I really need to stop watching cable news, but I had the idiot box on CNN last night and got to watch this spectacle:
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No.
But the reason, as you just heard Dana report, that Harry Reid, the Senate leader, wanted to schedule it sooner, rather than later, is, they believe, the longer it waits, as David just said, the more water the ship could take on when it comes to the TARP funding.
And — and David makes a key point, Anderson, because, politically, every day we get closer to that inauguration, and then, on Tuesday, this becomes Barack Obama’s economy. It’s Barack Obama’s bailout money. And it’s Barack Obama who is paying the price for the anxiety. He has a lot of goodwill. He has high public approval.
Even many people who didn’t vote for him want him to succeed. But guess what? They’re still mad about the economy, still don’t think this bailout is a good idea, don’t know where the money is going, and don’t think it’s getting to them on Main Street USA or to the bank on the corner of their street.
And that is now becoming increasingly — and is about to become completely — Barack Obama’s political problem, not John McCain’s, not George W. Bush’s, not the Republican Party’s.
Got it? Obama OWNS the economy the day he becomes President. His fault. That growth during the Clinton years- that was due to Reagan. The bad stuff from 2000 on, that was the Clinton economy, until, of course, the 20th, when it becomes Obama’s.
John King starts a new Sunday show on CNN from 9 am to 1pm. I have been given (not really) an advance copy of the topics:
“Will America survive the Obama economy?”
“Economic malpractice: Is impeachment of Obama off the table?”
“How Obama wrecked the economy before ever enacting one policy.”
Wankers.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Oh, jumpin’ Jebus on a pogo stick.
I swear-to-God, for a moment I read those and figured the great mumping villains of cable news were seriously planning to discuss them.
Irony may not be dead, but it’s fucking well comatose.
Bootlegger
Does this also mean that Joe T. Plumber now owns the media?
The Moar You Know
It’s funny because it’s true.
cleek
oh, they’re so excited that it’s almost President season again!
cocks.
Incertus
I knew Obama wouldn’t get the slurp job treatment from the media that Bush did, but I did hope that they’d wait until at least the inauguration before setting on him like this. Guess I’m just naive.
Meanwhile, the legacy construction continues. I wonder if Roberts got paid extra for the spit-polishing on Bush’s knob.
4tehlulz
>>John King starts a new Sunday show on CNN from 9 am to 1pm.
WHY IS NOBODY WATCHING CABLE NEWS? IS THERE AN OBAMA CONNECTION?
TenguPhule
John, I’ll give you odds that this will be a headline on FOX Spews.
shortstop
Apart from the ludicrousness of the FOP topic, John King is just dumb. Thick. Breathtakingly dense. He is consistently the stupidest person in non-FOX cable news, which is fucking saying something.
Zifnab
In all seriousness, at what point in time does it actually become the Obama Economy? Like, when do we determine whether Obama’s maneuvers have actually succeeded or failed? Because in the clusterfuck that is every dopey news source screaming "DOOMED!" "FAILED!" "HOSED!" I might want to actually know at what point we could conclude "Hey, maybe that infrastructure building idea wasn’t so hot. We probably should have plowed more money into unemployment insurance."
Instead we’ll get GOoPer pundits and know-nothing gasbags (the difference being that one has an agenda above and beyond the next manicure) telling us how Obama failed the country because he picked the wrong dog or surrendered to terrorists or some such bullshit no matter what happens.
If the recovery works, I’d like to know how, when, and why. If it doesn’t, I’d like to know where we went wrong. I will get none of that from King or Blitzer.
AhabTRuler
CNN on the whole has become atrocious.
gil mann
Failure to turn the Gaza strip into a Jew/Arab rave party will only compound the damage Obama did to his legacy by not running for president eight years earlier, thereby not invading Iraq in response to 9/11.
Nah, that doesn’t work, sorry. I’ve been slamming my head in the car door for a few hours now, but I’m still not as dumb as a DC journalist.
