Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

In my day, never was longer.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Consistently wrong since 2002

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / ABC’s sister network

ABC’s sister network

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You probably heard about this:

Speaking in 2009 onboard a pricey Mediterranean cruise sponsored by a right-wing college, Fox Washington managing editor Bill Sammon described his attempts the previous year to link Obama to “socialism” as “mischievous speculation.” Sammon, who is also a Fox News vice president, acknowledged that “privately” he had believed that the socialism allegation was “rather far-fetched.”

This will get zero play within establishment media, obviously. Not when editorial board members of even the liberal Washington Post are now regulars on Fox.

Look me in the eye and tell me we’re not going to end up like Guatemala.

Reader Interactions

63Comments

  2. 2.

    atlliberal

    We’re not going to end up like Guatemala.

    FOX News will simply lose more credibility until the only people who watch will be the same 30% who thought George W Bush was a great president, and Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

    The pendulum will swing back one the voters realize how crazy the republicans are these days.

  3. 3.

    Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload

    I intitially read the post title as “ABL’s sister network.” I mean, she’s gotta have one, right?

  4. 4.

    Culture of Truth

    Fox is a large media establishment in America in 2011. Which means their job is to actively mislead people. I think I read that somewhere.

  5. 5.

    Amir_Khalid

    Fuck fairness, fuck balance, fuck honest opinion. That’s some mission statement for an outfit with the word “News” in its name.

  6. 6.

    eric

    @atlliberal: I must disagree…..if you lived through Nixon, you thought boy have we gone crazy; if you lived through Reagan, you thought boy have we gone really crazy; if you lived through Pat Robertson taking second in Iowa; you thought are we that crazy; when a major party is willing to back Allen Keyes, we are crazy; when a major party put on conventions that lead to Molly Ivins infamous line about Pat Buchanan. None of this gives me a second of comfort that we will progress away from teh crazy. it may happen, but i see nothing inevitable or likely about it. The Senate institionalizes a lot of crazy given the apportionment of senate seats and the house, well, let’s just say that crazy no longer cuts it.

    I hope and work for progress; i just dont believe in it as a necessary outcome.

  7. 7.

    Ash Can

    But didn’t he go on to say in the next breath that Obama really has turned out to be a sociaIist, and it was correct of him (not to mention responsible) to speculate?

    These guys aren’t even trying to hide their perfidy anymore.

  8. 8.

    Joseph Nobles

    Sammon goes on to say that he eventually did and now does believe Obama’s a socialist. What was mischievous and fictional gradually became verified and ironclad. This is the very picture of confirmation bias.

    The kids who put the 9/11 blockbuster Loose Change together did exactly the same thing – their “documentary” was originally a fictional story, but then they talked themselves into believing it.

    Sammon’s story should be a cautionary tale to shame him, but he uses it to demonstrate his credentials at a right wing glory cruise. This is what addles the American media.

  10. 10.

    Cerberus

    It’s kind of sick, but it is morbidly fascinating how all the anti-democratic, chicago-school “shock doctrine”, propaganda as state organ stuff we’ve spent the last few decades promoting all around South and Latin America and the Middle East is now sickly being used against us by many of the same serpents.

    Sure, we’ve gotten the slow-drip version, but now, we’re getting some of the hard sell and its too hard to say when we’ll shrug out of it (before or after it requires the type of resistance it took in many South American countries to come back).

    There is a sick irony in that somewhere.

    Will we see assassinations?

    Why would we need to?

    We can just fire them and blacklist them from the industry that usually has one owner and let them starve to death on the street, forgotten and uncommented about. Or simply let them speak into nothing while Glenn Beck sets his murdering thugs on them, O’Keefe makes a video where they proclaim their love of loving goats, and Malkin checks their countertops.

    So much cleaner that way.

  11. 11.

    ColeFan

    Obama’s speech must have really sucked if even the Ball Juicers [sic & copyright] are so determined to ignore it.

  12. 12.

