John McCain’s Play For Free Media Love

Posted by on July 22, 2008 at 2:14 pm. NO Comments :

Candy McCainJohn 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.

They are resorting to the only thing they have left: Begging for free media.

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.

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Bill O’Reilly, Nazis, and the Klan

Posted by on July 21, 2008 at 10:46 pm. 2 Comments :

“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:


Glenn Beck Fills In For Larry King

Posted by on July 21, 2008 at 5:47 pm. 10 Comments :

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.


Glenn Beck WeakIn 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.


John McCain: Americans Are Tired Of The Blogosphere

Posted by on July 20, 2008 at 12:03 am. 3 Comments :

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 GOP Threatens To Sue Its Supporters

Posted by on July 18, 2008 at 5:25 pm. 2 Comments :
Republican ChangeSo Sue Me!

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.


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CNN Journalist Added To Terrorist Watch List After Report

Posted by on July 18, 2008 at 1:12 am. 2 Comments :

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 John McCain Joke Book

Posted by on July 17, 2008 at 11:34 pm. 1 Comments :

We are learning much about Sen. John McCain as he continues to reveal more of his “straight-talking” personality in the course of his presidential campaign. For instance, how many of us knew what a transcendent[al] wit he possessed? The following is just a brief selection of his classics:

  • Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father was Janet Reno!
  • Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran (sung to the tune of the Beach Boys’ Barbara Ann).
  • How about those exports of cigarettes to Iran? Maybe that’s a way of killing them.
  • A woman is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die. When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, “Where is that marvelous ape?”
  • The French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who is still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn’t have the face for it.

That’s right. McCain, who describes himself as being older than dirt with more scars than Frankenstein, has not even shied away from jokes about age, for which he now condemns others.

  • The Leisure World community should be renamed “Seizure World.” It’s a place where 97 percent of the people vote and the other 3 percent are in intensive care.
  • The nice thing about Alzheimer’s is you get to hide your own Easter eggs.
  • By 2008, I think I might be ready to go down to the old soldiers home.

That last one was directed at his own presidential aspirations way back in 2000. So he is not only humorous, but prescient. With talent like this it is surprising that he is wasting his time in politics. He could be a contestant on The Last Comic Wheezing.


Rachel Maddow At Top Of List For Show On MSNBC

Posted by on July 17, 2008 at 1:19 pm. NO Comments :

The New York Times spoke with the newly named president of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, about the prospects for rising star, Rachel Maddow:

“At some point, I don’t know when, she should have a show. She’s on the short list. It’s a very short list. She’s at the top.”

There were reports last year that Maddow had made a pilot with Bill Wolffe. And there was much speculation surrounding the inevitable departure of the network’s biggest loser, Tucker Carlson.

As it turns out, David Gregory got Carlson’s spot. It seemed to me at the time that Gregory’s program, Race for the White House, had a built in expiration date. There wouldn’t be much appeal in such a show after the election. I surmised that:

“Gregory, as Senior White House Correspondent, knows there will be little happening on that beat for the remainder of the year. So he’s settling in to cover the campaign and he can return to the White House with the new president. Then maybe Maddow or David Shuster will get another shot at a show.”

Since then, Shuster has become a featured daytime anchor and Maddow a frequent guest on several network programs. Maddow could be a breakout personality for MSNBC. Especially if they let her express herself with the insight and humor that she has in abundance. MSNBC has an opportunity to produce a compelling and innovative program. Let’s hope they don’t blow it.


Brit Hume Not Stepping Down From Fox News Program

Posted by on July 15, 2008 at 1:36 pm. NO Comments :

Actually, Brit Hume is stepping down from his fox news program, Special Report. I just thought it would be nice if the headline of this article served as a tribute to Hume’s journalistic record:

Brit HumeFrom Howie Kurtz at the Washington Post:

“Sources familiar with the situation say that Hume, 65, will give up his job as Washington managing editor and anchor of “Special Report.” They say he is near a deal to continue with Fox in a senior statesman role, not unlike that of Tom Brokaw at NBC, for roughly 100 days a year.”

Kurtz notes in his column that Hume’s chummy relationship with the Bush White House helped him snag some exclusives. For instance, Hume got the only interview given by Dick Cheney after he shot a hunting companion in the face. What Kurtz didn’t say was that Hume and Fox News censored the interview to hide the fact that Cheney had been drinking that day.

No replacement has been named yet for Hume. One possible candidate is Jim Angle, presently the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News and a regular guest host on Special Report. Angle’s reporting is at least as slanted as Hume, so he would be able to slide right into the new role. But who know, maybe they’ll go with Sean Hannity or Karl Rove. At Fox News, journalistic credentials are not a prerequisite.