The Breibrats over at BigHollywood have once again set out to knock Jon Stewart down a peg by noting that there are other TV programs with higher ratings. I suppose I should give them credit for being able to count and to read a list, but they are still embarrassingly bad at ratings analysis, so I thought I would help them out by amending their big headline:
If the Breibart crew is intent on criticizing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for being such losers, it might have been a good idea to read a little further down the list (well, actually to the very bottom), where they would have found Fox News stars Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. Then this commentary would not seem so idiotic:
But-but-but the media keeps telling me that two guys regularly humiliated in the ratings by cartoons, reruns, and “Robot Chicken” are American phenoms…?
But-but-but the media keeps telling me that two guys who couldn’t muster three million viewers combined are populist heroes who speak for the people…? […]
Stick that in your clown nose, you speech-policing, left-wing elitists.
Hey, maybe stop being dicks. That might help.
If Stewart and Colbert are humiliated by placing 27th and 45th, than how would the Breitbrats describe Hannity and O’Reilly showing up dead last at 99 and 100? It would seem that Stewart and Colbert are more representative spokespersons for the people than Fox’s biggest stars. And as for being dicks…I think the Breitbrats have that honor sewn up.
The geniuses at Breitbart.com have published another of their astounding revelations that illustrate just how mentally deficient right-wingers can be due to their fixation on bashing anything and everything they regard as liberal.
In a posting that takes obvious pleasure in their analysis of television ratings, the Breitbrats report that Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are not the highest rated programs in the universe.
Breitbrat John Nolte: Just a friendly reminder that less than 1% of the population watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. If it wasn’t for the elite media — the same elite media desperate to convince us these two are some sort of national treasures — hardly anyone would watch them at all.
TOTAL VIEWERS
Comedy Central, 11-11:30 p.m. “The Daily Show,” 1.6 million
Comedy Central, 11:30 p.m.-midnight ET, “The Colbert Report,” 1.3 million
TBS, 11 p.m.-midnight, “Conan,” 1.0 million Adult Swim, 11:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. ET, 2.1 million Adult Swim, 12:30-1:30 a.m. ET, 1.4 million
Whatever influence Stewart and Colbert have does not come from the people; it comes from the elite. This dynamic duo of left-wing free speech oppressors are about as populist as caviar.
Wow. What a couple of losers. The Comedy Central pair of media satirists can’t even rate higher than Cartoon Network programs. And it serves them right for all that free speech oppressing they are doing [Note to Nolte: Can you provide an example of this?].
What the Breitbrats failed to notice is that their pet network, Fox News, rates even lower than the Comedy Central late night lineup. For the month of February 2012, “In total day FNC placed fifth (vs. news programming) with 1.093 million viewers.”
Ergo: Whatever influence Fox News has does not come from the people; it comes from the slack-jawed yokels. These bombastic right-wing free speech oppressors are about as populist as roadkill.
Do the Breitbrats really think that they are scoring points by attacking Stewart and Colbert, even though those shows have more viewers than Fox News? How stupid do they think their readers are? (Don’t answer that). I reported long ago that Fox had fewer viewers than SpongeBob SquarePants in an effort to demonstrate how the perception of their influence was overly inflated. I also reported that the highest rated program on Fox (O’Reilly) has about half the viewers of the lowest rated broadcast news program (CBS Evening News). But my comparing a news network to a cartoon network actually makes a point due to the contrast. Comparing a comedy network to a cartoon network is really not indicative of anything. Stewart is the first person to say that his program is not a news program and he is not a journalist.
The Breitbrats seem so ecstatic about this that I hate to spoil their fun. But the next time they attempt to characterize a program as irrelevant, they had better check to see if their own TV pals aren’t even less relevant. It is Fox News that is struggling to have an impact on society, and despite their best efforts, they were unable to prevent a socialist Muslim with no birth certificate from getting elected to the presidency in 2008. They aren’t having much better luck in 2012. This is partly due to idiots like the Breitbrats who continue to embarrass what’s left of the reasonable wing of conservatism.
