Here are a couple of things I wanted to post this week but I didn’t get a chance. First, bi-partisan centrist journalist Ron Fournier, appearing on reasonable conservative Laura Ingraham’s show:
[…] Fournier referred to his Monday column on how hard it’s going to be for the administration to “sell Obamacare,” arguing the push to promote the online federal health exchange “could be the nail in the coffin” for the health care law.“But anyhow, they have to sell it, but they can’t over sell it,” Fournier told Ingraham. “They can’t spin, and they have a hard time not spinning. Last week I did a column that just focused on what they do with photos, that shows that this is a propaganda outfit, that they do put out government sponsored propaganda, and they are running a government-sponsored media organization.”
You might think he’s lost the plot, but remember that Goebbels also controlled access to pictures of Adolph’s dogs, just like Jay Carney does for Obama.
And then there’s the lovely Cheney family. In case you were wondering whether gay Mary or straight Liz was the family favorite, wonder no more: Dick took Liz’ side in the fight between Mary and Liz over gay marriage. The shitshow fail parade that is the Cheney Wyoming Senate campaign is entering its Festivus phase.
TomG
I’m not surprised that Dick took Liz’s side in that argument. Mary isn’t running for political office, after all. All his talk of tolerance and acceptance goes out the window if there’s a chance to get the family back into power.
Derelict
Gee, I wonder how many other presidents managed photo ops and access control? Couldn’t possibly have been someone like Shrubya providing the press with selected photos of himself clearing brush, or restricting access to his public events based on how people looked?
Fuzzy
The GOPers know that Obamacare is working and will be fantastic. Can we start a pool for the date they will try and take credit? It will cost them many elections when word gets out that the prevented it from their own states plus all that money they left on the table. Here in CA folks are signing up by the thousands yet those number are not in the national totals.
Cermet
Does that asswipe forget the false war in Iraq that killed unknown hundreds of thousands and the propaganda campaign that president select bloody hands cheney used to get the ass puppet stubby to run this country into a war that has helped to bankrupt us and kill thousands and terribly injure tens of thousands? These people are beyond belief.
sidhra
It’s taken quite the propaganda outfit to sell speed limits.
WereBear
Color me unsurprised. Around the festive holiday table, that male grandson might be the trump card, but out in the Republican world, Liz has the edge.
I’m reminded of a (Today show? Don’t remember) TV segment I ran into where the Cheney wife was giving a tour of their home, and I actually hallucinated blood dripping from the walls and I had to lie down.
I think it was during the Iraq war.
Chyron HR
It would be really petty of me to say something like, “But my True Progressive betters assured me that Dick Cheney was to the left of Obama on gay marriage.” So I’m absolutely not going to say that.
Aji
@Derelict: No, no. W only admitted in a speech to the need to “catapult the propaganda.” Not the same thing at all*.
* And in fact it’s not; there’s a whole frigging universe’s worth of difference between ordinary modern political image management and the propaganda catapulted by that little pinocchio putz and his evil puppeteer.
debbie
@Derelict:
Oh, please. What president hasn’t tried to control their office and their image? Just off the top of my head, I give you FDR (what polio?) and Woodrow Wilson (what stroke?).
Aji
@Chyron HR: Oh, c’mon. I think you should say it.
Baud
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” — Barack Obama.
Patrick
@Cermet:
How about the idiotic and costly Mission Accomplished crap on that ship that W Bush wasted OUR money on? At the time, before it became obvious how ridiculous the stunt was, the pathetic media idiots in DC like Fournier was in awe of W Bush. How soon these people forget…
geg6
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Can’t think of a family I wish more strife and unhappiness upon than the
VadersCheneys.Bruuuuce
@debbie: You’re so right. What Enemies List, and what tape? Also, too, what illegal secret drals with Iran and the Contras?
Chris
@Fuzzy:
Define “take credit.”
Like I’ve said before: if the ACA implementation goes as planned, I think they will try to take credit for it, but what they’ll try to take credit for is all of its components individually and separately, without ever referring to them as part of the dreaded “Obamacare” beast, which will continue to be the scapegoat for everything wrong with the system.
(Or, to keep it simple, maybe they’ll just take credit for the ACA and call it “the ACA,” again while maintaining the word “Obamacare” as if it were something else entirely).
Glidwrith
OT: What offense did I commit that I’ve got My Little Pony Pinkie Pie on my screen?
Randy P
I don’t know all the names of the right-wing players, so I don’t know exactly who Laura Ingraham is, but I suspect I know the answer to this question:
Is he saying this on Fox “we took our right to lie right to the Supreme Court” “News”, a channel whose sole reason for existence is to manipulate words and images and disseminate propaganda?
Elizabelle
History is not going to be kind to these Cheney critters.
kbuttle
Propaganda outfit = limiting paparazzi access to family and dog.
