A tale in two pictures:
Meanwhile, at MSNBC:
The bombshell news that President Trump fired now former FBI Director James Comey agitated cable news ratings on Tuesday night, catapulting MSNBC into top place for coverage. The last time Fox trailed MSNBC and CNN occurred during the Democratic National Convention in July.
According to Nielsen Media Research ratings released Wednesday, Fox News finished in third place behind MSNBC and CNN in the 25 to 54 age primetime demographic, with Fox still taking the top spot in total viewers. MSNBC finished first in primetime from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET in the key demographic advertisers covet most, with 738,000 viewers in that category. CNN was second with 719,000 viewers and Fox third with 700,000 tuning in.
In total viewers in primetime, Fox averaged 3.307 total viewers. MSNBC registered 2.856 million and CNN 1.865 million.
It’s almost like there is a market for liberal voices! However, that’s not stopping MSNBC boss Andy Lack from doing everything he can to turn MSNBC into a safe spot for 80’s era wingnuts:
MSNBC announced Monday that it has hired George F. Will as a contributor, adding yet another conservative talker to its rapidly expanding roster of them. Two weeks ago, the cable news network gave former George W. Bush adviser Nicolle Wallace a 4 p.m. show. Former Fox News star Greta Van Susteren took over its 6 p.m. slot in January. And it has reportedly offered talk radio host Hugh Hewitt a show, as well. MSNBC is giving out shows to conservative pundits like Oprah giving out G6s.
Lawrence O’Donnell’s contract is up for renewal shortly, and Lack will presumably replace him with a cardboard cutout of Bob Dole with Milo Yiannopalphabet providing voice-over.
Your liberal media.
Trentrunner
Good thing MSNBC got rid of Melissa Harris-Perry before the campaign.
Because 2016 really ended up having nothing at all to do with race or gender, so who needed her expertise?
germy
Watched some of “Washington Week In Review” last night.
Pete Williams was talking about the Comey firing. He said “Both the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General agreed Comey had to go.”
Later in the show Williams said there was “no evidence” the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians, etc.
It jogged something in my memory, so I check his wikipedia page:
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
We should do a ranking of media outlets and pundits by woodchipper numbers. 99% of the CNN and FTFNYT staff are #1 and #2 respectively.
Also, the Sulzberger memo is positively Spaydian; maybe this indicates that shit flows downhill & Liz was hired as a bullet sponge?
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Who is the host now? WW was one of the worst Beltway shows I had the misfortune of watching. The constant giggling of these “reporters” used to annoy the heck out of me. Everything is like a fucking game to them.
Baud
The New York Times publisher is garbage.
germy
@schrodingers_cat: Robert Acosta. He doesn’t correct the journalists when they lie.
zhena gogolia
The Times is losing its mind. I sent a complaint about a headline to Dean Baquet and received back snarky messages that sounded as if one of my students wrote them.
ETA: Actually my students are more polite.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Baud: Is there documentation directly linking FTFNYT/Butthurt Bunker’s Clinton Derangement Syndrome to them? I know that it’s been there since 1992 but where it started along the chain of command has been somewhat hazy.
sdhays
@schrodingers_cat: Way back in the 90’s, I sometimes enjoyed watching the McLaughlin Group, not as an actual news show, but as a parody of a journalist roundtable. It was all so absurd that it felt like something that the Daily Show would later do.
There are better alternatives for entertainment now.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Until you hand them their final grade.
Mike E
Haha! “Let me mansplain how your unsubscribing to the NYT shows that the death of journalism is all your fault…”
Elizabelle
Yeah. The New York Times is rotting at its head. Suspect it starts with the Sulzbergers, and their horror show of an executive editor, Dean Baquet, and then they end up with that ridiculous ombudsman who is Trump level obtuse, Ms. Liz Spayd.
I wish they’d give those of us who are kind of hate reading them a major discount.
Have realized I am keeping them for the outsider content (op eds, essays, etc. — NOT their staff writers) and Krugman.
tobie
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Have you noticed how much the Washington Post has improved since Spayd left to go the NYT? Don’t know whose making decisions at the NYT but the Post seems a lot better w/out her.
Corner Stone
@Trentrunner:
MHP had a good show. She brought out more truly diverse voices than anyone else has that I have been able to find. And she didn’t have the same rotating talking heads on week in and week out.
That said, Joy is a far superior host-as-interviewer. No reason we couldn’t have both but I guess that would exceed MSNBC’s quotient of allowed blackness.
Still pissed about Tamron Hall.
Jeffro
Speaking of media (well, sort of) – it certainly made my morning today to see the latest National Enquirer:
Revealed! Secret 9-Step Strategy! TRUMP’S PLAN FOR WORLD PEACE! How the Prez & Kushner got AMERICA’S GREATEST MINDS to solve the crisis! What he REALLY told Putin!
A fellow shopper saw me bust out laughing and said, “I know, right?”
PS Not to be outdone, The Globe noted in its headlines that a) “TRUMP KILLS HILLARY PLEA DEAL!” and also b) “I’M GAY! – Obama’s Secret Love Letters to Ex!” So there was that, too.
schrodingers_cat
@sdhays: All the political news shows have adopted the McLaughlin group as the prototype it seems. Everyone is always yelling at everybody else.
BC in Illinois
I cancelled my subscription. I had started it during the election, because I finally thought it was unethical to keep reading articles and then clearing my history every few weeks, to avoid the paywall. When I cancelled, I told them I would miss Paul Krugman, Gail Collins, and Charles Blow. I wouldn’t miss the climate denialist. And I said
Their response:
For what it’s worth.
CaseyL
Well, I’m not getting out of the boat to read Erick Son of Erick’s latest polished turd, but it is true there will be no impeachment.
Not for lack of cause: 45 has committed and continues to commit “high crimes and misdemeanors” every single day he is in office.
There will be no impeachment because the GOP won’t allow one.
The GOP is not a government of Americans for Americans. It is an occupying force bent on destroying the country – partially for ideological reasons, but also at the behest of its paymasters here (Koch, Mercer) and abroad (Russia).
germy
@Corner Stone:
Oldgold
Other media related news:
“According to an Associated Press report, President Donald Trump may be seeking communications help from Fox News in the wake of the media circus surrounding the president’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey.
The report claims that according to one anonymous White House official, Trump is “mulling expanding the communications team and has eyed hiring producers from Fox News”.”
hellslittlestangel
Maddow, Hayes, O’Donnell, Reid — four of the best people working in TV journalism today. Complaining about a few right-wing minor-leaguers smacks of purity-ponyism.
germy
@hellslittlestangel: Scott Pelley has surprised me lately on the CBS Evening News. He goes the extra step to admit POTUS statements are untrue. I think he’s fed up.
