Remember yesterday when I wrote that the media could not care less about informing the public and really don’t think the job of journalism is to deal with facts and the determining truth, and wrote this about what the coverage of politics was like:
“Up next, the Obama administration says the sky is blue and the grass is green, while Republican congressmen claim this is just another lie from the most liberal socialist and possibly Muslim administration ever designed to cover their power grabs over the environment and that claiming the sky is blue hurts job creation. Who is right? Send us your thoughts via email, and don’t forget to take part in Rick Klein’s poll- “Who is most responsible for all this nasty partisanship?” Also, we’ll be checking Sarah Palin’s twitter feed live, hoping to see if she has weighed in on blueksygate, and we think we have more pole-dancing footage of the missing showgirl.”
Take a look at this:
Ed Feist is a CNN Political Director.
The prosecution rests.
KCinDC
Even expecting it, I was a little surprised this morning at how credulously NPR was reporting Republican claims about cutting the deficit. We’re doomed.
Ash Can
Actually, CNN is far more likely to find reasonable discussion and common sense in a neighborhood saloon than in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
General Stuck
I look at it as simply dressing up the wingnut turkey before Thanksgiving. If the wingnuts had taken the Senate as well as the House, then the coming PR wars would have given them the advantage over dems and Obama. They are isolated with only controlling the House, where the wingnuttiest wingnuts reside. Full of idiots that think the public gave them a mandate to govern over Obama. When in fact, it was the craziest motherfuckers in this country who showed up over lazy dem voters in a traditional low turnout mid term, that gave them a single chamber of congress. We are about to witness the mother of all over reaches, and the media fawning right now, nor later on, will be able to polish this monumental turd about to be dropped on a clueless public. So the long term politics of this clown show, doesn’t worry me so much as the real damage they can do to the country with just one lever of power. Not to mention the wasted time to fix problems that need fixing now.
The Moar You Know
You have your bread and your circuses. What the fuck else do you want?
cathyx
The media have every interest to push the republican agenda. It would only hurt their cause to publish anything else.
beltane
The sooner we get people to understand that what they think of as The News is really just another flavor of the trashy, otherworldly, Reality-TV empire of hell, the better we all will be. The American media has gone beyond merely providing entertainment to the masses; it is now a dystopian nightmare factory.
beltane
@The Moar You Know: I demand a better circus with more attractive clowns. The clowns they provide us with today look so artificial, so doused with toxic beauty-care treatments, that they would combust if put in the same room as a lit match.
El Tiburon
It was an open and shut case.
Benjamin Cisco
The Ferengi Controlled Infotainment Service is just getting ramped up, I’m afraid. Who needs holosuites when your clientele has hollow heads?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Butbutbutbut, Len Fucking Downey said this morning on NPR that media entities like the WaPo do nothing but unbiased reporting with an aim toward reporting facts and the truth. His money quote was “I stand by our reporting on this”.
I guess Lenny never actually read what came from the keyboards of people like Kornblut, Murray, Bacon Bits, etc.
I wouldn’t mind it so much if they’d simply come out and say “we’re biased” like, oh the Guardian in the UK does (or most papers in the UK). Actually, the WaPo isn’t so much biased as it is lazy and incompentent. Lenny wouldn’t exactly sell more papers by saying “we’re not biased at all, but we are lazy and incompetent stenographers…so there.”
Bulworth
@KCinDC: I know nobody cares, least of all our village media, but the country was running a balanced budget as little as 10 years ago. Of course that was back in the days when there was still a meaningful estate tax and when the top marginal tax rate was an “unconscionable” 39.6% and we weren’t occupying two countries and….
the fenian
To be briefly fair, this is the kind of thing that every newspaper has done as a sidebar to a major event since the dawn of time. As such, no biggie, as long as the serious coverage is also part of the deal. The problem, of course, is that the serious work largely has been abandoned.
I hope to one day grab a beer in Boehner’s place and then, as part of my Galtian lifestyle, undertip.
Comrade Javamanphil
If you want to make CNN today you’ll need to not only start a car chase but make sure you grab a blond white woman in her 20s before you do.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bulworth:
Someone at the WaPo comment page a few days ago on an article on the “disillusionment” of some teabaggers told me that Clinton’s budget surpluses were outright lies. That there were never any budget surpluses under Clinton.
AxelFoley
Oh, the next two years are gonna be fun. I don’t wanna hear shit from folks about buyer’s remorse after the GOP is done with them. They almost drove us over the cliff for 6-8 years, andd then get rewarded by getting control of half of Congress.
Jamie
I was just thinking that when you find that life can’t get any screwier, it usually does.
Matt
Woops, after we thought they grew a backbone, the White House has reversed course on the new end-of-life planning regulation that just went into effect.
This is my favorite part of the article:
See, they didn’t lie their pants off, they were just a wee bit inaccurate in telling people that there would be panels of federal bureaucrats whose sole job was to determine if you should live or die.
cleek
@the fenian:
sure.
but it seems to me, at least, that that sidebar has been up for the last 6 months.
AxelFoley
@Benjamin Cisco:
We need to send a squad of Jem’Hadar over to some of these networks.
ScottH
whataminute — there’s a Boehner family pub in Cincinnati? Where is it?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@beltane:
Based on the conversations I’ve had with folks who are politically disengaged, I think that deep down a lot of people already know this, they just don’t give a shit any more. It hurts too much to care, so they’ve decided to stop caring. See: “Both sides are the same, they’re all crooks.” **.
