CNN

John McCain: The Bitch Is Back

Posted by on November 15, 2007 at 12:50 pm. 1 Comments :

When John McCain was asked by a supporter, “How do we beat the bitch,” referring to Hillary Clinton, McCain responded by laughing and saying that it was an “excellent question” which he then proceeded to answer. As an after thought he tosses out an expression of his “respect” for Clinton.


Now McCain’s campaign is outraged that this exchange was covered by CNN. His campaign manager Rick Davis has sent out an e-mail to supporters insisting that CNN owes McCain an apology:

“The CNN Network, affectionately known as the Clinton News Network, has stooped to an all-time low and is gratuitously attacking John McCain for not sufficiently defending Hillary Clinton enough when a South Carolina voter used the ‘B’ word to describe her when John McCain stopped into a luncheon yesterday at the Trinity restaurant in Hilton Head, S.C.”

Really? An all-time low? Lower than during the run-up to the war in Iraq when even CNN’s Christiane Amanpour said the the press had been muzzled and that…

“…my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did.”

Lower than when CNN followed McCain around Baghdad as he proclaimed that there are neighborhoods where we could all take leisurely walks with security? This prompted a response from CNN’s Michael Ware:

“I don’t know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about when he says we can go strolling in Baghdad.”

Does Davis really believe that CNN, by merely reporting McCain’s failure to object to an inappropriately derisive question, sinks to an all-time low? You may think that Davis has reached the pinnacle of hyperbole, but he is only just getting started:

“The liberal media has figured out that John McCain is the only thing that stands between a Hillary Clinton presidency, and they are therefore trying to stop the McCain comeback. Simply put, CNN is scared that John McCain will beat Hillary Clinton. They are right to be scared.”

While Davis asserts that McCain is “the only thing that stands between a Hillary Clinton presidency,” he doesn’t say “and what.” That must be what is terrifying CNN. It’s the fear of the unknown. It couldn’t be McCain’s alleged “comeback” that even Rasmussen, whose poll he cited when answering the “bitch” question, described as follows:

“the Arizona Senator now leads Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton by a statistically meaningless two percentage points.”

That’s mighty scary stuff. And leave it to McCain’s campaign to promote fear as a means to counter their perceived political enemies. They want CNN to be scared, just as they want their own supporters to be scared. Did I mention that this alarming email was sent to McCain supporters along with a pitch for donations? You better pony up patriots, because John McCain is the only thing that stands between Hillary Clinton and…..something???

CNN’s Parade Of GOP Pundits: Laura Ingraham Edition

Posted by on August 1, 2007 at 2:15 am. NO Comments :

In its quest to out-fox Fox News, CNN is handing over its 8:00 pm time slot to conservative shill, Laura Ingraham for a week. Ingraham is the diva that deemed that artists should “Shut Up and Sing” (unless, of course, you’re Ronald Reagan or Fred Thompson). It was only a few weeks ago that CNN recruited Glenn Beck for the same duty. Is this the beginning of a parade of rightist ideologues to audition for the role from which Paula Zahn has been ousted?

Who’s next? Rush Limbaugh? Michael Savage? Ann Coulter?

It is more than a little puzzling that CNN would pursue this course when they already have Lou Dobbs to represent the intolerant, blowhard wing of public opinion. And there doesn’t seem to be an argument for ratings when you consider that Beck bombed, performing 23% below the failing Zahn. If ratings were a consideration, then why doesn’t CNN try to emulate the example of a surging Keith Olbermann rather than the fading Bill O’Reilly, who has lost half his audience in the past two years.

Speaking of fading, wasn’t it Ingraham who called CNN a dinosaur in an appearance on The O’Reilly Fester? And this is her reward. Ingraham also impugned the character of reporters who risk their lives in war zones. Her reward for that was a smackdown by Lara Logan of CBS. Then there was the time Ingraham urged her radio listeners to jam the phone lines of a voter protection hotline.

If CNN considers Ingraham to be a credible host for their “news” network, they really are marching further down the trails blazed by Fox. By traipsing a flock of right-wing pundits across their airwaves they demonstrate the fallacy of the liberal media myth. It’s not as if they couldn’t pick from the likes of Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow, Stephanie Miller, Sam Seder, Taylor Marsh, Jim Hightower, Laura Flanders, or other distinguished progressive commentators. It’s just that they don’t want to. And that’s the problem.

The Vanishing Intelligence Trick

Posted by on July 19, 2007 at 1:24 am. NO Comments :

When the White House declassified its latest National Intelligence Estimate, it released it into a whirlwind of spin that could have taken out a small mid-western town.

The document itself said of Al Qaeda that:
“Their intent to attack the U.S. is undiminished, and they continue to adapt and improve their capabilities.”

