Sunday Roundup

In my new book, Right Is Wrong, I show how the lunatic fringe of the right has hijacked the media (along with our democracy) -- not via FoxNews and the blowhards of talk radio, but through the complicity of high-profile enablers in the mainstream media. This week's disgraceful debate on ABC was further evidence. The slime parade was straight out of the Rovian playbook. For much of the night, I wasn't sure if I was watching Gibson and Stephanopoulos or O'Reilly and Hannity. In fact, Stephanopoulos' ludicrous question about 60s radical Bill Ayers had been suggested to him by Hannity the day before the debate on Hannity's radio show. After Hannity made his Ayers pitch, Stephanopoulos revealed the hijacking in process, saying: "I'm taking notes right now." And indeed he was.

My new book, Right is Wrong, is coming out on April 29. Please click here if you'd like to pre-order

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Comments

[WaterRat]

Hannity and O'Reilly have linked up with George and Charlie - the inquisitors.
Bush is ranting about torture being the way to go. Cheney says "So?" about his unpopular war, and where were the pugnacious four to query the top dogs about those comments?
News be damned. We have to watch more comment, than we do news.
Most of these alleged newscasters are nothing but propagandists.

[Janel]

WaterRat, you are right about this.

If there is anything that irritates me more is when all the pundits dissect each and every word from the candidates and then tell us, the "voters," who to believe.

Sometimes, I find myself longing for the good old days when the reporters simply reported for five minutes after a speech and let the rest of us use our brains.

Certainly ABC's debate was a big joke for some, but the sad part is that many voters will believe everything that they hear. And this is very sad for our country!!

[pattyfish]

debate...w­hat debate ?

[ohmercy]

The whole torture/bush thing that came out last Friday is the perfect example. How much media spent time on Bitter?
How much on torture?
Sickening.

I had great hope that the internet and Progressive blogs would be the antidote but few and far between do not actually play the same games.
Almost every one of them are covering the same stories in the same way the media is.
The difference is that you can comment and agree, disagree or vent your spleen, as long as you don't offend the blog meister... but that is changing with the MSM as well who have their own sites and comment sections.

[wmbear]

I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE ANSWER IS EITHER...

But it sure as hell isn't sitting around waiting for the MSM to come around. Somebody's pulling the strings where they're concerned and liberals don't seem to have a clue who that is or even how the string-pulling works. It's not just money....

[rthom]

...and Obama's campagn is the lunatic fringe of the left. They have used all the same tactics against Clinton as the Rove GOP bunch. Obama is like Bush; his campaign thows dirt like a Ditch Witch, while he claim to be clean.

[ohmercy]

Sometimes I think I'm the only one who sees that he plays just as tough and "dirty" as Hillary, maybe more so considering his surrogates throwing racism into the ring.
His framing is very different from Clinton who unfortunately it seems didn't learn about framing. Where Clinton just forges ahead with her "attacks" Obama is more passive aggressive and manipulative.

Actually I find that uglier than an up front assault.

He frames himself as above it all but his surrogates, campaign and he himself have almost never pulled punches. He says he's clean over and over which creates the narative that everybody else repeats over and over.

Just like the neocons did with the Clintons and for instance with Hillary Clinton and the polarization charge. (something Obama also used against her in the very beginning.­)

The lunatic fringe is on both sides not just the right and they are both threatening our political system. (though more parties is something I can get behind!) I always considered myself left of left on social justice issues but if the bahavior of the far left this election is any indication of where we are headed I will have to redefine what being a leftie is.
I liked the term Progressive but it has been getting a bad name.
Call me Liberal!
;-)

[Pharos]

Obama supporters are not lefties in my opinion. I can't figure out what they believe in except hope and change. I too am a liberal.

[Amminadab]

Obama has run the dirtiest, most divisive campaign that I have ever seen.

And he is incredibly passive-aggressive.

[sophiej]

HC might be a neocon. Today on Meet the Press:

"Russert quoted Clinton's answer in the debate, "I think we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course, I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States. But I would do the same with other countries in the region."

