Media Milestones And Millstones For 2008

At the conclusion of a year that few people will miss, it is time once again to indulge in the hackneyed cliche of annual list-making. While some events are already etched into our collective memories (i.e. the election of our nation’s incoming, first-ever, African-American president; the shoe attack on our nation’s out-going, worst-ever, remedial president), other events may be more subject to fading recollection as a new year of stimuli compete for a place in America’s short attention span.

It is in this spirit that I submit the following collection of awards in the hopes of preserving these moments for history, if not for comedy.

Starting with the history-making presidential election, Barack Obama wins the Somebody Had To Say It Award for this:

Obama: “I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls. If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right?”

Sticking with the campaign theme, Sarah Palin has repeatedly demonstrated her ignorance of the media’s role in public life. She believes that it is unconstitutional to criticize her, and that she is the one to restore the media’s credibility. That alone would be enough to merit an award, but Palin wins the What Constitution? Award by showing Carl Cameron of Fox News that she has no comprehension of the Constitutional role of the office she sought:

Palin: “The vice president, of course, is not a member – or a part of the legislative branch, except to oversee the Senate. That alone provides a tremendous amount of flexibility and authority if that vice president so chose to use it.”

Of Course, Palin has her fans – like Ann Coulter who along with Human Events Magazine named Palin Conservative of the Year. But that was not enough to pry away the Fatuous Infatuation Award from Rich Lowry of the National Review:

Lowry: “I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, ‘Hey, I think she just winked at me.’ And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.”

On the plus side, CNN’s Jack Cafferty played a stream of gibberish from Palin’s interview with Katie Couric. After which he said that if you aren’t afraid that she is a 72 year old heartbeat from the presidency, you should be. Then Wolf Blitzer tried to cover for Palin by saying that she was just trying to squeeze a lot into her answer. Cafferty’s reply earns him the Anchor Smackdown Award:

Cafferty: “Don’t make excuses for her. That was pathetic.”

I suppose I should give an award to Palin’s running mate…what was his name? Oh yeah…John McCain certainly deserves a mention for his aggressive attacks on the media. But that’s all he gets. While it takes real guts for a former press darling who hosts barbecues for his reporter pals to turn on them when the next object of media affection pops up, the act for which I will remember McCain is his promotion and exploitation of Samuel Wurlzebacher – aka Joe the Plumber – whose name is not Joe and who is not a plumber. Despite his obvious deficiencies, Plumber Joe became a staple of Fox News, particularly business chief Neil Cavuto. On one notable occasion, Cavuto queried Joe on the subject of Barack Obama’s patriotism. And for his response Joe gets the McCarthyism Reprise Award:

Wurzelbacher: “Oh you know, [Obama’s] ideology is something that is completely different than what democracy stands for, so I had some question there. In my opinion.”

However, Joe will have to be satisfied sharing this award with News Corp Chairman, Rupert Murdoch, who also earned this honor in an interview with Cavuto:

Murdoch: “[Obama’s] policy is really very, very naive, old fashioned, 1960’s socialist.”

Old Rupert was destined to have an over-representation on this awards program. That’s partly because of the expansive nature of his media empire, but mostly because that empire is a repulsive purveyor of smears and propaganda. There is so much of it that I could devote an entire set of awards to News Corp alone. Consequently, I’ll focus here on the more peculiar instances of journalistic abuse. Starting with Amy Chozick of the Wall Street Journal who wins the Biggest Loser award for an article titled, “Too Fit to Be President?” which asks:

Chozick: “…in a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama’s skinniness be a liability?”

Then there is Fox News’ own Liz Trotta, winner of the Death To America Award for her public call for assassinating Obama:

Trotta: “…and now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh… Obama … well, both if we could.”