Roger Moore
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
The publisher is ultimately responsible for all the content of the paper. It doesn’t really matter whether the publisher of FTNYT is suffering from CDS or has simply allowed it to be the dominant theme in the newsroom; it’s still his fault that the paper let hatred of Clinton affect its coverage the way it has.
germy
http://crooksandliars.com/2017/05/donald-trump-should-be-very-worried-about
Corner Stone
@hellslittlestangel:
Not sure I take your point?
Doug!
You know though…O’Donnell is pretty awful. I would like to see him replaced, just not with a winger.
germy
@Doug!: I haven’t seen him in a few years. How has he been awful?
Gin & Tonic
Brian Stelter is reporting that bookers from the Sunday morning yak shows can’t get anybody from the WH this week. They are apparently not even responding to calls.
mawado
I often find it’s useful to look to the wisdom of our elders:
The Temptations of Jean-Claude Killy
Hunter S. Thompson
…
There are some people in “the trade” in fact, who can’t understand why the Chevrolet wizards consider Killy as valuable — on the image-selling scale — as a hotdog folk hero like O.J. Simpson.
“What the hell were they thinking about when they signed that guy for three hundred grand a year?” muttered a ranking “automotive journalist” as he watched Killy’s act on Saturday afternoon.
I shook my head and wondered, remembering DeLorean’s owlish confidence that morning at the press breakfast. Then I looked at the crowd surrounding Killy. They were white and apparently solvent, their average age around thirty — the kind of people who could afford to buy skis and make payments on new cars. O.J. Simpson drew bigger crowds, but most of his admirers were around 12 years old. Two-thirds of them were black and many looked like fugitives from the Credit Bureau’s garnishee file.
Why are the media hiring right-wingers? Look at who buys TV/Newspaper commercials. I’m worth 50 cents, ADM is worth millions.
hellslittlestangel
@Corner Stone: My point is that MSNBC is far from perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Oldgold: More and better lairs isn’t going help Trump lol
Erikson is missing the point, Trump is a bleeding ulcer in the GOP and the Conservative movement in general, the longer it takes them to get the guts to repudiate him the bigger the backlash against them. Then again if Erikson really understood the world he wouldn’t be a conservative.
Gin & Tonic
@Doug!: He is completely unwatchable.
hellslittlestangel
@Doug!: I find O’Donnell goes down best in small doses. He can grate on one’s nerves. Still a smart, perceptive guy.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@mawado: Except, as the Daily Show pointed out – the liberal media appeals to the 20-50 professional market, those with the spending money and Fox is the 55+ no collage educated, those with no spending money. So the NYT and MSNBC are trying to expand in a declining demographic, that’s over build and has no money. More like Lack is Yet a Another White Male Boomer with Early Dementia (YAWMWED) like Trump and Lack’s brain is living back in the ’80s.
germy
@Gin & Tonic:
(rawstory)
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@tobie: Yes; I’ve head it joked that Spayd’s actually a WaPo mole.
9@Elizabelle: You forget Blow and (to a much lesser extent) Collins. Incidentally, “Krugman & Blow” sounds like the title to a particularly memorable 80s buddy cop series.
clay
George Will may be a bow-tied nitwit, but he’s anti-Trump. (Didn’t he quit the Republican Party because of it?) I will take any and all anti-Trump voices on TV that I can get. Conservatives who are anti-Trump are so much the better, because they show that recognizing the danger of our current predicament is not a partisan issue.
schrodingers_cat
@clay: I wouldn’t give the Rs a pass. T just says aloud what they are all thinking.
dww44
@Corner Stone: what happened to Tamron Hall?
@germy:We regularly watch the CBS Evening News and they’ve been consistently anti-Trump, and less of the normalizing of his behavior of any of the evening shows.
Why can’t all of us let Andy Lack at MSNBC know about our displeasure with his move to conservative pundits and shows? If he gives a slot to Hugh Hewitt, I swear I will depart. And re LOD and his contract renewal, I’ve observed that he’s absent at least one night a week. Almost never does the Friday night show..
sdhays
I don’t have cable and don’t really watch news TV beyond the occasional clip on YouTube, but the article posted here about Andy Lack a week or two ago really reminded me of the guy Sears brought in to
destroysave the company. Instead of looking at what MSNBC had built and figuring out how to build on that while adjusting to the new landscape, he prioritizes his buddies (Brian Williams) and his own airheaded, unfounded, conventional wisdom.It’s always breathtaking to see how executives who are paid so much money for their vision have so little of it, and to see them always fail upward is just sickening.
germy
I suspect Lock-Jawed Kermit The Frog objects more to shitzgibbon’s tone than to his policies. If Jeb! had won and did the same healthcare repeals and tax cuts, Kermit would be right in his corner. Civility!
Corner Stone
@hellslittlestangel: MSNBC is the best “we” have but it certainly is not improved by adding tainted personas like Greta and Hugh Hewitt. Greta’s show is awful. It is abysmal. Just completely unwatchable. I gave her a solid chance but she slants all the takes and she lets her rwnj guests talk at length and never corrects them. She projects a sense of exasperation at the whole mess we are in but has done nothing active, except taking a check from MSNBC, to address her recurring and ongoing role that got us here.
And Hewitt, for God’s sake. I don’t even know if I can waste the words on that fucking piece of shit. I already know *exactly* what I am going to get when he opens his cream cheese piehole.
I actually don’t mind George Will as an occasional guest, in the same way I don’t mind Bill Krystol once in a while. But neither should be associated with a brand you’re trying to build to capitalize on a growing movement. That’s what the complaint is about, IMO. The ratings are right there! The people are telling MSNBC what they want! And they are signing RWNJ’s all over the place. That’s the opposite of what people want, MSNBC!
We’ll leave my ongoing and unexplainable love for Nicolle Wallace over here in the corner, thanks.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dww44: Not doing Fridays was part of his contract. He lives in Santa Monica and flies out here for weekends.
hellslittlestangel
@dww44: The Friday night edition of The Last Word is a fairly recent addition. Don’t you remember Rachel Maddow’s old Friday night signoff? “Now you have to go to prison.”
clay
@schrodingers_cat: I’m not giving anyone a pass. We can go back to bashing George Will tomorrow. But today, if he’s willing to go on national TV and talk about how Trump is dangerous and unfit for office, then he’s our ally.
And I will take any ally we can get. The U.S. and USSR teamed up to defeat the Nazis. I think we can stomach George Will until impeachment.
germy
@Corner Stone:
Maybe he’s trying to squash a growing movement.
dww44
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks for the explanation. That I do, but I thought it was a plus when they added the Friday night hour last year.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Yeah, Pinch Sulzberger is an asshole and a relative moron. And it’s interesting that CDS and Whitewater started the same year he became publisher.
I’m reasonably sure — although, I have to confess, I didn’t focus on the FTFNYT then as I do now, so maybe I’m worng — that his father was light-years ahead of Pinch, in terms of integrity, class, smarts.
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: Sure that’s not an ongoing love for Olivia d’Abo?