As if Andrew Breitbart’s performance before some Occupy protesters wasn’t pathetic enough, the terminally choleric pundit delivered an incoherent rant from the CPAC podium. He spent much of the time rambling in sentence fragments, struggling to make sense. But one portion of his speech teased what may be his next video crusade. And, no, I’m not talking about the hilariously twisted “Hating Breitbart” documentary that was announced at the conference. I’m referring to Breitbart’s tantalizing claim to have unearthed videos of President Obama in college.
“I have videos. This election we’re going to vet him from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008. The videos are going to come out, the narrative is going to come out, that Barack Obama met a bunch of silver ponytails in the 1980s, like Bill (Ayers) and Bernadine Dohrn, who said one day we would have the presidency, and the rest of us slept as they plotted.”
OMG! Obama in college plotting with Ayers to become president. That’s blockbuster material. I can just picture it: A twenty year old Obama meeting with the middle-aged Ayers, drafting a scheme that would see Obama elected to the presidency thirty years later. What foresight and commitment they must have had. Especially since they never met until long after Obama graduated from Harvard Law and eventually moved to Chicago where Ayers lived.
It is also interesting that Breitbart would characterize his comrades on the right as sleeping through the eighties. You know, the eighties when Ronald Reagan was president and conservatism was at its peak. That would explain a lot, like how Reagan got elected president in the first place. Little did they know that liberals were holed up conspiring to take over the free world – thirty years in the future – by electing a black man with no birth certificate to the presidency. A brilliant plan that couldn’t possibly fail. It makes you wonder if there might not be a young, undocumented, Mexican atheist currently putting together a plan with billionaire drug lords to occupy the White House in 2040.
For Breitbart to make these allegations involving Bill Ayers is curious since he just attended a dinner party thrown by Ayers a few days ago. Breitbart was invited to the party by Tucker Carlson who paid $2,500 in a charity auction to have dinner with Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn. Breitbart, ever the gracious guest, told Eric Bolling on the Fox Business Network (whose show was just canceled) that Ayers was a great conversationalist, an incredible chef, and a sociopath.
Another guest for dinner, Matt Labash of the Weekly Standard, posted his recollections of the affair with a distinct and buoyant whine about not having had enough time to harangue his hosts. He ate their food (personally prepared by Ayers), drank their wine, and enjoyed a scrumptious desert of apple pie topped with Ben & Jerry’s AmeriCone Dream (the flavor inspired by Stephen Colbert). But apparently two hours and a free gourmet meal is not deserving of appreciation. How rude of the Ayers’ not to take a seat in the dunking booth and allow their rightist guests to harass them for another hour or two about things they did forty years ago.
Which brings us back to the videos that Breitbart claims to have in his possession. If they are anything like the videos he has released in the past, we can be assured that they will utterly lack any truthful representation of events. Like the ACORN videos that were deliberately edited to create false and negative impressions of people who were unselfishly helping low income citizens to vote and find housing for their families. Like the Shirley Sherrod video that was cut to make her look like a racist when the the whole, unedited video proved just the opposite. Breitbart’s history with video exposes is a cavalcade of conscious deceit.
I have doubts that any videos of Obama’s college years will ever actually be released, but if they are it seems unlikely that they will have any relevance this many years later. Breitbart once famously declared that he would “take down the institutional left” in three weeks. That was two years ago. He’s a radioactive bundle of bluster and petulant anger. And even though he has threatened his liberal enemies saying that “We outnumber them in this country, and we have the guns”, I’m not losing any sleep over it.
The Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has just launched a campaign to “Stop Colbert,” as in Stephen Colbert, the acerbic incarnation of right-wing blowhardism. The first shot in this battle, for which a brutal retaliation from Colbert can be expected after he gets back from vacation, is this video that Pelosi posted yesterday:
The issue is one that has become an integral part of this election year that has seen income inequality, corporate abuse of power, and fair elections, take precedence over almost every issue other than jobs. Pelosi sums up her position saying that…
“…House Democrats are reintroducing the DISCLOSE Act today to get unlimited, secret donations out of politics. The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United opened the floodgates to unrestricted special interest campaign donations in American elections—permitting corporations to spend unlimited funds, directly or through third parties and Political Action Committees organized for those purposes, to influence Federal elections and opened the door for the emergence of Super PACs.”
It is Colbert who has succeeded in making Super PACs one of the most reviled political devices ever conceived. And he did it by starting his own (Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow) and demonstrating how easy it is to collect huge sums of money from secret sources and spending it on self-serving activities without any unaccountability whatsoever.
The issue made headlines this week when President Obama announced that he would not oppose the formation of Super PACs to support his reelection. Republicans immediately pounced on the announcement, portraying it as a flip-flop of his previously expressed position against Super PACs. Of course, Obama did not flip-flop at all. He is still against Super PACS, he has just resigned himself to the fact that they are a part of the electoral process as it currently exists and that abstaining from using them would amount to a unilateral disarmament that would permit Republicans to vastly outspend Democrats this year.
Obama and other Democrats still intend to pursue an agenda to bring an end to the practice as quickly as they can get support from enough members of the GOP to pass legislation like the DISCLOSE Act which Pelosi is addressing in the video above. It is only by the obstructionism of the GOP that the bill has not already become law.
Pelosi is firing both barrels at Colbert in the video. She hammers him for “taking secret money from special interests” and for being “out of control.” And she nails him for his hatred of kittens. As an aside, she zings Newt Gingrich with what could be a fatal blow by referring to him as her friend. If Gingrich’s campaign weren’t already dead, this would surely kill it.
Still, this campaign aimed at Colbert is a big step for Pelosi and company. It was not that long ago that one of Pelosi’s top lieutenants in the House was advising Democratic members to refrain from appearing on The Colbert Report. Rahm Emanuel was the Democratic Caucus chairman before leaving to become Obama’s Chief of Staff, and then mayor of Chicago. But back in March of 2007. while still a member of Congress, Emanuel told his colleagues to “steer clear of Stephen Colbert.” That advice was widely ignored, to the dismay of many congressmen with deficient senses of humor.
The DISCLOSE Act is an important first step in restoring the power of people over corporations and wealthy special interests. Pelosi’s efforts on behalf of this bill are welcome. But in this topsy-turvy world it may turn out that Colbert will wield more influence over the matter in the long run. His brilliant comedic sensibility and fearlessness in injecting his satire into the real world is having an impact that could never have been anticipated. And as Pelosi says, He.Must.Be.Stopped!
This election season’s most electrifying development is the announcement that Stephen Colbert has formed an exploratory committee to discern whether there is a “hunger” for him to enter the race for the Republican nomination for President of the United States of South Carolina.
Colbert has already placed in polling that shows him ahead of Gov. Jon Huntsman. And today he appeared on ABC This Week with George Stephanopolous (which is more than Mitt Romney has done). Notably, Colbert appeared in character throughout the interview (which Romney always does).
Clearly Colbert is off to a great start despite it being too late to actually get on the ballot in South Carolina. But in that regard he isn’t much worse off than the so-called “real” candidates like Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich, who failed to get onto the primary ballot in Virginia.
In other news, Colbert’s former SuperPAC (which he transferred to Jon Stewart so as not to run afoul of election law) has released its first ad in South Carolina:
Some may regard that as an over-the-top negative advertisement, but Colbert has made it clear that he is not affiliated with the SuperPAC and that he regards Jon Stewart as a political foe. In any case, Romney has other fictional comparisons he has to worry about.