    JPL

    If he thinks that the President is a socia.list, he needs a dictionary. Maybe we can send him to Sweden for awhile.

  14. 14.

    FlipYrWhig

    I like how he calls it “mischievous,” as though it’s something Dennis The Menace would do, like putting a frog in a girl’s desk or something.

  16. 16.

    Church Lady

    Revisions to Sammon’s Wickipedia page start in August 2009, about six months after he took over as managing editor of Fox News. There are already three revisions made just today. Good to know that people are on top of things.

  21. 21.

    cmorenc

    WHAT…liberal Washington Post? I see a Washington Post newspaper published in D.C., but I sure don’t see no stinkin’ “liberal” Washington Post anywhere in the nation’s capital, nor from Bangor to Baltimore to Bellingham to Burbank, or Bismark in-between.

  23. 23.

    atlliberal

    @eric: All true, but note, Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson,and Alan Keys did not win. Nor did Sarah Palin. The crazy is always with us. Sometimes they can fool enough people to win, but when they do, they almost always overreach and scare the heck out of the sane people. (except Reagan)To be fair, 30% is a lot of crazy in a country of 300 million.

    Take a look at approval ratings for the new republican governors. Almost all of them are about 30%

  24. 24.

    Brachiator

    So let’s review. NPR exec says means things about the Tea Party people and all hell breaks loose.

    Fox exec admits to making up lies about the president of the United States…

  25. 25.

    Shoemaker-Levy 9

    Look me in the eye and tell me we’re not going to end up like Guatemala.

    Even by the standards of an ultraleftist Islamofascist shariasocialist like me that’s a pretty extreme statement.

  26. 26.

    atlliberal

    To clarify:

    Reagan overreached, but didn’t scare the heck out of enough sane people while doing it.

  27. 27.

    Violet

    @atlliberal:

    To be fair, 30% is a lot of crazy in a country of 300 million.

    If fewer than 50% of the country votes, but all 30% of the country that is crazy votes, then crazy wins.

  28. 28.

    Loneoak

    The dude proudly takes responsibility for creating Joe The Plumber. That is about all one needs to know on this topic.

  30. 30.

    Calouste

    Some headlines from TPM today:

    “Herman Cain: Many American Muslims ‘Not Dedicated’ To U.S., Constitution”

    “Jon Kyl To Muslim Group: Why Doesn’t Your Website Condemn Violent Rhetoric?”

    Add Peter King’s Muslim unAmerican activities investigation committee, and you wonder when they start handing out green crescents for Muslims to wear on their clothes.

  32. 32.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    @cmorenc:

    You should ask Fred Hiatt. He’ll tell how all sorts of horror stories about how irredeemably liberal the Washington Post is, despite all his attempts at correcting that awful imbalance.

  34. 34.

    Cermet

    @atlliberal:But don’t forget – those 30% also include THE ONLY PEOPLE THAT MATTER – the elite 5% that owns around 70% of all resources. Those bastards also fully drive the media, own all politicians of note, the Banks, Wall Street and everyone else in this country matter little. That is the issue and why we are F’ing DOOMED.

  35. 35.

    Comrade Javamanphil

    CBS News actually tweeted about this. Color me slightly hopeful. Fingers crossed one of these organizations realizes Fox is degrading their entire profession (with a huge assist from the View from Nowhere crowd) and goes rogue and starts reporting based on facts and truth.

    It should also be noted that CBS News also tweeted today that Dinosaurs and Humans living together had been debunked. *facepalm*

  36. 36.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Sammon, who is also a Fox News vice president, acknowledged that “privately” he had believed that the socialism allegation was “rather far-fetched.”

    Frankly, I think Sammon is lying when he asserts that the allegation was “far fetched”. He said that to appease his fellow Village twits who don’t want to believe that scum like Sammon actually believe the shit they spew to the 30% cretin block.

  37. 37.

    Culture of Truth

    Dinosaurs and Humans living together had been debunked.

    So they had twin beds?

  39. 39.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Ah, I blockquote from DougJ and it has the dreaded boner pill string, and I’m in moderation.

