Racism and the Teabaggers

Even though we tend to post on teabagger insanity as comic relief around, I hadn't written anything about NAACP resolution because... well it's such a fucking no-brainer that I didn't think it would make that much noise.

I guess I should have known the media would have pushed this into a story/controversy/Sunday talk show topic, so here are a few fairly obvious points:

The teabaggers care more about being called racists than they do the actual racism prevalent in their ranks, and this should be pointed out. The NAACP resolution only calls on the teabaggers to condemn racism that exists in their own group! This isn't hard, and shouldn't be something you fight against, unless you think that a lot of your members are racists, and well, that leads to the next problem...

... Racism is pretty prevalent at these gatherings, and is why their leaders are so hesitant to make it look like they might not hate black people. Ours was only one example, but I walked through every corner of Beck's 9/12 rally with a sign that said "Gee, a whole lot of white people here today..." and was approached dozens of times WITH COMPLIMENTS. "Yeah, isn't it great none of them showed" up was the average comment. Three people saw my sign and called me out. All of them were reporters. Again, this is one example, but if I went to a rally for my cause and someone had a racist sign, I'd tell them to get the fuck out. People who aren't racists don't feel comfortable associating with racists, it's just that simple.

One more thing: If you are trying to show everyone you're not a racist, don't have the spokesman for one of the biggest teabagging organizations in the country do shit like this:

In the post, Williams calls NAACP President Ben Jealous "Tom's Nephew" and ties tea party calls for smaller government to "emancipation" (which, of course, is just steps away from the standard tea party line that Democratic policies amount to "tyranny.")

But the central theme centers around, as Williams writes, the "absurdity of a group that calls blacks 'Colored People' hurling charges of racism."

Here's a sample (the post is written in the form of a mock letter to President Abraham Lincoln from Jealous):

We Colored People have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

That's just the introduction. Here's the good stuff:

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government "stop raising our taxes." That is outrageous! How will we Colored People ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society? Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong.

Again, for the record: this how an official at the Tea Party Express explains how not racist the Tea Party is.

It's no wonder this guy won't denounce racists within his group, huh?

Score one for the NAACP's tactics, because thanks to the news generated from his letter, he was forced out of the professional teabagging circut for... wait for it ... "racism". It does exist!

It doesn't take much effort to figure this stuff out:

Are the leaders of these groups doing/saying racist things on a regular basis? They are? Ok.

Are their members often seen carrying racist signs and saying racist things? They are? Ok.

Did the leadership of every teabagger group just go ape-shit at an organization that ASKED THEM TO CONDEMN RACISM? They did? Noted.

Hey teabaggers? Tired of being called racists?

Then stop saying racist shit!

It really is that fucking simple.

The Other Side is Nothing But Crazy People

Darksyde at dailykos does something that needs to happen every 24 hours:

Let me see if I have this straight: in the last few days members of the GOP have savagely screwed the unemployed, protected the bankstas, trashed Thurgood Marshall, implied rape and incest is part of God's plan, defended BP, threatened to either end social security or screw over 20 million plus people who have paid into the system for at least 20 years by making them wait until age 70 to see their benefits, and screwed homeless veterans with children. That about it, or is there more?

The Republican party is a joke, and is doing offensive/extremely unpopular things just about constantly. We try to point out the most absurd stuff on this site, but it really makes you wonder how conservative messages continue to dominate almost every media narrative.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but there's really no excuse for not making every news cycle about Republicans defending slavery/that day's idiotic statement. The opposition party is 90% full of crazy people, and they're not going to stop saying things that are objectionable to non-crazy people. The fact that this hasn't been turned into a larger advantage is kind of stunning.

The Good Side of Unconscionable Destruction

Thanks CNN, heckva job:

Under the headline “When the Search for ‘Balance’ Goes Too Far,” Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen notes:

Gawker ran a copy of an email sent by CNN's Gary Hewing yesterday, looking for ideas about covering the "good side" of the BP oil spill disaster. In fact, the summary line of the CNN message specifically said, "The Good Side of the Oil Spill."

