Category: Media

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So, ABC decided to have Andrew Breitbart as a contributor to their election night coverage, despite the fact that he has repeatedly punked the news media with deliberately false and deceptive “news” stories, and now they are trying to walk this clusterf%$# back:

Since conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart announced on his website that he was going to be a participant in ABC’s Town Hall meeting at Arizona State University, there has been considerable consternation and misinformation regarding my decision to ask him to participate in an election night Town Hall event for ABC News Digital. I want to explain what Mr. Breitbart’s role has always been as one of our guests at our digital town hall event:

Mr. Breitbart is not an ABC News analyst.

He is not an ABC News consultant.

He is not, in any way, affiliated with ABC News.

He is not being paid by ABC News.

He has not been asked to analyze the results of the election for ABC News.

Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage, anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. For the broadcast coverage, David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg will contribute reaction and response gathered from the students and faculty of Arizona State University at an ABC News/Facebook town hall.

He has been invited as one of several guests, from a variety of different political persuasions, to engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate to be moderated by David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg on ABCNews.com and Facebook. We will have other guests, as well as a live studio audience and a large audience on ABCNews.com and Facebook, who can question the guests and the audience’s opinions.

I have no objection to ABC using conservatives as either news analysts or “guests” on their discussions.

That is a basic journalistic activity.

That being said, when you do so, you have an obligation to bring on someone who has is own opinions, not his own (made up) facts.

Andrew Breitbart is an individual who has deliberately, and maliciously created fake news stories to pursue his political agenda, and he continues to do so.

If you are a news organization, and you don’t use the words, “professional liar,” before any mention of him, you are a piss-poor news organization.

Why the Aqua Buddha Works

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I suggested that Rand Paul might be pushed into doing something stupid, but I missed an obvious point, one that Talking Points Memo‘s Josh Marshall got, which was that by making the attack, and by Paul responding with indignation, “How dare you,” rather than a strong denial and push-back, “My opponent is a liar,” he has shown himself to be weak, and the voters hate weakness.

He calls it the, “Bitch slap theory of electoral politics“:

Let’s call it the Republicans’ Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics.

It goes something like this.

On one level, of course, the aim behind these attacks is to cast suspicion upon Kerry’s military service record and label him a liar. But that’s only part of what’s going on.

Consider for a moment what the big game is here. This is a battle between two candidates to demonstrate toughness on national security. Toughness is a unitary quality, really — a personal, characterological quality rather than one rooted in policy or divisible in any real way. So both sides are trying to prove to undecided voters either that they’re tougher than the other guy or at least tough enough for the job.

In a post-9/11 environment, obviously, this question of strength, toughness or resolve is particularly salient. That, of course, is why so much of this debate is about war and military service in the first place.

One way — perhaps the best way — to demonstrate someone’s lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves — thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can’t or won’t defend themselves certainly isn’t someone you can depend upon to defend you.

Rand Paul was bitch slapped by Jack Conway, and now he’s acting like a bitch, not shaking hands and implying that he will skip the last debate.

Josh Green at The Atlantic notes, “The issue isn’t Paul’s Christianity, but his manhood,” and that his talk about skipping the final debate is all anyone is talking about.

In Case You Were Wondering………

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Yes, Juan Williams is a wingnut, he just pretends to be stupid and conventional on NPR, and works as a willing punching bag on Fox.

And now that he’s been fired, he lets it all hang out on Fox:

…To say the least this is a chilling assault on free speech. The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy.

Hint 1: If you think that you are entitled to be paid for spouting bigoted and stupid sh%$, you might be a wingnut.

This is evidence of one-party rule and one sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing. It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought.

Hint number 2: If you think that people complaining about what you say is an assault on the 1st amendment on par with the Soviet political prison prison system, you might be a wingnut.

Well, this does explain his concealing his own issues when he vociferously attacked Anita Hill for her (not proven) allegations of sexual harassment while he was under suspicion for doing the same.

It also explains why he thought Michelle Obama’s work on organic food and nutrition somehow showed that she was, “Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress.”

As I said yesterday, Good Riddance…….

He, of course, wins, because he just got a $2 million contract from Fox to be their “House Slave.”

Good Riddance…………

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If you start your sentence with “I’m not a bigot,” you probably are a bigot.

National Public Radio has fired Juan Williams over his statements that he is scared by Muslims in public places on Bill O’Reilly’s show:

I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

It’s actually more than that, because while this seems to be an admission that is an admission that he will sometimes judge people by color of their skin rather than by the content of their character, it actually followed a bigoted rant by Long Island Klansman Bill O’Reilly about the “Muslim dilemma”.*

So it was not just an admission of personal weakness, it is an active endorsement of O’Reilly’s bigoted screed.

