The first official ratings for the Fox Business Network reveal that the new enterprise is somewhat less than promising:
“For the first three weeks of July, according to Nielsen figures obtained yesterday that have not been publicly released, Fox Business Network is averaging just 8,000 viewers during daytime hours, and 20,000 in prime time.
CNBC, by contrast, is drawing an average of 284,000 viewers during the day and 191,000 in prime time.
Fox News Executive VP Kevin Magee immediately unleashed a torrent of excuses:
“It’s a slow-growing business, but it is a growing business. I don’t think anybody here expected us to be on top by the first summer, and we’re not.” Anyone who believes otherwise is “probably delusional.”
However, ten months ago CEO Roger Ailes boasted that:
“I’m not interested in anything short of a revolution.”
I guess he must have meant one of those slow-growing revolutions.
In 1967, John McCain was shot out of the North Vietnamese sky, crash landed in a lake, taken prisoner, and held in captivity for … 41 years, so far.
No one can dismiss the unimaginable agony of enduring six years in an enemy prisoner of war camp. It is surely a brutal experience both physically and mentally. It is the sort of experience that never leaves you and, indeed, it seems never to have left John McCain. His entire post-POW frame of reference is shaped by what he went through, and also by what he missed as a consequence of his incarceration.
The tenor of his candidacy is quagmired in history, and that is not a reference to his age. It is his policy proposals that harken back to the past. And it is a vision of the past that is still very much alive in McCain’s mind. His arrest in Vietnam simultaneously arrested his growth as an observer of politics, foreign affairs, and diplomacy.
It’s hard to tell lately if McCain is running to succeed President Bush, Gen. Petraeus, or perhaps Gen. Westmoreland. The persistent theme that McCain has adopted with regard to Iraq is identical to the 1970’s era military establishment and Richard Nixon’s “Peace With Honor” contrivance. Nixon also promised to stay the course and bring our troops home when victory was achieved, despite overwhelming agreement, even amongst his advisers, that nothing recognizable as victory was likely to result in Vietnam.
Now, McCain accuses Obama of preferring to lose a war in order to win a political campaign. But it is McCain who is pursuing a political goal at the expense of America’s interests. McCain is crafting an election scheme that parallels Nixon’s in 1972. Win the office by assuring voters that America is always right and thus, invincible. Then worry about proving it later. Unfortunately, the post-election scenario would also mirror Nixon’s, with an eventual withdrawal from Iraq that fails to achieve any objective articulated by Bush or McCain. And like Nixon’s mis-adventures in Laos and Cambodia, McCain’s Iraq exit could include a detour through Iran. But McCain doesn’t concern himself with these realities because he is too fixated on prevailing politically. And that’s exactly what he is hypocritically accusing Obama of.
As further evidence of McCain’s confinement to the past, consider his recent advertisement titled “Summer of Love.” It begins with images of colorful Hippies at protests, and music festivals. The announcer declares it a time of “uncertainty, hope and change,” skillfully associating uncertainty with two words that have become iconic within Barack Obama’s campaign. It then proceeds to insult an entire generation by asserting that McCain had “another kind of love – of country,” thereby implying that young Americans in the 60’s and 70’s were less than patriotic. As one of them I can assure you that it wasn’t because we hated our country that we dedicated ourselves to peace, civil rights, and free expression. Are those unpatriotic aspirations?
This is not the first time that McCain has attacked the Woodstock generation. In fact, he even opposed modest funding for a museum that commemorated the era and the event. Some may agree with McCain that…
“The Woodstock Museum is a shining example of what’s wrong with Washington on pork-barrel, out-of-control spending.”
Personally, I think that an event that drew nearly half a million people, featured some of the most popular and creative artists in the world, and emerged as emblematic of one of the most significant cultural movements of the century, deserves a small facility for remembrance and study. In addition, the Bethel Woods Arts Center, as it is called, is a working contemporary venue that enriches the community both creatively and financially.
The fact that McCain cannot recognize the importance of that era, and the contributions of citizens who lived through it, is representative of a larger problem for him. The time he spent in captivity was a defining time for those of us back home. There were so many socially profound events that altered just about everyone who lived through them. John McCain was not one of them. The history that shaped millions of Americans, McCain only heard about secondhand, after the fact. For example:
The first heart transplant.
