Chuck Todd’s gutless rant (via Ben Smith):
*** On The Glen Becks And Howard Beales: The White House doesn’t want to give Glen Beck a bigger platform or extra oxygen — especially regarding his remark yesterday that the president has “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture” — so they won’t comment, even off record. Beck, after all, is a radio DJ who somehow ended up getting a national platform to give his opinion on politics. What’s most amazing about this episode is that what Beck said isn’t a fireable or even a SUSPENDABLE offense by his bosses. There was a time when outrageous rants like this would actually cost the ranters their jobs. But not anymore; if anything, it’s now encouraged. And all of this could turn ACTUAL journalists into the next Howard Beales. It’s getting nuts that the folks who are creating the perception of an ideological/polarized media world are people who have never really spent their lives being journalists. Whether it’s former political consultants-turned-TV execs or former radio DJs, or former California socialites, the folks helping to accelerate the public’s perception of the media off a cliff made their livings trying to do other things. Of course, Beck’s crazy language could have one unintended consequence: It could cost him bookings with any Republicans who want to be popular outside Beck’s hard-core bizarro-land viewers.
If he had balls, he’d mention Australian media moguls too. It’s not like Murdoch’s other outlets are any better. But I guess Chuck figures he might end up wanting a job from Rupert some day in some capacity.
That’s my take anyway.
And, although I’m not the biggest fan of the HuffPost, I don’t see how it’s done much to increase the perception of ideologically driven media. I guess Chuck figures he doesn’t have to kiss Arianna’s ass, though, so he thought he’d throw her in to be “even-handed”.
DonkeyKong
Chucky’s all grows up now!
demkat620
I have to agree with Lois Romano. “Why are we talking about Glenn Beck?”
“He is bordering on being a nut.”
I think he crossed over into Crazystan a long time ago.
General Winfield Stuck
Geeze Dougj. your a hard case, or just spoofing again. I kinda liked his rant, but he should have included the plight of native herders in Upper Mongolia/
DougJ
Geeze Dougj. your a hard case,
Sorry, but none of these guys will take shots at Rupert. Because they all think he’ll end up owning everything. I don’t think I’m being that hard of a case.
Zifnab
Well, you see, HuffPo is an internet magazine that reports news but does not disguise it’s left wing bias. FOX News is a cable news channel that peddles lies and distorted information while repeatedly claiming to be “Fair and Balanced” or otherwise unbiased.
So, in many ways, they are exactly the same. See?
jenniebee
@demkat620: Tweety was really sulking about her reaction wasn’t he? At least until Jonathan Martin agreed with her.
Brachiator
@demkat620:
Which is right next door to Youbetchastan. Also, too.
dmsilev
Chuck Todd is the epitome of the Peter Principle. He was great when he was an analyst crunching the numbers on delegates and individual congressional districts and whatnot. Now, with his fancy new promotion, not so good.
-dms
Zandar
Chuck Todd lamenting the state of the modern media is like Cobra Commander lamenting the state of the modern henchman.
It hasn’t even occurred to the guy that as NBC’s political news director and White house correspondent, he might be partly responsible for the reprehensible way in which the news cycle is framed in 2009.
c u n d gulag
Chuckles, baby,
The first time you are ever confused for a journalist, you make sure and let all of us know.
You work at a network that mainlines Pat Buchanan to us 24/7/365. They give us Cup ‘a Shit every morning. Sure, Ed, Keith and Rachel go a long way to make amend’s. But you, stupid, are part of the problem – NOT part of the solution.
So, Chuckles, STFU. We’ll let you know when you can start to sniff Uncle Walter’s 80 year-old jockstrap he wore when covering sports in High School.
GregB
30 years ago people like Glenn Beck were relegated to short wave radio in Idaho or to printing out screeds to hand out at the park.
Now they stagger from CNN to Fox to The Today Show.
Idiot Merka sure loves their morons.
-G
General Winfield Stuck
@DougJ:
Whatever. I still liked his rant.
Joy
Chuck Todd is a journalist? Who knew? I’m assuming he is also including his network”s “Uncle Pat” in that group of ranters that should lose their jobs.
demkat620
Okay why is Tom Tancredo on the tv?
Why is his opinion needed on anything?
Again, he tells us that Sotomayor is a racist. Fuck you, Tom.
Joy
@Brachiator
Youbetchastan. I like it.