    I might add that the Allies put guys like Sammon to death after WWII for the sort of “journalism” he practices.

  44. 44.

    Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload

    What’s hopeful for me is that Fox News is coming across as so ensconced in its own little bubble (remember, they indoctrinate their staff hard and often) that they aren’t capable of seeing how much the mainstream is coming to perceive them as off in their own Reactionary Wunderland. The audience for that kind of extremist viewpoint in our society is necessarily going to be self limiting.

    And Reagan will remain an anomoly. It is a rare pol, indeed, that can put the kind of friendly, avuncular face that Reagan did on a philosophy that is, at its core, so selfish, greedy, and petulant.

  45. 45.

    Keith G

    From my brother:

    “This is just make up for years of liberal media slant”

    “George Sorros”

    I hang my head.

  46. 46.

    KG

    @Mark S.: in years past, I always liked to watch some of the crazier candidates on both sides, because, well, it was entertaining in between paying attention to the serious candidates. This cycle seems to be lacking serious candidates… unless you really stretch the meaning of that word.

  47. 47.

    Culture of Truth

    This goes to what I said yesterday. They tell themselves it’s ok to lie, because they’re such victims, etc., etc.

  48. 48.

    Culture of Truth

    Although in Sammon’s case it’s more an example being an amoral bastard who thinks it’s funny to lie about the President and mislead his customers for fun and profit.

  49. 49.

    Martin

    Little known fact: ‘mischievous speculation’ means ‘fair and balanced’ in Farsi.

  54. 54.

    FlipYrWhig

    @ColeFan: There were like 3 dozen Libya threads, overwhelmingly negative about the prospects of military action, specifically faulting Obama’s approach. You’re barking up the wrong tree.

  56. 56.

    flounder

    Jake Tapper wasn’t very happy about revisiting this today on the Twitter. He said that he made remarks b/c the WH shouldn’t pick and choose who gets considered as legitimate news orgs–tho he did say that the White House is indeed who picks who are “legitimate”, b/c they give out the press passes (I thought of Jake Tapper and Jeff Gannon having a good laugh at this one). Also he didn’t remember me complaining when Obama did an interview with O’Reilly??? He then mocked me for being anonymous, and advised me to read a paper because there was other stuff going on in the world– and then he started tweeting about Mad Men.
    I don’t think the press world is very happy about these revelations today because they have long legitimized Fox through either defending Fox or playing dumb about the organization. That game is easier for them, especially when they have to go to the cocktail parties and mixers and their union meetings.
    The thing Jake Tapper, that Ed O’Henry D-bag from CNN who said Fox should get a front row seat in the WH briefings, et al. don’t understand is that a world where Jake Tapper and Ed O’Henry defend Fox as legitimate “sister” news organization is a world where the president, no matter who it is, is going to have to play the same game by sitting down with disingenuous A-holes like O’Reilly and acting like everything is on the level, and everyone is worse off for it, especially the real “sister organizations”.

  57. 57.

    Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload

    @ColeFan:

    Ya gotta admit, ColeFan’s got us on the issue of this blog’s proprietor being prone to the crankies.

    Wide miss on the real Cole’s motivations, however. Pity, that.

  60. 60.

    AAA Bonds

    If you actually read the linked story you can see it’s actually a rhetorical one-two by Sammons, who says he originally found accusations of socialism to be far-fetched until the auto bailout, when it turned out he was right all along and Obama was a socialist like he had said.

    It’s not an admission of anything, it’s just Republican cruise ship boilerplate.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m a member of the site and all, but the lede is wrong.

  61. 61.

    AAA Bonds

    If you read the linked story you can see it’s actually a rhetorical one-two by Sammons, who says he originally considered his and others’ accusations of the S-word to be all fun and games until the auto bailout, when it turned out he was right all along and Obama was a Red, just like he had always said.

    It’s not an admission of anything, it’s just Republican cruise ship boilerplate.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m a member of the site and all, but the lede is wrong.

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