IDIOT ALERT: Fox Nation Reports Eyewitness To Voter Fraud In Wisconsin

Posted by on June 5, 2012 at 3:28 pm. 3 Comments :

There are times when you hear some Tea Party birther spew nonsense that is just plain delusional and you think, “How can anyone believe that?” Then there are times when what you hear is so astonishingly stupid that you’re afraid that your jaw will never reset and remain permanently disjointed from having dropped so hard.

On today’s radio broadcast of conservative Chris Plante, a caller named “Mike” spun a tale that would have made for a great parody, except that he is being taken seriously by wingnuts and conservative media. He told Plante that he was on a bus, one of four buses, that were on their way from Michigan to Wisconsin. He said that the purpose of the convoy was to transport out-of-state Michiganders to Wisconsin so that they could illegally cast votes for Democrat Tom Barrett for governor. Mike said, however that he was planning to voter for Scott Walker.

There was absolutely no proof that any of what was said by this anonymous caller to a talk radio show was true. However, there are some pretty good reasons to dismiss his allegations as cheap theatrics and lies. Not the least of which is the fact that these alleged phony voters would not be able to cast ballots in Wisconsin without having previously registered and provided ID with proof of residency. They could register at the polling place and cast provisional ballots, but they would not be counted until after the voter returned with the required residency ID. So Mike’s account of this road trip, if it were true, could not be anything more than an expensive boondoggle to blow a pile of cash on four chartered buses and, according to Mike, food and other “freebies,” so that a bunch of dopes from Michigan can waste a few hours on the highway.

Additionally, Mike’s assertion that he was calling from one the phantom buses was debunked briefly by Plante himself. Plante wondered how Mike, who could not be listening to the radio show while on the bus, knew that Plante was talking about the Wisconsin election when he called in. Mike’s stumbling attempt at an answer was that Plante always talks about that. It would also be pretty difficult for Mike to have this conversation with a right-wing radio host while sitting on a bus full of Democrats who were on their way to break federal laws. And, by the way, that is what Mike confessed was his intent as well. So he was admitting on the air that he was a co-conspirator in a plot to commit felony voter fraud.

It would have been bad enough if this foolishness ended right there on Plante’s radio program, but no such luck. Fox News picked up the story and posted it at the top of their Fox Nation web site with a headline that doesn’t question the veracity of the “eyewitness:” EYEWITNESS ALLEGES DEMOCRAT UNION VOTE FRAUD IN WISCONSIN.

Fox Nation

The Fox Nationalists don’t bother to put a qualifying adjective in front of the word “eyewitness,” but they have no problem accusing Democrats and unions of voter fraud, even though the only evidence of any fraud was via the confession by a Republican named Mike.

In all likelihood this call originated from the flea-infested sofa on the back porch of Mike’s mother’s trailer somewhere in rural Mississippi. Mike probably spun this story while chugging a Bud and waiting for his cousin/wife to let him know the next batch of meth was ready. And Chris Plante bought it. And Fox News bought it. And who knows how many dimwits who pay attention to those pathetically dishonest sources went right along with whatever they were told.

This is one of those moments of idiocy that will stand out when the Idiocy Hall of Fame makes their next round of nominations. For Fox News to treat this a credible content, and to report it as if it were news, really says all that is needed to be said about Fox. They are not merely a collective of partisan liars, they are blithering ignoramuses who probably should not be allowed to use kitchen utensils unsupervised. And their audience…..oh forget it. It hurts to think about it.

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Not So Breitbart: The Case Of Jon Stewart’s Crybaby Apologists

Posted by on June 5, 2012 at 3:24 am. 4 Comments :

John Nolte at Breitbart News has so completely given up the pretense of having anything coherent to say that he has begun prefacing his columns with excuses for why they fail to make any point. Here is how he begins his latest lame assault on his favorite target, Jon Stewart:

“Jon Stewart apologists will crybaby over my analysis of these numbers because crybabying is what Stewart apologists do.”

As a credentialed Stewart apologist, I would like to point out that I am about to “crybaby” over Nolte’s analysis, not because it’s what I do, but because he is such a dumbfuck of an analyst.