Fran Townsend, the President’s Homeland Security Advisor said:
“We are facing a persistent terrorist enemy led by al Qaeda that remains driven and intent on attacking the homeland.”

And a leaked intelligence analysis proclaims reminiscently that:
“Al Qaeda Better Positioned To Strike The West.”

These statements are all consistent with the strategery of the administration which commonly seeks to pump up the fear ratio when it finds its popularity declining. And its popularity continues to set new lows. At the same time, they must realize that they can’t get away with painting a picture of a revitalized Al Qaeda without the nation wondering what the heck has been going on the past six years. The President doesn’t want to admit that he’s been asleep at the switch so he has to come out and say:

“There is a perception in the coverage that al Qaeda may be as strong today as they were prior to September 11. That’s just simply not the case,”

What you have just seen is the President waving a wand and dismissing everything his own intelligence machine has produced and reducing it to mere perceptions created by faulty coverage. Yet he gets to keep the simmering fear dispensed by the reports he now tosses off. Lucky for him, most of the press corps observing this spectacle are only interested in transcribing it and getting to happy hour in time for the cocktail weenies.

There is at least one correspondent that stayed alert and was not fooled by this stunt. In an exchange with Wolf Blitzer, Michael Ware, CNN’s man in Baghdad, delivered this bit of keen reporting:

“Now in the midst of all of this, despite this material, this evidence, we must be aware of the spin — the smoke and mirrors from the administration, trying to reshape the message on Iraq being specifically about Al Qaeda — America’s lingering, most familiar fear, trying to invoke some Pavlovian response from the American public, to fear them into again supporting the war. That doesn’t quite hold water.”

If that wasn’t enough to send poor Wolf into cardiac arrest, Jack Cafferty added this:

“What if we had spent the last five years with 158,000 soldiers and $500 billion hunting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and in the border regions next to Pakistan? I wonder if we’d still be hearing all of this stuff about Al Qaeda.”

What if…

The Fear Of Censorship

Posted by on May 15, 2007 at 4:56 am. 6 Comments :

John Roberts has been CNN’s senior national correspondent and its anchor of the awkwardly-named This Week at War (sounds like a VH1 Top 20 Countdown). He was recently named a new co-host of CNN’s American Morning. In his former position at CBS he served as the network’s White House correspondent and was embedded with Marines during the invasion of Iraq. Now, in an interview with Broadcasting & Cable, this experienced and connected professional speaks out about the handling of the coverage of the war in Iraq and, despite his participation, he has some rather unflattering critiques of what transpired.

In the article, Roberts concedes that the media was unprepared to properly cover events on the ground and should have been more vigilant in the run-up to the war. But by far the more notable observation that Roberts imparts is one that reflects on current coverage:

“If we showed people the full extent of what we see every day in Iraq, we would either have no one watching us because they couldn’t stand to see the pictures, or we would get so many letters of complaint that some organization would come down on us to stop.”

With current polls showing that two thirds of the American public are already opposed to the war in Iraq, the notion that we have not yet reached the nadir of our disapproval is somewhat unsettling. Especially if the reason is that, as Roberts contends, the “full extent” of what the press sees every day has been withheld from us by a media establishment that is afraid of mail and of losing viewers. And I get no consolation from Roberts’ informing me that things are much worse than I ever imagined.

Indeed, the pictures that are presently darkening our TV screens with bloodshed, blasts, and blackened smoke, are enough to sow depression in the most optimistic amongst us. But that is not sufficient reason for responsible journalists to soft-peddle even a harsh reality. In an open democratic society, citizens need to be fully informed because, contrary to the monarchal delusions of President Bush, we are the deciders. If exposure to the truth produces more dissatisfaction, it is not up to editors and programmers to shield us from our own tender sensitivities. That is not the way to cultivate an informed electorate. That is not the way to promote Democracy.

The public’s appetite for this war has steadily declined over the past four years and would likely have declined further and faster had the news been presented impartially and honestly. In fact, we might never have gone to war in the first place if the vigilance of which Roberts spoke had been practiced at the outset by a conscientious and ethical press corps.

There are two problems (at least) with Roberts’ statement above. One is that he gives too much weight to the notion that Americans don’t have the stomach to manage the nation as our Constitution requires. The other is that his fear that “some organization” would put a stop to honest, unfettered reporting, resulted in that fear becoming manifest. The fear of censorship produced censorship and the people were deprived of knowledge. The only organization that profited from this suppression is an administration that was predisposed to execute a war of aggression and preferred to avoid the pesky interference of the will of the people.

To paraphrase Roberts:

If we, the people, show the full extent of what we see and feel every day about Iraq, they would know that we are watching, and they would get so many letters of complaint that our organization of citizens would come down on them to stop suppressing the truth; stop embracing unscrupulous pseudo-leaders; and stop this god-awful war.

