So I turned on Morning Joe, and I can honestly say that anyone who watches this show will be dumber after viewing. For the last fifteen minutes, they have done nothing but concern troll the notion of health care reform, and Mika has complained about the troops smoking for the bulk of it.
Also, yesterday, I found it amusing that the WaPo talked about something other than excusing torture when they came out with an op-ed attacking the millionaire surtax proposed by the House. In case you are wondering, there is never an issue in which Fred Hiatt and company will side with the weak over the strong, the poor over the rich, the have nots over the haves. That is their purpose- the raucous defense of the status quo.
aimai
I think, under Clinton, I was aware that the press had taken a very adversarial stance against Clinton personally, and against the democrats–I’m thinking of Howell Raines years long campaigns against the Clintons–but until recently I never had quite fully grasped the fact that the majority of the big press voices are simply bought and paid for by the oligarchy for its own purposes. That is, I thought the top press people had their own reasons for being pro republican. Now that the dems are in power, and the republicans out, I see more clearly that the major press organs are simply pro-corporatist and will do whatever it takes to protect the kleptocracy and the oligarchy.
I know, I know, stunning that someone can still be so naive. Well, its never too late.
aimai
John Cole
@aimai: You are not the only one.
PeakVT
Your liberal media at work.
Added: speaking of death spirals, deflation seems to have arrived in Japan and Europe.
harlana pepper
Well, yeah, when the corporate media keeps telling us we don’t want what we want and need desperately, it do call into question their concern for the public good, it really do. If all else fails, get Glenn Beck, who has at least two major media outlets, to scream his lungs out.
Dennis-SGMM
I tried watching Morning Joe once and I switched back to TCM when I felt my IQ ebbing away. I have been cable news free for months and I’m a happier person for it.
Cancelled WaPo in Spring. Even the free online sub wasn’t worth the price. Someone mentioned in another thread that WaPo published an op-ed by Sarah Palin opposing the clean energy bill. Sarah Palin. She fits right in with Hiatt’s confederacy of dunces. What’s next, Donald Wolfowitz on sound banking practices? Bernie Madoff on investing?
MattF
There’s a gap between what the press does and what the press thinks it’s doing– the media’s 90s obsessions about the Clintons is a good example. Since the Clintons were, basically, moderate Republicans (end welfare, placate the bond market, balance the Federal budget), there was no substantive political case that the media could make for favoring tax-cutting corporatists. So, the press just had to resort to an obsessive “Two Minutes Hate” attitude. As in, “They probably didn’t deal drugs in the White House or murder Vince Foster, but these are still stories that we have to cover.” It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.
CaptMaggie
You all gave up too soon. There was a very nice little vignette this a.m. where Chuck Todd treated Maria Bartiromo like the tin foil hat wurlitzer she is. Ms. Bartiromo asked Chuck if reporters had to submit questions to the president in advance. Chuck Todd laughed at her saying Nooo! She tried to redeem herself by saying ‘lots of reporters say’ and Todd, bless his heart, laughing at her insisted “Who? Who?”. Maria said well, Helen Thomas, to which he pointed out that was over the HuffPo matter nothing to do with reporters generally submitting questions. He laughed at her throughout her effort to push this new talking point (maybe the teleprompter critique is running out of steam). It’s nuggets like that that brings me back for more Morning Joe while doing my morning reading.
TR
Concern troll is the best description of Morning Joke. What a collection of simpering idiots.
Cat Lady
How could Mika have grown up in a house with Zbig and be such a clueless nitwit? He must be horrified every morning, poor guy.
kay
It’s going to be a full-court press to stop health care reform.
I’m getting a kick out of how petulant and cranky the media are about this proposal. John’s right. You have to wonder why they’re so completely invested in the status quo. It isn’t working for most people.
I don’t know: is it that they weren’t consulted? No one “brought them in” at a salon or anything? There’s a sense of outraged surprise to this barrage of anti-reform harumphing. Maybe a nice meal would soothe ruffled feathers, and they can go back to tracking Sarah Palin.
Comrade Jake
@kay:
Not much wondering required: everyone in the media has good coverage.
Comrade Jake
FWIW, I turned the show on a morning ago, and the discussion over the CIA is mind-boggling stupid. Joe’s panties are in a wad over what the next generation of agents is going to do when they’re worried about being prosecuted.
“David Ignatius, how bad is morale at the CIA right now?”
kay
@Comrade Jake:
I have decided they’re just really conventional people. They stick to themes long after the public has abandoned them, they seize on gaffes that no one else even notices, they’re always rattled about something or other. I’m an incredibly boring midwesterner, the County where I live and work is flat-out tanking, and I’m not nearly as scared as these people.
I looked at the synopsis of the House proposal and thought it was well thought out for a first proposal. MSNBC are predicting the DEMISE OF HEALTH CARE. Christ. Calm down.
Michael
I’d play a drinking game involving the number of times Joke makes a pejorative reference to Nancy Pelosi, but I don’t think I could survive the experience of one show.
He must sneer her name 20 times an hour.
A.Political
That sums up the news media pretty succinctly does it not?
zoe kentucky
They’re nothing more than an insider clique of idiots with a camera in front of them for 3 hours. Scarborugh isn’t a total idiot, just a right-wing conservative with an agenda that he barely tries to hide. Mika is a blithering idiot who mistakes having an opinion for being informed. It’s nothing more than MSNBC trying to compete with FoxNews-style chitchat. Apparently part of the formula is making sure that the people know much about politics or policy but have really strong opinions regardless.