Nolte works overtime to be as obnoxious as possible as he seeks to disparage Stewart’s ratings. The absurd angle he tackles is that there is some correlation between Stewart’s late night satirical Daily Show and the puerile Fox News afternoon blabfest “The Five.” For those who haven’t seen it, it features four frothing far-right wingnuts and one impotent, and apparently intoxicated, Fox-style democrat.

After asserting that Stewart is not intellectually honest, and that Stephen Colbert is not funny (and Greg Gutfeld is?), Nolte leaps into his ratings analysis saying that…

“The Five” once again won the viewership battle with the two clowns we are assured are some kind of American phenoms. Gutfeld and company drew a total of 1.478 million viewers, while Stewart and Colbert drew 1.462 and 1.217 respectively.

First of all, anyone who knows anything about television knows that comparing the raw audience totals of two completely different dayparts is meaningless. But Nolte’s faulty reporting extends far beyond that basic fact. He revels victoriously in declaring that The Five won a battle that never took place. But he bases his conclusion on a single, unrepresentative day. So even if you want to make this pointless comparison, it would be more honest to note that the Daily Show regularly posts higher numbers than The Five. In fact, on the days just before, and just after, the day that Breitbrat Nolte cherry-picked, the Daily Show “won the viewership battle” against the five clowns on Fox.

Breitbart on StewartA more honest comparison would be between the Daily Show and the O’Reilly Factor with which it competes head-to-head (although the Factor is a repeat). That’s a contest that Stewart also wins on a regular basis. The Daily Show generally places in the top twenty-five cable programs. But even O’Reilly’s first run broadcast barely squeaks into the top 100.

This is further evidence of Nolte’s proclivity for lying to his readers, a habit he surely picked up from his pseudo-saintly mentor, Andrew Breitbart. Nolte has been viscerally obsessed with bashing Stewart for quite a while, and in every instance he utterly fails to make a coherent argument. But you have to admire his tenacity in persevering despite falling on his face so brutally and frequently.


GOP Chairman Rush Limbaugh Chides Democrats For Straying From Message

Posted by on June 4, 2012 at 7:52 pm. 3 Comments :

In an exercise of Olympian hypocrisy, Rush Limbaugh, the de facto chairman of the Republican Party, spent much of his radio program today lambasting Democrats who he alleges have gotten off message or, even worse, “endorsed” Mitt Romney. Chairman Rush’s unique and dishonest means of expressing this observation is to say that the offending Democrat was “taken to the woodshed.”

“So it looks like Bill Clinton, ladies and gentlemen, was taken to the woodshed. Bill Clinton was taken to the Cory Booker Memorial Woodshed for endorsing Romney last week. You’ve got to wonder, what is in this woodshed to get so many people to change their tunes so quickly? It’s gotta be a pretty big woodshed. All these Democrats have been taken to the woodshed. In Clinton’s case, it could almost be anything in that woodshed: pictures, stained dresses. The mind boggles.”

Oh boy, is that Rush fella a barrel of laughs, or what? Although, I haven’t figured out exactly what he’s talking about when he says “All these Democrats…” The only ones that Chairman Rush identifies are Clinton and Booker, and neither of them were taken to a woodshed, or anywhere else. They have always been, and continue to be strong supporters of President Obama. Clinton even said that if Romney were elected it would be “a calamity for the country and the world.” I suppose that’s what Chairman Rush considers an endorsement because, on the GOP side, so many of Romney’s supporters have been achingly public about how much they hate him. It was Newt Gingrich who called Romney a “Massachusetts Moderate.” And Rick Perry called him a “Vulture Capitalist.”

But the really striking departure from reality for Chairman Rush is that no one exemplifies the persona of a strongman dictator better than Rush himself. Last year there were several high-ranking GOP leaders who were called to come before their master and grovel for forgiveness. They included Michael Steele, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Darrel Issa, Mark Sanford, Phil Gingrey, and even Sarah Palin, who excused Rush’s use of the word “retard,” so long as it was used against liberals.

Even if what Limbaugh is saying were true, it would not be particularly surprising for the President to express his desire that his surrogates be aligned with his agenda. He is the candidate and the leader of the party. However, it is appallingly inappropriate for a radio loudmouth to make actual politicians cower before him and seek his blessing. Limbaugh may think he’s cute with his “Cory Booker Memorial Woodshed” business, but it’s Limbaugh who invented the concept and still demands that Republicans subject themselves to his dominance or face the “Rush Limbaugh Memorial Waterboard Shed.” And the sad part is that the Republicans so willingly acquiesce to Limbaugh’s authority.