The Other Steve
Screw it. I’m suddenly not just apathetic or accepting, but flat out excited about one of Obama’s nominees.
Solis may just understand H1B visas
Over the years in the tech industry I’ve become increasingly frustrated with our ability to build American talent. It seems that nearly all entry level jobs these days are being filled by H1B visa holders from India. For all the talk of how we need H1B to get qualified talent, I’ve only ever met maybe two people who were senior level IT talent brought in on H1B.
By using H1B for entry level, they’re destroying our ability to compete in the future.
Butch
I think the Today Show is even worse – I have to make sure there are no heavy and throw-able objects around every time I make the mistake of watching it or I would have smashed the teevee screen long ago. Matt ‘n Meredith are already pronouncing the Obama administration a failure.
Ash Can
John King, fixted:
SpotWEld
I really need to stop watching cable news.
A little late for New Year’s resolutions, but I say go for it!
(I down graded from the "primium basic" cable when it got to be over $50 a month and havn’t missed the news channels one bit.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
I watched this last night on a flight to Boston. Not having subjected myself to CNN on a regular basis, I was unprepared for the waves of inanity that hit. Luckily, the flight was late, thus JetBlue helped soften the mighty blow of MSMPanic with some free booze.
Occasionally, I wonder why people get all bent out of shape. All too often, I can trace a wave of online panic to something the media’s carrying water for. *sigh*
Gwendy
Back in December, the media was giving more favorable coverage, using the phrase "team of rivals" in appropriate wonder every 2 minutes or so. Obama’s transition approval numbers polled at about 70-72% .
Now, the press and Republicans are involved in their typical circle jerk of false drama and faux outrage and unreasonably high expectations, and you know what? Obama’s transition approval numbers are still polling at about 70-72%.
I’m not letting them get to me anymore. I’m just going to drink heavily and watch the inauguration with a lump in my throat.
JL
As newspapers around the country fold, we will be left with John King to tell us the truth as he sees it. Just Great! Another media alert, Sarah will be Glenn Beck’s guest Monday, 5 pm on Fox News. What will Sarah say now? Will she bring Trig along for another photo op?
Trinity
It is an insult to wankers everywhere to be associated with the likes of John King. just sayin’
joe from Lowell
That’s a complete fabrication!
From roughly May 2003 through January 20, 2009, it’s the Barney Frank Economy.
Tzal
King got into it with Glenn Greenwald a little while ago:
Greenwald’s original post.
Follow up.
To summarize, Greenwald exposed King’s McCain Mancrush, King emailed Greenwald and called him a bunch of names. Greenwald used King’s email to further criticize the press and King. All in a day’s work for Greenwald, really.
OHollern
And yet the Bush administration has never really taken any significant blame for 9/11, even though it had been in power eight months.
jibeaux
Weird. It’s almost like he’s taking his personal opinion and extrapolating it onto "the people" rather than, I dunno, learning what public opinion is.
Echoes sin los conejos o los hombres ( now in Espanol!)
Jon King is a fucking child. I loved his rant to Glenn Greenwald months ago, prefaced with the usual high and mighty media wanker line " I don’t know who you are because I don’t read blogs blah blah blah" because he is a REALLY SERIOUS TEEVEE reporter. And really serious TV jerkoffs have no time to squabble with some lowly blogger…feh, unless of course, they make the time to prove how much more important they are.
Incertus
@Zifnab: I’d say by 2010, we need to have seen some sort of positive movement. Obama won’t get that long, of course–he might not get a month at this rate–but his economists are projecting the full stimulus will hit by Fall 2010, with receding expectations afterward, so by the Spring we should see some movement.
Echoes sin los conejos o los hombres ( now in Espanol!)
Hey Tzal, thanks for posting that! The timing was spot on.
tim
Kudos to Ohollern #22
To this day, Bush partisans and morons everywhere argue that Bush couldn’t be faulted with 9/11. Now, if we’d gone to war with China in the summer of 2001, because of that stupid spy plane incident, would that have been Clinton’s fault too?
scarshapedstar
Bill Clinton owned the economy until at least 2004, according to the Bushies, and definitely caused 9/11.