MomSense
@dww44:
She resigned when they announced Megyn Kelly was taking her today show spot.
clay
@germy: If Jeb! had won, then we would have a typical Republican — bad, but not existentially dangerous. Not intent on destroying our country’s norms and international standing. Trump is uniquely dangerous, and we need every voice united against him, regardless of their reasons.
hellslittlestangel
@Corner Stone: But how much TV do you want to watch? If I want to log a whopping three hours a night of news shows, I can watch MSNBC from 8:00 until 11:00 — and I sometimes do. I’m grateful for the great talent showcased in MSNBC’s prime time lineup, but I’m under no illusion that they’re something other than a for-profit TV network, and I don’t feel like they have to cater to my tastes 24 hours a day.
I would complain about Hugh Hewitt’s show — if it actually existed.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: O’Donnell is dating Hall. This should make the contract renewal negotiations interesting.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
That Fox News viewership may be under-educated and less financially solvent, but there’s a lot of them, and they watch in larger numbers.
I see Fox is also the channel of choice in diners, tire shops and such. Make of that what you will.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: No, they’ve adopted the sports analyst talking head round robin shows from ESPN as the model. Right down to having each guest shown in their own on screen box.
dww44
@Corner Stone:
Rachel can be slotted into this category with you. She’s always fawned over Nicolle.
Re the latter, I did hear her say, the night after Sally Yates’ testimony, how unfair it was that Trump was attacking Yates, who had prosecuted the Olympic Park bomber. Watched a bit of her show after that;she’s still nervous and not yet accustomed to which camera to speak into on occasion.
But Hugh Hewitt punches my buttons before he opens his mouth.
geg6
@clay:
Much as I hate being in this situation, I agree. I have been gob smacked, in a good way, by Jen Rubin. I used to just despise her but she’s been pretty stellar in her revolt against Dolt 45.
Doug!
@hellslittlestangel:
So sanctimonious though. And too much of a boomer caricature. There’s got to be someone better out there.
schrodingers_cat
@West of the Rockies (been a while): In the Common Wealth it seems to be either CNN or some sporty channel like ESPN.
hellslittlestangel
@germy:
In this particular circumstance, Will is an ally. Objecting to his reasons for being anti-Trump is Cultural Revolution-level ridiculous.
SFAW
@SFAW:
“Whitewater started the same year” == “the Whitewater witch hunt started the same year”
What a maroon.
Baud
@hellslittlestangel: “Right for the wrong reasons” is an internet tradition.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: My opinion of L’OD just shot up about elebenty brazillion percent. My hatred of him, also too.
hellslittlestangel
@Doug!: Yup. Also arrogant. And if they find someone better than O’Donnell, that person should immediately be used to replace … Chris Matthews.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: @hellslittlestangel: His advantage is in process knowledge and comparing and contrasting the process he has significant experience with with what is happening now that is outside of the process. That said, when he eventually retires, Joy Ann Reid or Ari Melber will make excellent replacements.
Frankensteinbeck
@CaseyL:
It is, if you define ‘Americans’ as white males who say ‘Jesus’ a lot and drive pickup trucks. This is specifically how the GOP’s base thinks of it.
@germy:
This is hilarious. It also raises a question. Trump soils his underwear publicly on an almost daily basis. Why are he and his staff freaking out about this one so much more than the others?
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic: I can tell my Nicole Wallace’s apart, thank you!
One is a convicted criminal and one worked for an unconvicted criminal.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: I don’t really see watch much sports if any. I meant the entire schtick of shouting over everyone else.
Adam L Silverman
@clay: This is also the case with Wallace. Though I prefer her to Will. I have no understanding of why Van Susteren was hired and see no reason anyone should want more Hugh Hewitt. For anything.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: Putin is pissed at this incompetence, that’s why.
dww44
@West of the Rockies (been a while): I will anecdotally update your observation with my own: After Obama’s election, Fox was the TV cable channel of choice in most locations, even at banks, or more preposterously, at my dentist’s office in his tiny waiting room. He has installed a TV monitor high up on the wall immediately after the election. When I asked the receptionist to change the channel she and the staff nervously replied that I would have to take up the matter with him. I was a lily- livered coward and didn’t do so.
Now, a number of years later, the Weather Channel or CNN is playing. The bank pulled the plug altogether on the TV monitor and there’s less Fox News on the tv’s in other businesses. There’s been a discernible move back towards sanity re cable news. And that’s not accounting for the recent implosion of Fox News itself.
dogwood
@Doug!:
I don’t get all the love for those MSNBC folks. O’Donnell is a smug ass. I’ve beenwatching cable for the first time in years via YouTube and a couple of weeks ago he was laughing at Republicans over their 2nd healthcare debacle and looked in the camera telling viewers “Don’t worry, they will never pass a bill.” A few days later they passed one. Hayes, brings on right wingers and doesn’t challenge them. Last night he and Warren talked about democrats not doing enough about healthcare. And Maddow? She’s the hardest to watch, though I think I’d really like her if I knew her. Last time I watched her she spent almost the entire program outlining some serious Trump shit while smiling and giggling the whole time. Her affect just doesn’t work for me. Matthews? No way. But if they gave Joy Reid a nightly show, I’d be a regular viewer.
The Pale Scot
@sdhays:
PBS News programs have been all schlock since Louis Rukeyser passed away.
A Dutch news outfit has put together a doc investigating Twitler’s connections with organized crime. There’s an English version on uTube, watch it while u can.
The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump
Edit; I haven’t had time to watch it.
It’s Eurovision Weekend, Currently a “electro-swing” group is showing how to be a funkless white person
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: I thought I’d read that Greta’s ratings would have to jump significantly in order to make it up to the cellar.
germy
@Frankensteinbeck:
I wondered the same thing. Unless it’s just a cumulative effect, with this being the latest?
germy
@dww44: When we have a “democrat party” president, all those locations (bank, dentist, etc.) will switch back to Fox.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@dww44:
When I was an adjunct professor at two NorCal community colleges, both had Fox News on in the cafeterias; protests resulted at both schools. One pulled the plug, the other switched to MTV. (This was between ’02-’08ish.)
germy
@The Pale Scot: OMG, the youtube comments:
Gin & Tonic
@germy: I’m seeing more and more of those screens either tuned to something anodyne like HGTV or, as in my doctor’s office, some kind of actual medical information (luckily the office moves fast so I can never see the source of that.)
clay
@Adam L Silverman: I suspect Greta was hired under the assumption that she’d bring over her audience from Fox. Although I noted the other day that she’s almost a female clone of Tweety.
Hewitt is NOT an ally. Or smart. Or telegenic.
dogwood
@Gin & Tonic:
She had shitty ratings on Fox. Who did they think they would attract with her. And it’s not just her politics either. She’s just boring. And speaking of Fox, I did see Shep Smith and some woman he had on laughing about Trumps note from the attorneys that he ain’t tied to Russia. Smith read the citation from the firm’s website about them winning Russia’s law firm of the year award.
sdhays
To all those saying that George Will is an ally, here’s the title of his OpEd today: The left’s misguided obsession with ‘cultural appropriation’.
