Saturday, November 8, 2008

We Were Sold Out (And It's Time For It To End)

"Many observers believe that the mainstream media could have blown Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign to bits over a single long weekend. A couple of hit pieces featuring Rashid Khalidi, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Edward Said, Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, the lost years at Columbia, ... well, you get the picture. Any of the big outlets could've put a stake in the heart of Obama's campaign with a single 20-minute segment of John Stossel presents: Barack Obama's Whackjob Friends.

So why didn't our world-class U.S. journalists explore Barack's background? In fact, the world wonders how our media could be so biased, so in the bag, so incredibly tilted that even the Saturday morning cartoons are mocking 'em. The answer is right in front of our noses.

• Senior Obama adviser Susan Rice (a former Clinton administration official) is married to Ian Cameron, the Canadian-born executive producer of ABC News’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

• NBC's David Gregory is married to Beth Wilkinson, a partner at Latham & Watkins in Washington and a former official in the Justice Department during the Clinton administration.

• ABC's George Stephanopoulos hosts a show bearing his name and earlier served as a senior advisor to the Clinton administration.

• Chris Matthews hosts MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and served as a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter.

• David Gergen is a political analyst for CNN and served as a special adviser to President Clinton.

• Paul Begala is a CNN commentator ("[President Bush is] a high-functioning moron") and a former senior adviser to President Clinton.

• Bill Moyers is a journalist employed by PBS and was a press secretary for President Lyndon Baines Johnson. His son is a producer for CNN.

Put simply, there appears to be only a turnstile between a Democratic administration and a cushy media job. Perhaps that explains the disconnect. After all, career and spousal advancement come before integrity."


-- Doug Ross, showing those who were willing to betray America for their choice in this election, on Doug Ross @ Journal.

We need new pundits and journalists in this country - and I want to be one of them - but new voices can't be heard without your support, which should go to:

6 comments:

  1. You've got to be kidding, right? When the tabloids can out John Edwards you think there is some deep dark secret past that the mainstream media let slide because they are (gasp!)liberals? Your fellow nutters over at FOX news tried repeatedly on the Bill Ayers, ACORN, etc. fronts and, guess what, they got no traction. And why? Because all the alleged secrets you are obsessed with are pure BS (how is that for a simple non-conspiracy theory explanation?). When in doubt try imagining that your fantasies are just that.

    Tey to get over your paranoid ravings enough to post a comment that challenges you.)

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  2. You (clearly) haven't read the comments that come in here, because I print all the ones that aren't completely lunatic - which is the vast majority of them. So, you're wrong about that one issue, that is directly about this blog. As to your other "points":

    The John Edwards scandal was held up for a year after the story broke, and it was a L.A. Times employee who exposed they held up the story because it was too explosive for liberals, not me, or FOX News. So you're wrong about that, too.

    You say "your fellow nutters over at FOX news tried repeatedly on the Bill Ayers, ACORN, etc. fronts and, guess what, they got no traction." - ignoring the fact the press was "in the tank" for Obama (as The Washington Post just admitted, and this post further proves) so they chose not to investigate anything dirty about the candidate. If the press did such a good job, why is Newsweek now calling his campaign a "creepy" "cult of personality" instead of during the election? They had two years to say it - what happened? Why is Tom Brokaw, now, saying he knows nothing about Obama and his views? Could he - a long established "journalist" at the head of a major source of news with a crack investigative team at his disposal - be admitting he didn't want to see what he didn't want to see? He, also, had two years to learn everything he wanted - why didn't he, and inform his viewers? And it sure is funny that when media bias was studied during this election, the terrible FOX News was found to be the most (yes) "fair and balanced". How does THAT happen? I guess you're wrong about that one, too.

    And, finally, if these are all "conspiracy theories", then how are they, all, thoroughly documented from mainstream and well-known sources? I'd say it's you who are kidding yourself. But I'm not surprised:

    Living a life of moral relativism is a motherfucker.

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  3. Thanks for publishing the comment. I've never read the blog before today. So I apologize for that. But about the rest, I still think your wacked.

    First, the Edwards story was 'held up' because no one believed that a "news" outlet that regularly publishes reports of alien abductions and such could actually have printed something true. Having read your profile, I'd have thought the Enquirer wouldn't cut it around here as a news source. ANd even though they turned out to be right about Edwards, I still don't believe in aliens. You?

    So, the press that was all over Jeremiah Wright gave Obama a pass?
    And The New York Times, which ran an extensive article just a couple weeks ago about the fantasy connection between Obama and Ayers? That story, of course, found NOTHING. The two guys served on a board of a foundation funded by a right winger; end of story not due to conspiracy but because there was no story.

    (PS: I never denied any of the folks whose pictures you posted know one another, even intimately so. I simply think it is a big stretch to think they connived to suppress some nefarious background story on the new prez. Those are two very different things.)

    Moving on, Brit Hume, head nutter over at FOX, admitted that they were essentially making shit up re: ACORN and admitted that it had no impact because, well, because it was made up.

    And which august outfit did a study finding the FOX is fair and balanced? Probably one with as selective a view of the world as you seem to have. If FOX is so fair and balanced how come all of their intrepid reporting barely made it out of the right-wing echo chamber?
    Because it amounts to unfounded accusations.

    Finally, nothing I've written suggests anything about moral relativism. I couldn't criticize you if I didn't think there is a difference between right and wrong. Ain't that a motherfucker?

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  4. Look, dude, you're new so I'm giving you a pass on the snarky tone you're taking with me - this is TMR and, by now, I usually woulda blasted you by now.