It could be done well if the people were interesting, if they didn’t have Liz Cheney on every other day, if big lies and half-truths weren’t allowed to sit there without any factchecking whatsoever.
JenJen
Yeah, I have it on almost every morning in the background while I putter around, and send/receive increasingly funny text from my friends, usually pertaining to Mika’s staggering idiocy. The only explanation for Ms. Brzezinski that I can conjure is perhaps genius really does skip a generation; look at the Shula family and football coaching prowess, for example. :-)
But yes, they are all blatant whimpering corporatists, and also belong to something of a men’s club. Listening to that racist asshat Pat Buchanan yuck it up with that crew is intolerable at times. Chuck Todd is usually the only person who ever makes the least bit of sense. And although everyone already knows this, these people who claim to be political experts are always wrong about absolutely everything pertaining to politics. I can assure you that up until about 9:15 on Election Night, they were each convinced Obama couldn’t possibly win Ohio. Heh.
amk
Mediamatters did a very good piece on how the media has gone rabidly mad in the wake of this Presidency.
mediamatters.org/columns/200904280002
Laura W
@JenJen: Believe it or not, Darling One, there is worser out there.
Tonight Larry Banal King will be exploring The Mystery Behind Michael Jackson’s Death.
Boggles what remains of my incredulous mind.
Laura W
Also, I finally watched TDS/Colbert from Monday night’s return and I really thought Colbert did a bang up job in choosing the stories to mock. My fave was his MJ segment: “The death of the coverage of the death of Michael Jackson” with the appropriate dates of the birth and death of the coverage on screen. Fun-ny.
Stewart was more mediocre but Sam Bee killed me as Senior Alaska Correspondent on Palin: “You can’t suckle on the teat of a shooting star.
Loved the title. Wondered why John or DougJ had not used it here first.
Half Baked Alaska
Napoleon
With the Palin op-ed of the other day I ended my morning practice of reading the WaPo and if at all possible I plan never to click on a link linking to them. At least Dionne stuff is also at TNR, and Meyerson writes elsewhere. I’ll miss Eugene.
Egilsson
This is another edition of “The DFH Were Right”.
They really STILL don’t get enough respect.
Sly
I always found that the “centrists” of the WaPo were really nothing more than a manifestation local elitism. It’s not really ideological, in the sense that they’re not basing their opinions purely on the intellectual appeal of the underlying beliefs and assumptions. It’s the kind of local elitism that you see in a lot of communities, pushed by people who either directly benefit from the status quo or who are dependent on people who do.
It’s just more glaring in D.C. because that’s where the action is, in terms of national policy debates. Mixed with Beltway provincialism , it insulates the power brokers who run D.C. from any sort of criticism. Always remember David Broder’s comment about Bill Clinton.
“He came in here and he trashed the place, and it’s not his place.”
Yeah. He was just the President of the United States.
Jonathan
For those of you that were watching ol’ Morning Joe today, I want to point out that I particularly enjoyed the euphemism David Ignatius used today for what I presume to be torture – “turn (the al-qaeda agent) upside down.”
WTF does THAT mean?
norbizness
Really, I have a difficult time believing that that’s the ULTIMATE guide for meeting Thai women. It really seems to foreclose on the possibility of better guides being written in the future, and I’m naturally an optimist.
Crockpot
“People who defend the status quo rarely believe their own words; such is the nature of greed.”
– Abraham Lincoln
TenguPhule
Next against the wall when the revolution comes.
First, the Wall Streeters.
Then the bankers.
TenguPhule
Next against the wall when the revolution comes.
First, the Wall Streeters.
Then the bankers.
Xenos
I was just a kid at the time, but I remember the shocking, systemic ridicule of Jimmy Carter. I knew that comedians would make fun of Ford, but newsmen and people at large had considerable respect for Ford, even if they thought he had made a big mistake pardoning Nixon.
Carter screwed up a lot, but he was treated with contempt on a consistent basis. I think the media first realized their power to sink and destroy a presidency when they made him a laughing-stock.
mai naem
Some clarifications here: First its Morning Ho. Second,Mika’s adopted because first she’s way more attractive than Zbig and second, she’s way dumber than Zbig. Only explanation is adoption.
And WTF’s with Willie Geist? Seriously, how much does he get paid to stay mute through 90 percent of the show. He’s like the freshman at a seniors’ cocktail party who’s too scared to say anything because he’ll look stupid. Also too, who the f##k names there baby George W. Seriously, George W.? I don’t care if it’s some family name. I have to believe very few kids were names Adolf or Benito after WW11. Don’t worry, I’m not comparing George W. to Hitler, I am just saying George W. is still a very unpopular man and probably will be.
Back to this morning’s show. Why would you have Jane F#$#ing Harman on talking about the CIA issue except to make Nancy Pelosi look stupid. Scarb knows and yet nobody brings up that Nancy and Jane aren’t exactly buddies and Jane also had her own little issue last year. Nobody brings that up.
I am not computer savvy enough, but one of these days Morning Ho is going to motivate me enough to set up my own blog with some clever name like Pimp My Morning Ho. This show deserves a separate little daily column on Media Matters.
Wile E. Quixote
@Tenguphule
Let’s add the MSM too starting with everyone at WaPo and the WSJ editorial section.