Summary: The Good Side of the Oil Spill

Name: Gary Hewing (CNN)

Category: Biotech and Healthcare

Media Outlet: CNN

Deadline: 04:00 PM EST - 2 June

Query: Looking for pitches: The Good Side of the Oil Spill - if there is any.

Stupidity beyond belief.

Where's the Oil?

Worth remembering that Brit Hume said two weeks ago:



Just like everything else he's been wrong about, this should be damming enough to get him pulled of the air for good. Instead, he'll be back on Fox News tomorrow, saying something equally stupid.

The Thomas Friedman Tea Party

It's been at least a few days since somebody pointed out what an unbelievable idiot Thomas Friedman is, so I figured it's my turn.

Some recent Friedman statements, as complied by Sadly No:

March 24, 2010:

That is why I want my own Tea Party. I want a Tea Party of the radical center.

April 25, 2010:

So if there is going to be a Green Tea Party, it will have to emerge from a different place — the radical center, a center committed to a radical departure from business as usual.

A few points:

1. Anyone who uses the term "Radical Center" should be banished to an island until they understand the consequences of their actions. If you think about it for too long, you can feel your brain looking for ways to kill itself.

2. Of all the formulas that Friedman uses in his columns, probably his most charming is when he assumes masses of people will be instantly captivated by his stupid ideas.

Idea 1: Talk about climate change and making things "green" (without disrupting any of the pro corporate globalization policies he's built his career around worshiping.)

Idea 2: Find a way to talk about "Tea Parties"

Solution: Let's forget that most teabaggers would rather impale themselves on their one of their tri-corner hats before associating with something "green", I declare this a movement! I will also repeatedly reference this same idea in later columns, as if it existed somewhere other than my imagination caught on as a trend.

3. Is there anything more arrogant/egotistical/narcissistic than declaring in your national column in the New York Times that you want a movement dedicated to yourself?

That is why I want my own Tea Party.

He actually wrote that.

Before he even decides on the "green tea party" insanity, he honestly wants to create a political movement based on whatever the fuck he's excited about this week. Knowing Friedman, that can range anywhere from invading a country to tell them they can suck on it, having ironclad knowledge that something important will happen in the next 6 months or supporting any legislation that contains the words "free trade" (for those who think I'm exaggerating, check the links, he actually said all of those things). That's a solid group of ideas to build around.

In the end, the idea of a "Tom Friedman/green tea party" idea gets 4 out of 5 Friedmans. It's about as Thomas Friedmany as you can get, but he didn't include a reference to a corporation or a world leader, so he can't get the full score.

OBAMA DISSES WHITE GUYS!

The Washington Examiner, ladies and gentlemen: (via Linkins and Weigel)

Any paper that has a picture of Byron York on the cover is very serious. And look, he's defending Arizona's new racist law! Who could have seen that coming?

It's as if the examiner is targeting a specific audience... (DCeiver)

The Examiner should have plenty of ammo, as Obama's assault on white people and white culture shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.

This Week in Tibet

Remember Isaac Stone Fish? He’s the bizarrely-named Newsweek writer whom I featured on the very first This Week in Tibet. Allow me to refresh your memory on what he was saying about Chinese rule in Tibet a few weeks ago:

“Whether they like it or not, China has been very good for Tibetans… China's reign there has meant an economic boom.”

Those ungrateful Tibetans are just so damn prosperous under the Chinese flag. Hold on though, Isaac Stone Fish from the Recent Past is being interrupted by Present Day Isaac Stone Fish:

The [earthquake] has allowed Chinese throughout the country to learn a little more about the situation in Tibetan regions—insight that Han Chinese on the whole lack, partially because press reports on Tibet still read like Mao-era propaganda.

If you didn’t know any better, you really wouldn’t have any idea that the jackass who wrote those words is the very same jackass who recently wrote a press report on Tibet that reads like Mao-era propaganda, would you? “Minorities receive ample handouts from generous Chairman and central government” was literally his thesis just two months ago. He continues:

This week's earthquake—and footage of the devastation—is allowing the average Chinese to see both the poverty and humanity of a region they're used to seeing only in political terms. "It's very hard to see real Tibetans" through the media, says Yang. "On TV, they're dancing all the time, shaking hands with leaders, celebrating, or shown as troublemakers. This is an opportunity to realize that Tibetans live and suffer like we do."

