Glenn Beck Is Overwhelmed By Barack Obama

Posted by on July 13, 2009 at 9:16 pm. 4 Comments :

Poor Glenn Beck. He’s having such a hard time keeping up. The burden on him must be horrendous. Day after day he has to maintain a level of maniacal terror that would lead an ordinary man to suicide (which Beck has attempted twice). Every show has to reveal a conspiracy of Satan worshiping liberal traitors that are right outside of your window, preparing to molest your children.

How does he do it? How does he survive the pressure? Of course, it would be a strain for Beck to intellectually keep up with a jellyfish – that’s had a lobotomy – and has been dead for two hours. But somehow he manages to deliver the steadiest stream of stupid in modern media.

Today Beck editorialized that the hearing to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court Justice is actually just a ruse to draw attention from other more important issues. Barack Obama’s agenda to restore the economy, reform healthcare, clean the environment, and manage two wars and an ongoing terrorist threat, has Beck thinking that a conspiracy has evolved between the administration and the media:

“President Obama is simultaneously dumping so many huge agenda items on the system, even if the media wanted to cover each of the big stories they wouldn’t be able to devote enough time to do it. So instead, we get stuck watching yet another pathetic confirmation hearing.”

And what is it that the “pathetic confirmation hearing” is distracting us from? Beck tells us that it is things like a second stimulus package (which Obama has said is unnecessary at this time), and a photo of Russian President Medvedev holding a coin that Beck says is the future world currency. Then there’s something about Al Gore and General Electric that Beck throws in.

That’s funny. All of Beck’s examples of things that Obama is talking about that will be missed because of the Sotomayor hearings, are things that Obama is not talking about at all. Nevertheless, Obama is still deliberately attempting to overwhelm the system with his overly ambitious agenda. Also, for the record, after this tirade against the conspiracy to use Sotomayor to hide the real news, Beck spent several minutes of his precious airtime discussing…Sotomayor. Apparently Beck has been recruited into the conspiracy himself.

The truth is, Beck isn’t accustomed to seeing what it look likes when a president is actually working and getting things done. He is used to the the sort of progress made by the C- under-achiever that we just booted from office last January. By that measure, Obama is doing the work of ten men. And the sad consequence of it is that ignorant trolls like Beck are going to be left in the dust because their brains can’t fire synapses fast enough to comprehend.

It is a sad thing to witness, but unlike the famous motto of the United Negro College Fund, we need not worry about a mind going to waste. Where there is no mind, there is no waste.

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The Fox Nation Declares Victory Over Obama

Posted by on July 11, 2009 at 12:01 am. 4 Comments :

From the start, the Fox Nation presented itself as a community intended to reflect “your values, your voice.” In its official Statement of Purpose they claim that…

“The Fox Nation is for those committed to the core principles of tolerance, open debate, civil discourse–and fair and balanced coverage of the news.”

And from the start, that has been a lie. The brazenly partisan web site has never bothered to uphold even a pretense of tolerance, open debate, or civil discourse. A brief venture into the comments posted on their overtly biased news items exposes a population consumed with hostility and a bitter disgust for government and the democratic process they profess to revere.

Displayed on the site’s featured stories today is headline that goes farther than ever to reveal the true role that Fox Nation was created to play. The role, not of a fair and balanced source for news, but of an advocate for a far-right agenda and an opponent of the progressive policies and values for which the American people just voted. The headline reads “FOX Nation Victory! Obama’s Drive for Climate Change Bill Delayed!”

The obvious bias expressed in this item destroys any pretense of neutrality. What’s more, it arrogantly assigns to itself the credit for this alleged victory. Fox Nation appears to believe that they are responsible for the legislative delay that they herald as a triumph. They fail, however, to offer any evidence for why they deserve to share in this pseudo-glory. This should put an end to any debate as to whether Fox is pursuing its own ends. It should, but it won’t. Fox defenders, blinded by dementia, will undoubtedly continue to insist that Fox is merely a counterweight to the rest of the media that they falsely regard as liberal.

To compound the absurdity of this item, the article linked to the headline is a story in the Washington Post that merely describes a delay due to the fullness of the Senate calendar. The Senate is busy with its top priority, the healthcare bill, and Sen. Barbara Boxer, the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, insists that the Climate Change bill will be addressed when the Senate returns from its August break. In other words, there is no “victory” in any legislative sense. The bill is moving forward in a relatively routine fashion.