The assassinations of Martin Luther King and two Kennedys.
So it may not be so surprising that McCain is trapped in a time warp, unable to relate to a country and world that shared these tumultuous experiences, but from which he was excluded. It may explain his hostility to a generation that was arguably more engaged in public service and community activism than any generation before or since. It puts into perspective the persistent pessimism expressed in the ad above that ends by saying to voters “Don’t hope for a better life.”
While many of us who went through the 60’s and 70’s have assimilated those experiences and included them as we’ve grown over time, McCain has remained stagnant and, in many ways, ignorant in the procession of time. That’s why, for us, the Summer of Love will always be remembered with an equal measure of frustration and pride that reflects the reality of that historic time. But McCain will only recall a combination of frightening changes and an idealized portrait of a sitcom utopia. That’s not a vision for the future that offers much hope. It’s not a vision of the future at all. Contine reading →
Posted by Mark NC on July 23, 2008 at 10:58 am.
NOComments :
A press conference will be held today at 2:30 outside of the offices of Fox News in New York. The purpose of the gathering is to deliver a petition with over 600,000 names to network executives calling for an end to the racist attacks against black Americans including Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle. The petition is the work of Color of Change and MoveOn and asks Fox News CEO Roger Ailes to respond to the allegation that…
“Fox has developed a pattern of airing racially offensive attacks, then apologizing only after controversy erupts. Forced, half-hearted apologies do not demonstrate good faith when the larger pattern of offensive rhetoric continues.”
Examples of Fox’s intolerance abound, but for a brief recap of a few that occurred just this year:
Obama’s Baby Mama
Terrorist Fist Jab
Knock Off Osama …uh… Obama … Well, Both If We could
Lynching Party Against Michelle Obama
The coalition delivering the petition will include rapper, Nas, who has had his own problems with Fox News. Last August, Nas was scheduled to appear at a memorial concert for the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings. Bill O’Reilly condemned the booking as an atrocity. Nas responded by saying that…
“Everybody has a marketing plan; his marketing plan is racism […] I wouldn’t honor anything Bill O’Reilly has to say. It just shows you what bloodsuckers do: They abuse something like the Virginia Tech [tragedy] for show ratings.”
Well said. But he’s not done. His new album “Untitled” (which just hit #1) features a track dedicated to Fox News called “Sly Fox,” that begins, “The Sly Fox, Cyclops, We locked in the idiot box,” and continues, “Watch what you watchin’, Fox keeps feeding us toxins, Stop sleeping, Start thinking, Outside of the box.” Here’s the whole thing on video:
~~~
Update: Fox News did not accept the petitions but made a statement in response that trivializes the 600,000 signers while taking a slap at Nas:
“Fox News believes in all protesters exercising their right to free speech including Nas who has an album to promote.”
Nas had his own statement:
“Fox poisons this country every time they air racist propaganda and try to call it news. This should outrage every American that Fox uses hateful language to talk about the person that may be the first black president.”
After Fox refused to take the petitions, Nas took them to Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. Once again, Comedy Central proves to be a better practitioner of Journalism than Fox News.
John McCain’s campaign is floundering and desperate. He is bankrupt both financially and intellectually. And nothing illustrates this more than his pathetic attempts at self-promotion through media manipulation. Rather than present his policies and personal attributes to sway a skeptical electorate, McCain has opted to beg for attention from the press and hope they favor him with some attention.
Much of the time that Barack Obama has been overseas, McCain has been complaining that he is being ignored. He is whining that the three network anchors are ditching him to tag along with Obama. Never mind the fact that he isn’t making any news, he believes that his adventures in Kennebunkport and fundraising events warrant the same reception that Obama gets while meeting with world leaders in war zones.
McCain’s campaign reacts to all of this by manufacturing news. His staff punks Robert Novak into publishing a tip that McCain will name his VP pick this week. Now Novak suspects that it was never true and he calls it “pretty reprehensible.” But it bought him some free press.