Keeping up the good fight = betraying the family of a slain soldier for political purposes, hiring generals to shill defense and commentators to shill education policy. What f*king universe does Fournier live in? Are we just allowed to have zero memory now?
Randy P
There are so many propaganda moments just with W, around Katrina and 9/11. I remember a literal Potemkin Village scene, where W came in to give a speech, the had it all lit up and the locals were saying, “Yay, we have electricity again!”. Then the show ended and the lights went off again.
Then there was the one where they pulled all the first responders off their actual responding so they could be photographed walking around behind W.
I don’t know if Fournier’s memory is actually as short as he’s pretending, but I’ve been encouraged by the ugly comments in response to right-wing pretend-praise of Mandela. The 27% have actual memory, who could have predicted? The “we’ve always been at war with Eastasia” trick isn’t working.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Chris:
Yup. Exactly. Proof that this will happen is that the parts individually poll very well, but “Obamacare” polls poorly. We can thank the MSM and the GOP for putting a nasty stank on the overall program’s name despite its evident and undeniable benefits.
The GOP will exploit the gap in popularity between the components and the assembly to hang unpopular Obamacare around the Dems’ necks while touting the positive aspects to their constituents.
FlipYrWhig
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Even after the kinks are worked out of the law and people have health insurance and everyone is used to how it all works now, “Obamacare” will persist as a slur/euphemism meaning “health welfare for darkies.” Guaranteed.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I worked in IT for Life/Health insurance companies for 13 years, and I was working for a large regional individual health insurer when HRC tried to get a national health program going. I have never seen institutional fury like the reaction to Hillary’s efforts. There’s an enormous reservoir of resistance to any expansion of government, no matter how benign. Thank the GOP for screaming Soshul1sm every time a Dem wants to relieve the agony of someone other than the oligarchs.
Villago Delenda Est
Is there someone in the BJ family who can donate a grand piano (hell, I’ll settle for a baby grand or an upright) that can accidentally fall on Ron Fornier?
Villago Delenda Est
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
No one likes to be kicked off a gravy train.
Villago Delenda Est
@Glidwrith:
Did you think, when looking at the pictures of the last thread, “Geeze, that dog is butt ugly, I don’t care how much Cole says she’s the sweetest thing since a dozen Krispy Kremes”?
That would do it.
pluege
great line.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
HIllarious that Mr Leadery Leadercivility is shilling his bizarre whining on the Laura Ingrahm show. But this is a man who believes deep in bones that John McCain wanted him for press secretary precisely because he (Fournier) is such an even-handed, unbiased reporter. And his effectively telling Karl Rove that the Iraq War was a Crusade: “oh, that old chestnut again!”
gene108
@Fuzzy:
The narrative of Republicans creating Obamacare has already started. These are just rough drafts, so what the final crowd tested Luntz approved message will be maybe different.
I heard a right-wing talking head point out, on CSPAN, that despite no Republican votes a lot of the ideas behind the final PPACA bill came from Republican Senators, like Snowe and there is after all the Grassley amendment that is in the final version of the bill, so Republicans did a lot to create the law as it is and deserve credit for their contributions.
Villago Delenda Est
@debbie:
Ronald Wilson Reagan: “Alzheimer’s? What’s that, a movie award?”
Napoleon
@Villago Delenda Est:
I am willing to go out and buy one this afternoon.
Elizabelle
@FlipYrWhig:
Among the 27%.
In time, I hope others will see Obamacare as the asset that allowed young adults with health issues to stay on their parents’ policies, that allowed entrepreneurs to start that new business without imperiling their family’s health, that saw insurance companies have to expend on actual healthcare, at competitive pricing, that provided birth control and other preventative measures and checkups to Americans, reducing the cost curve in the long run.
Those that want to point and laugh: back at ’em.
p.a.
This may be ancient history (1990’s): largest employer of p.r. people in US: US gvt. Largest employer of p.r.people in US gvt: DoD. Only US agency not allowed to publicize itself: Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
Omnes Omnibus
@Napoleon: Why not just order a 10,000 lb weight from Acme? No need to smash a perfectly innocent piano.
Beznar
And the clown car fail parade that is the beltway media continues. Any of you catch Kos calling Fournier out in Twitter for Fournier’s epic fail. Classic example of failing upward…..
Napoleon
@Omnes Omnibus:
Funny, as soon as I posted that I had a visual in my head of Wyle R Coyote being beaned by an anvil and regretted committing to the piano idea. How much can an anvil cost?
WereBear
@Napoleon: $308.58
Per the Google shopping feature.
Omnes Omnibus
@Napoleon: A 10,000 lb weight or an anvil has the advantage over a piano of being reusable.
debbie
@Villago Delenda Est:
And that’s another thing. Conservatives condemn Mandela as a communist, even while they ignore Reagan’s adulterous history. How can only some people be accountable for their pasts?
