros, as all conservative conspiracies do. And the entirety of this clandestine plot was drawn from Politico’s perfectly reasonable and responsible desire to get a response from CNN.

Another Breitbart hack, Dan Riehl, weighed in on the subject to accuse Media Matters of being…

“…fixated on a mission to try and silence the free speech of Big Journalism editor Dana Loesch, while also engaging upon a campaign to somehow damage her with CNN.”

Riehl’s evidence is an article by Media Matters that correctly observes that Loesch’s comments were Too Extreme For Rush Limbaugh. Riehl disputes that assessment mainly by changing the subject. He utterly ignores the fact that Limbaugh, with reference to the Marines, said explicitly that “There’s no defense of this.” But Riehl peels away from that fact to post a rambling quote from Tea Party Republican Allen West that also advocates punishing the Marines and says outright that “The Marines were wrong.” It appears that the fixation is on Riehl’s part to avoid the reality that the behavior of these particular soldiers was indefensible to almost everyone but Loesch.

As for Loesch, her own defense that she published on BigJournalism was an incoherent jumble of phony patriotism and self-aggrandizement. Her primary argument was that…

“There is a difference in advocating for the Marines to break the law, which I didn’t do, and defending them from overly-dramatic hysteria.”

Of course, defending them is precisely what she did. Even to the point of declaring that she would have “dropped trou” and joined them (which I’m sure they would have loved). Nevertheless, she contradicts herself a few paragraphs down by stating that “I won’t condemn American soldiers on the battlefield.” Not even, apparently, when they engage in condemnable acts that their commanders have no problem condemning.

The triumvirate of Loesch, Riehl, and Nolte, all touched on what they regard as an underlying evil aimed at Loesch and conservatives in general. They are convinced that any criticism they incur is an attempt to silence them. Ironically, they call for such criticism to be silenced. Conservatives believe that free speech is sacrosanct exempt when exercised by liberals. Consequently, any critique of Loesch is viewed by rightists as akin to censorship.

It is, however, perfectly appropriate to question news analysts who engage in a dialogue that advocates unlawful acts in the conduct of a war. CNN should take the responsible steps to review incidents wherein contributors bring disrepute to their network. But I don’t anticipate that they will. The current head of CNN, Ken Jautz, is the hack who gave Glenn Beck his first job on television. He also recently hired Beck associate Will Cain. These two uber-rightists share the air with CNN contributor Erick Erickson, who called former Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat-fucking child molester.” And it was under Jautz that CNN partnered with the corrupt AstroTurf PR firm, Tea Party Express, to host a GOP debate.

The hard-right turn that CNN has taken has landed them squarely in third place. And that decline is due in large part to people like Loesch. The American people are not looking for this kind of substanceless, bombastic, hate-speech from their news sources. They can get that from Fox News. And if anyone’s job should be in jeoprady, it is the person at the helm, Ken Jautz.

Liberal Media My Ass!

Posted by on October 23, 2011 at 1:39 pm. 3 Comments :

Nothing will make me happier than when the utterly delusional notion that the media in this country is liberal has been refuted, defeated, exterminated, and cremated.

While most observers are already aware of the fact-hating editorial policy of Fox News, at least they did fire Glenn Beck earlier this year (although only because his increasingly hysterical ravings were making them look bad). What people may not have noticed is that CNN is taking up Fox’s slack.

This morning on CNN viewers could have awakened to see two of Beck’s surrogates bloviating on the events of the day. Amy Holmes, an anchor on Beck’s GBTV was a guest commentator on Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz. A couple of hours later, Will Cain, a repoter for Beck’s The Blaze appeared on CNN’s Your Money.

For CNN to feature two representatives of Glenn Beck’s insignificant and failing Internet venture is unbelievable. Is that the best they could come up with? Was CNN unable to find any reputable commentators from distinguished networks, newspapers, or universities? Or maybe their attempts to book members of the John Birch Society fell through.

Elsewhere, NPR made news by firing the host of an opera program because she had taken part in an OccupyDC protest. According to NPR, Lisa Simeone was sacked because her activity “has the potential to compromise our reputation as an organization that strives to be impartial and unbiased.”

