April 30th, 2008
Arianna Huffington describes Tim Russert as a “conventional wisdom zombie,” and apparently Timmy Russert has taken offense:
It seems that Arianna Huffington has run up against the impenetrable wall that is Tim Russert’s ego. Huffington, who is currently on tour for her new book Right Is Wrong: How The Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded The Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe, will be appearing on CNN, ABC, and CBS. She had been booked on Morning Joe and Countdown with Keith Olbermann as well, but those bookings were suddenly and inexplicably cancelled.
NBC confirmed that Huffington wouldn’t be booked on any NBC-affiliated show to promote her book, but refused to explain why. Huffington’s people say that this is Tim Russert’s doing, that Russert is out for revenge because Huffington called him a “conventional wisdom zombie” in her book and devoted seven pages to faulting Russert for allowing his Meet the Press guests to go unchallenged (not to mention HuffPo’s RussertWatch).
April 19th, 2008
I‘m not as pessimistic as Bob Herbert, of the New York Times, but I do share some of his concerns about the harm that the Democrats are inflicting on each other with, of course, the always reliable help the Harpies in our traditional media.
Mr. Herbert reminds of the “gift” that Democrats have displayed at blowing their chances at winning the presidency:
Jimmy Carter managed to win the White House in 1976 by looking pious and riding a wave of anti-Watergate revulsion. After four hapless years, he dutifully handed the keys back to the G.O.P.
Bill Clinton tried hard to lose, with sex scandals and whatnot, during the 1992 campaign. But Ross Perot wouldn’t let him. Mr. Clinton won with a piddling 43 percent of the vote. For eight years, Mr. Clinton tried to throw the presidency away (with sex scandals and whatnot), but he was never able to succeed.
That’s been it for the party for the past 40 years. The Democrats have become so psychologically battered by these many decades in the leadership wilderness that they consider the Clinton years, during which the president was impeached and they lost control of both houses of Congress, to have been a period of triumph.
The only detail that’s missing from Mr. Herbert’s retelling of the Democrats “gift” is the willing role that so-called journalists have played in handing the presidency to republicans over those 40 years.
April 19th, 2008
This is exactly the sort of crap that the CNNs, ABCs and other traditional media outlets do that simply drives me nuts: the so called journalists in these propaganda factories go out of their way to portray republicans as average Americans in comparison to Democratic politicians.
Media Matters documents the latest bamboozlement from CNN:
September 23rd, 2007
This has received little no coverage in the traditional media, so it’s no wonder that I had not heard of it; however, I can’t help but think, Wow, if a liberal group had done anything like this, the traditional and rightwing media would’ve been all over it.
For those who didn’t have the opportunity to watch the Values Voter Debate last evening, you missed quite a display of political pandering, ridiculous rhetoric and all-around right-wing lunacy. You also missed this lovely rendition of “God Bless America” performed by the Church of God Choir, from Springfield, Ohio – reworded to better reflect the Right’s agenda:
Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back
On everything that made her what she is
Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sin and heal our land
The courts ruled prayer out of our schools
In June of ‘62
Told the children “you are your own God now
So you can make the rules”
O say can you see what that choice
Has cost us to this day
America, one nation under God, has gone astray
Why should God bless America?
Shes’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is
Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land
In ‘73 the Courts said we
Could take the unborn lives
The choice is yours don’t worry now
It’s not a wrong, it’s your right
But just because they made it law
Does not change God’s command
The most that we can hope for is
God’s mercy on our land
Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is
Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land