Zifnab
@Zandar:
Is he? Does he get to make any real decisions? Or is all that shit parsed out by the corporate sponsors? I mean, Todd’s got the comfy chair and the big hat, but that doesn’t make him in charge of anything.
El Cid
ATTN Chuck Todd:
Hey, clueless: I DON’T HAVE TO BE A JOURNALIST TO MEASURE THE QUALITY OF YOUR ACTUAL OUTPUT.
Nor do I have to be an electronics engineer to know when my DVD player fails to play movies, nor a professional chef to know when I’ve been served rotten, shoddy food.
As a professional / celebrity journalist, I can understand that you have confused the endless fascination you have with your own job tasks with that of the measurable quality of your product.
But, as you people like to say, you’re in a business, right?
And, if you’re in the business of selling news, that makes me a consumer, and as a consumer, it’s within my role to decide when you’re trying to sell us shoddy, substandard, failed crappy products.
I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE TRAINING OR PROCESSES YOU WENT THROUGH AND GO THROUGH TO DELIVER ME A SHODDY INFERIOR PRODUCT.
What matters is what you deliver.
If you want to be in the business of selling a news product, then shut up with your whining and your excuses and give us consumers a god-damned reputable product.
I’m sure my DVD manufacturer or the restaurant chef would rather sell crappy and broken shit too and just make excuses for it, but they don’t get to do that, either.
demkat620
So, if Obama hates white people, why did he go to Hawaii to see his grandmother?
Oh that’s right he threw her under the bus. Nevermind.
Demo Woman
FDR succeeded because we did not have 24/7 news and talk radio spewing hatred over all the airways. Imagine an United States without FDR. A strong democracy exists because of a strong middle class and FDR did create a strong middle class.
demkat620
@Demo Woman: Yeah he did but Truman and Eisenhower deserve some credit to.
Ike may be the last good republican president. Ever.
Calouste
@El Cid:
El Cid: Douze points; El Cid: Twelve points.
mistermix
DougJ just doesn’t have the right perspective. From 30,000 feet, it might seem that way. But if you had Chuck’s microscopic perspective, you’d see why Rupert’s ass must be kissed.
BombIranForChrist
Oh, all this preening faux outrage from the Chuckle-meister.
Remember, folks, he doesn’t give two shits about the argument he is making.
He’s not actually outraged, but he wants you to think he’s outraged, so that you will treat him as a Very Serious Person instead of a News Actor with a Advanced Dungeons and Dragons goatee.
MBunge
It’s all well and good for Chuck to say stuff, but what is he going to do the next time he’s in a room with Beck? Is he going to go up to Beck and chew him out face-to-face over his insane babbling? Is he going to publicly shun him? Is he going to get up and leave?
People tend to get all caught up in advertising boycotts and such, but the first and best way to punish and prevent behavior like Beck’s or Dobb’s or Limbaugh’s is through social stigmitization by their social/economic peers. If Beck knew that his ranting would get him publicly embarassed at the next White House Correspondent’s Dinner or some other event, he’d mind his manners a lot more.
Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly know that as along as they’re not caught burning a cross on the White House lawn while screaming “Get that ****** out of here!” at the top of their lungs, they won’t suffer any personal discomfort for anything they say or do.
Mike
Demo Woman
On the ED Show, they are discussing whether or not Obama should respond to Beck. I actually think not. I do think he should say a FOX News commenter called me a racist and I feel that I need to respond to that comment and then he should give one of his great speeches.. If I were him I would never mention Beck’s name only the news channel.
wilfred
@demkat620:
He was certainly the last decent man, from either party. I don’t mean in terms of simple ethics either, but in his concern for what was happening to the country. He warned us.
Brendan
For years I have been silently and faithfully lurving Chuck Todd as a political analyst.
When Russert plucked him from the Hotline to NBC in ’07, I saw him get ridiculously cautious. Then everyone fawned while Chuck went “crunching the numbers” during the primary campaign, and Chris Matthews all but pronounced him a mathematical genius for unlocking the delegate secrets which evaded Mark Penn’s normally Newtonian mind.
Then, fearful of David Gregory’s promises of ceaseless bitchfits, NBC cannot give MTP to our cautious Chuckie. As a consolation prize, he gets to share a men’s room with Robert Gibbs and Jake Tapper.
All this is a long way of saying that it’s been disappointing to watch one of the best political minds not clouded by $$$ (Sabato) or Republican water-hauling (Cook) performing jobs which are wrong for him. NBC fouled up the talent management and then some.