So while the Fox Nation swaggers before its Mission Accomplished banner, the only real victory they have achieved is the unmasking of their deceit and their intent to manipulate public opinion. Now that is a cause to celebrate.


Rupert Murdoch Running Criminal News Enterprise?

Posted by on July 8, 2009 at 3:49 pm. 3 Comments :

The Guardian has a story that simply must be read:

Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists’ repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.

The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures and to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.

Today, the Guardian reveals details of the suppressed evidence which may open the door to hundreds more legal actions by victims of News Group, the Murdoch company that publishes the News of the World and the Sun, as well as provoking police inquiries into reporters who were involved and the senior executives responsible for them.

The rest of the story just gets more lurid. This is a shocking look into the way that Murdoch and his accomplices operate.

[Update 7/9/09] Rupert Murdoch appeared on his own Fox Business Network today where Stuart Varney, who is notorious for aggressively challenging (i.e. interrupting) liberals, attempted to ask him a question:

Varney: The story that is really buzzing all around the country, and certainly right here in New York, is that the News of the World, a News Corporation newspaper in Britain…
Murdoch: No, I’m not talking about that issue at all today.
Varney: OK. No worries, Mr. Chairman. That’s fine with me.

That’s fine with you? Way to suck up to your boss, Stuart.


Chuck Todd Is A Political Analyst?

Posted by on July 8, 2009 at 12:34 pm. 3 Comments :

Chuck Todd is the NBC News Political Director and Chief White House Correspondent. I wonder what qualifications were required for those posts. Listening to Todd’s comments today on Morning Joe suggest that not much actual research or knowledge of current political events were deemed a prerequisite in landing his job:

The key portion of his remarks reveals some sort of tunnel vision on his part as he struggles to explain left-wing criticism of Obama’s healthcare initiatives:

“I think we’ve all been wondering at what point…you know…what would it take for the left to start actually criticizing the White House […] Would there be something that they would get upset about from the White House, and this is the first time we’re seeing that.”

The first time? Apparently Todd doesn’t read Paul Krugman, who has been blasting the President on his economic proposals. Todd hasn’t been watching Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow who have been fiercely critical of Obama’s timidity with regard to torture and the prosecution of those responsible for it. Todd must be oblivious to the attacks from advocates of civil liberties and same-sex marriage. And Todd must have missed the free press activists who are hammering the White House for not living up to their promises on transparency.

The left may be many things, but it is not above circling the wagons and firing away at itself. Todd has bought the right-wing fallacy that the media is liberal and that the Obama administration is enjoying special treatment. That has never been true, but that doesn’t stop the rightist propaganda machine from alleging it. One thing they never acknowledge is that Fox News is the #1 national cable news network, and they are notoriously, and viciously, critical of Obama, democrats, and liberals in general.

How the right can assert that the media is liberal while Fox, most newspapers, and virtually all of talk radio, are firmly in the conservative camp, is unfortunate but understandable given their self-serving agenda. What I don’t understand is how professional journalists, who aspire to practice their craft ethically, can be so taken in by the dishonest representations of partisan operatives and, as a result, disseminate the sort of nonsense that Todd is dispensing here.

[Update] Todd responded to an emailer (thanks, ecostar) saying:

“I love getting attacked on things like this. There’s a difference between venting and deciding to act upon the anger and what I was point out was the specific acting out by moveon on rahm and health care. Sounds like some blogger decided to either misrepresent what I said or somehow didn’t understand the context. But thanks for being a ranter in your attack.”

So Todd doesn’t think that all of the advocacy groups connected to the issues addressed above are acting on their complaints? MoveOn is just the latest to act. He should check with the ACLU, the Human Rights Campaign, FreePress.net, Brave New Films/Foundation, etc. His answer is a complete dodge that only further engulfs him in disinformation.

Feel free to let Todd know that this is NOT the first time that the left has been critical of Obama, and it is NOT the first time that media mainstays like him have misrepresented that fact:

Email:
Chuck Todd
Letters @ MSNBC


SNL Faceoff: Victoria Jackson vs. Al Franken

Posted by on July 8, 2009 at 11:05 am. 7 Comments :

Andrew Breitbart’s Big Hollywood is providing us with an intimate look into what has become of a couple of former Saturday Night Live cast members and how their paths have diverged.