Trump has sacked his FBI Director in order to shut down the FBI investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia. But George Will decided that lecturing “the left” on our “obsession” with cultural appropriation was a more pressing topic. I get the point of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, but let’s not overstate his interest in helping.
GregB
Does Greta get ratings?
I can’t think of anything ever newsworthy coming from her or her TV shows. She is an overpaid kettle of nothingness. Maybe some OJ scuttlebut 25 years ago.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: The format came from the ESPN sports analyst roundtable programs. At Fox it was married with a tol sex appeal component that has long been used with local news: attractive, usually white (though that started to varies in the late 80s depending on the market) women with big eyes, high cheekbones, and a slight under bite. The visual message being sent to male viewers is oral sex. Ailes then married this with skin tight, low cut topped, high hemline and high heels or high heeled boots on the female presenters/in house commenters with either glass tables to show of the goods or no tables at all.
japa21
Have to correct Eric son of Eric on one things. He says liberals will be disappointed. Actually, all patriotic Americans will be disappointed.
debbie
@SFAW:
Your memory’s correct. Dad was better.
Aleta
@zhena gogolia: When I called, said I wanted to cancel, the guy asked why, I was polite, gave my reasons, regrets at what NYT had become, kept it calm.
Guy told me I was unsubscribed, then gave me a marketing spiel, and I repeated my reasons and decision. When he started phase 2 of a more obnoxious pitch, I thanked him (polite!) and said goodbye. I didn’t get a confirmation email, so I called to check after 10 days.
Woman said I was still subscribed! (She unsubscribed me.)
I asked her to read the record of my 1st call. Guy had typed that I was cancelling, and entered one of my my reasons. Then had entered something like “I didn’t get all the way through the (script or some marketing word).” And never unsubscribed me !
I figure: they’ve had to hire help for all the calls, and have offered a bonus for convincing customers to stay. (I asked for a complaint about this to be recorded and sent.)
Maybe round 2 of this is pointing out that their emergency customer service sucks too.
I’m going to keep complaining about this one.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@dogwood:
Shep must be made of sturdy stuff to stand the Fox corporate culture. I wonder what percentage of its workers are true believers and for what percentage it’s just a paid gig. Don’t think I would hang long in such a bigoted misinformation factory.
ArchTeryx
@Gin & Tonic: They might actually have to invite Democrats. For a fucking change. Either that, or host the shows without guests – I wouldn’t put my money on either, it’s even odds what they’ll do without their beloved Republicans.
Oatler.
“Democracy Now!” on PBS remains my only TV news source, and I’m a little (A LITTLE?) suspicious of the corporate sponsorship of PBS: Exxon, Wells Fargo, the Bradley Fucking Foundation???
dogwood
@dww44:
Yep. Liberals who consistently watch network news should be watching CBS. Pelly and the network should be rewarded for playing this straight since day one of this administration. Trump’s ties to NBC make them the least likely to be tough on him. They’ve got Apprentice stuff that would be pretty damning and they’ll never use it.
clay
@sdhays:
Not an ally full stop. An ally in the resistance against Trump. His previous headlines include:
-“Trump’s violations of federalism would make Obama jealous”
-“Trump has a dangerous disability (People must let their representatives know just how dangerous this man is)”
-“The ‘Oh, never mind’ president”
If he wants to blather on is his alternate columns about baseball or hippies, whatever. But when he argues against Trump from a principled conservative position, I’ll take it.
dww44
@Adam L Silverman: And, then there’s Giada’s Food Network cooking show with the ever present cleavage! As a female of an older generation this has always amazed me. Just yesterday she was in Florence preparing a meal for whoever and I noticed that the cleavage was showing even more and in a manner that was designed to tease a certain subset of viewer. I daresay most viewers weren’t watching her cooking moves.
debbie
@Aleta:
The Wells Fargo of newspapering!
debbie
@dww44:
She stole that from Nigella.
NeenerNeener
Louise Mensch is claiming on Twitter that Orrin Hatch is now getting security briefings so he can take over the WH when Trump, Pence and Ryan go down. If this happens I may have to rethink my atheism.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@GregB:
She brought, IIRC,a certain professional urgency to the Simpson case. As a political pundit, she appears flustered (aware that she’s an impostor) and clearly peddles an agenda.
Jeffro
Btw, whatever network anyone watched this on, it had to have been a real gas: Trump speaks at Liberty U commencement earlier this morning
Not to worry, evangelicals! That was then, and now is now, so just let your “follower” mindset guide you in supporting this walking antithesis of Christian values.
The Pale Scot
@Gin & Tonic:
Fortunately the Tampa area has Bay News 9, a locally focused 24/7 news network. I have seen conflict in the Dr office over keeping it on and not putting on that other thing. The go to comment is almost always “I want to see the marine report”. It seems the local wingnut senile citizens are not willing to admit that they don’t have a boat or know about fishing, which are the “manly activities” around here. “Salt Life” stickers on every other pick up. Not wanting to catch the marine report is like saying you drive a Prius.
germy
@NeenerNeener:
If that happens, buy stock in all nutritional supplement companies.
Adam L Silverman
@The Pale Scot: I’ve watched it. It is accurate based on the open source reporting and documentation that is available.
GregB
@Jeffro:
Stephen King could not create a more un-Godly villain.
Gin & Tonic
@NeenerNeener: Louise reminds me of when economic historians say that the stock market has predicted nine of the last five recessions.
dww44
@clay: While I do agree with you and have watched him a few times on MSNBC, I have also observed that every so-called “NoTrumper” with a media presence always finds an opportunity to confirm his conservative bona fides, like Frum, Steve Schmidt, Will, Erickson, et al. The only one who seems not give a ra about that effort is the Republican strategist, Rick Wilson. He’s been on a tear this week.
Given the discussion of the NY Times efforts to appear less liberal and more conservative, my nephew linked this piece on Twitter yesterday. Did any of you read it? I had never heard of this guy, so I checked him out on Wikipedia. Explained the bent of his piece that, interestingly, had no comments attached. I daresay the Times readers didn’t share his take on the Comey firing vis-a-vis conservatives and liberals.
Davey C
With some notable exceptions (like science writer Carl Zimmer), the NY Times is becoming an advertisement for the Washington Post.
Dr. Bloor
@ArchTeryx: Fat chance. They’ll pull former Dubya staffers out of the mothballs. Oh, and Grandpa Walnuts will makes the rounds as well.
The Pale Scot
@debbie:
And Pinch would have been smart enough to take the ridiculous offer made for ownership by an investment group back when the net was emerging and newspaper ad revenues were at their peak. But the cache of ownership and the prestige in NYC were irresistible, and now the Sulzs are stuck with a non performing white elephant
Oldgold
I welcome principled cons into the mix. I would count Wallace and Will as part of that rare breed. They add perspective and credibility to the discussions.