"To my ear," Russert continued, "that's suggesting that if Iran invaded or attacked Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Senator Clinton would use U.S. troops and U.S. military power against Iran."

Sure sounds like she's committed to endless war.

[Fabienne]

ohmercy, let's hope you're the only one who sees this.

[mikeyfil]

Please be specific about exactly what dirt is being thrown out by Obama against HRC. All I see is her dirty campaign. Really, I'm serious--tell me exactly what his campaign is saying. As someone who was undecided at Super Tuesday, I have been continually appalled by the way she has run her campaign, ineptly and corruptly. And she has gotten in the gutter with the GOP. But what has he done??

[bluescat47]

I agree Mikey, I voted for HRC in New York. I didnt anticipate a mud fest of race baiting by her and Bill. The experience argument went no where for her, so she took another track, personal attacks and invective. And Obama as an "elitist" - how funny is that!

[TedAtkMA]

Let's see - the Obama campaign's media acolytes and surrogates have called Hillary Clinton a "bitch", a "whore", a "f***ing whore", a "monster", etc. It sure doesn't sound like the kinder, gentler politics Senator Obama promised.

[dmj618]

He's mindlessly parroting the nuts at Taylor Marsh or one of the similar Hillary cheerleading sections. The "talking points" I've seen are almost entirely when he is responding to one of her hits against him. That is what counts as going negative like Rove. They actually expect him to just lay down while she steamrolls him.

[wmbear]

"HRC" -- WOUILD THAT BE...

Her Royal Clintonnes­s?...

[juno4]

I share the outrage expressed by rudyinbama regarding news coverage. However, I don't think boycotts will work. That would take too many people to pull the ratings down low enough to force networks to change their ways.

That is because broadcast news today must make a profit for the networks, unlike the days when Walter Cronkite anchored CBS news. Back then, the news wasn't supposed to turn a profit because it was the "public service" arm required to fulfill FCC requirements in order to get a broadcast license. Ironically, it was ABC that started this change in 1977 by appointing Roone Arledge head of the news. He is the one who created "Wide World of Sports" and "Monday Night Football".

The best way we can change news coverage is to get a president who will appoint a new FCC Director to bring back the news-as-pu­blic-servi­ce, not as profit centers. Supposedly, if the networks don't fulfill their public service requirements, their license to broadcast can be revoked.

[Snerdgronk]

Arianna: "Sunday Roundup ..."

SG: Isn't it more like 'Sunday (R)ounddown'?

Snerd

[shela88]

George Stephanopoulos wrote a best-selling book that was not complimentary to his former bosses The Clintons and he courted a media that was very anti-Clinton at the time by agreeing with them and adding some slime of his own, thereby positioning himself for a good job in broadcasting. He is a supremely untalented, but totally ruthless little man who is due for some comeuppance. I applaud everyone who is ready to tune-out when George and ABC offer political news or interviews. There are other places to go and still some worthy choices available.

[Snerdgronk]

...

What gives me pause around the particular nature of our current non-(R)ationalism, is Seymour Hersh's speculation that the Neocon didn't so much lie to us into "W"a(R), rather they believed their own spin!

The implications of 'believing their own spin', seems considerable when analysing MSM 'thinking' as evidenced in its 'product'. Minimally these 'believers' have become spin's enablers and rationality's enemy, with their sad prodoct of 'f(R)ee-dumb' of info(R)mation for the masses ... Ma-Clinton, Madeas-Obama, the Mave(R)ick, talking point ...

Whatever the rational explanation, I continue to be amazed that these talking heads can say the things they do, naively! I can NOT seem to accept they are that stupid on the one hand, or that 'competently' manipulative on the other ...

Such is the vexing 'reality' of MSM f(R)ee-speech zones. In Ame(R)ica we used free thinking to evolve from superstition to fundamentalism and spin, with only a brief layover in Reason-ville ...

