Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Everybody saw this coming.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Slow News Day at CNN

Slow News Day at CNN

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I guess Reverend Wright hasn’t said something stupid today. Seriously, I’ve seen a lot of stupid shit in CNN’s “Breaking News” header, but this really did it for me.

People are dying in Iraq. You need a credit check to buy gas. Your home belongs to the bank now. But stop the fucking presses, ’cause there’s a pelican in a freakin’ tree!

Reader Interactions

57Comments

  4. 4.

    Davebo

    Looks like they’ve taken it down now. Apparantly they are capable of embarrasment.

  5. 5.

    Jake

    There’s little evidence that intelligent people work at CNN. I mean, why would they? To get the chance to suck-up to Lou Dobbs or Wolf Blitzer???

  6. 6.

    Pelikan

    Well it wouldn’t be a story if someone would just cut me down, come on, all the blood is rushing to my head..

  7. 7.

    Face

    Not only is it retarded, but the retards that tried to push it out couldn’t even be bothered to spell check the f’in thing.

    “Recuers”? Seriously? This is national media?

  8. 8.

    Zifnab

    I expect some time in December we’ll see a full blown expose on how Americans are just too stupid to know about current events with detailed on the ground coverage from forty-year-old-with-hair-like-an-eighty-year-old guy and man-with-handle-bar-musaches man. We’ll get wall-to-wall coverage telling us how people are dying in Iraq, you need a credit check to buy gas, and your home belongs to the bank now, but all people seem to fixate on is Hannah Montana in half a burlap sack and stupid environmental crap about pelicans.

    This will be blamed on Obama’s black preacher.

    Questions will be raised about how vapid America has really become.

    Small children and people who don’t know why they are being interviewed will be interviewed.

    Broadcast and cable news ratings will continue to plummet and no one will know why.

  9. 9.

    Dreggas

    Meanwhile, saw a local news story telling people how they can cash in on their gold fillings and crowns by having them replaced since gold is going for over 800 an oz. Add to that stories of people selling their stuff on Craigslist and Ebay just to buy gas and groceries.

  10. 10.

    John S.

    Broadcast and cable news ratings will continue to plummet and no one will know why.

    Nobody could have predicted that!

  11. 11.

    4tehlulz

    >>all people seem to fixate on is Hannah Montana in half a burlap sack and stupid environmental crap about pelicans.

    Think of what would happen if the pelican was trapped in a half a Hannah Montana burlap sack in a tree?

    The story would be so perfectly banal that the cable news nets would cover it until the end of time, eventually leading to their bankruptcy.

  12. 12.

    Raenelle

    I think it’s time to ask the question of “who benefits” regarding all this bull-shit that the national media obsesses over.

    If policy issues were seriously discussed–if we knew the implications of various policy issues like global warming, the declining dollar, the credit crunch, the declining middle class, stagnant wages, on and on–if we knew those implications, the Democrats would benefit over the Republicans. Issue by issue, if people think about it, they prefer what the Dems offer over the Repubs. “Character issues,” especially those which aren’t really character issues at all but just lazy-ass story-lines, like the Edwards hair-cut, those benefit the Republicans–because those are precious moments that distract from important things and because the Repubs are so good at their us-strong-them-weak storylines. The story’s always the same for them; they need only to wait for some “revealing” tidbit–Al Gore’s wearing brown!–to catapult the attack.

    You know who else benefits–any reporter who would rather trash talk than try to understand the nuances of various healthcare policies. I.e., any reporter who’s convinced of the superiority of his own insight and, on top of that, is very, very lazy. And greedy, since the corporate media execs, who wants to make sure Republican business policies remain unhindered, will reward character attacks on the Dems.

    So, what about the excuse? The American public doesn’t understand and is uninterested in the details of public policy. E.g., the pundit on MSNBC yesterday who sighed that, unfortunately, the average American doesn’t understand microeconomics. Are they dumbing it all down because they will lose ratings otherwise?

    Here’s one of the things I’ve learned in my life–you become interested in what you focus on. You become interested in what you focus on. Period. Interest is not inherent in something out there. It comes from the devotion we bring to whatever. If the media gave us wall-to-wall coverage of the health-care crisis, the interest would build–the interest and the understanding. The entire netroots has been built around a craving for less bullshit and more substance.

    The real question is who benefits from the obsession with Jeremiah Wright?

  13. 13.

    benjoya

    i’m a new yorker, unwise in the ways of nature, but don’t birds belong in trees?

  14. 14.

    jake

    Times are so tough CNN can’t afford a stinking word processing program with spellcheck.