Intellectually dishonest grifter-cons like Hewitt, when they are on a discussion panel, cause me to turn the tube off.
Nora
@dww44: One more thing that pisses me off about the FTFNYT, demonstrated in that article: their eagerness to reach out, on every occasion, to Trump supporters and give them an outlet for their point of view. And it’s clearly not because the Times wants to show how the supporters of a president feel, because I cannot remember a single article of this type when Obama was president, but there have been weekly articles like this since November 2016.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: More than that.
Mike in NC
The dealership where I bought my last car (and have it serviced) usually call me up a couple of days later to gauge my satisfaction with their work. If they do that again my only complaint will be that they should stop tuning the TV in the waiting area to FOX Fake News. I needed a long hot shower when I got home the other day.
Jeffro
@GregB: ” I drink my little juice, I eat my little cracker…”
Trumpov, re: communion
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ryan Grim, in I think his last piece for the Huffington Post, made the case against Lack pretty forcefully, including some background on what happened to Tamron Hall
I read this when it was first posted ten days ago, I do remember there are a lot of good tidbits in it
Taylor
@clay:
I remember Krugman on (as a guest) on a Sunday talk show around the time of the 2008 crash.
Everything Will said about economics was wrong, and he had a Nobel Prize-winning economist there to correct him.
Pretty funny.
Jon Stewart’s put-down of Tucker Carlson is apropos: You’re a smart guy, you probably tie your own bow-tie.
dogwood
@NeenerNeener:
Mensch should have stuck to romance novels. She’s a right wing conspiracy theorist who got some bug up her butt about Trump and the Russians, but Brexit and the Russians? She denies all that. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Russians aren’t feeding her fake information. I have no problem with the enemy of my enemy theory. Short alliances like that can be helpful. But, they’ve got to be people who live in the real world, who are intelligent, not pure grifters, and certainly not marks for fake news or disseminaters of fake news. I’ll take the Frums, Rubins, and the Nicole Wallaces before I’ll ever go near people like Mensch and Greenwald.
Ben Cisco
@Jeffro: My grocery store of choice keeps the Enquirer behind a privacy shield.
Love their sense of propriety.
p.a.
From TPM:
emphasis mine. gotta go buy some marshmallows…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
someone asked about GVS’s ratings?
Taylor
@Mike in NC: My understanding is that local car dealers, and their ad buys, are a big reason why local TV news in the US is so terrible.
They are part of the problem.
GregB
@p.a.:
He told the big GOP gathering in California that they’ll win bigly in 2018 if things keep going the way they have been going.
Remember that one of the quotes attributed to Comey was that Trump was unmoored from reality.
Adam L Silverman
@Frankensteinbeck: @germy: Because they don’t know, and the President doesn’t know, where the investigations are and what they’re looking at. They know at least two Federal grand juries and one NY state grand jury are empaneled. They see the same leaks and RUMINT as everyone else. These leaks and RUMINT include 25 sealed indictments already, just waiting to be opened. Up to 40 or more individuals expected to ultimately be indicted. Schneiderman preparing massive RICO indictments. Secretary Price facing inside trading charges as well. And because of how the President’s business is structured and functions – 500 (that we know of) LLC and S corp shells and fronts and pass throughs operating all over the world doing business with who knows home many other LLC and S corp shell corporations, fronts, and pass throughs, no one likely knows where the money has ultimately come from and where it has ultimately gone.
There may be nothing actually here. But if so there is a significant amount of smoke being generated without any fire.
ETA: So they’re scared because they see everything bouncing around, do no know what is and is not accurate, likely have no way of getting a proper handle on where all the money came from, where it went, and what it actually bought. And the President is most likely, based on every biography and biographic article ever written about him both less than forthcoming and likely unclear himself. So everyone is jumping at shadows.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
nice note, ending that paragraph with “Snow”
BBA
@Taylor: They’re the biggest remaining locally-owned businesses in much of the country, and generally a reliable source of Republican funding and support (and often candidates).
They’ve gotten laws passed forbidding automakers from selling directly to the public, because if that ever becomes the norm they’re toast.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I’ve never understood the reasons the NYT and WaPo have for curating a large selection of conservative pundits and slanting some of their coverage that way. Both are predominantly liberal towns so the obvious circulation maximizing strategy is to cater to liberals and centrists. Why piss off your biggest demographic? It makes no sense.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Unlike this jerk, Susan McDougal remembers who locked her up for refusing to testify that the Clintons were involved in the Whitewater scam. Hint to the moron: it wasn’t Bill.
The Pale Scot
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
And from experience with wealthy seniors down here FL, they have bank, but they go to the early bird “buy one drink get another one free” almost exclusively, and buy almost everything else at Sam’s Club. These are the ones who laugh at the goldbug ads and are mostly impervious to advertising in general. The wealthy don’t stay wealthy by spending their money.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Assume a ladder.
GregB
@dogwood:
I do think Mensch has had some interesting things to say, she’s definitely jumping the shark with this notion that the order of Presidential succession has been leap-frogged down to Orrin Hatch. Plus reporting that Justice Roberts and Kagan are getting briefed by the CIA on the impending Trumpocalypse.
Coo-coo bananas.
A Ghost to Most
Still reading@geg6:
Jen Rubin’s transformation has been fun to watch, like watching a demon slowly drain from a possessed person.
The Pale Scot
@The Pale Scot: Edit, I meant Punch
Kay
I loathe Erik Erickson but I don’t like the “impeachment!” Lefties either. It’s just a bad, anti-democratic impulse going to “impeachment” immediately. I feel the same about the Lefties who immediately seize on criminal prosecution as some kind of all-purpose remedy.
I was really, really offended by “lock her up!” and I thought the attempt by Republicans to remove Bill Clinton from office was a disgrace. This is disgusting, anti-democratic behavior and in my opinion it comes from an authoritarian mind-set.
Just beat him. Beat him in an election. Don’t expect a prosecutor or judge to bail us out. The most effective political efforts have been the marches and the town hall meetings. We can do those things, and they’re working.
Mike E
I can’t believe the regard George Will is getting here, smdh…and I would think some here (c’mon Doug) can appreciate LO’D for reliably smacking the TURD with the rhetorical equivalent of a tire iron, using both hands! Really, you can’t leave it up to the Daily Show alums (& Seth Meyers) to do the Lord’s work entirely amirite?
The Pale Scot
@hellslittlestangel: It’s much more paletable to watch MSNBC’s website, there’s no commercials and I can select what clips to watch.
germy
BBA
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Most NYT readers aren’t partisan Democrats, or at least prefer not to think of themselves that way. They think it’s still a world where there are good ideas on both sides of the aisle and only listening to one side is being “closed-minded.” The truth, that the Republicans have been completely intellectually and morally bankrupt since the Gingrich revolution and are now rapidly abandoning basic logic and common sense in the name of Trump, has taken a very long time to filter through to them.