Mara LiassonNever mind that Simeone hosts a music program and does not cover politics or any other subject that could pose any kind of a conflict. Unlike NPR’s Mara Liasson who is a political reporter as well as a commentator on Fox News. Somehow NPR justifies Liasson’s fraternizing with Fox on matters that are explicitly political, but Simeone can’t introduce classical music after having exercised her Constitutional right to free speech on her own personal time.

Conservatives assail CNN as the Communist News Network due to their perception of it as unabashedly liberal. NPR is a perennial target of right-wingers in Congress who seek to defund what they considered to be a hopelessly biased mouthpiece for the left. At what point are these fallacies laid to rest? Do we really need any more proof than when CNN hosts two Glenn Beck flunkies on the same day, or NPR fires an opera program host because she is a liberal outside of work?

The Occupy Wall Street movement has done a great job of defining the 99% of Americans who are being rolled over by the !% of wealthy, corporate interests who are dominating our political culture. Something the Occupiers need to remember and focus on is that the media in this country is also wealthy and corporate, and they are Platinum members of the 1%. Wall Street firms and bankers spend billions on advertising and the media rewards them with positive coverage and the sort of ludicrous editorial decisions noted above. This needs to be addressed and corrected if we are to see any substantive improvement in the massive social and economic disparities that are threatening our nation’s welfare.

CNN Tea Party Flack Dana Loesch Has Some Explaining To Do

Posted by on October 19, 2011 at 3:43 pm. 5 Comments :

Dana Loesch, CNN’s senior Tea Party correspondent and editor of Andrew Breitbart’s BigJournalism, is engaged in a dust-up with Eric Boehlert of Media Matters over her delusional campaign to disparage the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement as anti-Semitic. Her claim is wholly unfounded, although typical of her deceitful brand of yellow journalism.

The squabble began when Loesch appeared on CNN attempting to smear OWS due to a report that the American Nazi Party had endorsed the movement. That is the sort of dishonest associative logic that propagandists like Loesch love to employ to bash their opponents. Commentators who are not pathological liars know that fringe groups frequently try to align themselves with popular movements to draw attention to themselves. Perhaps she should be made to explain why the Tea Party is not racist in light of the fact that they were endorsed by white supremacist and KKK leader David Duke.

Boehlert responded to Loesch’s ravings with a series of Tweets that made the point that these endorsements exist on both sides and that they aren’t necessarily indicative of anything. Loesch fired back that Boehlert had not proven his argument – even though he had. Then she set forth a list of demands that she expected Boehlert to comply with. I don’t know if Boehlert has any intention of wasting his valuable time answering Loesch. After all, he is running a busy media monitoring and analysis organization. On the other hand, I’m an unemployed, Cheetos-munching, blogger in my mother’s basement with nothing but free time due to all the government handouts I scam. So I thought I’d take a stab at Loesch’s list where she asks: “I need Eric Boehlert to do the following:”

Back up his analogy that Fox (and other network coverage) of the tea party is the same as NBC’s Ratigan writing messaging while pretending to report on OWS by showing examples of Fox writing tea party messaging.

First of all, Ratigan never wrote messaging for OWS. He merely made comments on an email list that expressed his opinions. He was not serving as an adviser and the list was not even an official OWS group. The emails were stolen by a hacker and published by Breitbart.

What Fox did, however, was much worse than what Ratigan was accused of. They openly promoted Tea Party events, even branding them as “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.” They sent their producers out to ride Tea Party buses, attend rallies, and try to whip up the crowd when they did not seem sufficiently excited. Sal Russo, founder of the Tea Party Express, gushed that “There would not have been a tea party without Fox.” That’s a good deal more damning than an assertion of message writing.

Explain why Obama was present at a rally with hate leader Malik Shabazz.

Obama was not present at a rally with Shabazz. He was present at the 42nd anniversary of a famous 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Alabama. As the event was open to the public and thousands of people attended, there is no way that then-Senator Obama could have known who else had shown up.

Explain why Obama’s DOJ refused to prosecute the NBPP for voter intimidation.

It was the Bush administration’s Justice Department that made the decision not to pursue criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther Party for alleged voter intimidation. And it was Obama’s DOJ that successfully obtained a default judgment against Samir Shabazz for carrying a nightstick outside the Philadelphia polling center on Election Day 2008.

A subsequent investigation concluded that the department acted appropriately and that there was “no evidence of improper political interference or influence from within or outside the Department in connection with the decision in the case.”