His explicit endorsement of bigotry is not surprising. He is Fox News’ “House Slave,” to quote Harry Belafonte, and he has his tongue so far up Billo’s ass that he is tasting tonsils.

He was on the Long Island Klansman’s (O’Reilly), and Billo had been launching into his bigoted screeds. and his seemingly mild statement validated those screeds.

I think that context and venue matter. This was not Nightline, or Jon Stewart. This was Bill O’Reilly, and fellow hater Mary Katherine Ham, in a full blown hate-fest, and they Williams basically said that it was OK.

As to the effect on NPR, I think that his leaving will be good for the network.

Williams has always been a hack, and a stupid one at that, as his truly pitiful tenure as Talk of the Nation host showed.

He has been coasting on his work writing the companion book to the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize for decades.

I’m with Matthew Yglesias’s take on this, which was that he should have been fired long ago, “on the grounds of general lameness and lack of valuable contribution to their programming.”

Additionally, he has always been ethically challenged. During the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings, he was a vociferous defender of Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court nomination hearings, but he neglected to disclose that he himself was the subject of credible allegations of sexual harassment of a subordinate the Washington Post.

I do find the fact that we now have two echos of Clarence Thomas’s sexual harassment and perjury in the same week rather odd. Synchronicity, neh?

I’m so glad that I won’t have to listen to him any more. Hopefully they can send Cokie Roberts away too.

* Which has eerie echos of people 70 years ago talking about the “Jewish Problem.”

They Who Must Not Be Named

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I understand that Sarah Palin needs to be covered, as she is a Republican Party kingmaker, and a potential candidate for the presidency in 2012.

That being said, the current kerfuffle as to whether Sarah Palin was booed when she went on stage for an interview on the show Dancing With the Stars, that is clearly a “They Who Must Not Be Named” moment.

So DWTS, which I don’t watch anyway, is now on my list of TWMNBN.

That is all.

If there is justice in the world, Ms. Palin will be on the list shortly as well.

Jon Stewart Answers the Questions that Need to Be Answered

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We Have Found Obama’s Kryptonite

At a CNBC town hall, hedge fund manager Anthony Scaramucci asks Barack Obama, “When are we going to stop whacking at the Wall Steet piñata?

Well, Jon Stewart has the answer:

How long will we on Wall Street be hit like a piñata with a stick????

How about until the f%$#ing candy comes out!

How about that!

That’s how piñatas work!

…………

What you call a stick on Wall Street? I guess Amercans call a Trillion dollar bailout of your industry.

…………

Until your paper mâché bellies are no longer stuffed with government candy, walk it off!

Jon Stewart is not a man I ever want angry with me.

People With Way Too Much Free Time

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The Terran Research Ensemble, who are putting on an Opera in Klingon:

On Friday in The Hague, Netherlands, the Terran Research Ensemble raised the curtain on “U,” the first Earth opera performed entirely in Klingon. “U” is the Klingon word for “universe” or “universal,” and the opera tells the story of Kahless the Unforgettable, said to be the first Klingon emperor.

“Klingon are known as passionate opera lovers but at the same time very little was known about Klingon opera here so as far as I was concerned that was a very interesting challenge to try and make an authentic, or as authentic, something out of that as possible,” U co-creator Floris Schonfeld told Reuters and The BBC.

I will say that is only the 2nd most absurd juxtaposition of art and language, after the effort by South Africa in the Apartheid days to translate Shakespeare into Afrikaans:

Hamlet: Mein Papa der schpook!

There is a Reason that I Declared them “They Who Must Not Be Named”

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But that hasn’t stopped the Voice of American from recruiting them to try and pacify angry people in the Middle East:

In what is evidently an attempt to mitigate the damage caused by Koran-burning pastors, the US government will attempt to dissuade outraged citizens of the Middle East from joining al-Qaeda by beaming Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Britney Spears across the Voice of America’s airwaves.

According to Press Gazette, Splash News and Pictures will provide a half-hour weekly show packed with meaty celebutardiness, aimed at winning the hearts and minds of those still undecided whether Holy War or Hollywood is the way to go.

First, I will note that if VoA is doing this, the Arab world is going to try and beat us to death with their bare hands.

Second, I have not yet put Kim Kardashian on my list of They Who Must Not Be Named, but ………

Wait for it ………

Wait for it ………

Wait for it ………

She is now.

Great googly moogley.

Deep Thought

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Dick Armey created an Army of Dicks.*

Jon Stewart does a good job teasing out the hypocrisy of the Congressman, former House Majority Leader, and über lobbyist Dick Armey casting himself as an anti-establishment foe of Washington .