First we have Al Franken who holds a degree from Harvard in political science. And while he ended up pursuing a career in comedy, he often featured political content in his work, hosted a radio show on Air America, and authored several books. In short, he was never too far from his academic focus or from the public debate over important issues that faced our nation.

Then there is Victoria Jackson. Jackson is a graduate of Palm Beach Atlantic University, a faith-based institution, where she received a degree in theater. She achieved star status by reciting poetry while doing handstands and portraying an array of ditzy blonds.

Franken went on to become a United States senator. Jackson went on to appearances on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club and a reality TV show for overweight celebrities (Celebrity Fit Club).

Now we can see an example of Jackson’s unique insight into public affairs and political discourse in an article written for Breitbart’s Big Hollywood. Amongst her revelations are accusations that “Obama legally kills babies and now he can legally kill Grandmas!” She continues…

“Hitler did this. He killed the weak, the sick, the old, and babies and races/religions he didn’t like. Hitler also controlled the media. (Where’s the public debate between scientists on ‘Climate Change/Global Warming?’) Hitler had the VW bug invented as the state car. What will O’s nationalized car be? So… kill off the weak. That’s the plan. Tax the workers to death. Erase the middle class. Sounds like the evil governments we studied in high school long ago. The evil governments were : kings, oligarchies, facist, socialist, and communist. Now it’s called the Obama Administration. Sounds like candy or a rock band.”

Jackson is just another in the lengthening list of Tea Baggers who compare Obama to Hitler. But she does so in a distinctly demented tone that disparages Volkswagons, puts climate change deniers on equal footing with peer-reviewed scientists, and seems to think that the Democrats’ proposals to rollback tax cuts for the rich is somehow going to harm workers and the middle class.

To top it off, Jackson relates a tale wherein she harangues the proprietor of gift shop in Burbank with her paranoid delusions. She is surprised that the store’s owner and employees are less than anxious to jump on to her crazy train. After failing repeatedly to get a rise out these poor folks, she writes that she drove away thinking “Ignorance is Bliss.”

She oughta know.


A Sad Day For Bill O’Reilly – Courtesy Of Senator Franken

Posted by on July 6, 2009 at 10:12 pm. 2 Comments :

O’Reilly: “In a sad day for America, Al Franken is now a U.S. Senator.”
It’s not sad for the majority of Minnesotans who voted for him, and the millions of Americans who believe in Democracy.

O’Reilly: “Franken is a blatantly dishonest individual, a far-left zealot, who is not qualified to hold any office.
Except that of U.S. Senator, as determined by the voters. O’Reilly is a blatantly dishonest, far-right zealot, who is upset that he can’t pick all the senators himself.

O’Reilly: “A man who trafficked in hate on his failed Air America radio program.”
I wonder if O’Reilly could inject any more hatred into his allegation that Franken traffics in hate?

O’Reilly: “With people like Franken on the hill, this country is in deep trouble.”
Translation: With people like Franken on the hill, O’Reilly is in deep trouble.

O’Reilly saved this little tirade for the last 15 minutes of his show. Glenn Beck never mentioned Franken at all. And he didn’t mention Palin either. Carl Cameron, earlier in the day reported that Franken used to have a program on the “disfunct (sic), bankrupt Air America.” Of course Air America is neither disfunct nor even defunct. It just had its fifth birthday. I wonder if Cameron ever bothered to report that Fox News lost money every year for at least its first five years.

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Palin vs. Sotomayor

Posted by on July 6, 2009 at 7:33 pm. 1 Comments :

So Sarah Palin can no longer abide attacks by political opponents. So she is unwilling to endure the unconscionable smears from the media. So it has become too much to ask her and her family to stand by idly as she is demonized and disparaged. All of these laments were included in Palin’s resignation speech on Friday.

Her defenders in the rightist media concurred with her and launched a PR campaign to spin Palin’s cowardly retreat as an unconventional response to an environment wherein she was mercilessly battered and besmirched. They condemned what they characterized as unfair attacks against the poor defenseless governor and conservative icon.