Explain why the ADL had to issue a condemnation to Occupy Wall Street for antisemitism.

The ADL did not issue a condemnation to Occupy Wall Street for antisemitism. That is an outright lie. They issued a statement that condemned remarks by individuals attending OWS events, but also stated that “antisemitism has not gained traction more broadly with the protestors, nor is it representative of the larger movement at this time.”

Perhaps Loesch can explain why the ADL had to issue a condemnation to Fox News and Glenn Beck over comments about Jews that “demonstrate his bigoted ignorance.” And again with regard to Beck’s vilification of George Soros saying that Beck was “completely inappropriate, offensive and over the top.” Not to mention the apology they graciously accepted from Roger Ailes after he called NPR executives Nazis.

Explain the antisemitism at occupy protests and give video equivalence of equal or greater antisemitism at tea parties since no one has seen such.

There is no justification for antisemitism anywhere, but as noted in the answer above, the anti-Semitic remarks of a few repugnant individuals is not representative of OWS. But maybe Loesch would like to answer for these remarks:

David Duke: The Tea Party movement is a great sign that the people are finally waking up.
Tea Party, Republican Activists Circulate Anti-Semitic E-Mails Against Presumptive Texas Speaker.
Weisel blasts the tea party ‘antisemitism’: ‘Indecent and disgusting.’
White Supremacists and Anti-Semites Plan to Recruit at July 4 Tea Parties.
California GOP Decries Anti-Semitic Tea Party Activism.
GOP must condemn “Tea Party” signs.

For Loesch to assert that no one has seen any antisemitism, racism, or other bigotry at Tea Party events illustrates the selective recall of a bigot.

Explain why there have been over 1,o00 (sic) OWS arrests and zero tea party arrests if the tea party are “violent racists.”

There are two reasons there have been so many OWS arrests. One is that the participants believe passionately in their cause and the honorable practice of civil disobedience as demonstrated by leaders like King and Gandhi. The other is that the police are often utilized by the corporate classes to protect what they regard as their assets rather than protecting the rights of the people.

It also needs to be noted that Loesch makes an absurd correlation between the arrests of peaceful OWS protesters and the violent tendencies of some in the Tea Party. OWS protesters never carried signs saying “We came unarmed – this time.” And then there’s this:

Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street

Explain why communists are endorsing OWS.

Already answered above. However, I’ll humor you: To exploit a popular movement to draw attention to themselves.

Explain why felons need to carry guns at OWS.

Just because someone may have found a single person doing that does not mean that there are wild gangs of felons running around Zucotti Park with guns. It’s a rather idiotic insinuation that you should be embarrassed for having brought up. And again, it has nothing to do with any official representation of OWS. However, It is good to hear that you are in agreement with the majority of progressives who support stricter gun control laws that would prevent such behavior.

Explain what a man who has exposed himself repeatedly to children was doing at the occupy protests.

Same answer as above. Do you really think that in any group of thousands that there aren’t some despicable low lifes with questionable character? Hell, you can’t even say that about a few hundred people in Congress. Have you not heard about the GOP senators who solicit sex in airport restrooms (Larry Craig) or patronize prostitutes (David Vitter). Perhaps you could explain Charles Leaf, the Fox News reporter who was arrested on charges of aggravated sexual assault on a four year old girl.

Loesch’s tirade failed utterly to prove any point. The only thing she succeeded in doing was to open the door to the dark side of Tea Party and force her to answer for it. That’s what she is asking Boehlert to do. So either she steps up to take responsibility for all the nutjobs in the Tea Party, or she admits that she is an unscrupulous hypocrite. Technically, the latter is a given so don’t hold your breath waiting for her to respond.

The Next CNN Debate: Affirming Their Mutation Into A Fox News Clone

Posted by on October 18, 2011 at 10:07 am. 7 Comments :

The evidence that CNN is aggressively seeking to out-Fox Fox News is rapidly accumulating. Just last week I enumerated many examples of CNN adopting Fox’s notoriously biased, wingnut perspective. (See The Foxification Of CNN). Included in that list was their decision to partner with a corrupt Tea Party group to host a Republican presidential primary debate. That was just a foreshadowing of what was yet to come.

Today CNN has announced a new GOP debate on November 15, that will focus on foreign policy and national defense. Their partners for this affair are the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, two of the most far-right, extremist conservative thinks tanks in Washington.