    One thing's important to me: get an account and put a name to yourself. I don't mind criticism, but anonymous criticism blows, O.K.? About the rest:

    You obviously don't keep up because The National Inquirer has broken many big stories, and you claiming they're why nobody ran with the Edwards story doesn't fit the evidence of the L.A. Times's own minion. Look it up - on this blog - I did several posts on the whole story. Blaming the National Inquirer was just a cover for the media bias we're living under. They want to shape the news, now, not report it.

    Next, John McCain gave Jeremiah Wright a pass - and the press went with them. Are you claiming that when JW got busted for having an affair with another man's wife - during the election - it was plastered everywhere? Of course not. Why? Because keeping it mum was the word. Look it up - on this blog - I did a post on it.

    And about that NYT story: you are too naive. The NYT is the worst of the lot, when it comes to bias, and simply lying to the public. Find the tag, on this blog, for "Steve Diamond" and get the whole story on that one. Try the tag for "Stanley Kurtz" to also see what you've been missing - on purpose - because of the precious media. (Also "Migraines and Musings" should be of some help.) Don't doubt me, man: The Crack Emcee's your buddy - now make a donation.

    Why didn't FOX make it out of the echo chamber? What do you think "media bias" means, man!?! It didn't make it out because they didn't want to let it make it out - just like they didn't let John Edwards out. Come on, use your head. Also, yes, find the tag for FOX News - on this blog - and see what you find. If you don't find what you need to know, let me know and I'll get it for you - then make a donation (LOL)

    I'ma give you a pass on the moral relativism as well - I mighta spoke too soon - but that's what this whole Obama thing adds up to (that and cultism) so you've got to excuse me:

    I'm into this shit deep.

    Now go make a name for yourself.

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  5. I'm on my way out. but

    (0) Maybe you'll excuse me for being obtuse, but looking stuff up on your blog is hardly a useful enterprise if I think that you are off the mark.

    (1) "Next, John McCain gave Jeremiah Wright a pass - and the press went with them." So otherwise the media would've had to get together to make sure no one covered the story? And JW wasn't running for anything - so who he's banging (or not) is relevant to what?

    (2) So behind virtually every instance there is some conspiracy to dissemble and lie? The National Inquirer is a rag. Period. No one needs to dis them, they do it themselv es weekly.
    And FOX News didn't get traction with any of their BS because even their massive audience didn't buy it. Who prevented them from running their mouths about non-stories for months on end? No one. But no one believed them either.

    (2) What is false in the NYT story? Simply complaining about it is, well, just that - complaining without any actual evidence to the contrary? And if it was a whitewash, where was the intrepid crew from FOX to blow the story out of the water? Where were Rush and the host of other nutters? Where was the McCain campaign? The conspiracy is getting vaster and vaster ....

    Take care.

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  6. Jim,

    How will you know if I'm off the mark if you don't look? Wouldn't discovering if I'm correct be a "useful enterprise"? (I mean, we are talking about clicking some tags, checking the validity of the source, etc.) Like, then you would be informed about the world around you, rather than putting yourself in the position of spouting off stupid stuff that, eventually, will reveal your ignorance somewhere else? For instance, if the media's not "in the tank", then explain The Washington Post's confession today. Do you really think they'll be the last ones? There will be other studies of the media's role in all this - and they know it - so I'm sure there will be. Are you?

    Jeremiah Wright was Barack Obama's spiritual mentor for 20 years. Obama claims he knew nothing about the man's racist and anti-American statements - after claiming he went to his church every week - this would make Obama a liar or an idiot. (Which one do you want in the White House?) Any real investigation - as The National Inquirer did on Obama's original pick for Vice-President, John Edwards, could've derailed Obama's chances.

    The National Enquirer broke, both, the O.J. and Monica Lewinsky stories. Is it a tabloid? Sure, but hardly a paper to be frowned on when it comes to investigative journalism - something the major media hardly does anymore. They frown on the Enquirer for one reason: they pay sources. But even they admit, when it comes to the big stories, the Enquirer gets it right.

    And I've had to make this point, several times, and it's getting old: Obama won by 6% points - that's hardly a landslide, and can easily be directed at the media's influence. For comparison, Bush won by 8% and and Reagan by 10% - with the media against them. So somebody's believing FOX News. Obama didn't win a mandate - he just "won" - and he did it with the media's help.

    As far as the NYT story, if you don't want to look - which is all what you're saying amounts to -then what's the point? I told you where to go - go. Look. If it's bullshit, then it's bullshit, but if not then you know better. Isn't that the point?

    You seem to be under the impression the media's in some kind of a hurry to out itself as bogus - right. The media's like a bunch of homeopaths, with a code of conduct that says "I won't tell on you if you won't tell on me". They're content to shape the news as long as the citizenry allows. You do realize it was bloggers who kept the John Edwards story alive, don't you? Average men and women, like me, trying to do the above-average job we used to expect from the MSM ("Watergate" ring any bells?)

    And finally, why are so many journalists - including Democrats - saying they're ashamed of their profession now, if what I'm saying is true? Why is Chris Matthews starting to be pilloried for his Obama coverage? You need to ask yourself these questions, Jim, because if you're allowing yourself to be "informed" by people with no interest in that duty, then you, too, are just being led down the nose. I've got nothing against Obama - he's just another politician to me - but he's also proven him self to be a liar and a hypocrite, as so many politicians are, but relying on cults for his power, and he deserves to be exposed as such. I've taken it on to make that my job. Whether you appreciate it or not is up to you.

    But first you've got to look to see if I'm right.

    Take care,

    CMC

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