Tenar Arha
@clay: I will accept their help, but these slimy both siderist partisan effers are as responsible as the GOP for what has happened. If they don’t take responsibility for it & admit liberals were right all along, then it’ll be business as usual once 45 is gone. So I’m allowed, nay I’m required to side eye all these never Trumpers, because they’ll shiv us all as soon as help us repair the country after their mistakes have been removed from office.
A Ghost to Most
@dogwood:
That’s the conclusion I’ve come to. I’ve been switching between both to compare IRT.
Eta both being CBS & NBC
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman:
Speaking of RUMINT… this sounds very weird.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
Yes, but … it’s looking pretty likely that Trump actually did commit some crimes here, like money laundering. We shouldn’t avoid investigating or prosecuting those just because he’s the president. He’s not above the law.
ETA: Though any impeachment hearings should wait until the other charges work their way through the proper channels of our court system. Nation of laws.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He can’t remember what he told people about why he fired the Director of the FBI, but he’ll remember the slight from ND on his deathbed.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: I think it’s Louise assuming the ladder/can opener (depending on your history.)
dogwood
@Oldgold:
I’m with you. I don’t expect those conservatives or republicans to change their mind or change parties, they are fine as long as they aren’t hacks. I saw Nicole Wallace laugh in Hewitt’s face last week. I have always liked Wallace. She’s not always right in her analysis, but she’s giving an honest take rather than spinning. And she will give credit where credit is due. I remember her talking about the chaos on the McCain plane the day the markets were crashing. Her only other experience with a national campaign was 2004 working from AF1. But when she finished relating the clusterfuck she experienced, she gave due credit to the Obama campaign who didn’t have AF1 either, but they were on top of things with better people on board to handle the substance of what was going on and a more knowledgeable candidate.
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: Who knows. Sounds like the plot of the NCIS pilot episode.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Perhaps.
Trentrunner
@Kay: Wrong. Very wrong. Fucking seriously totally wrong.
Impeachment has ALWAYS been a political, not legal, tool. And if you don’t think Trump’s corruption rises to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” please get out of the way.
Kay
@Mnemosyne:
Right, but prosecutions aren’t supposed to be driven by politics. They really aren’t. It’s just the wrong field, the wrong forum. IMO the focus should be on transparency. Trump hides. He’s opaque. The political realm is for demanding transparency, not screaming “lock him up”.
Any prosecutions will take care of themselves, or not. There needs to be a bright line. Republicans blurred it and that is bad for the criminal justice system. Don’t help them ruin this institution. Any time we get the urge we should think about how hugely powerful prosecutors are and imagine that power wielded against not just a President but an ordinary person. It’s dangerous to blur this line. We JUST SAW how dangerous it is- it is what happened to Hillary Clinton. They said she was A CRIMINAL. Not their political opponent. A CRIMINAL.
I still see the “lock her up” signs. They make me despair. They truly don’t get it. They don’t see the danger.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne: I’ve always thought that the tax returns, if and when we see them, will show more embarrassing stuff– massive debt to unsavory foreigners, loopholes put to the strain, and most of all, that he isn’t nearly as rich as he claims— than crimes. I think the same is true of the Russia investigation. The stuff that can be proven will embarrass him, but the idea that trump was a knowing accomplice seems pretty remote to me.
Firing Comey, the subsequent threats, IANAL but that sure as hell looks like obstruction to me. But I do agree with Kay, we should be calling for oversight, investigations and transparency. Let impeachment happen if it will but don’t make it our goal. Yet.
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah, my Twitter feed is full of people who claim to be current IC/former IC/IC connected who all take turns promising huge Trump revelations and calling each other out as frauds.
Kay
@Trentrunner:
Okay but ever since Clinton each side has reached for impeachment as the weapon of choice. It’s an arm’s race. No one wins. Win the midterms. If we win the midterms we halt his legislative agenda. You don’t reach for the nuke as the first choice.
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: Come for the RUMINT, stay for the backstabbing.
Villago Delenda Est
When we’re done with the White House, the Grey Lady needs a thorough house cleaning as well, if it’s to continue to exist as an institution.
Kay
@Trentrunner:
Do you remember what the entire Right said about Obama? Not just that he was wrong but that he was breaking the law.
Pundits on FOX don’t determine who is breaking the law. They don’t make constitutional calls. This stuff is bed rock. Fuck with it at your peril.
Raoul
Oh mighty meteor, speed your way to our suffering shores! (And please aim for 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY)
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman:
And I’m now living in a world where terms like “Chekist,” “deza” and “kompromat” are becoming perfectly normal in everyday civilian conversation.
FML.
trollhattan
@schrodingers_cat:
The McLaughlin Group spawned two of SNL’s best parodies: Dana Carvey as McLaughlin, “WRONG!” and “The Sinatra Group” with Phil Hartman as Frank, “You’re swimmin’ in my wake, kid.”
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: Actually this isn’t correct. After Nixon, the Democratic majority in the House basically took impeachment off the table. There was some interest in Ford for pardoning Nixon so he couldn’t be held criminally accountable. There was also discussion for Reagan over Iran-Contra. The decision was made that if impeachment was used in these cases, even if it was clearly warranted – as was the case with Iran-Contra, then it would become not just politicized, as opposed to political, but weaponized. While this was going on the portion of movement conservatism and the GOP that was building towards a majority in the House held as a central tenet that Nixon was railroaded. That he was innocent. That he shouldn’t have been impeached, he shouldn’t have resigned, etc. Gingrich is on record stating that he was going to impeach Clinton if given the chance to even the score, because the Democrats impeached Nixon. Gingrich weaponized impeachment and the GOP has flirted with drawing it from the holster, aiming it, and pulling the trigger ever since provided there is a Democratic president while screeching with a false sense of victimization that they are the victims of those evil Democrats and their weaponized politics.
Chet Murthy
@geg6: Same here. But I remind myself that after this is over, and assuming that we’re neither living amongst the rubble nor behind barbed wire, we’ll go back to being her opponents. But we’ll remember, and we won’t be her enemies. Not many Rs about whom one can say that. And it’s quite a badge of decency, that she’s merely the loyal opposition,and not an out-and-out enemy.
It’s been so long since we Dems have had a loyal opposition, we’ve forgotten what it’s like.
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: Velcom Komrad!
Kathleen
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): You might want to try The Hunting Of The President by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons:
https://www.amazon.com/Hunting-President-Ten-Year-Campaign-Destroy/dp/0312273193
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
Right, but we don’t want to go so far in the other direction that we don’t investigate or prosecute crimes by politicians for fear of it looking political.
The reason I specifically said “money laundering” is that prosecutors in New York were already looking into allegations that Trump was helping Russian mobsters launder money before he was elected. We can’t tell them to drop that investigation because now he’s the president.