    And are the recuers dangling from the tree or is the bird?

    Don’t worry Michael, they’ll switch back to vapid coverage of the Sex Sect Kids until a blonde woman goes missing or Rev. Wright scratches his nose in public.

  15. 15.

    Zifnab

    “Character issues,” especially those which aren’t really character issues at all but just lazy-ass story-lines, like the Edwards hair-cut, those benefit the Republicans—because those are precious moments that distract from important things and because the Repubs are so good at their us-strong-them-weak storylines. The story’s always the same for them; they need only to wait for some “revealing” tidbit—Al Gore’s wearing brown!—to catapult the attack.

    I don’t know where you were during 2005 and 2006, but “Character issues” stories definitely were not favoring the Republicans. Between pages getting molested and a string of Congresscritters going to jail and dildo-fitted wetsuits, Republicans were definitely not winning.

    The media has been favoring the all out petty-thon against Obama because its the only thing they can nail him on. If his policies actually sucked as hard as Republicans like to claim, we’d be seeing full on Michael Dukakis style smearing. Remember when Dukakis said he wouldn’t condone the death penalty for his wife’s rapist murderer? Or when Bush was pushing his tax cuts? Or when Democrats wanted to raise minimum wage? THEN we had a conversation on the issues. It was a distorted and characatured mockery of a discussion, with personal attacks and smears and name-calling, but it was on the issues.

    Now? We could be having a conversation about how universal medicare is the worst thing since Hitler. We could be having a conversation about how the corporate tax is raising food prices. We could be having a conversation about how Iraq is really winning for really reals this time really. We could be having a conversation about how the free and totally deregulated market is the only thing in the world that can save Americans from an economic meltdown.

    We had no trouble talking about these issues in 1980 and again in 1992. So what happened?

    I think the media really has just dumbed out on us. They don’t even bother lying and distorting the issues that matter anymore.

  17. 17.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    I don’t know what bugs me more: the inanity of the story, or the word “recuers”.

    Actually, I do know: “recuers”. Inane stories are inevitable; there’s only so much real news that can happen in a 24-hour period, so it’s not surprising to me that silly fluff pieces wind up as “breaking news.”

    No, the typo is what’s spiking my outrage meter. Proofreading has become a lost art in America, and for an anal-retentive speller like myself, every day is a living hell. Each morning I drive by a church with a sign that says, “Big Bang Theory: your kidding! – God.” I can deal with the presumption of speaking for God, I can deal with the wholesale rejection of physical reality, but the presence of the word “your” makes me want to drive into a wall.

    Every time I see an advertisement promising to help me “loose weight”, I die a little on the inside.

  19. 19.

    b. hussein canuckistani

    Okay, nothing on the scoop joke?

    You people SUCK. I hate you.

    SHUT UP.

    All right, I read your stupid joke. For my time and effort, I’m sending you a bill.

  20. 20.

    4tehlulz

    >>The following issues were discussed and observed:

    Yeah, but it’s how I learn my living, so at least I have steady work.

    And I do it for engineers — feel my pain.

  21. 21.

    Incertus

    Grumpy Code Monkey,
    Think how I feel–I’m teaching the people who will make those mistakes one day. Every so often, I check out how I’m doing on ratemyprofessor.com, and I can’t tell you how wonderful it makes me feel when a student gives me a rave review that has three misspelled words in it. I flag those things as abuse.

  22. 22.

    4tehlulz

    Oh shit. Ctrl-C didn’t catch the quote. LOL

    I meant to quote >>Proofreading has become a lost art in America

  23. 23.

    p.a.

    How incompetent are Bush and the Republicans? You’ve heard of the ‘bread and circuses’ theory of governance? With Bush and his allies in the media we get the ‘circus’, but the bread? Root, hog, or die…

  25. 25.

    Scrutinizer

    But something newsworthy has happened. Joe Andrew, a former DNC Chairman and a superdelegate for Indiana, switched his endorsement from Clinton to Obama. Excerpts of a letter in which he explained:

    While I am a longtime critic of our Party’s rules that created so-called super delegates, we have the rules we have and we must live with them. I am humbled and honored to be a super delegate, and I understand the seriousness of the duty it entails. I recognize that this is a difficult decision for super delegates like me, who owe so much to President Bill Clinton. It is right to be loyal, to be grateful and to be consistent. But it is also right to acknowledge the inevitability of change, right to dare to dream for a better world, and right to know what in your heart is the right thing for the future even if your friends and family disagree. Good things, just like good people, can disagree. But as Democrats, we must disagree with dignity, debate with admiration of each other, and in the end, go forward with mutual respect.