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: Well, in conservative world there are two kinds of sins, mortal and venal. Mortal sins condemn one forever. Venal sins can be ignored. Oh yeah, a mortal sin is anything done by a non-conservative. A venal sin is a sin committed by a conservative but it’s not really a sin because because it’s only the liberal media or historians who said the conservative did it anyway which he didn’t because conservatives are pure and if they aren’t then they weren’t really a conservative but rather a secret liberal so there.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
Indulgences for your venal sins are available! Operators are standing by! Have your VISA/MC/AMEX ready when you make your call!
Villago Delenda Est
@debbie:
Well, for one thing, Mandela was blah.
Bruuuuce
@Omnes Omnibus: tl;dr: IOKIYAR
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, the preacher kept right on saying
That all I had to do was send ten dollars
To the Church of the Sacred Bleeding Heart of Jesus,
Located somewhere in Los Angeles, California
And next week they’d say my prayer on the radio
And all my dreams would come true
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
No wonder I’m dizzy.
neoconstantine
I don’t wish harm on anyone (sincere disclaimer) but I have a recurring fantasy that the Cheneys negotiate a Christmas truce and the sisters both come for dinner but it turns into an ugly fight, Dick has a heart attack and the last things he sees in this life are his children screaming hateful things at each other.and his family being torn apart. I can’t figure out whether it’s better if he dies with his face in the mashed potatoes or the gravy boat.
Omnes Omnibus
@neoconstantine:
That is a tough one.
Villago Delenda Est
@neoconstantine:
Won’t happen. The Dark Lord has numerous horcruxes scattered about the globe that have not yet been discovered and destroyed.
Villago Delenda Est
@Patrick:
Don’t forget Tweety swooning over the deserting coward’s well displayed package.
Patrick
@Villago Delenda Est:
Absolutely! He never regained my respect after that spectacle. And now, years later, he pretends it never happened.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
That sounds like a great kickstart project.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Makes a better noise when it lands.
Musical accompaniment instead of just a big thud.
Ruckus
@neoconstantine:
Mashed potatoes with a big puddle of gravy in the middle.
WereBear
@Ruckus: I dunno, suffocating in the carmelized layer of marshmallows covering the sweet potatoes is so much more “midwestern” and thus culturally more correct.
Omnes Omnibus
@WereBear: OTOH, it is a Cheney family meal. One has to assume that roasted babies are on the menu.
Fuzzy
@neoconstantine: He has been on the gravy boat for years so it is fitting that he die with his face in that trough.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Elizabelle:
I was explaining to a patient (uninsured, with lots of medical debt) who had previously tried to purchase private insurance, with no luck (preexisting conditions, old) that he would be eligible for a large subsidy under the ACA. His daughter chimed in to describe Obamacare, then she got a sheepish look, and I said “it’s fine to call it that” and a couple other family members spoke up to say “that’s what everybody calls it!” It felt good.
Villago Delenda Est
@Patrick:
Tweety also gave us the “You can land a 737 on Mitt Romney’s shoulders” meme.
There is no redemption for such idiocy. None.
muddy
@Ruckus: Head hits the mashed potatoes so hard that the jolt sends the gravy boat up in the air, only to come down right on his head, thus anointing him and the potatoes from above. Like an Acme gravy boat situation.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This is up there with that quote from Gobbles expressing his outrage and shock that the BBC will lie on occasion.
Ruckus
@WereBear:
@Omnes Omnibus:
LOL
Twice upped in one fell blow. OK I’ll go sit in the corner for an hour now.
Ruckus
@muddy:
I needed to read all the way to the bottom. My bad.
Considering the source this would have to be either a concrete or lead gravy boat. Hopefully it would also be the size of an aircraft carrier. And land with a massive thud.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: With an apple in the mouth?
Yatsuno
@Glidwrith: It’s Pinkie Pie. Don’t question it.
/brony
shortstop
The intra-Cheney strife has layers, layers. In its usual sloppy reporting, TPM misses the order of things: Mary Cheney called out her sister for her bigotry AFTER Mary’s wife, Heather, had already done so. Note Dick’s wording: “…an attack was launched against Liz.” Not “Mary launched an attack against Liz.” He is blaming his daughter-in-law for “starting” this. I wonder what else he, Lynne and Liz blame her for.
Of course, that’s above and beyond the ridiculousness of Dick pretending that Heather and Mary’s self-defense against Liz’s bona fide attack was somehow the first strike. Dick’s past support of his lesbian daughter notwithstanding, he really does not get that the problem is people trying to deny others’ civil rights, not inconvenient observations on this fact.
Elizabelle
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
That’s a wonderful story. Good to hear it.
Teddy Salad
@TomG: The Dick Dynasty takes precedence.
drkrick
Didn’t Dick say something about Mary mistaking her sister’s many “kindnesses” for approval or something like that, hinting that the family’s tolerance of her marriage was more of a white lie than anything else?