Donald Trump Adds New Wing To His Mansion To Accomodate His Massive Ego

Posted by on June 4, 2012 at 2:13 pm. 2 Comments :

TrumpneySometimes it is just too easy to mock Donald Trump for being so full of himself. This is a man who claimed that he would be the best VP choice for Mitt Romney; that his GOP debate (which he never pulled off) would get the highest ratings; that his businesses exceed everyone in his field despite the four bankruptcies over which he presided. Now Trump is taking credit for an alleged rise in Romney’s polling:

“I think he got the headline on a day where I did get a lot of press, and interestingly, since then, his polls numbers have gone up very substantially.”

First of all, Romney’s polling has not gone up “very substantially.” His numbers increased a bit following the effective end of the primary. What Trump is referring to is the day he appeared with Romney that was supposed to celebrate Romney surpassing the number of delegates he needed to clinch the GOP nomination. That was also the day the Trump actually stole the spotlight from Romney by reignited the delusional birther conspiracy. The only thing that Romney got from that appearance was ridicule and inquiries as to how he could continue to associate with a moron like Trump.

Trump also complained that the media has been unkind to Romney. He said that “the biggest thing Mitt Romney has to fear is the press. They don’t tell the truth.” But shortly thereafter, Trump contradicted himself by saying that “I really think, and he really thinks, that the press has helped and it’s been good.” Obviously Trump has trouble with cognitive consistency. Perhaps his ego is so large that it simply takes to long for a message to go from one end of it to the other to inform him that he’s being idiotically hypocritical.

Whatever the explanation, I just hope that Romney keeps Trump front and center in his campaign – along with the rest of the Romney brain trust: Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, Victoria Jackson, etc.


Not So Breitbart: Pathetic Vetting Of Obama’s BBQ With Bill Ayers

Posted by on June 4, 2012 at 1:12 pm. 11 Comments :

The “vetting” of Barack Obama continues at Breitbart News and, true to form, serves only to embarrass the juvenile efforts of Breitbrat Joel Pollak and his childish pals who suffer an acute case of Obama Derangement Syndrome. Today’s banner headline at the Breitbrats sandbox blares: “Exclusive – The Vetting – Senator Barack Obama Attended Bill Ayers Barbecue, July 4, 2005.”

Breitbart News

OMG! Barack Obama has been caught at a clandestine socialist assembly of treasonous celebrants of America’s independence. These subversives were observed igniting fires (in BBQ grills) and launching explosives (fireworks). They may even have been imbibing beer and other alcoholic intoxicants.

Breitbrat Joel is clearly proud of the shocking revelation he has uncovered that puts Obama in the backyard of his neighbor, Bill Ayres, for an ostensibly patriotic party. The “proof” that so excites Pollak is an ancient blog post by another neighbor of Ayers that describes a third-hand witness to Obama sharing a picnic table at a Fourth of July gathering. The author said…

“Guess what? I spent the 4th of July evening with star Democrat Barack Obama! Actually, that’s a lie. Obama was at a barbecue at the house next door (given by a law professor who is a former member of the Weather Underground) and we saw him over the fence at our barbecue. Well, the others did. It had started raining and he had gone inside be the time I got there. Nevertheless.”

Well then, that settles it. The author of the post never saw the then-senator, but some unnamed person claims to have seen him. And there couldn’t be any possibility of this mysterious party guest making a mistake, could there? The post goes on to note that despite keeping a watch out for a confirmation siting, there were no other Obama spottings. The only corroboration was “another source” quoted by Pollak who was also not identified.

Even if true, Pollak’s unrestrained glee over this “discovery” means nothing. It stems from his false contention that Obama’s socializing with Ayers contradicts a statement his campaign issued in 2008. However, the quote that Pollak himself posted says…

“Mr. LaBolt said the men first met in 1995 through the education project, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and have encountered each other occasionally in public life or in the neighborhood. He said they have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Mr. Obama began serving in the United States Senate in January 2005 and last met more than a year ago when they bumped into each other on the street in Hyde Park.”

Of course, there is nothing in that statement that conflicts with an account of Obama encountering Ayers at a neighborhood party. In fact, it explicitly affirms that Obama had such contacts “in the neighborhood.” Where’s the controversy?