Snerd

[Snerdgronk]

BoBo: "... this wasn't a debate...i­t was a rally!"

SG: Accurate, but what continues to amaze me is that in this (R)ally one brand has the vehicles with all the traction on the MSM track, regardless of vehicular integrity, while the the other brand, regardless of vehicular construction and content, lacks traction.

It is a world in which (R)hetoric trumps 'reality', or facticity. It is an extension of Commercialism's 'Psy-Ops' intention to promote reaction over reasoned consideration, comsumption.

I am not certain whether this methodology infiltrated and coopted rational political discourse, or whether political discourse had to be moved over to an already existing Ame(R)ican commercially reactive, non-rational, mind for its product to make 'cents'.

A third option is more troubling - that the t(R)iumph of spin over the emperical and the rational is merely a MSM chimera, a function of a MSM's ability to sustain a fictional reality due to its band width dominance of informational transmission. And if this third option is the case, how much of its creation is a Guckert-like and Pentagon-like intentional manipulation, or how much is a function MSM self censoring in favour of Corporate 'commerical' interests (selling the positives of "W"a(R) for war p(R)ofits, etc.), or whether the talking heads and editors live in a bubble, an anti-investigative co(R)po(R)­ate-cost-c­utting spin bubble of Washington elitists, isolated in a 'vo(R)-text' of its own creation.


Snerd

[Countess]

We can only wonder what information the Clintons could have on Stephanopoulos for him to lower himself to Hillary's level. This is what you would expect in Putin's Russia should he ever engage in a debate on one of his networks. Another partial explanation of the horror show is simply that a large number of journalists in the mainstream media are not too bright and can not even formulate intelligent questions and we know that many of them are in fact neocon democrats like Hillary Clinton.

[lamarguerite]

Yes, I think there is a lesson to be learned here. This is a war, and we've got to learn to build our arsenal of media tactics in the face of the assaults from the extreme right and conservatives. In this case, I believe the end justify the means.

http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com

[Snerdgronk]

HuffPost's Pick

Lam, you may be right, but what amazes me is that this has become the way a civilization 'na(R)(R)ates' itself. Orwell got it wrong in "1984" ... He was off by about a decade.

Now China ... 'Tibet always was part of China'. To be un-thought at the same time is the implicit 'fact' that by the same 'reasoning', 'China was alwayz part of Japan ... and the British Empire, and ...'

Snerd

[AZM]

Dan Rather was canned by CBS because of shoddy reporting, a failure to do the research over Bush's absence from his Guard unit.
Wouldn't it be appropriate for ABC to terminate Stephanopoulos for the same reason?

[KGinSanFrancisco]

I'll say YES to that. Let's all boycott ABC until they fire George S.

[democraticjack]

Weren't you the same people castigating Hillary because Schuster called her daughter a whore. Weren't you the same people defending Randi Rhodes? Weren't you the same people defending Reverend Wright's "God Damn America"? Now you are going after George Stephanopoulos and defending William Ayers. I just don't get it.

[DesertLight]

Uh, let's see, that last time I watched ABC was the debate before then, at least four years.

[ohmercy]

well, he did do the research but he used a copy of the report instead of the actual report from my understanding. I also think that CBS had okayed it but thenthrew him overboard. Still, no one ever disproved the story eh?

[PatrickWalker]

Someone did, however, disprove the disproving. :) The RW blogosphere claimed that the font used was not available for IBM Selectrics at the time. Someone did show that it *was* available as early as 1966.

[suekzoo]

It won't happen. The "debate" was a ratings bonanza. Money talks.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

"...While money doesn't talk, it swears Obscenity, who really cares Propaganda, all is phony." (Bob Dylan, "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding).­"

[beautifuldisaster]

Good point...