Poverty? Suffering? I thought Tibet was experiencing an unprecedented economic boom… where did I get that impression… oh right, from Isaac Stone Fish when he was going on about how wonderful things are for Tibetans.

You want to know where that economic boom went? Here’s what happened. China drove a dump truck full of money into the region which was earmarked for building housing. This wasn’t out of any philanthropic urge to see every Tibetan given a modern apartment, but rather out of a fear that nomadic Tibetans are too far outside government control. So the nomads were resettled into housing developments built by companies who took advantage of government connections to build shitty houses and schools. While the cost of housing was subsidized by the government, there aren’t many jobs for middle-aged Tibetans in the middle of nowhere whose main skills involve herding livestock. Many of them were already worried about how they were going to continue paying for the houses that they were forced into after the subsidies run out, and then an earthquake leveled entire blocks and killed thousands who might otherwise have been fine because you don’t generally get crushed to death by tons of falling bricks when you live in a tent. That is the nature of the economic boom for which unappreciative Tibetans and their ignorant foreign supporters should apparently give thanks.

Oh, and one more quick example of the awesome journalistic prowess of Isaac Fish Stone:

“Inhabitants of Yushu are 97 percent ethnic Tibetans, thought to be more sympathetic to the Dalai Lama and his claims for Tibetan autonomy.”

“Thought to be more sympathetic”? More sympathetic to the Dalai Lama than who, Han Chinese? The prevailing opinion among Han Chinese is that the Dalai Lama is a terrorist mastermind thanks to a decade’s long propaganda campaign that includes government statements, Chinese journalism, school curriculum, and the occasional foreign news item like this piece of garbage. Are we pretending that Tibetans aren’t supportive of Tibetan autonomy? There are over 120,000 Tibetan exiles in India giving testament to just that, and two years ago we saw protests in over 150 Tibetan towns, but I guess the Chinese government says all Tibetans are very happy to be part of China so the truth must be in the middle or something, right?

We Report, You Decide If It's True

No matter how much I'd get annoyed with the host, guests or panelists, Meet the Press has always been a Sunday tradition for me. You watch it to know what/who the political media has deemed important that week, every so often you'd get a genuinely interesting interview/debate along the way.

While I didn't think David Gregory would be a good fit as the MTP host, I also didn't think that he would make the show unwatchable within 12 months, and become the poster boy for what's wrong with political journalism.

When journalism professor Jay Rosen floated the idea of fact checking the Sunday shows as a way to prevent the constant lying and bullshiting that their current format makes possible, the responses were mostly positive. ABC's Jake Tapper has gone so far as asking Politifact.com to fact check each episode of This Week and publish the results.

Not David Gregory though. His response was so much more revealing than he ever intended, and cuts to the root of all that's wrong with today's political journalism:

[A]ccepting a challenge from New York University’s Jay Rosen, interim host Jake Tapper has arranged for the St. Petersburg Times’ PolitiFact site to fact-check what “This Week” guests say after each program.

An “interesting idea,” Gregory allows, but not one the NBC show will be emulating. “People can fact-check ‘Meet the Press’ every week on their own terms.”

If this were a just world, Gregory would have been called into his office 15 minutes after that quote was published and fired on the spot. Although, as someone who thought the press did a great job asking tough questions in the run up to the Iraq war, I'm not surprised to hear that he thinks he's doing a great job now. After being mocked for his answer, Gregory responded via twitter:

Look, I don't think it's fair to suggest I'm opposed to fact checking or accountability or real journalism for that matter. My view is that I just don't think we need a formal arrangement to accomplish that goal.

Glad he cleared that up. He's not opposed to people checking his facts, like he said before, you can do that on your own time! And why do you need a "formal arrangement" to do something that you weren't going to do anyway?