Just when you thought that Andrew Breitbart could not become any sleazier, he is now accusing Anthony Weiner and his wife of releasing the news of her pregnancy as a PR stunt. That’s a stretch even for a scumbag like Breitbart. As usual, he has no evidence, not even an anonymous source. It is a wholly invented canard whose only purpose can be to smear the Weiner family and bring them more pain, and consequently bring more pain to his real target, the Democratic Party.
This is politics at its worst. Despite Breitbart’s disingenuous assertion that he didn’t want to hurt the Weiner family, he now says that “We have every right to find out to what extent he’s been misbehaving.” Since when? And if we have that right with regard to Weiner, should we also be stalking every other public servant to disclose their misbehavior? Should we see what Breitbart is up to when he’s not peeking through the windows of his ideological enemies?
If anyone is engaging in PR stunts, it’s Breitbart. When the latest and most graphic picture of Weiner was “leaked” to the media this week, Breitbart feigned outrage, insisting that he had nothing to do with it. Why should anyone believe that?
Here are the known facts: Breitbart took the photo with him when he went to the radio studio of shock-jocks Opie & Anthony. That’s the first curious thing. Why would he need to have that picture with him while visiting a pair of professional jerkwads who make a living off of rank controversy? Then, without any prodding, he handed the photo, which was on his cellphone, to others in the studio who passed it around amongst themselves while making juvenile wisecracks. That is not something someone concerned about the subject’s privacy would do.
Later, Breitbart alleged that a surveillance camera in the room captured the photo from his cellphone. That is a suspect assertion at best. It is simply not credible that a surveillance camera could have picked up the image from Breitbart’s cellphone and produced the detail on the leaked photo that went public. Most surveillance cameras are positioned high on the wall near a corner of the room so that they have a broad perspective of the area they are monitoring. Breitbart expects us to believe that one of those cameras, that are not generally high resolution devices, got a clear and detailed shot over somebody’s shoulder of an image on a small cellphone screen. That assertion needs to be challenged.
Additionally, Breitbart claimed that he only offered to show the photo after he was assured that there were no cameras in the room. That is a verifiable lie. Breitbart knew very well that the show was being videotaped. You can see the video of the show below.
Clearly this was taken on a hand-held device, not a stationary surveillance camera. Breitbart even looks directly at the camera on several occasions. So he obviously lied when he said that he thought there were no cameras in the studio. And his assertion that he was told that there were no cameras was also a lie. The video shows that he never asked for, nor received such an assurance.
In my estimation, Breitbart wanted this photo to be released but he didn’t want to take the heat as the sleazeball who released it. So he manufactured this cover story with a couple of radio publicity hounds who would gladly insert themselves into a national melodrama. Anthony Cumia even admitted as much in an interview on Fox News:
“When you take a chunk of meat into a lion’s den, someone’s gonna take a bite. […] I do kind of like attaching ourselves to an international story. It is the credo of the shock jock.”
This appears to be a deliberate scheme to extend and amplify the controversy, and it is just the sort of thing Breitbart would do based on his Legacy of Sleaze. There are so many pieces of Breitbart’s story that don’t fit, or are certifiably false, that one has to refer to his history of dishonesty and purposeful deception. Until Breitbart can satisfactorily explain these discrepancies, we should assume that he deliberately devised this scheme to release the photo with his shock-jock pals as accomplices.
[UPDATE]Stephen Colbert also noticed Breitbart’s ridiculous cover story about the “accidental” release of the photo. Colbert succinctly nailed the notion that Breibart was an innocent victim of unforeseeable circumstances:
“What happened to the sacred tradition of confidentiality between respected journalists and shock-jocks?”
Colbert also mocked the absurd claim that Breitbart didn’t know there were cameras in the studio by pointing out that no cameras were visible in the video of Breitbart that was taken by a camera across the desk from him.