I want my pre-MSM Todd back. I also want to know which barista pissed in his and Sully’s coffee this morning.
gnomedad
@demkat620:
That reminds me of a gag in the musical Crazy For You:
Zangler: “You’re close to an idiot!”
Bobby: [Jumps away]
Punchy
Charles Todd seems…….concerned.
I love how he gets so miffed when someone outdoes the cesspool journalism that Chucky himself helps to advance. “It’s so unfair that Beck got to say “n#gger before I did! And I was thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissss close, too! FoxNews is poopy!”
El Cid
@Calouste: Merci beaucoup.
Zifnab
@demkat620:
He was also something like the first good Republican President since Lincoln. I mean, seriously, name another GOP President you liked? Grant ran one of the shoddiest corrupt admins ever. Garfield had the good grace to get shot before he could fuck up the country. Taft was a fat ass corporate whore. And Coolidge basically set the stage for the Great Depression. I mean, I guess Teddy Roosevelt was good, but he was more Bull-Moose than GOP.
With a few stellar exceptions (that would have been drummed out of the party on any other day) the GOP has been a fucking train wreck since day one.
General Winfield Stuck
@Brendan:
I tend to agree with this. Todd just wasn’t cut out to be a reporter and much of his douchebaggery comes from trying to force his way into being accepted, and it comes off as not only media herd mentality, but poorly done media herd mentality. Maybe he will see this at some point and go back to doing what he did so well at Hotline and NBC news electoral analysis.
Demo Woman
@demkat620: Yes you are right and both Eisenhower and Truman deserve credit. Eisenhower more so because of his warnings about the military structure, imo but if they had 24/7 news, Lindbergh would be President. Think of the consequences of that.
JenJen
To me, it seems as though tomorrow we may be hearing a pushback that comes in the form of “Kanye West said Bush doesn’t like black people, so STFU.” I don’t know, just seems to me like this kind of ridiculous equivalence will be drawn. I hope not, because that asshole’s comments about the President are just over the top.
I don’t advocate for Beck’s removal, but he can either put up or shut up. When you say something like that about the President of the United States, you deserve whatever’s coming your way. The 1st Amendment doesn’t protect you from others calling out your ignorant ass.
Where are the GOP moderates? I’m really starting to wonder if there’s nothing vis-a-vis attacks on Obama that they find offensive, or if maybe instead, moderates don’t actually exist.
The Pale Scot
I do believe that
former political consultants-turned-TV exec = Roger Ailles, the bad one.
but thats so oblique as to be useless
shoutingattherain
9-26-04: “Today before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.” – MoveOn.org….. Oh NOES!!!! BOOM!!! YAAAARRGH!!!! CONGRESSIONAL CONDEMNATION!!eleventy!1!!
7-27-09: “The president has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture” – Glen Beck…Yawn. No probs. Just keep walkin’. What’s for dinner?
me
css test
Mayur
@Zifnab: You forgot Hoover.
wilfred
@JenJen:
We have a history of saying far worse things about Presidents. Obama needs proxies willing to go out there and call people like Beck, O’Reilly et al. the Father Coughlins of our day – race baiting, hate-mongering religous bigots.
But not enough people give a shit anymore, simple as that. B
mcc
Which Republicans would those be?
valdivia
sorry to get back to Sulli but now he has a post at the top saying Obama has totally lost the confidence of the people because…he has not brought any change!
I think whoever said Sulli is now officially anti Obama may be right. what the hell happened to him?
Demo Woman
@valdivia: Sulli is against health care reform.. On that subject he has not changed.
demkat620
@valdivia: DADT and gay marriage.
Sully has given Obama credit for Foreign Policy but he is rightfully pissed about gay rights issues.
Laura W
@JenJen: This might be slightly off topic a skitch, but lemme just say that Joan Walsh looks better on a big, flat screen teevee than anyone else I’ve seen so far since I moved into a house with a big, flat screen teevee 48 hours ago.
It’s not an HD teevee, but I have an HD receiver hooked to it. Because the VERY NICE and PATIENT DTV man who was here for Eleventy hours last week said I could and should.
The woman has no wrinkles around her eyes. I think I have to hate her now. She must not laugh as much as I do.
(Tweety replay, for reference.)
Calouste
@valdivia:
Nothing?
Sully was an inconsistent, Thatcherite, Oxbridge-educated, entitled (but I repeat myself) wanker, and he still is an inconsistent, Thatcherite, Oxbridge-educated, entitled (but I repeat myself) wanker.