Pollak is plainly obsessed with smearing Obama for having had a relationship with a neighbor who was also a respected university professor and education consultant. But Pollak’s pea-brain can only contain information about Ayers that portrays him as the “radical, domestic terrorist” of his youth some forty years ago. Pollak cannot see past his hostility toward Obama, and the result is hysterical conspiracy tantrums like this. It’s the same sort of dementia that produces absurd postings on Fox Nation like today’s article that proposes that Obama had an “unpresidential” past:

Fox Nation

The past to which the Fox Nationalists refer is his adolescence when he did unpresidential things like play basketball and wear hats. Seriously? This is the best they can do?


Fox Nation vs. Reality: Coming To Blows

Posted by on June 3, 2012 at 2:52 pm. 1 Comments :

Here is another made up headline from Fox Nation:

Fox Nation

The Fox Nationalists really enjoy cooking up headlines that totally misrepresent the content of the story they are reporting. It often doesn’t matter in the least if the headline has any relevance to the article at all. And at other times the headline is an outright contradiction of the underlying story. The only criteria for Fox is that the headline give as negative impression of Obama as possible whether or not it is true.

In this example the Fox Nationalists assert that Obama’s political aide David Axelrod and Attorney General Eric Holder “Nearly Come To Blows.” That would be a juicy story if there were any truth to it. However, the accompanying article refers to an upcoming book by Daniel Klaidman that says nothing about a physical altercation. It does describe a heated argument, but Fox took it upon themselves to falsely escalate the matter to impending fisticuffs. Here is the full excerpt from Klaidman’s book:

“After the session ended, Axelrod made a beeline for the attorney general. Obama’s senior adviser was incensed. It had gotten back to him that Holder and his aides were spreading the word that he was trying to improperly influence the Justice Department.

Axelrod, who knew all too well that even the hint of White House meddling with Justice Department investigations could detonate a full-blown scandal, had been careful not to come close to that line. ‘Don’t ever, ever accuse me of trying to interfere with the operations of the Justice Department,’ he warned Holder after confronting him in the hallway. ‘I’m not Karl Rove,’ he added, referring to George Bush’s political consigliere, who had been accused of pressuring Justice to fire politically unpopular U.S. attorneys.

Holder did not appreciate being publicly dressed down by the president’s most senior political adviser. Determined to stand his ground against Tammany Hall, the A.G. ripped into him in full view of other White House staffers. ‘That’s bull—-,’ he replied vehemently.

The two men stood chest to chest. It was like a school yard fight back at their shared alma mater, Stuyvesant, the elite public high school for striving kids from New York City. White House staffers caught in the crossfire averted their eyes. Jarrett, whose office was nearby, materialized as things got hot. Petite and perfectly put together as always, she pushed her way between the two men, her sense of decorum disturbed, ordering them to ‘take it out of the hallway.'”

So it was just a couple of guys arguing in close proximity to one another with no raised fists or threats. It was interrupted by a “petite” Valerie Jarrett, which suggests that it could not have been all that dangerous. And the belligerents were not told to cool off or stop fighting, they were not separated, they were merely told to take their argument to a more discreet location.

Ironically, the right-wingers at Fox, and elsewhere in the conservative media who are hyping this story, ought to be impressed with Holder’s position. Conservatives are convinced that Holder is an Obama toady who does everything with a political goal. However, in this affair, he was adamant that his Justice Department not be used as a dumping ground for political operatives. That would seem to prove that the right has Holder all wrong. In fact, Holder and Axelrod are both fiercely concerned with maintaining their integrity with regard to the execution of their duties. That’s what the whole argument is about.

Every presidency should have people who fight to defend the ethical administration of their offices. You can rest assured that in the Bush administration the fights involved people who were unwilling to cross ethical lines as ordered by Rove and Dick Cheney.

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Are You Braindead And Biased Enough To Work At Fox News?

Posted by on June 3, 2012 at 1:31 pm. 3 Comments :

This week Fox News revealed what they regard as the professional and personal attributes to secure and maintain employment at their enterprise. What it comes down to is having a commitment to distorting the news, swinging hard to the right, and focusing like a laser beam on anything negative about President Obama and the Democrats.