I wonder if those same Palin defenders will now condemn Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, who is promoting a campaign to defeat Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor with the flier pictured here. The flier that this image comes from describes Sotomayor as “a radical supporter of child-killing.” I wonder if they will consider it to be an unfair and disgusting personal attack. I wonder if they will condemn the rest of her far-right critics who have cast Sotomayor as a racist, or stupid, or Marxist, etc.

It is instructive to note how these two very different women respond to the slings and arrows of public life. Palin, who has a record of quitting when the kitchen gets too hot, is fleeing the scene and leaving the state she pledged to serve in the lurch. Sotomayor is soldiering on and will soon take her place on the nation’s highest court.

The truth is that everyone in public life has had to dodge mud and worse. The only way Palin can expect to avoid getting hit is to stay out of the ring. Yet she seemed to imply that a higher calling compels her to further service on her country’s behalf. Does she think that when she reappears there will be no one who disagrees with her policies or agenda? And when they do, as they inevitably will, is she going to quit again?

Hopefully the lessons learned from these confrontational days are that the real heroes are those who stand for something. The true role models are the ones who don’t back down from adversity. In the future women, and all Americans, will be able to look up to Justice Sotomayor with pride. And, in the best case scenario, we will look back at Palin and laugh.


Brent Bozell To GOP: Set A Torch To That Big Tent

Posted by on July 6, 2009 at 1:36 pm. NO Comments :

Brent Bozell, the president of the uber-conservative Media Research Center, has issued a bit of advice for the Republican Party that ought to make Democrats everywhere ecstatic.

“Incoming memo to the GOP: Set a torch to that big tent of yours. People are flocking from liberals’ failing policy and ideals.”

The impetus for this counsel is new polling from Gallup that says that Americans in recent years have become more conservative. Bozell’s knee-jerk reaction typifies the shallow and partisan analysis for which he is known.

The Gallup poll cited by Bozell does indeed show that 39% of Americans consider themselves more conservative than they did a few years ago. What Bozell fails to reveal is that a significant majority of those who say they have become more conservative were conservative to begin with.

Plus, it is mostly Republicans whose views have shifted more to the right. So what we are seeing is primarily a hardening of ideology by those who were already on the right side of the scale.

In addition, a prior Gallup poll showed that Republicans already reside in the smallest of tents, with 73% describing themselves as conservative and only 4% as liberal and 24% moderate. Democrats, on the other hand, breakdown to 38% liberal, 40% moderate and 22% conservative, a much more balanced community.

The obvious conclusion from the data in this poll is that there isn’t any advantage for officeholders or candidates to swing to the right. Even if the American people are sliding slightly rightward, that doesn’t mean that they will vote Republican. Just take a look at the results of last November’s election when Democrats took the White House and added seats in both chambers of congress. And contrary to Bozell’s contention that “people are flocking from liberals’ failing policy and ideals,” Gallup explicitly debunks that claim in their polling on specific issues.

Consequently, Bozell’s advice to the GOP to circle the wagons and become more exclusionary than ever can only help Democrats, who are presently viewed as more tolerant of diverse opinions. The public still blames Bush for the economy and Iraq; still prefers Obama’s approach to healthcare and immigration; and still has a 63% approval rating for the President.

So light up your torches, Republicans. Fan those embers of your party’s support. Feed the flaming rhetoric of your right flank. You are only going to burn down your own house.


The Sarah Palin Show Set To Premiere On Fox News?

Posted by on July 3, 2009 at 1:53 pm. 13 Comments :

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has just announced that she will not seek reelection. Even more surprising, she also says that she will be resigning from the office that she has held for less than one term.

Were this merely a politician choosing not to run again, there could be several explanations including, most likely, an intention to run for higher office. But the resignation throws that theory right out the window. Either she has some serious scandal about to erupt, or she got an offer from Rupert Murdoch.

The timing is suspect as well. It seems like an odd choice to make a significant statement like this on the day before the fourth of July. Especially when competing with other sensational stories like Michael Jackson and Gov. Sanford. Why couldn’t this have waited a week? Fridays are generally considered to be news graveyards – where stories go to die. Why make an announcement that has any positive content at a time usually reserved for bad news? Could it have anything to do with the fact that many of the opinion-casters are on vacation this week? Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, even Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are not around to comment. Coincidence?