Just for about half a year when it was clear that the GOP wouldn’t bring him his conservative fantasy land of “long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers”, he put his hope somewhere else. And now that he hasn’t got his pony, he is throwing a tantrum.
Nellcote
@JenJen:
>To me, it seems as though tomorrow we may be hearing a pushback that comes in the form of “Kanye West said Bush doesn’t like black people, so STFU.”
It already happened on the ED show.
I think Prez. Obama and Gibbs should stop taking questions from Fox at the press thingys.
mcc
Sully has given Obama credit for Foreign Policy but he is rightfully pissed about gay rights issues.
Of course, Sully’s actually also opposed to those gay rights reforms that the Democrats have actually made some progress on so far this year (he’s been a constant campaigner against the hate crimes bill, and although I’ve not seen him comment on it this year at least as recently as 2006 he was opposed to ENDA) so if lack of GLBT progress actually was his primary source of disillusionment it would seem a little bit weird to me.
mcc
Sully has given Obama credit for Foreign Policy but he is rightfully pissed about gay rights issues.
Of course, Sully’s actually also opposed to those gay rights reforms that the Democrats have actually made some progress on so far this year (he’s been a constant campaigner against the hate crimes bill, and although I’ve not seen him comment on it this year at least as recently as 2006 he was opposed to ENDA) so if lack of GLBT progress actually was his primary source of disillusionment it would seem a little bit weird to me.
mcc
Sully has given Obama credit for Foreign Policy but he is rightfully pissed about gay rights issues.
Of course, Sully’s actually also opposed to those gay rights reforms that the Democrats have actually made some progress on so far this year (he’s been a constant campaigner against the hate crimes bill, and although I’ve not seen him comment on it this year at least as recently as 2006 he was opposed to ENDA) so if lack of GLBT progress actually was his primary source of disillusionment it would seem a little bit weird to me.
mcc
Aaaaa what the hell
JenJen
@wilfred: I agree, he needs surrogates to call out the racist fucksticks. I think it’s happening, at least on MSNBC… Ed Schultz didn’t exactly hold back tonight. And neither did Joan Walsh. When you think of what the Dixie Chicks went through for being simply entertainers, and saying something to an overseas crowd that actually wasn’t at all bad, it’s staggering to think that Beck could remain unscathed. He’s a goldmine, but so were they. He’s not untouchable. Well, except sexually.
@Laura W: Wow!! I don’t have HD but I’ve heard that even the most lovely of young starlets (who apparently are roaming my neighborhood looking for my guns, per Sarah Palin) complain that it’s not terribly forgiving. Nice to hear that Joan is looking good… she brought it on Hardball, and I was proud of her. Call the shit what it is, already! Finally!!
@Nellcote: If this were Nixonland, Obama would be going after FNC’s FCC license. Thankfully, it’s not Nixonland. I would never put it past others to do scurrilous things when under the fire, but Obama ain’t that guy. Thank the stars above.
tammanycall
@Joy:
Of all the MSNBC anchors, Rachel Maddow is the one who gives “Uncle Pat” the most exposure. It’s one of the most disappointing aspects of her show.
valdivia
thanks all of you for your comments re sulli. I understand his frustration with some issues but it’s like he came back from his 2 weeks off having decided that Obama can do nothing right. His posts have been all out there and negative in a way in no way commensurate with anything that has shifted on the ground.
Brachiator
@Demo Woman:
Henry Ford and others created the middle class (including industrialists and unions). FDR rescued it.
D0n Camillo
Sorry about the OT. I desperately need a cookie.
Batocchio
Glenn Beck is no Howard Beale; he’s a wannabe Joe McCarthy. Or wannabe Rush Limbaugh. Yeah, the difference is mainly style…
grendelkhan
So he’s not referring to himself, then.
bago
I like HuffPo. It clearly labels entertainment and opinion, and doesn’t pretend to label itself as an arbiter of objective media, but rather lets its reporting stand on its own. Nico drives the IRANIAN COVERAGE forward (with caveats), while the entertainment section does the octomom shit, and at no point does it claim to be the ultimate arbiter of truth. Unlike tose who are rapping with MC Rove. HuffPo doesn’t sell access salons while touting their insider journalist bona-fides, which is why the wapo was so SHOCKED when Sam Stein or Pitney were called on during White House Press Conferences.
Ryan
White ain’t no country I’ve ever heard of. They speak English in White?