Today was the day that many historians will record as the day that sanity was restored to America. And the rest of the historians will mark it as the day fear was kept alive. Then the two warring groups of historians will pelt one another with eggs. That’s just the way historians are.
Jon Stewart’s long anticipated Rally to Restore Sanity, and Stephen Colbert’s opposing March to Keep Fear Alive, took place at the National Mall in Washington, DC. By all accounts it was a rip-snorting success. But as Stewart noted, what’s important isn’t what happened there, but how what happened there would be reported:
“I think you know that the success or failure of a rally is judged by only two criteria: the intellectual coherence of the content, and its correlation to the engagement…I’m just kidding. It’s color and size. We all know it’s color and size. But I think we’re in good shape. As I look here today I can see we have over ten million people.”
In fact, the actual estimates were slightly lower. CBS News hired a firm to estimate attendance and they reported the crowd to be 215,000. The same firm pegged Glenn Beck’s Rally to Restore Honor at 87,000. Expect Beck to bitterly condemn the socialist, mathematician, elitists who deliberately skewed the estimates in order to plunge America into tyranny.
Amongst the highlights of the event were Colbert’s entrance from far beneath the stage in the Fenix capsule that was used to rescue the Chilean miners. Then there was the epic battle between Yusuf Islam’s Peace Train and Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train. That skirmish was settled by The O’Jays’ Love Train.
It’s funny how this rally, whose purpose was to lower the rhetoric and to “take it down a notch,” has incited much of the right to blow a virtual gasket as they complain that Stewart and Colbert are hopelessly far-left and are engaged in propaganda and disinformation. They regard this event as a blatant attempt to manipulate the upcoming election. There are even some who are disturbed by the presence of Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens), a devious Muslim trying to infiltrate American culture and commerce. To these demented Tea Partiers and pundits everything is a conspiracy. And that really isn’t funny at all, when you think about it.
In addition to the massive crowd in Washington, some satellite rallies were held around the country, including one in Los Angeles that I attended. There were approximately 2,500 people at this unofficial, spontaneously planned gathering at MacArthur Park. That’s an impressive turnout. And we were treated to some high quality entertainment that included cartoonist extraordinaire Lalo Alcarez and comic Jimmy Dore.
Posted by Mark NC on September 24, 2010 at 11:30 am.
2Comments :
This morning the House Sub-committee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security, received testimony from Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert (video below). Colbert was invited to relate his experience as a corn-packer (irony noted) for all of one day on behalf of the United Farm Workers.
This spectacle was reminiscent of Colbert’s legendary performance before the White House Correspondent’s Association. He remained in character throughout his testimony and questioning from committee members. He even corrected Lamar Smith (R-TX), who asked if the work he did on the farm was harder than being a comedian/entertainer, by answering that “It’s absolutely harder than punditry.” And while he actually addressed serious subjects and made profound points regarding immigration and labor policy, his most biting comments were directed at congress itself:
“I participated in the UFW’s ‘Take Our Jobs’ campaign. One of only 16 people in America to take up the challenge. Though that number may increase in the near future as I understand many Democrats may be looking for work come November.”
…and…
“Now, I’m not a fan of the government doing anything. But I’ve got to ask, why isn’t the government doing anything? Maybe this ag jobs bill will help. I don’t know. Like most members of Congress, I haven’t read it.”
…and…
“I trust that following my testimony, both sides will work together on this issue in the best interest of the American people. As you always do.”
It’s telling that the last quote may have been the biggest laugh line of the day. Apparently the notion that congress has the public interest at heart is hysterical. However. like the Washington press corps, the residents of congress expressed mostly nervous laughter and exhaled broadly when it was all over. Steve King (R-IA) was one of those who was not particularly amused. He objected to Colbert’s appearance before, during and after the hearing. Said King…
“Maybe amnesty supporters should spend less time watching Comedy Central and more time considering all the real jobs that are out there that require hard labor and don’t involve sitting behind a desk. If they did, they would realize that every day American workers perform the dirtiest, most difficult, most dangerous jobs that can be thrown at them.”