    We need a candidate who will re-invigorate the economy and keep good jobs here in America. We need a candidate who will end the war in Iraq. We need a candidate who will provide health coverage for our 45 million uninsured neighbors. We need a candidate who will end our addiction to high-priced foreign oil by investing in renewable energy here at home.

    That candidate is Barack Obama.

    As Democrats, however, we risk letting this moment slip through our fingers. We risk ceding the field to the Republicans and allowing the morally bankrupt Bush Agenda to continue unabated if we do not unite behind a single candidate. Should this race continue after Indiana and North Carolina, it will inevitably become more negative. The polls already show the supporters for both candidates becoming more strident in their positions and more locked into their support. Continuing on this path would be a catastrophe, as we would inadvertently end up doing Republicans work for them. Already, instead of the audacity of hope, we suffer the audacity of one Democrat comparing John McCain favorably to another Democrat. When that happens, you know it is time for all of us to stop, take a deep breath and unite to change America.

    My endorsement of Senator Obama will not be welcome news to my friends and family at the Clinton campaign. If the campaign’s surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton’s cabinet, a “Judas” for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me. They are the best practitioners of the old politics, so they will no doubt call me a traitor, an opportunist and a hypocrite. I will be branded as disloyal, power-hungry, but most importantly, they will use the exact words that Republicans used to attack me when I was defending President Clinton.

    When they use the same attacks made on me when I was defending them, they prove the callow hypocrisy of the old politics first perfected by Republicans. I am an expert on this because these were the exact tools that I mastered as a campaign volunteer, a campaign manager, a State Party Chair and the National Chair of our Party. I learned the lessons of the tough, right-wing Republicans all too well. I can speak with authority on how to spar with everyone from Lee Atwater to Karl Rove. I understand that, while wrong and pernicious, shallow victory can be achieved through division by semantics and obfuscation. Like many, I succumbed to the addiction of old politics because they are so easy.

    Innuendo is easy. The truth is hard.

    Waiting for myiq and p.huk to tell us why this is a good thing for Hillary.

  26. 26.

    Sasha

    Waiting for myiq and p.huk to tell us why this is a good thing for Hillary.

    A good-for-nothing Quisling to the one true hope for Democratic victory has outed himself. This is a good thing for liberals everywhere!

  27. 27.

    Keith

    That’s par for the course. I’ve worked from home before & had cable news on, and there’s a high-speed car chase featured as the top story (on Fox, EVERYTHING is “Breaking News!”) every single day. I’ve seen breaking news on a horse stuck in the mud before (seriously…even Shep Smith was incredulous that it was news), man stuck on a bridge support (’cause the water was moving kinda fast), and a dog stuck on a log in a river. This all is apparently national news now.

  28. 28.

    dr. bloor

    Think of what would happen if the pelican was trapped in a half a Hannah Montana burlap sack in a tree?

    Obama wouldn’t be able to repudiate and reject the penguin fast enough or often enough for Tweety.

  29. 29.

    flyerhawk

    You should she the crucifixion Andrews is getting on the Hillary blogs. They can’t find enough ways to say how horrible a person this guy. Oh, and of course he’s out of touch, because, don’t you know, that the tide is turning and Hillary is about win all the remaining races and lock up all the remaining SDs.

  32. 32.

    zoe from pittsburgh

    That has got to sting. There sure seem to be a lot of Judases around these days. Is anyone keeping a count of all the people that have ties to the Clintons– appointees, friends, staff, etc.– that are supporting Obama?

    Bill Richardson and Robert Reich come to mind first. I know there are more…

  33. 33.

    TheFountainHead

    Obama wouldn’t be able to repudiate and reject the penguin fast enough or often enough for Tweety.

    This is the kind of lies and distortion we can expect to see in November from the Republican party! It was a Pelican, not a Penguin!! I mean, don’t expect the MSM to actually correct the quote, and by tomorrow I’m sure they will all be using a Penguin graphic, because Americans are ornithological idiots and they’ll fall for it!

  34. 34.

    slippy hussein toad

    Every time I see an advertisement promising to help me “loose weight”, I die a little on the inside

    I’ve got plenty of loose weight. What’s needed is tightening.

  35. 35.

    chopper

    am i the only one who saw the story on the pelican and thought of that bit in Anchorman when they were showing the water-skiing squirrel?

  36. 36.

    jrg

    I’m reminded of the summer of 2001, where the biggest thing going on was Chandra Levy and shark attack stories… This pelican story scares me.