The Heritage Foundation is backed by uber-rigtists like energy magnate Charles Koch and media maven Richard Mellon Scaife. A couple of their recent policy papers include Robert Rector’s terminally flawed study that claims there is no poverty in America because the poor own appliances, and Hans von Spakovsky’s advocacy of voter suppression.

The American Enterprise Institute is a champion of big-business that boasts affiliations with Dick Cheney (and his daughter Lynne), Newt Gingrich, and John Bolton. They also receive funding from the Scaife family as well as corporations like Philip Morris and ExxonMobil. Amongst their notable endeavors was a campaign to discredit Global Warming studies by offering scientists and economists $10,000 each to refute them, and issuing policy papers that assert that middle class homeowners were to blame for the 2008 economic collapse, not Wall Street and bankers.

For CNN to align themselves with these overtly partisan players reveals their utter lack of journalistic independence or integrity. This was a deliberate choice to skew their coverage of political affairs to the far-right. They cannot possibly engage or challenge the debate participants by limiting their ideological exposure to only representatives of conservative doctrine. Imagine how much more enlightening the debate would be if the hosts included the Center for American Progress or the Institute for Policy Studies.

But just as CNN chose the Tea Party over the Progressive Caucus or MoveOn, they have chosen, once again, to lean hard to the right at the expense of illuminating their viewers and providing a public service, which ought to be the core mandate of a responsible media enterprise.

This is the sort of news that should put a nail in the heart of the myth that the media is liberal. Yesterday the Pew Research Center published a study that proved, contrary to right-wing protestations, that the media has not been “in the tank” for Barack Obama. The study showed that, in fact, news coverage of Obama was far less positive than for any of his potential Republican opponents.

Pew Study

Also yesterday, an executive with the Fox Business Network sent a memo to his staff advising them not to copy Fox News because “If we give the audience a choice between FNC and the almost-FNC, they will choose FNC every time.” If Fox itself recognizes the foolishness of such ideological plagiarism, what the hell is wrong with CNN?

The Foxification Of CNN: New Management Pushes The Network Into Crazy Territory

Posted by on October 14, 2011 at 8:48 am. 10 Comments :

This article also appears on Alternet.org.

In the fiercely competitive world of cable news, the players have been jockeying for position as they battle for viewers and advertisers. Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, each with their own models of programming, seek to gain scale and influence.

Harmful If SwallowedFox News, we know, has established its place as the leader in right-wing advocacy and Republican PR. MSNBC, while not a full-fledged counter to Fox, has allotted a fair portion of its programming to more liberally leaning fare. But CNN, the innovator and one-time leader in cable news, has wavered between those poles emerging as somewhat of a journalistic mutant – neither left nor right nor neutral.

The past year, however, CNN has been attempting to fashion a more recognizable persona. The shift coincides with the promotion of Ken Jautz, formerly the president of CNN’s sister network, HLN. At HLN Jautz succeeded in raising both ratings and revenue by turning the channel into a trashy TV tabloid reliant on celebrity gossip and characters like Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck (yes, Jautz gave Beck his first job on television).

Now presiding over CNN, Jautz has brought his brash and distinctively commercial style to the network that once aspired to be a model of journalistic integrity. He is employing the same sensationalist philosophy at CNN that brought him success at HLN, along with a decidedly conservative bent. In an interview he gave after his promotion was announced Jautz delivered a tribute to Fox News and a preview of what to expect from his tenure saying that he does not believe that “facts-only” programming will work. True to his word he has endeavored to give CNN a shiny Fox-like hue and assembled a team that shares his aversion to facts.

Here are some examples of the lowlights of the Jautz era at CNN:

1) First and foremost, Jautz brought Glenn Beck into the CNN family saying that “Glenn’s style is self-deprecating, cordial…not confrontational.” That sort of delusional analysis ought to have been a red flag that disqualified Jautz from running a news network.

2) Erick Erickson, the RedState blogger who once called Supreme Court Justice David Souter a Goat-f**king child molester, became a CNN political commentator. Since his hiring he has cheered the S&P’s downgrading of the U.S. credit rating and agreed with Rick Perry that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.