** To which my favorite retort is: so why bother living in a democracy then?
Malron
Since I’m prolly the only person in America who had no idea what this “missing Vegas showgirl” shtick was about, I did teh Google and whaddayaknow, they hit the trifecta on this one: she’s beautiful, a pole dancer/showgirl and the boyfriend/chief suspect is a male black she was in a volatile relationship with. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the fapfapfap going on in newsrooms all over the country.
catclub
@Comrade Javamanphil:
I bet a 19 year old with pole dancing video would also work.
Still assuming blonde.
MikeJ
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
And this is what “lefty” Jon Stewart tells them too.
Annelid Gustator
@MikeJ: no it isn’t.
Perfect Tommy
With Nancy Pelosi handing the gavel to an orange person we can finally say that color no longer matters to the American people.
shortstop
@Annelid Gustator: Too often, it is.
mds
@Matt:
What kind of far-left firebagger are you? The linked article clearly states that they reversed a regulation that only took effect four days ago for procedural reasons:
There wasn’t the opportunity for public comment on the provision back in July, so it naturally has to be scrapped. Otherwise, we would be on a slippery slope away from the principle of running our executive branch by majoritarian direct democracy.
Yes, because now that the White House has given way on this regulation because Republicans are still telling stupid insane lies about end-of-life care, the health law can be vigorously defended against Republican attacks.
But hey, never mind all that. I hear there’s a Boehner family pub in Cincinnati. Remember, fundamentalist Christian voters, drinking alcohol is sinful.
Marc McKenzie
@cleek: Six months? How about the last, what, twenty years!
Some years ago a friend pointed out a comparison between the media’s chummy behavior with the Repubs and oral sex. For decency’s sake, I will not write about it here. Yet it’s the first thing I thought about when I read this post….
shortstop
@Marc McKenzie:
New around here, aren’t you, sailor?
brantl
Jesus FUCK.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I didn’t click on the article but a Politico blurb said that Boehner would celebrate today with an Ohio-themed meal. That has stumped this left-coaster. Can anybody fill me in as to what that might entail? Shredded tires?
Hogan
Well, in CNN’s defense, they don’t give a shit.
shortstop
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): In my meat-eating days, I enjoyed the occasional Hot Brown, which was created down Louisville way but later became very popular in Cleveland, IIRC. There’s also the delicious Cincinnati chili. Extra onions on mine, please.
Gravenstone
@Villago Delenda Est:
That sort of logic needs to be immediately extended. I mean, if the “Clinton surpluses” weren’t real, then why should we believe the “Obama deficits” are?
I know, I know – only “Republican” numbers count, mostly because they’re all imaginary.
Bill Arnold
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Fried buckeyes? The state fair sells ’em.
(sorry shortstop).
shortstop
@Bill Arnold: Apologize to Kay, sir; I’m not an Ohioan. I thought of a couple more things, though: Shaker foods? Various lake fish? Aren’t there large German populations in parts of the state that would have some traditional dishes to contribute? What about Amish foods like scrapple?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@shortstop:
A chili that contains pumpkin pie spice but no chili. You’ll forgive me for not thinking this is a very good idea, but if it’s unique to Ohio then go for it Mr. Speaker.
@Bill Arnold:
You mean he’s going to eat this?
shortstop
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): I’m not sayin’ it’s the only way I eat chili. I’m sayin’ it’s a a nice alternative. I always put both hot and sweet (not pumpkin pie spice; that crap is for amateurs regardless of what it’s used for) spices in my Cincinnati.
And you could always make it en fuego but still serve it over spaghetti (must be spaghetti, no other pasta type) with cheese and onions. Then, of course, it would be chili mac a la 1950s diner, not Cinci chili.
Nellcote
Official Ohio state beverage…tomato juice. Bloody Marys all around!
more Ohio food trivia:
In the 19th century Cincinnati was known as “Porkopolis” because of it’s famous hog industry.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@shortstop:
That’s cool, I’m all about individual taste. My only suggestion might be an alternate name. Pumpkin Pie Con Carne, for instance. Out west we insist on chili in our chili, though I suspect most folks here in Washington state just open a can of Nalley’s. Myself, I like chunks of meat, lots of chili powder, and lots of cumin. Got to have cumin.
Geez, a Republican Congress sure makes me hungry.
pattonbt
Meh, this is typical fare for an election change. And anyone who expects the media to do anything but stenography might as well give up now. It is a two team game and the media just calls the box score. They repeat the managers and players statements without comment and only print the salacious stuff they know will gin up the ratings. It’s about who’s winning, who’s losing, who’s hot and who’s not. Tabloid all the way, flash over substance.
And the media will just as quickly turn on the R’s in power because they love nothing more than building and destroying – stability doesn’t sell. The media wants the crazy, they are salivating at the nuttiness they can ravage. Lambs to the slaughter.
And count me as one of the people who believes the media is just itching to write the “Obama Phoenix” story for 2012. They really, really, really want to write that story and they will do their damndest (spelling?) to make it happen. And having a crazy R house will help immensely. I still believe, barring a bad economy (the only thing that I believe can derail his re-election hopes), Obama has the inside track to not just winning, but winning in a Reagan-esque landslide.
Cereative Anarchy
@Pattonbt
On the nose, but also once the Media smells blood in the water and takes a feeding-hand bite out of badly thought out speaking points from the Republicans they will immediately transform into the Journolists and Radical Leftist Liberal Media. Some form of Lycanthropy I expect..