The Colbert Report did a brilliant segment on this last week for those who missed it:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sunday Morning Fact-Checking - Jake Tapper & Bill Adair
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

ACORN Revisited

Last night Rachel Maddow used the power of the unedited ACORN tapes to expose O'keefe and Breitbart as the liars that they are.

Watch, then get really, really depressed:

Idiot With A Megaphone Wants To Be Heard

Apparently transcribing the rantings of a crazy person is worthy of front page coverage in the Washington Post:

IOWA CITY, IOWA -- He had no plans to throw bricks, issue death threats, spit in faces or scream racial slurs. But Randy Millam, 52, intended to make a scene, so he woke up early Thursday morning to prepare for President Obama's visit.

Millam sat at his kitchen table in Lowden, Iowa, with 14 Sharpie markers and a piece of foam board, working to condense a year of frustration into a 3-by-3-foot catchphrase. "Chains We Can Believe In," he wrote, drawing the communist hammer and sickle on the poster's top left corner. Then he grabbed an American flag, inserted batteries into a megaphone bought on the cheap for $25 and guzzled a 24-hour energy drink. Just as Obama took off in Air Force One for Iowa City, Millam loaded into his muddy Ford Fusion and drove 50 miles across the cornfields of eastern Iowa.

"The president just about declared war against the American people last weekend," he said. And it is a war Millam intends to fight.

Millam's resolve Thursday was reinforced by the sense that he was taking part in a movement -- a rising tide of anger, fear and vitriol in the wake of the health-care overhaul signed into law by Obama this week. Millam joined a chorus of discontent surrounding the president's visit: a warm-up protest Wednesday night, a greeting party of protesters waiting at the airport and hundreds more with plans to chant outside the downtown arena while Obama spoke. In the hours before he left for Iowa City, Millam watched reports on Fox News Channel about vandalism at Democratic offices and visited a Web site of the conservative "tea party" movement, where he was inspired by a Thomas Jefferson quote about how bloodshed might be necessary to protect a country from tyranny.

"I'm not ready for outright violence yet. We have to be civil for as long as we can," Millam said. But, he added, "we are watching the infrastructure of this country crumble under our feet. The government doesn't want to hear us. We have to make them listen."
. . .
He walked to the front of the protest crowd and lifted the megaphone to his mouth.

"Fellow patriots," he bellowed. "We are standing outside the arena right now because the president controls the crowd, controls the message, controls the people of this country. That is not freedom! That is not democracy! That is not the America I grew up in!"

. . .

Another: "It's communism!"

Another: "Obamunism!"

. . .

Millam rested the megaphone on his stomach. His voice was getting hoarse, and his legs ached. He'd been shouting for almost two hours now, and some protesters were beginning to leave. "Where is Obama?" he asked. Another demonstrator told him that the president had finished his speech, entering and exiting the arena through a different entrance, and Millam snorted in disgust.

"Why does the president of the United States have to sneak in the back door to avoid seeing the real people in this country?" he shouted into the megaphone. "That's not right. That's just not right."

His words died out. The rally was over. He turned off the megaphone and walked to his car. While the president flew back to Washington, Millam drove home on the rural highways of Iowa. He wondered: What would it take to be heard, and what would he try next?

Other than one sentence that describes a college student mocking them, the piece never once brings up the fact that this man is living in a fantasy world. Nothing that he states in the article has even the slightest bearing on reality. Instead, it glorifies him as a downtrodden political activist, wondering if his voice will ever be heard. He's portrayed as the average American, compared to the unfair caricatures of teabaggers that have dogged their movement (they're so reasonable that he said it's not time for outright violence, yet).

What is the purpose of publishing this man's thoughts, unedited? To paraphrase atrios, what is their goal? They clearly aren't interested in educating their readers, so what is it?

The real value of the article is marking another milestone on the post's path towards irrelevance: The day the published a teabagger's rantings as front page news.

CNN's Political Team Adds a Bigoted Asshole

Your liberal media at work:

Prominent conservative commentator and RedState.com editor Erick Erickson will join CNN as a political contributor, appearing primarily on CNN's new show John King, USA¸ the network announced Tuesday.