The example was set by Chris White, the Fox producer responsible for the now famous four minute anti-Obama campaign-style video that was broadcast on Fox & Friends. In the wake of that shoddy exercise of pseudo-journalism, White was thrown onto a roller coaster that first sent him up a steep track of praise from Fox & Friends’ idiot hosts. That was followed by criticism and ridicule from many of his peers in the press and a vaguely critical statement from his boss, Fox News EVP of programming, Bill Shine, who said…

“The package that aired on FOX & Friends was created by an associate producer and was not authorized at the senior executive level of the network. This has been addressed with the show’s producers.”

The video itself appeared and disappeared from Fox’s web sites, finally falling into an abyss from which it never returned. White was reported to have been offered a new job at CNN prior to this controversy, but that offer was subsequently rescinded. With his fate up in the air, another statement emerged from Shine saying that…

“Chris White will remain employed with FOX News. We’ve addressed the video with the producers and are not going to discuss the internal workings of our programming any further.”

So Fox pulled White’s carcass from the fire. And why not? He represents everything the network reveres. No doubt he will soon get a promotion and additional responsibility so that he can slap together some more partisan GOP propaganda in advance of the election in November. That’s what Fox pays him to do. That’s what they pay Gretchen Carlson, Steve Doocy, Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, Megyn Kelly, Bill O’Reilly, and the rest of their staff to do.

However, Shine’s statement was notable for more than just his support for the disgraced producer. Shine’s arrogance in declining any further discussion of this matter is emblematic of the arrogance of Fox News overall. There is much left to discuss, and Fox News would be the first to demand more discussion and transparency from their competitors were they to be embroiled in a similar scandal. For instance, White was not the only person involved in the broadcast of that video. There were others who participated in its production including the Fox & Friends gang who were so openly effusive in their praise, yet they have not commented on it at all.

Where is the accountability for this abuse of ethics? Fox is determined to keep hidden any repercussions or, more likely, rewards they may have administered. And that is true to form at Fox. They have a history of hiring disgraced rejects. For example, Juan Williams, Don Imus, Doug McKelway, and Lou Dobbs were all put on the Fox payroll after having been terminated for cause at other networks. And as for their management of in-house malfeasance, here is a list of Fox personal who ought to have been fired for their brazenly inappropriate and unprofessional behavior, but who are still cheerfully plying their partisan trade at Fox (from my article last February):

Todd Starnes: Unsurprisingly, Fox News has smeared the Occupy Movement from its inception. They have disparaged them as everything from unfocused to unclean to un-American. But it took Starnes, the host of Fox News & Commentary on Fox Radio, to equate them to mass murderers by asking, “What should be done with the domestic terrorists who are occupying our cities and college campuses?” By comparing Occupiers to the likes of Timothy McVeigh, Starnes is engaging in rhetorical terrorism and insulting hundreds of thousands of concerned Americans.

Cody Willard: This Fox Business reporter brazenly exposed his bias when he attended a Tea Party rally and feverishly barked at the camera this call to arms against the U.S. government, “Guys, when are we going to wake up and start fighting the fascism that seems to be permeating this country?”

Andrew Napolitano: The “Judge” is a notorious 9/11 Truther who believes that the attack on the World Trade Center towers was an inside job, orchestrated by agents of the United States government. That’s a position considered so crazy by Fox Newsers that it was instrumental in their campaign to get Van Jones fired from his post as a green jobs adviser to President Obama. But, in typical Foxian hypocrisy, it has no impact on the employment of Napolitano. [Note: The entire primetime schedule of the Fox Business Network, including Napolitano, Eric Bolling and David Asman, was recently canceled. But it was due to poor ratings, not content. And all remain active Fox News contributors.]

Bill Sammon: The Fox News Washington managing editor was recorded admitting to a friendly audience on a conservative cruise that he would go on air and “mischievously” cast Obama as a socialist even though he didn’t believe it himself. In other words, he lied to defame the President and rile up his gullible viewers. That would be cause for termination at most news networks, but probably earned Sammon a bonus at Fox.

Eric Bolling: Hoping to sustain Fox’s leadership in inappropriate Nazi references, Bolling accused President Obama of engaging in class warfare that was “forged in Marxist Germany.” And if that wasn’t asinine enough, he sided with Iran against the U.S. by accusing the American hikers who were held in an Iranian prison of being spies and said that Iran should have kept them.