3) CNN signed Dana Loesch, the editor of Andrew Breitbart’s BigJournalism, to be a contributor. Loesch has alleged that President Obama “sided with terrorists,” and she embraced the overt bigotry of notorious Islamaphobe Pamela Geller. Breitbart, of course is famous for promoting deceptively edited videos that smeared ACORN, NPR, Shirley Sherrod and even CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau. Loesch was hired by CNN after these events were widely known.

4) Jautz brought Erin Burnett over from CNBC. In her debut she broadcast a story that portrayed the protesters on Wall Street as unfocused neo-hippies that didn’t understand the issues they were protesting. Burnett would have fit in well on the curvy couch of Fox & Friends where they routinely disparage the movement without ever addressing the substance of it.

5) CNN had the distinction of being the only network to air Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party response to the State of the Union Address. Even Fox didn’t think it was worthy of live coverage. The result is that CNN had two opposing viewpoints to the President’s address, one from the GOP and one from the Tea Party which, of course, is just an affiliate of the GOP. We’re still waiting for CNN to air a response from the Progressive Caucus or MoveOn.org.

6) Another new CNN political analyst is Will Cain, who CNN acquired from the ultra-conservative National Review. And if that credential isn’t far enough out in right field, Cain just announced that he is joining Glenn Beck’s web site, The Blaze.

7) CNN locked arms with the Tea Party to co-host a Republican presidential primary debate. By choosing Tea Party Express as their partner they embraced a dubious organization that was booted out of the Tea Party Federation due to the racist commentaries of a spokesman. It was also revealed that most of the funds raised from donations wound up in the coffers of Russo, Marsh, the Republican PR firm that founded Tea Party Express.

8) Former Fox News anchor and Bill O’Reilly fill-in, E.D. Hill, is now a CNN contributor. Hill was dumped by Fox after a segment that showed President Obama giving the First Lady a friendly fist bump and Hill called it a “terrorist fist jab.”

So CNN is now employing Fox News rejects, Andrew Breitbart lieutenants, and Glenn Beck associates. They’ve entered into covenants with unscrupulous Tea Partyers. On the flip side, former CNN reporters Ed Henry and John Roberts are now comfortably ensconced at Fox News. The lines between CNN and Fox News are blurring to the point where the networks are becoming indistinguishable. And most of this occurred since Ken Jautz assumed the helm of CNN.

If there is one thing that American media doesn’t need, it’s another Fox News. The first one is already doing a stellar job of misinforming the public and advancing the agenda of the Republican Party. What’s more, emulating Fox has done nothing for CNN’s ratings. Why should it? Viewers who are in the market for dumbed-down histrionics, Democrat bashing, and a steady diet of right-wing falsehoods, already have a proven provider. Fox’s audience has shown that they are not the least bit interested in looking for the remote that slipped under the sofa years ago. They don’t even change the channel when their heroes are just a click down the dial.

Consequently, if CNN is gaining nothing from reshaping their editorial slant to mirror Fox, the only conclusion is that they are deliberately making a hard right turn because that is the direction they want to go. But this path has only resulted in their dropping to third place behind Fox and MSNBC. If CNN ever hopes to regain some of the luster of their glory days, they will need to differentiate themselves from Fox. They might want to take a stab at journalism. That would be novel in these days of advocacy tabloidism.

Remember This While Watching The CNN/Tea Party GOP Debate

Posted by on September 12, 2011 at 10:35 am. 3 Comments :

CNN Tea PartyWhen the Republican debate tonight airs it is important to put into context the venue in which the candidates will appear. This debate is being broadcast on CNN along with their co-hosts, the Tea Party Express (TPE).

From the start, the notion of elevating any Tea Party group to the position of national debate sponsor was ludicrous. The Tea Party is nothing but a fringe element of the Republican Party. It has very little support, even amongst Republicans, and its approval ratings have been on a path of rapid descent. It’s most recent nationwide bus tour, which is scheduled to conclude today at the Tampa site of the debate, has been an utter failure with record low attendance.

Contrary to the general practice of engaging impartial partners for debate presentations, TPE is hardly impartial. It is a political action committee that has actively engaged in campaigning on behalf of specific candidates. They supported senate candidates Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, and Joe Miller in Alaska (all lost). They have also been vocal proponents of Sarah Palin who has appeared as a sort of mascot for the group. Palin is supposedly still considering joining the race president herself (although I submit that she is perpetrating something of a hoax in conjunction with Fox News), so TPE cannot now be reasonably be portrayed as fair presenters. They have far too many obvious conflicts of interest.