[rudyinbama]

It's time to stop bitching and start boycotting.
How about a website that demands that TV news serves the public?
Even a one day boycott of Gibson's ABC News sponsors would draw national attention to the way network news has cheapened our elections.
It's time to rub the faces of these so-called journalists in the blood spilled by our American heroes. All a party has to do is swiftboat a candidate with an outrageous lie, and there are all the talking heads treating known lies and truth as just equal claims by honest people.
That ridiculous notion gives liars the edge and helps the bigger liar win the election.
It was bad enough that the MSM was covering this election as little more than a horse race - now they have decided use their power to magnify irrelevant side issues and dirty tricks.
One by one, station by station, we must bring these jokers down and until their corporate owners replace them with REAL journalists.

[ohmercy]

Ok, but can we boycott MSNBC as well?
The worst "journalism" I've ever seen. Bar none They have even begun to out do fox with their gossip and gotcha instead of actual issues.

I think the "news" That is the isues that effect all of America and even the world should be rem,oved from corporate hands and become Non Profit enterprises in some way. I wouldn't know how to begin such a drive but clearly the corporate influence on the Pundits and the news has become beyond acceptable.
I've heard both Scarborough and Matthews state that when they come in they are given a list of what they are told to cover on that days show. I wonder if they are told how to cover it as well.

Politics, Governmental actions, policies and corruption, and corporate "news" and corruption needs to be taken away from these entities and put into the hands of the people so they can once again become the fourth estate.

I don't know why Cable news and national news have to cover things like a fire in such and such a town or a train crash, a burglary, or what have you.

(or what Paris is up to as well)

Why do we need to know that?

Let the corporate media deal with all of that and all the gossip. I want my news to be something that affects the American people as a whole.

[naamone]

Rudy I am with u, how dow e start?

[Ozarks]

Just shows the mental capacity of George Stephanopoulos , he takes notes from Hinnity on an meeting of Obama with a guy 40 years ago. The questions about flag pins was appropriate : "Gibby" and "The Face" Stephanopoulos both show they are pin heads. They both should be drummed out of media. They are not journalists but Yellow press National Enquirer types. Anyway I will not consider watching anything on ABC until they are both gone. Heck, I may even watch Faux "News", at least those guys don't camouflage themselves to being alleged neutral reporters. The Face Stephanopoulos worked for the Clintons!! That whole alleged "debate" was an ambush of Obama but the fat cat corporate media. Goodbye any half hour evening network "news". I will not stomach anymore of your propaganda.

[Prism]

What whiny childishness is this? Blaming the messenger? Let's play grown-up for just a minute: this was a complete Obama collapse which SHOULD have been turned into home runs. These questions were ALWAYS going to be asked. For heaven's sake where was his preparation? He's running for the toughest gig on the planet and THIS is as well as he can do?The fundamental question is left to be answered. Why does Obama do so poorly when the press is more than a love fest echoing his talking points? All your bells should be going off that he is painfully incapable of withstanding the tough tactics he has YET to encounter. Better to find this out RIGHT NOW. Something crucial is being learned here. You wonder why it took 45 minutes to get to the ecomony? Maybe it was Obama's stunning and riveting ineptitude of the first 45! What a debacle! Is there any doubt who the tougher general election candidate is? Give the gal her props. I'm convinced SHE can hold up to any tsunami they can (and have) thrown at her. And Obama? I think a nice cushy job in a think tank somewhere where he can commiserate with fellow travelers while picking up piles of juicy talking fees (as long as somebody else is writing the text!) Perhaps then Michelle will stop complaining about all those ballet and piano lessons. Yikes!

[democraticjack]

You are my pick of the week post. Well said.

[WAstateliberal]

You completely miss the point of the criticism of ABC. This is not about Obama v. Hillary. It was about how the moderators behaved toward BOTH candidates versus how they typically behave toward Republicans. In case you didn't notice, the debate was demeaning to both Hillary and Barack. You were not at all embarrassed by the ridiculous Bosnia question? Are you so blinded by hatred for Obama that you can no longer see that which sits right in front of your face?

[Prism]

Nice try. I don't notice Clintonites bellyaching. Her response? Don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen!"