Jon Stewart, Part 1 of 3


Jon Stewart, Part 2 of 3


Jon Stewart, Part 1 of 3

*The Teabaggers.

Your Gibbs Update

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So, little Bobbie Gibbs has doubled down on his tantrum, refusing to offer anything beyond that he was “frustrated”, and then he went on to basically say that the liberal party base are nothing but a bunch of helpless co%$ suckers who have no where else to go, so they will show up to vote like the pathetic losers that you think that they are:

A day after the controversy over Gibbs’ remarks was seemingly been put to rest by a quick walk-back from the press secretary, Wednesday’s briefing seems likely to reignite the debate over the White House’s relationship with liberals. But if there was nervousness over base voters not heading to the polls, Gibbs didn’t show it:

“I don’t think [liberal voters won’t show up],” he said, “because I think what’s at stake in November is too important to do that.”

The translation here is, “Neener-neener you dweebs! What are you going to do, vote for Ralph Nader.“

That‘s really going to invigorate the base.

First, what The Rude Pundit said:

Finally, f%$# you, Mr. Press Secretariat, because you should be wooing the f%$# out of us. You should be trying to get in our underwear and hand job us with a smile on your face instead of treating us like a convenient punching bag because you don’t want to offend the precious “real America” or whatever bullsh%$ phrase politicians want to use to isolate and alienate us. Why? Because we’re the ones that made sure you are the Press Secretary.

(%$# mine)

And then we have Alan Grayson saying that he should be fired, and notes that he is frequently referred to as “Bozo the spokesman.”

If there is a lesson of the past 40 years in Politics, it is that dissing your base is a way to lose elections.

If this is how the Obama administration thinks it should win elections, I have no clue how the beat McCain in 2008.

*In a 110% purely heterosexual kind of way, of course, as the General would say.

I Don’t Know if Little Bobbie Gibbs Should Resign…

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But the White House press secretary certainly should go f%$# himself after this outburst:

During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

……

As a bit of fact checking, Canadian healthcare is actually a good thing, it has lower prices and better outcomes than we in the US achieve, and I can’t find anyone who supports abolishing the Pentagon, not even Dennis Kucinich, whose supporters Gibbs excoriates later in the interview.

For a senior adviser to the president, this is stupid and regrettable. For the press secretary, whose sole job is to cast administration policy in the most positive way, it is inexcusable.

This is not just beneath the behavior of a sentient being serving as press secretary, it’s beneath Dana Perino at her most addle-headed.

That being said, Paul Krugman makes a very good point, that, “What’s good for Obama is not necessarily good for his aides.” He calls it the “Principal Agent Problem,” which is economist wonk-speak for saying that people who work for someone may frequently advance their own agenda at the expense of those of their boss.

A classic case is overpaid executives who are nominally, “working for the shareholders,” when they are actually working to maximize personal gain, even at the expense of the viability of the corporation.

Obama is not really harmed by criticism from his base, but this criticism might change just who Obama listens to, so this reaction is almost certainly a reflection of his staff’s insecurities more than it is a realistic concern for Barack Obama or his agenda.

I think that Krugman sees the point clearly, but that he does miss another one: This sort of reaction is a fairly common in the Obama White House, Google, “f%$#ing retarded,” for example, and it indicates a staff that is obsessed with their own positioning at the expense of the administration and Obama’s policy agenda (whatever the f%$# that is).

So, your press secretary probably deserves to be fired, and the counter productive venom expressed by your staff indicates that the staff are not being properly managed, which says something distressing about his chief of staff.

Here’s hoping that Obama won’t hang onto Rahm the way that Bush hung onto Rumsfeld, and yeah, dumping Vilsac and Salazar might be a good idea too.

I Would Never Endorse Computer Hacking…

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But this bit of hacking is prize:

Somewhere in the world, someone must have woke up, went to his computer and thought to himself, “I’m going to hack Fox News today.” At least that’s how I imagine things started out today for the currently unnamed hacker who gained access to the Fox News online radio newscast dashboard.

He’s either got a lot of time on his hands, is incredibly skilled or received help from others. If you look at the above photo, you’ll see a screenshot of the Fox News Radio popup that you get when you try to listen live to the online newscast on http://radio.foxnews.com/. It says the title of the next radio program is. “Glenn Beck Raped And Murdered A Girl In 1990.” And there’s more.

The entire list of shows has been tampered with. Right now, the Fox News Radio popup shows that the next newscast is going to be “Naruto.” Everything on the list now is an anime of some sort.

I can’t approve the Anime bit, but this is prize.

H/t Vonbecks Temper