Bill O’Reilly: Dr. George Tiller, a family physician in Kansas, was murdered by an anti-abortion extremist who may have been incited to violence by rhetoric like this from O’Reilly: “Now, we have bad news to report that Tiller the baby killer out in Kansas, acquitted. Acquitted today of murdering babies.” O’Reilly regards the acquittal of a doctor for performing legal medical services “bad news,” and the services themselves “murder.” But he never took any responsibility for fanning the flames of violent incivility that led to the actual murder of Dr. Tiller.

Col. Ralph Peters (Ret): In a rant that argued that the United States should fight back against our enemies with the same tactics they use against us, Peters turned the media into military targets: “Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. And like Bolling, Peters also took the side of our foes by suggesting, without evidence, that a missing American soldier was a deserter and that “the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills,” presumably by killing him.

Michael Scheuer: This former CIA analyst was concerned that the American people were not sufficiently afraid of future terrorist attacks. He regards that absence of fear as dangerous complacency. But he has a solution: “The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”

Roger Ailes: The CEO of Fox News proves that a fish stinks from its head. In response to NPR’s firing of Juan Willimas for bigoted remarks about Muslims, Ailes let loose a tirade wherein he viciously attacked the NPR executives saying that… “They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism.”

Liz Trotta: What started out as a verbal stumble became a call for assassination when Trotta said, “Now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, umm, Obama. Well, both if we could.” Trotta followed that up with a commentary berating women in the military for complaining that they get raped too much (she did not define what an “acceptable” amount of rape is).

Roger AilesSo if you’re looking for work at Fox News, you now have an idea of how you need to present yourself. Just go in breathing right-wing fire and hostility for liberals, along with a petulantly defiant attitude toward any criticism. Never back down, and remember that even conceding an error is a sign of fatal weakness. The CEO of Fox News, Roger Ailes, exemplified this trait masterfully when he hysterically insisted that “in 15 years we have never taken a story down because it was wrong.” Hmm. Then what happened to the anti-Obama video?

But also keep in mind that a successful career at Fox may not translate into success more generally in the media. Once associated with the disreputable network you may become tainted goods and damage your prospects elsewhere. In response to the Chris White affair, the Baltimore Sun’s television critic David Zurawik told Media Matters that…

“I wouldn’t hire anybody who worked at Fox even if I knew them, because I believe they’ve been compromised.”

It’s a safe bet to presume that he’s not alone. So work for Fox at your own risk, and only if you’re pretty sure that you’ll never want to work anywhere that isn’t a right-wing disinformation center. And, of course, be sure that you have an all-consuming passion for twisting the truth to advance conservative dogma. If you’re willing to be steadfastly dishonest, insulting, and obnoxious, you have a promising career awaiting you at Fox News. Good luck.


Mitt Romney Gives His Tea Party People What They Want – Pigheaded Nastiness

Posted by on June 2, 2012 at 4:49 pm. 2 Comments :

From the start of the 2012 election cycle there was one thing that was clear and consistent about Mitt Romney’s campaign: that he would be neither clear nor consistent.

Romney has been on both sides of every major issue. Whereas he once bragged about his unwavering defense of Roe v Wade, he now calls for it’s repeal. He once claimed that he would be a stronger advocate for gay rights than Ted Kennedy, but now adamantly supports the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act. He mercilessly bashes ObamaCare, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his own RomneyCare in Massachusetts was the basis for it. Point to a Romney flip and there is a flop following closely.

The only consistent thing about Romney is his clockwork-like predictability in changing his shape to become whatever he thinks the far-right Republican base wishes for him to become.

Perhaps the most fervent desire of the conservative crowd is for a candidate that will mix it up with his opponent, Barack Obama. They want a fighter who will throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into the ring. Nothing is off the table – not birtherism, not race, not religion, nothing. They want a knock-down, drag-out brawl that leaves Obama bloodied in a gutter. And that is exactly what Romney is now promising to deliver. According to a Romney adviser…

“There were a lot of folks who didn’t think he’d have the edge to really take on the president […] They’ve been pretty surprised and impressed at how willing Boston has been to push back.”