I understand why you’re queasy about endless “investigations” since the Clinton years, but there seem to have been actual crimes committed here.
Kay
@Adam L Silverman:
I was really active against Bush II. I believe that the impeachment people actually delayed his political reckoning. He was a terrible President. The tide was turning against him. They jumped in with impeachment and every Bush voter in the country rallied to his side. To me it’s like a shortcut, a reach for a quick dramatic fix that satisfies anger. Republicans destroyed the credibility of this tool. Use something else.
dogwood
@Trentrunner:
Of course it’s a political tool. But is unlikely to change the situation. The process sets the bar so high that removal from office is very unlikely. And we don’t even control either chamber of Congress. Making people believe there is some quick fix for Trump is political malpractice. It produces more cynicism and disillusionment.
Kathleen
@Corner Stone: A friend of mine said he heard Joy was going to TvOne. A quick Google search doesn’t show any links. The most recent story is from January 30, 2017, and it states that Joy and MSNBC hadn’t agreed to a contract. Have any of you heard anything?
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: I’m not stating your conclusion is wrong. I think the evidence is that the weaponization has already occurred and was specifically done by the GOP and movement conservatives to serve and further their political purposes.
Steeplejack
@germy:
Could you rouse yourself to provide, if not actual links, at least the sources of your hot takes? Sometimes I can tease out where they come from, but it is frustrating not to be able to go to the source to read further or get context, especially for “some say” editorializing like the last paragraph of this anonymous snippet.
And, yes, I could get on the Google and probably hunt down the original source. But it would be much easier for the person “breaking the news” to provide the source rather than for every reader who might want to follow up to have to hunt it down.
Baud
@Kay: I don’t mind the calls for impeachment per se. I worry that those people will turn in Dems when impeachment isn’t successful.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good god, MSNBC just teased yet another story on Trump voters and why they’re sticking with him
Kay
@Mnemosyne:
The way to make it look not political is to stop making it political. No one knows what they have or don’t have on Trump. We don’t prosecute people by assembling a crowd and sifting thru statutes and deciding someone broke the law. You have to wait. Not because I’m polite or afraid of Republicans- you have to wait because this process is not supposed to be in this realm. It is APART. That means the crowd doesn’t get to participate. He doesn’t go to prison based on X number of experts proclaiming he broke a law. That’s not how this works.
They’re doing enough damage without us participating and making it worse. COMEY did a ton of damage with his over-reach and proclamations. Enough. Let the process proceed.
JMG
You cannot impeach any official without Congressional majorities, so this is kind of a moot argument as of now. If Trump commits or has committed criminal acts in office, support for legitimate efforts by law enforcement to uncover them is mandatory, IMO. Adam, I fear that it’s too late for the deweaponization of law in politics. The next Democratic President will have a base that will demand prosecution of Trump era crimes. Obama’s “let’s put it behind us” policy just won’t fly.
Neldob
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: He’s not a Conservative, he’s a right ring extremist bunghole.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
And, quite frankly, Republicans purposely weaponized impeachment so it could never be used again even if a president was suspected of committing actual crimes.
As I said above, I think we’re better off letting the criminal justice system look at the things Trump is accused of doing first rather than jumping straight to impeachment. Impeaching a guy who just got convicted of money laundering in New York State is a lot easier and less harmful to the system than impeaching a guy who hasn’t been convicted or even indicted for an actual crime.
germy
@Steeplejack: I tried to edit my comment when I first posted it to add the link, but got locked out.
Here it is:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/utahs-senator-orrin-hatch-defender-of-the-supplement-industry/
dogwood
@Kay:
I agree with you. There are still people who think Pelosi’s biggest mistake was taking impeachment off the table. It was wise. You have to have a seriously dangerous situation and a realistic shot of actually removing someone before pulling that trigger. Otherwise it’s just theatre, designed to make members of the base feel good.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
I’m fine with that. But when you first posted, it sounded like you thought the grand juries that are currently convened should disband, because investigating a president is necessarily political and it would wreck the overall criminal justice process.
I do think that the odds of Trump being indicted for a federal crime are basically nil regardless of the evidence, because Sessions is not going to kill the golden goose that’s allowing him to bring Jim Crow back. Our best bet for some actual justice is state-level indictments in New York that Sessions can’t meddle with.
Tenar Arha
@Adam L Silverman: It’s always projection. They’re willing and able to change the rules and use all norms against Democrats because they think the Democratic Party did it to them. (When it’s pretty obvious that Nixon guaranteed he’d finally would have been impeached due to his own paranoia and insecurities).
And then there’s a valid historical discussion that no Republican since Eisenhower hasn’t violated or bent the law in one way or another in order to win the Presidency. Nixon interfered with the peace talks, Ford pardoned Nixon rather than digging out the poison, Reagan interfered with hostage negotiations, GHWB potentially overrode prosecutions for Iran Contra, GWB got the Supreme Court to stop a recount, and DJT practically begged on tv for more Russisn active measures.
(As always, when I write it out, it becomes both damning, and indicative of a much larger and longer term problem with the Republican Party. This includes how they’ve manipulated the media and our whole system to their advantage).
trollhattan
@germy:
IIRC Grassley is Hatch’s co-conspirator shilling for the supplement industry. Could be related to corn, given that a lot of the raw ingredients are corn-sourced. “They must not be regulated!”
Tenar Arha
Ugh, my comment went into ether. Or, I think I may be in moderation?
Kay
@dogwood:
What it was was honest.
She could have done it. She could have fired up the troops by recklessly promising impeachment but she didn’t. I worked really hard for Kerry. I talked to thousands of voters. They weren’t happy with Bush but they almost reflexively resisted removal. To me it’s like “break glass” with a fire extinguisher. You don’t just wave it around.
Every once in a while I file an extreme motion in child cases, if it’s truly justified and I’m rock solid on what I have. I resist this mechanism because it’s for extreme situations. I get them granted when I file them because I don’t use them as a tactic. They are for safety. That’s the actual standard. That’s a high bar.
Steeplejack
@dww44:
If by “this guy” you mean the author of the piece, Jeremy W. Peters, I’m not finding an article about him on Wikipedia. Do you have a link for that? His Times bio says he graduated from Michigan and has been a reporter at the paper for 10 years. I don’t see anything particularly sinister about that. And the Times doesn’t enable comments on any news stories, to my knowledge.
Did this get some sort of different slant on Twitter?
liberal
@dogwood: that misses the point. The point is to subpoena the living shit out of them to bring all the crimes to light.
Of course, you could do that wo impeachment proceedings. But what did the Dems do after the invasion of Iraq, which was a monstrous crime?
Jack shit.
geg6
@Chet Murthy:
Yes, this exactly.
mai naem mobile
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: most historical polling I’ve seen starts after FDR came in. I wonder how accurate those Hoover numbers are?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think it was politically realistic, but I wish she had added “at this time”. For political and Constitutional reasons, no Speaker should ever say it’s off the table.