[democraticjack]

The Bosnia question was fair game, I thought. Maybe she should have taken 3-5 minutes to answer like Obama did because he was so shocked that anyone would dare question him. The man didn't like his protective shield being pierced.

[Caolas]

You must have a great life if the things you're most concerned with these Childish, Grade school Playground name calling distractions.

Me, i'm far more concerned with the $4 gasoline, $5 milk, $7 orange juice, $8 minimum wage, the way we treat our Vets and the Homeless, lack of Health Care, less than 1% of disposable income being Saved (for the last 3 years, about 99.5% of Income people make each month is spent and not saved; that's going to spell economic collapse after inflation kicks even higher). I care about the flooding of Mortgage defaults and Property value decreases since so much of Local school education and Local government funding is tied to Property taxes. I want to know what the Candidates think of this Nation having 1 out of every 100 Adult citizens rotting away in Prison right now costing the States about $50 billion annually; and resulting in States like Oregon, Vermont, Michigan, and Connecticut spending more money on Prisons than they do on Higher Education. I want to know why this Nation can bail out Airline after Airline, but can't fund a High Speed Rail system and other Public transportation infrastructure that would save tends of billions in the long run.

I want an Adult in the WhiteHouse.

[Prism]

What you call a "distraction" will be a central focal point of the Republican strategy come the fall. Don't believe me? Check out Karl Rove's appearance on Sunday Fox this morning Ignore this at your peril. Read my lips: WE CAN'T GET TO FIXING OUR PROFOUND PROBLEMS IF WE FORWARD CANDIDATES WHO ARE UNELECTABLE !If you don't fight through this insane man-crush to acknowledge Obama's lack of intestinal fortitiude, you will be grieving in November. Take it from a grizzled vet who worked for McCarthy and Anderson, and frankly, lived to regret it. It's time for a BiG PICTURE gut check. Obamafiles you are all beautiful if somewhat loopy idealists. So write poetry, sing songs, hope for the best but PREPARE for the worst. Obama's ABC performance was a disaster. OWN IT. Look sharp, Democrats. Your dangerous naivte is showing. Obviously, you have no idea what's coming.

[ohmercy]

Absolutely.

Clinton has gotten so much of that and if I am not mistaken Obama said something about her running for President of the US not student body Pres or some such nonsense.

You are right, the fact is these questions are never going to go away and when the GE starts they will escalate to swift boating in the extreme. The idea that Clinton is "attacking" with these questions as if she alone will be responsible if Obama doesn't get it together, as if she is teaching the right wing how to attack and giving the neocon's ammunition is ludicrous. They had all the ammo they needed long before the field narrowed down to just the two of them.
Do people really think there are no 527's ready and waiting to attack whoever the nominee is?

Sometimes I wish Clinton would drop out so Obama gets a taste of what he is up against. Pouting and accusations of "unfair" aren't going to cut it. If he is dealing with Chavez is he really going to say that he's throwing the china at me?
Lord have Mercy.

[cbatwins]

I don't have problem with the media asking Obama all those questions, (with the exception of the flag pin). However I do have a problem with them hammering Obama and letting Clinton slide when it comes to Mark Penn and Bills dealings with the Columbians. I think Bill taking money from foreign governments is the biggest conflict of interest in presidential history. Just think about that, you have a presidents husband that is free to get deal with whoever he wants to and collect big money for it. What's his is hers and whats hers is his (joint tax returns).

Furthermore, you act as if the POTUS has to be so tough. Whoever can cry the loudest, tell the most lies, and tear the other person apart isn't the toughest. The POTUS should be intelligent, thoughtful, tolerant, cooperative even tempered and level headed, not just an attack dog. My parents always said, "any fool can fight, it takes a smart person to avoid a fight". Attack dogs get you caught up in senseless wars.

Lastly, in a race as heated as this one a candidate must always keep in mind their end game, The White House. Obamas willingness to "turn the other cheech" will allow for party unity in the end. The way in which HRC has been in attack mode leaves no room for that.