Weirdo Greta Van Susteren, who rode OJ's coattails to fame in the '90s, if memory serves, simply could not accept the Netroots' characterization of Fox reporting as opinion. She was so upset, in fact, that she immediately set about a poorly worded complaint.
The title of her piece is What do you think? Netroots Nation Hypocrites? or am I wrong? to which the answers, at least in my case, are 1) Many things; 2) No; and 3) Yes. But let's take a moment to assess what she said yesterday on the "Greta Wire:"
I was watching the Situation Room today while eating my lunch, and I nearly choked on a cucumber when I heard this from Republican strategist Terry Jeffrey:
The question is, is Medicare socialism? My answer is yes, of course it is. Socialism is government ownership of something.
THIS CNN article by Alexander Mooney is a prime example of how the "main stream" media is utterly failing America:
Pelosi said the oil industry is not aggressively exploring large amounts of federal areas already leased to them and approved for drilling, including 33 million offshore acres and 68 million acres in the lower 48 states. She has sponsored legislation calling on oil companies to increase their production in those areas before they are allowed to go into the offshore areas currently banned.
Pelosi "said".
NO NO NO, Alexander Mooney, you ignorant, incompetent ass.
Not "Pelosi said" - IT IS A FACT that the oil industry is not aggressively exploring large amounts of federal areas already leased to them! IT IS A GODDAMN FACT!
DENVER - Last week, I appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs tonight to discuss the economic meltdown and the political fallout that will come from it. You can watch the clip here:
On pushback, Lee Fang posted a transcript of an interesting interview taking place on CNN. The guest was Ben Ferguson, a 27 year old right-winger. Fang describes him as "the media's go-to guy for all matters relating to young people and conservative politics." Of course, Fang also points out Ben's credentials: "He abhors MTV and popular youth culture, is a proud virgin, and routinely mocks progressive causes through his nationally syndicated talk-show and newspaper column." Let's take a look.
A note: If you're going to be in Austin for Netroots Nation, make sure you catch the immigration panel I'm moderating on Friday, and then be sure to swing by the happy-hour party we're throwing on Saturday. You can meet Atrios and Jim Hightower! Did I mention that the margaritas will be on AlterNet (and various co-sponsors)? It’s our way of giving (alcohol) back to the community and all that.
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So, CNN's Situation Room was on while I tried to burn some blubber at the gym the other day. Worked off 400 calories, and I think Wolf Blitzer knocked about five points off my IQ in the process.
The subject: McCain and Obama on foreign policy -- or FoPo, as we FoPo nerds like to call it.
One of the policies they touched on was McCain's proposal to kick Russia out of the G8. Blitzer had Very Serious Foreign Policy Analyst™ Fareed Zakaria on. Here's their exchange:
I'm a little surprised none of the other Muslim blogs I read picked up on this yesterday. This is an excerpt from an interview conducted by CNN's Fareed Zakaria with Barack Obama on foreign policy issues. Comments below the excerpt.
Lou Dobbs was talking about how at least McCain and Bush are doing something about our crazy gas prices by calling for more off-shore drilling, unlike Obama and the Democrats in Congress who are fighting against the will of the people and not providing the relief from high prices that everyone wants and demands.
Oh Lou, you damn fool...it will NOT provide relief. At best, from what I recall, we might hope to have "relief" in the form of gas that's 1-10 cents cheaper per gallon 7-10 years from now, give or take.
Lou pretends to be the populist that cuts through the BS and doesn't stand behind any particular party. If you believe that, great. But someone needs to explain how the basically symbolic gesture of off-shore drilling is going to have any significant, tangible impact (aka, "relief").
I know this was also diaried by fedupcitizen and kgray96057, but I do have some followup and they did both drop off the recent list so I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes.
On Sunday's McLaughlin Group, McLaughlin asked:
Does Obama fit the stereotype of what black people call an "Oreo"?
As I sit here in Iraq I find that I have become totally disgusted with the media as well as many of our elected officials. Of course there are rules that we as soldiers are supposed to follow pertaining to speaking out against the actions of elected officials......but enough is enough!!!!!!!
Delicious. The WSJ is reporting that Chuck Hagel will join Obama on his trip to Iraq. This is an excellent development sure to piss off the McCain camp. A nice poke in the eye for them, considering that they've been using Lieberman to such annoying effect.
This, in a nutshell is what absolutely burns me up about the traditional media.
So, as has been well documented here at D-Kos and other left-of-center online outlets, top McCain adviser Phil Gramm tells the Washington Times today that the recession is all in our minds, and that we are a bunch of whiners who have been duped by the media into not knowing how bountiful and wonderful the economy is.
People here are most likely aware by now that the Reverend Jesse Jackson was caught by a hot FOX News microphone saying that Barack Obama has been talking down to black people on the issue of faith based initiatives. Jackson follows it up by saying that he "want[s] to cut his nuts off".
FOX News took the sound bite and re-aired it later that day, causing yet another firestorm of controversy around Barack Obama on the issue of race. My first reaction was actually: "Can they do that?" Because I honestly don't know whether its legal or not to take someone's comment off the record without their knowledge and re-air it. I suppose they can... because they did.
I'm also not a fan of Bush's faith based initiatives and also find it disappointing that Barack Obama would try to expand a program that seems to violate separation of church and state. As for how Obama is talking down to black people or not on the issue - I have no opinion.
What do people think of this incident? Will this hurt Obama's campaign? Was this a devious move on FOX's part or simply par for the course in today's network news environment?
Watch the clips below (the comment, the apology) and weigh in:
Growing up, whenever you heard CNN, you thought that they were the best out there. If you didn’t, well I certainly did.
I thought that they were that true news channel, that news channel that when you heard as a kid wanted to avoid because you figured you would be easily bored by how thro their reporting was and how they were the number one news cable source. In short, I thought CNN was the best, that they could do no wrong (or not be bias).
Then, I got older, got more into journalism outside of sports (through sports is still the numero uno), and then closely watched CNN this year since I looked to them on the last two presidential election nights and mid-terms in 2006. I liked what I saw in 2k, 2k4, and 2k6.
And despite the occasional Republican strategist on their air to show the network to be "neutral", their overblown attention on Rev. Wright (especially Anderson Cooper and Campbell Brown, who really sometimes deserves the STFU), and there under aggressiveness to call out Hilary and her people for blatant BS, I still tolerated them enough and let them call themselves "BPTOT."
"It is in the disguise of panic that makes us live in ugliness and not the natural animal wallowing. this means now that evil itself is now amenable to critical analysis and conceivably to the sway of reason." Ernest Becker