What makes matters worse is that TPE is a corrupt organization that has even been rebuked by the rest of the so-called Tea Party movement. They were created by Sal Russo and his Republican PR firm, Russo Marsh, and their brief history is fraught with scandal. Rival Tea Party groups were harshly critical of them for directing nearly half of the money they raised from citizen supporters to Russo’s firm. Their former spokesman, Mark Williams, was forced to resign after publishing a racially offensive article on his web site. TPE was booted from the National Tea Party Federation for these and other ethical lapses.

What might have have prompted CNN to make this unholy alliance with a discredited and over-hyped entity? Undoubtedly CNN’s new president Ken Jautz had something to do with it. Jautz, who took the reins at CNN last September, was previously in charge of their sister network HLN. It was there that he made history by giving Glenn Beck his first job in television. At CNN he has already distinguished himself by hiring Andrew Breitbart’s Editor-in-Chief, Dana Loesch, as a political analyst and being alone in airing Michele Bachmann’s embarrassing Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union message.

The CNN/Tea Party Express alliance is an unprecedented partnership between a news organization and an active political action committee that has already taken sides in the debate. Would CNN ever consider partnering with MoveOn.org for a Democratic debate? Ironically, the American Dream Movement (of which MoveOn is a part) is now asking for equal time in the form of a post-debate response. Since CNN gave Tea Partier Michele Bachmann just such an opportunity, it would be only fair to grant the same courtesy to a legitimate enterprise with far more popular support. And what’s more, CNN should partner with the American Dreamers to co-host a debate in the upcoming election.

CNN is embarrassing themselves with this association with Tea Party Express. This debate is a farce that lacks the sort of credibility that an honest news enterprise would set as a goal. They ought to take measures to try to redeem what’s left of their tattered reputation – if it isn’t too late already.

[Addendum] CNN has posted an article today about how an “Angry electorate helps sustain tea party.” In it they assert that the Tea Party has “moved toward the mainstream.” CNN’s evidence for this is that CNN chose the Tea Party to co-host a debate that is airing on CNN. And this absurdly circular logic was the work of – you guessed it – a CNN political producer. So CNN is validating their own choice for debate partner by having a CNN analyst write an article for CNN praising the partnership with CNN. How convenient.

Equal Time For The American Dream

Posted by on September 6, 2011 at 10:32 pm. 3 Comments :

CNN Tea PartyLast December CNN announced that they would be co-hosting a Republican debate with the Tea Party Express. That ridiculous idea was something put together under the new leadership of Ken Jautz who was promoted to head CNN after distinguishing himself at sister station Headline News. At HLN Jautz was responsible for such journalistic masterstrokes as The Nancy Grace Program. And of course he will always be remembered as the man who brought Glenn Beck to television.

When the Tea Party Express partnership was unveiled I responded by noting that the group was a corrupt branch of a fake movement that was nothing more than a bunch of ultra-conservative GOP malcontents:

“They were created by Sal Russo and his Republican PR firm, Russo Marsh, and their brief history is fraught with scandal. Rival Tea Party groups were harshly critical of them for directing nearly half of the money they raised from citizen supporters to Russo’s firm. Their former spokesman, Mark Williams, was forced to resign after publishing a racially offensive article on his web site.”

Nevertheless, CNN proceeded with this embarrassing endeavor which will air Monday, September 12. America will have to sit though a farce that elevates the Tea Party to a status they have not earned on their own, seeing as how they have an approval rating in the twenties. Even amongst Republicans they are not particularly well liked. But that didn’t stop CNN from broadcasting Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union message.

The blatant unfairness of this led me to ask “Would CNN ever consider partnering with MoveOn.org for a Democratic debate?” That seemed unthinkable at the time, which is precisely the point I was making. But now The American Dream Movement has stepped up to assert the same principle of fairness. They are petitioning CNN to give them equal time to respond after the President’s speech on Thursday before congress. And they make a compelling case:

“Now it’s only fair for CNN to air the American Dream Movement’s progressive response to the president’s major jobs speech on Thursday.