This practice of Nanny Journalism is all too common in American media. They think we can’t handle the truth. But it’s funny (by which I mean pathetic) that they keep coming back after the fact to confess their mea culpas.

CBS: Let Lara Logan Do Her Job

Posted by on January 26, 2007 at 8:11 pm. NO Comments :

CBS News is fortunate to have one of the most dedicated and responsible reporters in broadcast journalism. But they apparently don’t appreciate it.

Lara Logan has been posting honest and courageous reports from Baghdad since before the fall of Saddam. Her latest, though, has been shuffled off to CBS’ web site without being broadcast on the network. If you see the piece, you might understand why it was treated this way. In addition to contradicting much of the administration’s delusional assertions of success, the story is accompanied by images of the brutal reality of life on the streets of Baghdad. Now she needs our help to get this on the air.

CBS has taken it upon themselves to decide that America “can’t handle the truth.” But as Ms. Logan herself says in a letter to MediaChannel:

“…this is not too gruesome to air, but rather too important to ignore.”

The letter also called for supporters to let CBS know that they are interested in these stories and that they want them to air. Here’s the email for the CBS Evening News.

For a little more background on Lara Logan, click more.

Contine reading →

Death Of A Prez Ads Nixed By CNN, NPR

Posted by on October 24, 2006 at 4:26 pm. 1 Comments :

Death of a President is a new film that has been generating both controversy and acclaim. It is the winner of the International Critics’ Award from the Toronto Film Festival. The film’s web site describes it as…

“a fictional TV documentary broadcast in 2008, reflecting on another monstrously despicable and cataclysmic event: the assassination of President George W. Bush on October 19th, 2007.”

Sadly, the media’s martinets of virtue are again patrolling the avenues of our psyches, deciding what is safe for our aesthetic consumption.

CNN and NPR are refusing to air advertisements for the film. There is nothing in the ads that is inappropriate for broadcast. Indeed, the ads were approved by the Motion Picture Association of America for all audiences. But that fact has not deterred the programmers from engaging in censorship. CNN issued a brief statement that virtually admits its intention to censor, saying that…

“CNN has decided not to take the ad because of the extreme nature of the movie’s subject matter.”

By basing their decision on the movie’s “subject matter”, they have installed themselves as the public’s nanny. They believe that they are in the best position to decide for us which subjects matter. While they are a couple of yards further over the line than NPR, the public radio network’s excuse is not much better:

“The movie is fairly likely to generate significant controversy and we’ll cover it as a news story. To take a sponsorship spot would raise questions and cause confusion.”

One wonders if that criteria also applies to sponsorships from Ford or McDonald’s. Surely they have generated controversy connected to their products. Has their sponsorship raised questions or caused confusion?

This film already has an uncommon burden to overcome as a result of its premise. Two of the nation’s biggest movie exhibitors, Regal Entertainment and Cinemark USA, have announced that they will not play the movie in any of their ~8000 theaters. Newmarket Films, the movie’s distributor, insists that they will be able to open in plenty of theaters. They say that they are getting support from many exhibitors including the Landmark Theater chain.

These broadcasters and exhibitors, who have appointed themselves the protectors of the public’s tender sensibilities, deny that any partisan motive is at play. But an objective observer would note that they all previously played nice with another controversial release distributed by Newmarket, “The Passion of the Christ.”

So what is the reason that this film is getting such a different reception? It couldn’t be the subject matter, could it? Look at the trends:

  • The Dixie Chicks criticize the president and they’re thrown off the radio. Has that ever happend to a right wing artist?
  • A network TV biopic about Ronald Reagan is protested by conservatives and it gets shuttled off to cable. But ABC’s Path To 9/11 airs despite opposition.
  • An artist exhibits a work entitled, “The Proper Way to Display the Flag,” and the gallery is told to shut it down. But when Bush walks on a flag at Ground Zero, it’s just another photo-op.

It appears that everyone has an equal right to protest, but only Republicans can turn their protests into edicts that deny all Americans access to the embattled works. It’s called censorship, and it’s alive and well in America.

Update: Tim Graham at NewsBusters takes issue with this story. Responding to my criticism of NPR he asks…

“Can’t this blogger differentiate between a Bush assassin and Ronald McDonald?”

Tim is veering off on a detour to address a point that’s right in the middle of the road. If NPR declines an ad for this movie because of the appearance of bias in the event that they cover it editorially, doesn’t that same consideration come into play for any sponsor that they might cover editorially? And by the way, I can differentiate between a Bush assassin and Ronald McDonald. The Bush assassin in the movie harms no one except another character in the film. Ronald McDonald’s influence on real children harms thousands of them every year.