    Anything so banal has got to be a sign of troublesome times ahead.

  37. 37.

    slippy hussein toad

    Waiting for myiq and p.huk to tell us why this is a good thing for Hillary.

    The grocery store called and said they were all out of turd-polishing cloths. As soon as they’re restocked the furious burnishment will continue apace.

  38. 38.

    Doug H. (Fausto no more)

    You should she the crucifixion Andrews is getting on the Hillary blogs. They can’t find enough ways to say how horrible a person this guy. Oh, and of course he’s out of touch, because, don’t you know, that the tide is turning and Hillary is about win all the remaining races and lock up all the remaining SDs.

    Its like mentioned over at the Great Orange Satan: Sure, you can make the argument that the other guy is unelectable, but how does that make your own candidate look more electable? You can’t tack Jeremiah Wright on John McCain.

    And if you do succeed in making it ‘damned if we vote Obama, damned if we vote Clinton’, would super delegates really want to kick their African-American core constituency in the jimmies like that?

  39. 39.

    b. hussein canuckistani

    am i the only one who saw the story on the pelican and thought of that bit in Anchorman when they were showing the water-skiing squirrel?

    You are. I thought of this:

    Kent Brockman: … and the fluffy kitten played with that ball of string all through the night. On a lighter note, a Kwik-E-Mart clerk was brutally murdered last night.

  40. 40.

    TR

    “And that little kitten played with that ball of string all through the night. I’m Kent Brockman.”

  42. 42.

    TheFountainHead

    Has anyone seen this story on CNN about the interview with Michelle Obama, particularly this gem:

    The interviewer later prefaced a question by saying she wanted to “turn the page” from the Wright controversy.

    “No, you don’t,” Mrs. Obama replied.

  43. 43.

    Dennis - SGMM

    The Democrats don’t want an activist press looking over their shoulders any more than the Republicans do because both parties are feeding from the same trough.

    You need look no further than April, when Congress passed the Foreclosure Prevention Act: while containing some measures of dubious efficacy for preventing foreclosures it definitely allows homebuilders to apply this year’s losses to their past four years’ profits – rather than the normal two years. Why was this largess to homebuilders included in the bill? Because the homebuilders threatened to cut off all political donations if it wasn’t. The bill, sponsored in the House by Nancy Pelosi, passed the Senate with 88 votes.

    There are few politicians from either side who’d appreciate having the media publish say, a matrix showing their voting record on relevant issues plotted against the amounts of money they’ve accepted in donations from corporations and industry associations.

  47. 47.

    The Populist

    I am a bird guy. I LOVE Pelicans but didn’t need to see this on the news.

  48. 48.

    Dreggas

    The DC Madam has been found dead in florida of an apparent “suicide”. Get out your tin foil and start makin a hat.

  49. 49.

    chopper

    and clinton now says as president she’ll break up OPEC.

    she’s gone off the deep end.

  50. 50.

    Billy K

    Just wait til the sharks get going this summer – THEN you’ll see some journamalism!

    And just imagine if a shark decides to kidnap a pretty white girl! ZOMG!!!!1

  51. 51.

    Calouste

    […] The 24/7/365 news cycle strikes again: click. […]

    Anyone realized how stupid the phrase 24/7/365 is? 24/7 or 24/365 describes the concept well enough.

    (Inspired by the spelling rant higher up the thread.)

  52. 52.

    Jeremy C.

    In RE to Zifnab …
    If you haven’t seen Idiocracy yet, you’re missing one of the most brilliant takes on our doomed future to ever have been imagined. I think it missed out on being popular since we’re overrun with the type of people they portray and you have to be WEERree smart to get all the jokes!

  53. 53.

    Zifnab

    Has anyone seen this story on CNN about the interview with Michelle Obama, particularly this gem:

    The interviewer later prefaced a question by saying she wanted to “turn the page” from the Wright controversy.

    “No, you don’t,” Mrs. Obama replied.

    MOAR PLZ!
    I eagerly look forward to an Obama Presidency.

  54. 54.

    scarshapedstar

    Why doesn’t the media ever tell us about the pelicans that aren’t stuck in trees?

  55. 55.

    Kynn

    I applaud the unintentional self-parody: Demmons, of all people, complaining about something being not important to talk about.

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  2. […] John Cole on the group of hacks and morons otherwise known as the American media establishment: I guess Reverend Wright hasn’t said something stupid today. Seriously, I’ve seen a lot of stupid shit in CNN’s “Breaking News” header, but this really did it for me. […]