And don’t think I’ve left out the Grand Wizard of Fox News, Bill O’Reilly. Oh…where to begin? I’m going to skip over O’Reilly’s generous offer not to lynch Michelle Obama, and his assertion that 200,000 documented homeless veterans don’t exist, and even his delicious submersion into lunacy as demonstrated in any of the “Don’t Block the Shot / Dodge Us at Your Peril / We’ll Do It Live” rants. For some reason I get a kick out his delusional conspiracy theory that the TV ratings are fixed and that Nielsen is intent on destroying him. Never mind the fact that he is number one in those ratings and he frequently cites them as evidence of his ego-starved greatness. So for inventing enemies around every corner, O’Reilly gets the Paranoia Strikes Deep Award:

O’Reilly: “The bottom line on this is there may be some big-time cheating going on in the ratings system, and we hope the feds will investigate. Any fraud in the television rating system affects all Americans.”

When O’Reilly isn’t threatening “the folks,” his colleagues in conservative crime are doing it. Rush Limbaugh is this year’s recipient of the Domestic Terrorist Award for exhorting his listeners to attend the Democratic Convention and to “Screw the World! Riot in Denver!”:

Limbaugh: “[T]he dream end of this is that this keeps up to the convention and that we have a replay of Chicago 1968, with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that. That’s the objective here.”

Glenn Beck, not to be outdone, issued his own threats. But in an attempt to boost the degree of difficulty, Beck went off the scale. In November he told a story of how we had been accosted in a diner by a hostile trucker who threatened to run him down. He summarized the experience by saying that, no matter how much he disagreed with someone, he would never say such horrible things – not even to Michael Moore. However, just a few months prior, Beck said this about Moore and, thus, earned his Serial Hypocrite Award:

Beck: “Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out – is this wrong?”

The Grand Prize for a year of countless media atrocities is reserved for a despicable act of greed and betrayal. Actually, it is a pattern of acts that has persisted for many years, but came to a head during the Bush administration and was courageously uncovered by the New York Times. It has been called the Pentagon Pundits scandal, though I call it SPINCOM. It centers around an initiative to stack the press with analysts who were willing to lie to support an illegal war and to fatten their own wallets. The Times gets the Milestone of the Year Award for revealing the rancid corruption of the media, the military, and the Bush warmongers:

NY Times: “Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.”

“The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.”

Sadly, the heroic work of the Times was largely ignored by the rest of the press, particularly television. Of course, the TV news networks were the most aggressively abusive employers of the tainted pundits. It would have taken a powerful dose of integrity to criticize behavior that they were in the thick of engaging in. The failure to cover such a controversial issue that impacts so directly on themselves is further evidence of a media community that is untrustworthy and uninterested in serving the public. However, the story in the Times has resulted in an investigation at the FCC and another proposed in the next Congress. So, hopefully, some accountability will be brought to bear.

The fight for honest and independent journalism will continue into the new year. While there are some promising signs accompanying the incoming Obama administration, there will undoubtedly be much work to do. So in the spirit of optimism and renewal, and hopes for better future, I wish everyone a…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Glenn Beck Is Even Stupider Than Joe The Plumber

Glenn Beck was indisputably the stupidest man on CNN’s Headline News. He certainly holds a similarly high ranking in talk radio’s carnival of conservative clods. Next month Beck will debut his spanking new soap box on the Fox News Channel. Fox, of course is the home of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Steve Doocy, Dick Morris, Gretchen Carlson, etc. Beck must be starting to feel the strain of the competition he will encounter to be the network’s reigning rube.

So in anticipation of this battle of the blands, Beck had a workout with that international icon of intellect, Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher. It bodes well for Beck that he emerged from the ring even stupider than Plumber Joe.

Much of the media attention for this event was focused on Wurzelbacher’s reversal of support for John McCain. Joe told Beck that being on the campaign trail with the Republican loser made him feel “even dirtier,” and that he wanted to “get off the bus” (although he thought that Sarah Palin was “the real deal”). But an even meatier exchange occurred that seems to have escaped the attention of the press (which should surprise precisely no one). In discussing the appointment of Hillary Clinton to be Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, Wurzelbacher said…

“I mean, you know, for example, you know, Hillary Clinton, the whole deal with her as far as becoming Secretary of State. You know, it’s kind of against — well, it’s not kind of. It’s against the Constitution right now where it stands. But they’re talking about getting around it.”