The American Dream Movement includes scores of groups representing millions of members who’ve been out in force for months campaigning for jobs, not cuts. In July, we had twice as many gatherings as the tea party had when they launched.”

If CNN would recognize a phony organization that was invented by Fox News and the Koch brothers, and is a adjunct division of the Republican Party, they ought to give some consideration to a legitimate grassroots group of citizens who represent real people and working families.

Please support this effort by signing the petition:

Tell CNN to Give the American Dream Movement Equal Time.

If they would do it for Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party, they should do it for the American Dream Movement. And what’s more, they should partner with the American Dreamers to co-host a debate in the upcoming election. It’s only fair.

New Tea Party Express Bus Trip Already Out Of Gas

Posted by on August 28, 2011 at 12:57 pm. 8 Comments :

The big kick off celebration for the Tea Party Express’s latest bus trip began with something of a whimper. The event was held in Napa, California amidst the wineries and grape fields.

Last year the Tea Party Express bus tour was launched by Sarah Palin. This year the best they could come up with was losing Nevada senatorial candidate, Sharron Angle. Palin has a good excuse though. She is busy not riding on her own “One America” bus tour, which she quit six days in.

Tea Party Express had heavily promoted this trip, even promising Baggers that “This is your opportunity to hear special guests speakers, including presidential candidates.” Unfortunately, not a single candidate bothered to show up.

The bus trip will continue across the country with plans to end September 12, in Tampa Bay, Florida, in conjunction with a GOP presidential debate sponsored by CNN and Tea Party Express.

When CNN originally announced that they were partnering with Tea party Express, it was an embarrassing association that never should have been entered into. Tea Party Express is a corrupt enterprise that was created by Republican publicist and fundraiser, Sal Russo. Most of the money raised by the group was funneled right back into Russo’s company for publicity and management fees.

What’s more, since the association was announced, the Tea Party has bled support. It now sports favorable ratings of only 20%. It is viewed less favorably than atheists and Muslims.

CNN sullied its already teetering reputation by embracing Tea Party Express. That decision was the work of Ken Jautz, who was promoted to run CNN after his tenure at Headline News. Jautz will forever be remembered as the man who brought Glenn Beck to Television.

And now that the boneheaded decision to clasp hands with TPE has proven to be a fiasco, it is not too late to break ranks. There is simply no excuse for a news enterprise to partner with a phony scam outfit that purports to represent a movement that is widely reviled.

Two Things That Will Not Change When Glenn Beck Leaves Fox News

Posted by on June 30, 2011 at 11:09 am. 3 Comments :

Today is a day that will not live in infamy. If remembered at all, it will not be for what happened, but for the disgusting and divisive error that was excised from our airwaves. Today is the day that Glenn Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue and Disinfotainment Revival Hour will broadcast its last episode on Fox News. After that Beck will pack up his congregation and sail away to darker, stormier waters.


That event has many sane and compassionate people celebrating. But they should not be to hasty in their glee. While removing Beck from the air can only be a step in a positive direction, as the headline of this article states, there are:

Two Things That Will Not Change When Glenn Beck Leaves Fox News:

  1. Glenn Beck
  2. Fox News

Beck may be leaving television, but he will still be broadcasting to a fairly large audience of miscreants on the radio. His Internet venture is less likely to cause much of a stir because, if people weren’t going to watch him on TV for free (his audience was in a downward spiral for the last year), they certainly aren’t going to pay to watch him on the web. Except, of course, for his most devoted disciples of misinformation and hate. Nevertheless, Beck will have a platform to spew division and lies and he will do everything in his power to exploit it. For instance, he will be venturing off to torment the already suffering people of Israel in August to instruct them on how to “Restore Courage.”

As for Fox News, last April I documented the “10 Reasons Why Fox News After Glenn Beck Will Still Suck.” They include Bill O’Reilly. Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, and seven more. I pointed out that…

“…any suggestion that Beck’s departure polishes Fox’s reputation is pure folly. The worst of Beck’s haunted imagination is securely woven into the Fox News dis-comforter. The trademark Fox invective, sophistry, and bias predate Beck and will outlive him.”

For anyone who is worried that they will suffer withdrawal symptoms, they will be relieved to know that Fox News will continue to feed their revolting habit. There will still be unfounded conspiracy theories. President Obama will still be a Kenyan Muslim who is deliberately trying to destroy America. Saul Alinsky and Bill Ayers and ACORN will remain lurking in the shadows. And George Soros will still be manipulating every evil on the planet. Not to worry.