IOKIYAR
Shinobi
Ugh, UGH. Whatever you do, don’t go read the next right, where they are planning how the republicans will take over when Obama’s actual attempts to fix things crash and burn.
Yes, this economic stimulus package is JUST LIKE the patriot act. A poorly conceived power grab in the midst of a national crisis. That’s why everyone will hate it.
I really thought that we might get at least a little solemn reflection on their policies from the conservatives. Just a little, before the new president took office. I have clearly overestimated them once again.
The Moar You Know
@The Other Steve: +5; Informative
Seanly
Actually, I think the John King show will be 4 hours of pity parties for the millionaires who now only have millions of dollars instead of millions & millions of dollars. CNN has been running a lot more of those types of stories lately.
Oh & interwoven will be the stories about poor people who need to stop sniveling & get used to living in a ratty tent by the river. After all, the lucky ducks just got a 3 cent raise from Wal Mart! And they save so much money by washing in the river!
oh really
John King is just lucky he hasn’t crossed Erick Erickson and the Red State Strike Force, otherwise he’d find his mailbox full of silly putty, or slinkies, or plastic dog poo.
On the other hand, this may be further evidence of the genius of Erickson. After all, by channeling the massive power of the Strike Force, EE may provide the economic stimulus that a mere $825 billion from the Obama administration can’t possibly achieve. History will no doubt recognize the RSSF for its key role in ending the current recession.
magisterludi
If things get much worse, King et al will be finding a smaller and smaller audience. Pay TV could be the first to fall in a household budget axing. A bright side of the econ disaster.
Relatedly,does Murdoch own DirectTV and Dish now? FNC is the only cable news on all the basic packages. No wonder their ratings are consistently high. In many homes, they’re the only source of cable news.
Rick Taylor
*shrugs* It’s been like this for a long long time. It doesn’t even raise my blood pressure anymore. This is way it is; deal with it.
Queen of Sheba
Didn’t Ted Turner indicate recently that he would like to buy back CNN?
Well Ted, now’s the time. Write that check and save us all.
Kerry Reid
Lil Johnny Wants-to-be-Kingmaker had the most unintentionally hilarious line in a post-primary recap that I can recall. Right after the Chesapeake primaries, he said, with his usual air of overblown ominipotence, that Barack Obama won Virginia by "winning votes where the people are."
Calling into question, of course, Mark Penn’s heretofore seemingly brilliant strategy of having Hillary Clinton go all out for the white-tailed deer vote.
He’s a putz.
demimondian
@The Moar You Know:
-1, Troll
(Naked, petrified, hot grits, and Natalie Portman, as well.)
I am truly distressed by the racist H1-B bullshit. I interview people for my employer regularly…and, I’m sorry, we fail to hire 95% of our entry level candidates. It’s just the way it is. Even in a down economy, where companies like Google are laying off recruiters, there is a shortage of qualified people for the "central few" companies to hire.
I’m hoping that Solis’ proposal will finally allow us to show that, yes, we really *can’t* hire inside the US, and that, yes, we really do try. I’m tired of being called a liar when my team hires an alien with an H1-B for a job we’ve advertised for months.
Laura W
I can give you a ride to my Cable Cutters* Anonymous meeting, John, but I can not sponsor you because I am a chronic relapser.
Besides, they frown upon mixed-gender sponsoring, which pretty much takes away what little fun is left in life once you give up mocking cable news.
*I am powerless over self-harming with cable and my life has become way unmanageable.
shortstop
I wish I could cancel cable (or, more accurately, cable news), but the two highrises smack in front of me mean no cable, no TV. Which only means I’m not willing to take the next step. Instead, I surf past CNN and its ilk as fast as I can, knowing that for every second I linger there, I get measurably dumber.
I wish to Jesus we could unbundle.