Earlier this week, McCain submitted an op-ed to the New York Times as a putative response to a previously published op-ed by Obama. The Times rejected the piece as lacking substance or even relevance to Obama’s article. The McCain camp, along with most of the rightist rabble, giddily declared that this is proof of media bias. In fact, it is merely proof that respectable news organizations will not allow themselves to be exploited by wily campaign media hacks (sometimes). Since McCain’s op-ed was not responsive to Obama’s, and it offered nothing newsworthy of its own, it was nothing but fluff and undeserving of publication.
Now McCain is supposedly preparing to release a new ad (below) that portrays Obama as a media darling. The ad is titled “Love” and his website introduces it saying…
“It’s pretty obvious that the media has a bizarre fascination with Barack Obama. Some may even say it’s a love affair.”
I actually agree that the press is fascinated with Obama, although there is nothing bizarre about it. He is the first African American ever nominated for president by a major party. He is a relative newcomer to the national political stage. And he is generating more interest from voters than any other contemporary politician. McCain, on the other hand, has been in Washington for thirty years. He has run for president before. And from the public he is eliciting not much more than yawns, even amongst many Republicans. It would be bizarre if the press were not fascinated with Obama.
In addition, the new ad seems to inadvertently boost Obama’s profile. The intent of the ad is to show the quantity of positive references to Obama by various media figures. But the result is that it affirms that there is an abundance of positivity surrounding Obama. Many viewers will retain the impression that Obama is very well liked and forget any points made regarding media coverage. McCain’s previous ad (“Gas Pump”) had a similar effect. At the end, it asked who was responsible for higher oil prices, and answered the question by playing a recording of a crowd chanting “Obama!” Again, the audience will likely recall the display of adulation and not what question was asked.
However, the big problem with the new ad is that it will never appear on TV. The whole ad campaign is a fraud. Notice that it is just under 3:00 minutes long? That is far too long for broadcast. The only purpose of announcing it now is to get the media to report on the ad and have it broadcast as part of editorial coverage. McCain is angling for free media. Will the press allow themselves to be used this way? Probably. Especially the cable news nets who have an insatiable appetite for pre-produced video and lots of time to fill.
The bottom line is that McCain’s campaign has no momentum and nothing of interest to say that might generate coverage. So they are resorting to begging journalists to cover him instead of the guy over there in the Middle East. They are resorting to begging friendly reporters into printing fake news items. They are resorting to begging the New York Times for editorial space in which to publish their press releases. They are resorting to begging cable news networks to air stories on ads that they never intend to broadcast.
Update: As if to punctuate the analysis above, the McCain campaign has helpfully announced a pitiful response to Obama’s trip overseas. McCain has purchased ad time in American cities with the same name as the cities Obama is visiting (i.e. Berlin, WI, Paris, ME).
This is further evidence that McCain is still praying for free media as these are small markets that will have little impact on national trends. He’ll get some, of course, from Fox News. But this ad buy comes at the same time that Obama announced his $5 million purchase of air time during the Olympics. So while McCain is making penny ante, symbolic ad buys, Obama is going for the Gold. Nice juxtaposition.
“Repulsive” doesn’t begin to describe the latest foul excrement to spew from the dessicated lips of Satan’s own schlockmeister, Bill O’Reilly.
It is just unimaginable how much stored bile must be pressuring the interior of his putrid skull that he would sink to comparing fellow Americans, who passionately embrace Democracy, to the inhumane and murderous cults of Nazism and Klan hatred.
O’Reilly has every right to disagree with any group he cares to, but the Netroots Nation conference, and the DailyKos community from which it sprang, are the sort of caring, involved, and dedicated citizens that make Democratic government possible. For O’Reilly to gush this vomitous slime is so far removed from civil behavior that it speaks only to the severity of his psychosis.
What’s worse is that, at the same time that he is slandering these good people, he is trivializing the horrors wrought by the real terrorists in swastikas and hoods. He is dishonoring the millions of victims of Hitler’s madness, and thousands more right here on American soil who were tortured and killed by people (like O’Reilly) who consider themselves patriots.
There is apparently no bottom to O’Reilly’s demon soul. Listen for yourselves:
The geniuses at CNN have decided to dig into the depths of their worst performing personalities to find a guest host for Larry King tonight.