And if Fox News isn’t enough, you also have CNN whose new president, Ken Jautz, is the man who gave Beck his first job in television. In his brief tenure at CNN, Jautz has already partnered with the corrupt Tea Party Express to host a GOP debate. He hired Andrew Breitbart’s editor-in-chief, Dana Loesch. He set CNN apart as the only network to broadcast Michelle Bachmann’s embarrassing Tea Party response to the State of the Union address. Here is what Jautz said when announcing his new host, Glenn Beck, at Headline News:

“Glenn Beck is the next piece of the puzzle. Glenn’s style is self-deprecating, cordial; he says he’d like to be able to disagree with guests and part as friends. It’s conversational, not confrontational. […] We didn’t look for a conservative, a liberal or anyone of a particular ideology.”

If Jautz really believes that Beck was cordial, non-confrontational, and did not have a conservative ideology, he is in need of serious pharmaceutical therapy. Jautz’s delusional mindset hasn’t improved since then. In an interview after being promoted to head CNN, Jautz summed up his idea of what the news network should aspire to by saying, “I do not believe that ‘facts-only’ programming…it will not work.” That’s comforting, isn’t it? So Beck’s audience will have plenty of options for their fact-free, pseudo-news consumption and indoctrination.

Finally, for those who want a keepsake of the Freak Show Beck starred in for the past two years, Media Matters has been kind enough to provide one:

If you feel the need to take a shower, go ahead. The Internet will be here when you get back.And if anyone wants to buy a used URL, I may be interested in unloading my GlennBeckUnhinged.com

Media Democrats Shouldn’t Run GOP Presidential Debates

Posted by on June 6, 2011 at 11:46 pm. 3 Comments :

The headline of this article is taken verbatim from the headline of an article by Hugh Hewitt in the Washington Examiner. If only Hewitt and his Republican pals actually meant it.

Hewitt’s complaint has to do with his conjecture that these “fine journalists…carry with them all the biases and predispositions of the mainstream media.” He presumes that inquiries posed at the debates will be designed to embarrass the candidates. He says they should…

“Expect the standard stunt questions on abortion in the event of rape or incest, weapons of mass destruction, evolution, global warming, or any of a dozen other dog whistles to the left designed to create the moment that replicates across the Web, that seeks to wound prospects by defining the GOP field as outside the mainstream.”

Hewitt seems to believe that only the liberal press would ask probing questions about these issues that form the basis of the Republican platform. Does Hewitt realize that he is insulting conservative inquisitors by insinuating that they would not ask the candidates about their positions on abortion, evolution, climate change, etc.? These are areas of intense interest to GOP voters who demand ideological purity. How could you have a GOP debate without addressing these subjects? Would Hewitt regard such questions as stunts if they were asked by George Will or Sean Hannity?

Hewitt further predicts that candidates would not be asked about national security, the economy, unemployment, or Medicare, by MSM panelists. How ever did he arrive at that conclusion? Has he ever seen a presidential debate before? And why would asking about abortion be a stunt question that is out of line, but not so asking about Medicare?

The funny thing is that Hewitt’s laments are rooted in delusion. The debate upcoming next week is being hosted by CNN and local media in New Hampshire. CNN is the network that has partnered with Tea Party Express for another debate scheduled for September. What more could they ask for? Does Hewitt regard the Tea Party as inappropriate for Republican campaign events?

Hewitt is not alone in worrying about Republicans interacting with imaginary liberals in the media. None other than Sarah Palin has been adamant about snubbing any media she regards as unfriendly. Last year she advised Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, to “speak through Fox News.” And just last week she told Fox’s Greta Van Susteren, “I don’t think I owe anything to the mainstream media.”

Exactly. I would love to see Republicans take Palin’s and Hewitt’s concerns to heart. They ought to practice what they preach and decline any coverage from the MSM. They should stick to Fox News and talk radio venues like Hewitt’s and Rush Limbaugh.

Conversely, Democrats should steer clear of Fox. However, that suggestion was greeted with ridicule by Fox’s CEO Roger Ailes in 2007, when he said that “The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda.” So what does that say about the candidates that can’t face CNN or any other alleged mainstream news enterprise?