Rush Limbaugh gave what to him must be the highest praise, saying that “This is not the McCain campaign.” Indeed, Romney is trading in substance for belligerence. His strategy hinges on avoiding weaselly policy positions that he knows will upset his base, and feeding them raw anger that appeals to their bloodlust for Obama. And above all, never back down or apologize. Even if it means tolerating Donald Trump’s ignorant birtherism and Ted Nugent’s violent wet dreams. Another Romney aide, after being told that conservatives were comparing his tactics to the late, notoriously dishonest bomb thrower Andrew Breitbart, said “Oh great, that’s what we were going for.”

The media, as usual, is getting it all wrong. After Obama made some comments about Romney, who unlike John McCain, lacked the moral leadership to denounce creeps like Trump and Nugent, a report by the Associated Press bore the headline, “Obama longs for GOP rival like McCain.” That’s taking it a bit too far, to say the least. Obama would just like to see the crazy fringe dwellers, like those who think Obama is a Muslim plant sent to hand America over to its enemies, be shunted to the sidelines where they belong. On occasion McCain would do that, but to Romeny that would signal weakness to his Tea Party masters.

A couple of days ago Bill Clinton was interviewed on CNN and said that Romney had “a sterling business career,” and that he was certainly qualified to run for president. The right-wingnut crowd frothed with excitement that this polite remark was tantamount to an endorsement of Romney, even though Clinton explicitly said that Obama was by far the better choice. That led to Clinton’s clarification today:

“I said, you know, Governor Romney had a good career in business and he was a governor, so he crosses the qualification threshold for him being president,” Clinton said. “But he shouldn’t be elected, because he is wrong on the economy and all these other issues.

“So today, because I didn’t attack him personally and bash him, I wake up to read all these stories taking it out of context as if I had virtually endorsed him, which means the tea party has already won their first great victory: ‘We are supposed to hate each other to disagree.’ That is wrong.”

That’s precisely what today’s Republican Tea Party is advocating. There is simply no place for reasonableness, compromise, or maturity. At the same time, there is no disgracefulness that is beyond the pale. The lesson that the right learned in 2008 was that any expression of respect or courtesy, or any accommodation to civility, is a betrayal of principle. The ideal aspiration of the right is for a candidate with the most pigheaded sense of nastiness and an absence of shame. And if that’s what they want then, by God, that’s what Romney will give them.

Romney’s most urgent goal now is to portray himself as the fiercest warrior on the battlefield. It doesn’t matter what he’s fighting for so long as he leaves a lot of corpses on the ground. As I said once before, he is “The Punisher.”

Mitt Romeny - The Punisher


Right-Wing Racists Ask: Where Da White Women At?

Posted by on June 1, 2012 at 2:58 pm. 5 Comments :

If you think that’s funny, you should hear the remarks made by Tim Graham, the Director of Media Analysis for the uber-conservative Media Research Center. In an interview with NRA News, Graham was curious as to why the press refrained from reporting a particular aspect of President Obama’s past:

“…they talked about his white girlfriends in college. Which again you would think that would be a story that a news media that is so conscious about race seemed to not think that was an interesting development, that Obama had these white girlfriends.”

Really? Why exactly would that be an “interesting development?” Is there something wrong with interracial relationships? Was Graham disturbed that the purity of his white sisters was being defiled by a young black man? How would he have the media report this scandalous revelation? And what relevance does he think it has to the presidential election today?

Graham has outted himself as a most vile bigot. He pretends that there is some social significance to the fact that Obama had white girlfriends, but the reality of it is that he’s just plain racist. And this is a theme that right-wingers have attempted to sneak into the campaign ever since Obama emerged as a national figure. Last year Fox Nation posted this thinly disguised racial attack on Obama.

Fox Nation White Women

It’s five months before the election and already the conservative haters are loading their attacks with overtly racist themes. And then they complain when people correctly point out their flaming prejudice. Well I have one message for them: If you don’t like being called racist, stop being racist.


Fox Nation: Historic Debacle At CNN

Posted by on June 1, 2012 at 1:07 pm. 3 Comments :

It has been well documented that Fox News is a disreputable enterprise that shuns any semblance of journalistic ethics. The most recent example, producing and airing an anti-Obama campaign-style video, perfectly demonstrates how far afield they are from a being legitimate news organization. Amongst the traits of Fox News that separate them from the pack is their tendency to attack their peers in the news business. That is almost unheard of from other cable networks, newspapers, or other outlets.