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Link or source?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Steeplejack: Ryan Grim’s article at @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think it’s an interesting write up of Lack and MSNBC
Noncarborundum
@Aleta: I canceled on Thursday and the woman I spoke to listened to my reasons, said she’d pass them along to management, and didn’t try to talk me out of canceling. She did note that I’d been a subscriber for 29 years, but more to express disappointment than to persuade me to reconsider. It sounded to me like she’d heard the same reasons many times and knew it would be futile to push back. And maybe even like she agreed with me but wasn’t allowed to say so out loud.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
And the anti-war left guaranteed that Democrats wouldn’t be able to do anything about it by focusing on punishing Democrats who’d voted for the war rather than voting Republicans out.
If Kerry had won in 2004, he could have pulled us out of Iraq pretty quickly and had plans to do so, because we’d barely been there a year. Instead, the anti-war left decided to punish him for his vote, and Bush had four additional years to fuck things up.
If you wonder why the Democrats didn’t take effective action to stop the war in Iraq after 2004, take a look in the mirror. They had no power base to do it from, and the guy who actually had a plan to pull us out was defeated because people on the left refused to vote for him.
sharl
@Mnemosyne:
Mnem, do you have a link or two that offers some statistical analysis of that assertion about the 2004 Kerry loss? My personal recollection is that various forms of voter suppression* were likely much greater contributors to Kerry’s loss than anti-war people, as much as our major
conservativecorporation-friendly media has enjoyed pinning the blame on the latter type.Hippie-punching has been a preferred activity of those people and – apparently – much of the managerial-class demographic whose eyeballs and ears (and cash) those media types hope to attract. Hippie-punching has the added attraction of offering no negative consequences; punching down almost always offers that advantage, at least in the short term.
I’ll be grateful (though not happy) to be proven wrong though.
*As an ex-Buckeye, then-Ohio SoS Ken Blackwell comes to mind in particular as a likely culprit.
ETA: Replaced “conservative” with “corporate” – though there’s a lot of overlap, the latter is more apt I think.
Corner Stone
@sharl:
Kerry also contested Ohio very strongly and it was a combination of Blackwell’s dirty tricks (as you mention) and getting a hateful anti-gay initiative on the OH ballot that pulled OH out for GWB in 2004.
It was not some weird anti-war left decision to punish Kerry.
Corner Stone
@hellslittlestangel:
This seems like a false choice, IMO. Why should they add someone in their near prime time lineup who is a)an awful cable TV host and b)ideologically opposite of the majority of the people that make up their ratings boost? Going with someone who is not a rwnj is not “catering” to tastes, that’s selling eyeballs to advertisers and companies. I don’t always tune in to MTP Daily but if I am around a TV I sometimes watch the last 15 minutes or so, just to catch the daily CW. But I actively scan my TV listings lineup for anything else to have on in the background other than Greta. I’ll watch freaking Wicked Tuna re-runs before I watch her show. I generally turn it off and read govt compliance manuals.
Mnemosyne
@sharl:
Democracy Now! was pushing the anti-Kerry case from early on. I’m still Googling to see if there were exit polls specifically about Kerry’s war views.
And, of course, we have the commenters on here who were too pure to vote for Kerry but sneer at the Democrats for not having the power to get things done.
Mnemosyne
@sharl:
Also, Ohio still looks very suspicious, but Bush did win the popular vote in 2004, unlike 2000, so I don’t think you can attribute his entire victory to the mess in Ohio.
James Powell
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
There are more factors than this, but liberals express outrage but continue to read & subscribe. Right-wingers never read or subscribe and they relentlessly harass advertisers.
dogwood
@Mnemosyne:
Kerry could have pulled us out of the war? I guess so but that wasn’t what he was saying. In his convention speech he talked about fighting more competently and perhaps even sending more troops. I voted for Kerry, but the idea that electing him was going to end the war quickly was ridiculous. Kerry would have had an horrific one term presidency. He wouldn’t have been able to move a liberal domestic agenda through Congress, he’s couldn’t have just ended the war, and the financial crisis would have done him in. He is so lucky he lost that election and got to serve so effectively and consequentially as SoS. And as bad as W was, his problems all occurred from decisions he made in the first term. He was a lame duck, increasingly irrelevant after Sept. ’05.
sharl
@Mnemosyne: Thanks for checking around. Corner Stone brought up a good point regarding the anti-gay initiative in Ohio, which I’d forgotten about. That was widely regarded – accurately IMO – as helping to energize and turn out GOP voters in greater numbers there, so maybe Bush did win the popular vote in OH because of stuff like that. But Blackwell’s sinister activism definitely had an impact, and he deserves eternal condemnation for it.
As far as Democracy Now, and the rejectionist faction of commenters here, I think that’s where a zoom-out quantitative analysis at the bigger picture is necessary. It’s only a very small fraction of commenters here who were “never-Kerry” or “never-Clinton”, and as for Democracy Now, I doubt most voting Americans give them a thought (assuming they’ve heard of them).
Social media – the comments here, Twitter, Facebook, etc. – are “voice amplifiers” for those who may well not actually represent large numbers of people. Even the rage-filled young lefties and DSA types I follow on twitter recognize this, and those with large followings occasionally remind their followers of this fact, i.e., “if you folks want to make a difference, hanging out on Twitter isn’t the way to do it.” Whether in comments here or in other social media forums, that bigger picture can be easily lost. That’s why I like following Kay and others who actually interact with their communities in real life, where they tend to see a more complete range/reality/horror of human perspectives and attitudes on display, rather than what is available in the self-selected social media cliques that so many of us are a part of these days.
And regarding close elections, they give everyone the opportunity to assign a reason for why their candidate won or lost. The narrow loss in Wisconsin: was it Jill Stein’s fault? Could be, since her 18K votes exceeded the margin of Clinton’s loss. How about voter suppression? That works too, when you look at Ari Berman’s recent report in The Nation. Or maybe voter apathy after not realizing any tangible benefits during Obama’s eight years? Sure, why not; and frankly I wish journalists would look at apathy-driven non-voters more, rather than the interminable interviews of Trump voters; this (from November) is only good reporting I’ve seen on that so far.
In summary, I really want us to get the post-election analyses right, so we can do better politics in the future. It’s never easy, since it’s analysis of a constantly moving target, but I think the effort is necessary, even if the results are likely to be imperfect.
patrick II
@Taylor:
I remember the following week when Will started the show reasserting everything Krugman had corrected him on and stating that what he ( Will) said was the unchallenged truth. He cannot learn either about ecomics or climate. His pomposity stands do a impervious barricade.
TenguPhule
@dogwood:
The enemy of my enemy is a useful distraction to draw away incoming enemy fire. They are not fucking allies.
leeleeFL
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): The thread, it is won! Pure genius, I tells ya!