Remember, she was a sportscaster before going into politics. She studied journalism in college (but must have forgotten much of it because she couldn’t tell Katie Couric a single newspaper that she read). And her appeal in last year’s campaign was mostly connected to her alleged personality – it certainly wasn’t her experience or intelligence. Since folks like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have proven that those qualities are irrelevant to a career as a Fox pundit, Palin may believe that now is the time to cash in. Her resignation speech even included a reference to the $500,000 dollars in debt that she has accumulated defending herself against criminal and ethics complaints. So it’s fair to say that she could use the money a broadcasting job would provide.

A Palin show on Fox News has always been a good fit for both her and Fox. Neither have an interest in, or reputation for, honesty or accuracy. And both have profited from exploiting controversy and sex. Plus, she wouldn’t be the first potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate with a show on Fox, would she, Mike Huckabee?

What more could Fox ask for than a former beauty queen who cheerfully calls the President a Socialist who pals around with terrorists? And what more could Palin ask for than a network gig that allows her to spew nonsense and practice her fancy pageant walkin’?

[Update 7/4/09] Foxnews.com got around to reporting the Palin news with a story mainly cribbed from the AP. In addressing Palin’s future they wrote…

…she will have a variety of potential platforms, from writing books to hitting the public speaking circuit to working directly with the Republican Party to get candidates elected.

In the process, she’ll also have the ability to make a lot of money — far more than the $125,000 or so a year she has earned as governor. She already had a deal with publisher HarperCollins to produce her memoirs, with publication planned for next spring.

They left a couple things out of that report. First, they failed to mention the possibility of a role on Fox News. Second, they didn’t think it worthy to note that HarperCollins is owned by Murdoch’s News Corp.


The Tea Party Tea Baggers Really Have Balls

Posted by on July 3, 2009 at 12:13 pm. 1 Comments :

Last April’s Tax Day Tea Party was by all objective accounts a massive failure. Estimates of national attendance hovered at something below 300,000. To put that in perspective, twice as many people went to see “The Hangover” last Saturday.

The dismal showing of Tea Baggers was achieved after having received millions of dollars worth of free publicity and promotion from Fox News. The network executed a wall-to-wall campaign promoting these events and their own participation in them. They shamelessly recruited viewers to take up the cause and sent their biggest stars out as enticements. And still they underperformed the expectations of their own organizers who predicted crowds in the millions.

So capitalizing off of that disaster, the Tea Partiers are back with a new sense of excitement and hope. Unfortunately, other than the most rabid disciples, the excitement is shared by very few. Even Fox News is offering tepid support. They have made a few mentions, and hosted a few interviews, but it is nothing comparable to the far-flung campaign they orchestrated last spring. Without the support of Fox’s mass media megaphone, it is unlikely that this ersatz movement will make much of a splash.

A story in the Washington Independent provides some interesting (and hilarious) details about the July 4, version of the Tea Parties. Organizers seem to have accepted the reality that prospects for the revolution they dreamed of have receded. One of the national organizers for the Tea Party Patriots is expressing her joy that a followup to Atlanta’s Tea Party in April (which she said drew 20,000 people) brought out only 70 TPers. This way, she feverishly rationalized, she could talk to every participant. Perhaps all sponsors of public protests should implore people to stay away so that this benefit could be enjoyed more often.

The organizer of the Dallas Tea Party is taking a different approach. He seems to want people to attend, even if that means he won’t be able to speak to all of them individually. To that end he is pulling out all the stops:

“We’re using the fireworks and the Monkees and the rest of that to attract people who never though they’d be at a Tea Party.”

Actually, it is just one Monkee, Mickey Dolenz. That should guarantee at least the 70 people that the Atlanta Tea Party pulled in. More interesting is the admission that he intends to dupe potential attendees with fireworks and celebrities on the Fourth of July holiday to get them to show up for a Tea Party that they likely would not have otherwise attended. How much you wanna bet that Tea Party organizers across the country will try to take credit for every municipal fireworks display, every holiday concert, and even every tailgate party and backyard barbecue, in an attempt to validate their movement?

The funniest part of all of this is the campaign by radio talker Phil Valentine to “Give the Senate Some Balls.” Inspired by those who thought sending members of congress tea bags was a good idea, Valentine is encouraging his listeners to send balls to senators. No, I swear, he really is. So after being mocked relentlessly for having chosen to engage in tea bagging, Valentine is compounding that unfortunate imagery with the vision of people sending their balls to the senate.

I am now officially speechless.