Glenn Beck has the two lowest rated hours on the already low rated CNN Headline News. So naturally the programming brain trust at CNN would tap him to sit in the seat of their highest rated host, Larry King.
In a previous stint on the mothership,
Beck moved up to CNN from Headline News to sub for Paula Zahn and barely scraped up the viewers he routinely got at his less-watched network. And he underperformed Zahn, who was replaced for poor performance, by a whopping 23%.
And if it’s not bad enough that they are ignoring Beck’s status as the Biggest Loser, they are also ignoring his history of offensive and racist speech, which Think Progress has nicely documented.
Despite the fact that just one week ago John McCain declared that he understands the impact of blogs on American politics, he told Conan O’Brien Friday night that Americans are tired of them:
Another pearl of wisdom from the the guy who last week also said…
“I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself.”
John McCain…Building a bridge to the 19th century.
The great minds at the Republican National Committee are once again demonstrating their transcendent grasp of marketing, finance, and public relations. In an action so preposterously witless as to scramble the common cranium, the GOP has sent a “cease and desist” letter to CafePress citing trademark infringement on the part of sellers using the term “GOP” or the elephant logo. Attorney Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen is representing CafePress and wrote this on the CLP Blog:
“[W]e might ask why the RNC has chosen an election year to try to suppress speech about the Republican Party, especially since many of the images are highly favorable to their cause. Many of the CafePress users appear to be Republican grassroots activists. Is this the right year for RNC staff members to start going after their own supporters?”
Asking the RNC why they are trying to suppress speech is like asking why tobacco companies add nicotine to cigarettes – the only way you can get people to consume either one is to artificially manipulate their behavior. Tobacco companies do it with addictive chemicals. Republicans do it with message control and censorship.
Ironically, this harebrained scheme can only work to the disadvantage of Republican allies. The First Amendment guarantee of free speech, along with “fair use” and the legal protection for parody, insure that any critical use of the trademarked properties is permitted. Only those who are using the properties favorably would be subject to litigation because it would be more likely to result in confusion with the RNC’s own favorable use. So the GOP’s action punishes their friends while having no impact whatsoever on opponents.
This is the same pack of idiots that got us mired in a war in Iraq; that ran our economy into the ground; and that want to persuade us that John McCain ought to be our next president.
The Terrorist Watch List maintained by the Transportation Security Administration has become a bloated and useless compendium of waste. The ACLU recently reported that the list contains a million names. The TSA disputes this saying that, due to duplicates and aliases, the number is actually closer to 400,000. Well, that’s comforting, but it doesn’t change the fact that…
“Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ‘suspicious characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape.”
New amongst the listees is CNN reporter Drew Griffin. Last March Griffin broadcast a story on the TSA that exposed some of its weaknesses. Within two months he found that he was unable to travel without significant inconvenience and later learned of his inclusion in the database intended to identify dangerous individuals suspected of having ties to terrorism.
In questioning before Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff gave the wholly incredulous explanation that Griffin may be a victim of a name “mismatch.” As if there is another Drew Griffin that is the real terrorist. And it is apparently nothing more than a coincidence that Griffin’s placement on the list shortly followed the broadcast of his critical investigation.
The obvious exploitation of these government resources to punish unfriendly journalists is hardly out of character for the Bush regime. It is another illustration of their incompetence, waste, and abuse of power. And in this case they are contributing to making the country less safe by diluting the effectiveness of security operations. While it is repugnant that any government agency would employ these chilling schemes, it is particularly disturbing that they would target the press. The only purpose for doing so would be to frighten other conscientious journalists into silence.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) is requesting an investigation. But if the past is any indication, the administration will stonewall, lie, and otherwise seek to obstruct the lawful implementation of oversight. The only hope for an open and honest examination of this is if it is conducted by a new administration. Hopefully that isn’t too far off.
The first official ratings for the Fox Business Network reveal that the new enterprise is somewhat less than promising:
John McCain’s campaign is floundering and desperate. He is bankrupt both financially and intellectually. And nothing illustrates this more than his pathetic attempts at self-promotion through media manipulation. Rather than present his policies and personal attributes to sway a skeptical electorate, McCain has opted to beg for attention from the press and hope they favor him with some attention.
So Sue Me!