What a testament to the Republican agenda for American workers. King is proud of the fact that some Americans are forced to “perform the dirtiest, most difficult, most dangerous jobs that can be thrown at them” That’s exactly what King and his colleagues want, and what their policies would ensure. It’s a statement that defines the GOP plan for American labor. And it’s precisely why Colbert was brought before the congress to raise the profile of an issue that has been all but forgotten by congress and the media.
Looking back on 2009 can be a harrowing experience. There has been much that many people would rather not recollect. It was a year that began with dreadful economic suffering. From there it went on to unprecedented political division, animosity, and disappointment from virtually every perspective. And it ended with a reminder of our vulnerability to violent extremists at home and abroad. For that reason, like the mythical Medusa, it may be best not to look back on 2009 directly.
Nevertheless, News Corpse has compiled some moments that, for our own good, ought not to be forgotten.
Media Malfeasance of the Year: SPINCOM. In 2008, David Barstow wrote an article for the New York Times detailing how television news programs were employing Pentagon-trained military analysts to promote the Bush administration’s agenda for an unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq. In 2009, that article won a Pulitzer prize, a Golden Keyboard from the New York Press Association, and an Emmy nomination. Yet the article and its author never once appeared on television to discuss it. Despite Barstow’s many accolades and awards, the story was blackballed by the same TV producers who hired the phony pundits (who were also enriching themselves as consultants for the military contractors who benefited from the war). And by refusing to report on one of the most egregious examples of propaganda ever directed at the American people by their government, they also covered up their own complicity in cheerleading for the war.
2010 Prediction:
Someone famous will die while fleeing from police in a high-speed TV chase after being caught cheating on a spouse for a new reality show.
The Pimp & The Prostitute
What passes for journalism took a huge hit in 2009 when a couple of rightist activists dressed up for a Halloween expose on what they regarded as America’s most feared enemy: community organizers. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles played the roles they were made for, a pimp and a whore, as they visited offices of ACORN. The results were dishonestly edited videos that were played incessantly on Fox News despite having zero news value. The pair never appeared on any other television news network as they were closely guarded by their mentor Andrew Breitbart, and their patrons at Fox. Sadly, the other networks acquiesced by reporting the story despite having no access to the pseudo-news team.
2010 Prediction: Osama Bin Laden will buy Philip Morris, thus taking responsibility for killing 197,000 more Americans EVERY YEAR than he did that one time on 9/11.
Color of Change We Can Believe In:
After Glenn Beck called the President a racist, a previously little-known group embarked on a boycott campaign directed at Beck’s advertisers. By last accounting Color of Change had persuaded over 80 advertisers to pull or withhold their ads from Becks show. What’s more, they compelled a retraction from the DefendGlenn web site (whose proprietor, Gary Kreep, is a story unto himself) that had been falsely disparaging the boycott efforts.
2010 Prediction: Twitter will fold when its enfeebled users decide that 140 characters is too many to comprehend. It will be replaced by Blather, where messages are restricted to 26 characters and you can only use each letter of the alphabet once. The media will herald it as a phenomenon.
The Tea Party Delusion
What can be said about the year’s most overblown non-story: The Tea Party Movement? Never has there been a less significant amalgamation of disruptive whiners that received more attention from a controversy-challenged media. The Tea Baggers were always just a noisy minority who were fully sponsored by right-wing lobbyists and Fox News. But near the end of the year a poll was released that revealed the truth, even though the true part was ignored. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll hit the airwaves proclaiming that Tea Baggers (at 41%) were more popular that Democrats (35%) or Republicans (28%). What they didn’t report, although it was in the same poll, was that 48% of respondents knew very little or nothing at all about the Tea Baggers. When almost half of the country doesn’t know who you are, you are not much of a movement.