Fox Nation

Today Fox News continued in that vein by leaping on the Nielsen ratings reports for May 2012. To be sure, CNN’s ratings were dismal. But so were the ratings for Fox which declined double digits and notched a primetime low that they haven’t seen since 2008. Nevertheless, Fox reported only on CNN’s numbers and ignored their own sickly showing. And nowhere in their story did they note that the decline was primarily due to the inflated ratings in May 2011, when the killing of Osama Bin Laden, hurricanes in the Midwest, and Casey Anthony were dominating the airwaves.

That said, Fox is inadvertently correct about a debacle at CNN, but not the way they mean. CNN is suffering a decline in viewership that is historic mainly because they pioneered the concept of the 24 hour cable news network but are now languishing in last place. But if they are perplexed by the sorry turn of fate they have experienced in recent years it is only because of their own willful blindness to the circumstances that led to it.

When Fox News began to approach and overtake CNN in the ratings, CNN management made the foolish mistake of concluding that Fox’s success was related to their blatant conservative bias and abandonment of journalistic principles. While that was (and is) the model for Fox’s programming, that played only a small part in their success story. The real reason that Fox excelled was that they had switched the deck. They were not in any practical sense a news network. Their programming was (and is) closer to an entertainment channel than anything else. They feature shallow, sensationalistic stories that rely heavily on melodrama, controversy, emotion and sex – the main characteristics of soap operas and reality shows. And they decorate their broadcasts with flashy graphics and sound effects that would be more appropriate for game shows. That’s what draws their viewers in, and that is always more compelling than actual news content.

However, CNN panicked and decided that the way to compete with Fox was to emulate their right-wing partisanship and theatrics. Ironically, even Fox’s business network recognized that emulating Fox News was a losing strategy. Fox Business Network VP Kevin Magee sent a memo to his staff saying that…

“…the more we make FBN look like FNC the more of a disservice we do to ourselves. I understand the temptation to imitate our sibling network in hopes of imitating its success, but we cannot. If we give the audience a choice between FNC and the almost-FNC, they will choose FNC every time.”

CNN Tea PartyUnfortunately, no one at CNN could grasp that simple truth. Instead they installed Ken Jautz, a rabidly right-wing promoter, as it’s chief. Jautz was the man who gave Glenn Beck his first job in television. Then CNN went on a hiring binge that consisted of the most unsavory figures from Wingnutlandia including: Amy Holmes (of Glenn Beck’s GBTV), Will Cain (of Beck’s The Blaze), Erick Erickson (of the uber-conservative blog RedState), Dana Loesch (of Breitbart News and the Tea Party), and E.D. Hill, a former Fox anchor and Bill O’Reilly guest host, who is most famous for saying that a friendly fist bump between the President and the First Lady was really a “terrorist fist jab.”

CNN demonstrated its new found rightist perspective by producing programming that was straight out of the conservative PR playbook. They were the only cable news network to broadcast live Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party response to Obama’s State of the Union address. They co-sponsored a GOP primary debate with the corrupt Tea Party Express. They also co-sponsored a debate with the ultra-right-wing Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

For a network that claims to be the only truly neutral source for news, CNN has conspicuously failed to permit a representative from MoveOn.org to respond to a presidential address, nor to co-host a debate with the Center for American Progress. They have navigated toward a full-on Foxification of the network without any pretense to objectivity or balance.

And what have they got for it? A steep collapse to last place in the ratings, an embarrassing forfeiture of credibility, a severe loss of viewer loyalty and respect, and the pleasure of becoming a target of Fox’s ridicule.

As a division of TimeWarner, CNN has the resources to brand itself as a powerhouse news provider. They have more domestic and international news bureaus than any television news enterprise. They have access to the talent and technology that could set them apart from their competitors. Yet they fail to take advantage of these assets. And worse, they squander them in the vain hope of being FoxLite.

That’s what I call an historic debacle. And it’s why CNN just posted their worst ratings in twenty years. It’s also why they are now seen as an object of sympathy as Fox News batters them in the ratings and in the press. The first step in rehabilitating themselves would be to recognize their problem and clean house. Then they would need to fight back. If they would aggressively hammer at Fox as a lightweight purveyor of lies in a flashy, soap opera package, they might just begin to recover some measure of pride and start their long trek back to legitimacy.