[Now I know why Joe is so fond of Palin. They speak the same language – also.]

Wurzelbacher reveals later in this interview that he learned this factoid from watching Sean Hannity. Now, watching Sean Hannity is risky enough. Learning something from him is downright foolhardy. The issue PJ is raising concerns the Constitutional prohibition against members of Congress being appointed to a position whose pay was increased during their congressional service. The Secretary of State received such an increase this year. However, this has occurred several times in the past, and then, like now, the lower salary was simply reinstated and the appointee took the job. While Wurzelbacher is too dumb to articulate this, Beck is so dumb that he doesn’t even know what Plumber Joe is referencing:

“Well, I think you are right on the money. I will tell you this in talking to one of my guys who’s deep in the Constitution, he’s saying that she can’t have two offices. That’s the problem. She can’t occupy the two offices and then two different branches, but it’s kind of iffy on that. It’s not really clear. And if she gets rid of her office, then it should be fine. But she couldn’t be a senator and Secretary of State. That’s the real problem there.”

No Glenn, that’s not the real problem, or any problem at all. Clinton has no intention of holding both offices. You must have pulled that notion right out of your … well, your brain, because your ass probably knows better. The governor of New York is already in the process of selecting Clinton’s successor in the Senate. You and your guys who are “deep in the Constitution” are deeply idiotic for managing to so thoroughly misunderstand both the Constitution and current events. You’re the real problem for being one of the foremost distributors of ignorance in America.

[FYI to GB: From the Constitution, Article I, Section 6, Paragraph 2: “…no person holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office.” So it’s not the least bit “iffy”]

Even Joey the P disputed Beck’s mindless meanderings. You would think that Beck would be somewhat embarrassed by having been corrected by a fake plumber riding out his extended fifteen minutes of fame. That’s gotta hurt. But Beck also remains silent when Wurzelbacher declares that he doesn’t want to “stir up a hornet’s nest” by making untoward comparisons, then proceeds to say…

“…you know, when Adolf Hitler had come to power, one of the first things he did was take guns away […] some of the things that our current elected President Obama is suggesting really goes down a socialist road…”

I have to admit that I’ve been having a bit of fun at Plumber Joe’s expense for the past few weeks. It’s awfully easy to do when someone so devoid of a clue continues to humiliate himself in public. But if Glenn Beck can get his own TV program and a $50 million contract for his radio babbling, then Plumber Joe is entitled to his silly little book and the occasional guest spot the Wally Wingnut Show. And Beck can rest assured that he has nothing to worry about with regard to retaining his title. He is, and will remain, the World’s Champion Intellectual Featherweight.

Neil Cavuto Cavorts With Cliff Claven And Plumber Joe

Today on Fox News Neil Cavuto, the managing editor of the Fox Business Network, brought in a couple of first string financial pros to discuss America’s economy and politics. The renown expert John Ratzenberger (formerly Cliff from TV’s Cheers) was there to provide his unique insight on world affairs. And even more exciting, Joe the Plumber Ignorant, Lying, Tax-Dodging, Opportunist, showed up to school us all on patriotism:

JOE: McCain has fought and bled for our country, and loves our country. There’s too many questions with Barack Obama and his loyalty to our country. And I question that greatly.

CAVUTO: Well, you’re not doubting that he’s a good American. Or you are?

JOE: Oh you know, his ideology is something that is completely different than what democracy stands for, so I had some question there. In my opinion.

Does the word “Dumbass” spring to mind. And I mean that for both Joe and Cavuto. Even though Cavuto nominally challenged Joe, the fact that he keeps inviting him on the show is enough to dismiss him, his program, and his network. Cavuto frequently hosts such unqualified mental pygmies as Ted Nugent, Jon Voight, and various Hooters waitresses.

This is the kind of credibility that Fox brings to business reporting. The close association between Fox News, the Republicans, and the Bush administration explains a lot. They share the same advisors. It’s no wonder our economy is in tatters.