2010 Prediction: Fox News will lie. (I know. That one was too easy, but it’s New Year’s Eve and I have a party to go to).
Undisputed Scumbag Pundit Hall of Shame
This award is a tie due to the presence of two so thoroughly deserving Scumbag Pundits. These despicable cretins earned their awards by claiming a couple of the most repulsive utterings ever contemplated in the press:
Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Ralph Peters: “Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.”
Former CIA employee Michael Scheuer: “[T]he 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.”
And just for fun, I now present the Comedy Colonoscopy Award for 2009. So far as I know, there was only one entry. But it’s a doozy:
Here are a few examples of how the so-called “liberal” media rushed to smear Republican Gov. Mark Sanford after he surfaced from his hike in Appalachia …er… vacation in South America …er… tryst with his Argentinian mistress. These are emails sent to Sanford to solicit him for interviews.
Griff Jenkins of Fox News
“Having known the Governor for years and even worked with him when he would host radio shows for me — I find this story and the media frenzy surrounding it to be absolutely ridiculous! Please give him my best.”
If the Gov does an interview and its exclusive, it will make air on the tv channel and our radio news service all across the country. And I’m not sure if you’ve seen the stuff I do on the channel as a reporter, but I work mostly for our primetime coverage – Oreilly, Hannity, Greta, Beck – so there likely would be primetime coverage as well for some soundbites of the gov dispelling this flap.
Jenkins, you may recall, is one of the contingent of Fox News ambush journalists (along with Jesse Watters, and Porter Barry). He was also prominent in last April’s Tea Baggery. In this affair he is unabashedly promising a political delinquent favorable treatment.
Brendan Miniter of the Wall Street Journal
“Someone at WSJ should be fired for today’s story. Ridiculous.”
Miniter is actually bashing his own paper for publishing a story that merely reported that Sanford was off hiking the Appalachian Trail. So I guess that I’d agree with Miniter. Someone should be fired for having gotten the story so wrong. And Miniter should go with him for pandering to the story’s subject.
Joseph Deoudes of the Washington Times
“If you all want to speak on this publicly, you’re welcome to Washington Times Radio. You know that you will be on friendly ground here!”
Isn’t nice to know that there is “friendly ground” available for wayward Republicans? Not that this is news coming from the Moonie Times, a perennial happy place for rightists.
Ann Edelberg of MSNBC’s Morning Joe
“Of course the Gov has an open invite to a friendly place here at MJ, if he would like to speak out.”
And if anyone can call themselves a friend of Sanford, it’s Joe Scarborough, the former Florida congressman who had his own problems with the press when an intern turned up dead in his office.
Jake Tapper of ABC News
“NBC spot was slimy.” […] “For the record, I think the TODAY show spot was pretty insulting.”
Tapper’s main problem here is not that he is offering Sanford a safe haven, but that he is deliberately bashing his competition. Tapper is crossing the line in order to get a story. To his credit, he apologized and acknowledged that what he did was inappropriate. None of his colleagues have yet to do so.
Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central
As you may know, I declared myself Governor of South Carolina last night. I went power mad for abut 40 seconds before learning that Gov. Sanford was returning today.
If the governor is looking for a friendly place to make light of what I think is a small story that got blown out of scale I would be happy to have him on. In person here, on the phone, or in South Carolina.
Stay strong, Stephen
Et tu, Colbert? As the most reputable journalist of the bunch, it is disheartening to see that Colbert has compromised his impeccable journalistic credentials (a Peabody winner) in order to suck up to this miscreant governor. Since Colbert is on record as being philosophically opposed to apologies, I wouldn’t expect one to be forthcoming. In fact, it would hardly be necessary for him to bother correcting the record since, as he has noted, “reality has a well known liberal bias.” So what’s the point?
As if Andrew Breitbart’s 
Media Malfeasance of the Year:
The Pimp & The Prostitute
Color of Change We Can Believe In:
The Tea Party Delusion