Erickson, a self described "obsessive news junkie" who grew up in Dubai and rural Louisiana, will also provide perspective and commentary on other programs across the network.

. . .

"Erick's a perfect fit for John King, USA, because not only is he an agenda-setter whose words are closely watched in Washington, but as a person who still lives in small-town America, Erick is in touch with the very people John hopes to reach," said Sam Feist, CNN political director and vice president of Washington-based programming. "With Erick's exceptional knowledge of politics, as well as his role as a conservative opinion leader, he will add an important voice to CNN's ideologically diverse group of political contributors."

A few of Erickson's highlights: (via mmfa)

Erickson defends Beck's statement that Obama is "racist" and lashes out at "Obama Brownshirts." At Red State, Erickson defended Glenn Beck's assertion that President Obama is a "racist." Erickson stated, "A while back, Glenn Beck called Barack Obama a 'racist.' Given all the terrorists, thugs, and racists Barack Obama has chosen as close personal friends (see e.g. Rev. Wright), it's not a stretch to say it." Erickson went on to call for a boycott of companies that have pulled out of Beck's show and are, according to Erickson, "kowtowing to Barack Obama's worshippers, brownshirts, goons, and thugs.

Erickson calls Souter a "goat fucking child molester." On his Twitter account, Erickson responded to Souter's retirement from the Supreme Court by stating, "The nation loses the only goat fucking child molester ever to serve on the Supreme Court."

Erickson: Purpose of Bachmann rally is "to tell Nancy Pelosi and the Congress to send Obama to a death panel." In a post on RedState.com, Erickson wrote: "Today, thousands will pour into Washington to tell Nancy Pelosi and the Congress to send Obama to a death panel (that's section 1233 of the original legislation). If you need details on where to go in D.C. or if you can't go, but want to show up at your Congresscritter's local office, go here." Erickson later "[c]larifi[ed]" that "Americans are sending Obamacare," not Obama, "to a death panel"

Erickson on Obama's Nobel Peace Prize: "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota." In a RedState post discussing Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, Erickson wrote, "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news. There is no way Barack Obama earned it in the nominations period."

Erickson declares the "profoundly sick and immoral" Jennings "a proponent of statutory rape" and "a zealous advocate of NAMBLA." In an anti-gay rant posted on RedState, Erickson wrote: "Kevin Jennings is a profoundly sick and immoral human being -- a proponent of statutory rape, an opponent of the Boy Scouts of America, and a zealous advocate of NAMBLA." He added that Jennings is "not just a gay man, but a man who believes in the full gay rights agenda, where men and boys can have sexual relationships free of prudish moral people frowning" and called Jennings "a man who encourages predatory relationships between young boys and grown men."

Erickson makes repeated attacks on feminists. On his Twitter account, Erickson has made numerous sexist statements. After an anti-abortion ad during this year's Super Bowl, Erickson wrote, "that's it?!?! That's what the feminazis were enraged over? Seriously?!? Wow. That's what being too ugly to get a date does to your brain"; and "Thus ends the credibility of all pro-abortion groups. Thanks Mrs. Tebow for that. Ugly feminists return to their kitchens." The next day, Erickson wrote, "Turned on twitter today and there was a barrage of angry feminists upset with me telling them to get in the kitchen and learn to cook"; "Good thing I didn't suggest the feminists ... you know ... shave. They'd be at my house trying a post-birth abortion on me"; and "Feminists have no sense of humor, but clearly God did in creating feminists."

Erickson: "It is and has always been the left" that resorts to violence. In a March 7, 2009, Red State post, Erickson wrote: "It is not conservatives burning down homes in Washington State with the ELF. It is not conservatives throwing blood on women wearing fur. It is not conservatives burning down the Texas Governor's Mansion during riots. It is not conservatives rioting during G-8 summits. It is and has always been the left. Deal with it."

Head over to Media Matters for more.

I really don't have too much more to say on this, although Sadly No makes a really good point:

I personally have no problem with people who use naughty language or people who say mean and nasty things about our elected officials. I have no problem with people who do such things appearing on television on a regular basis. Hell, I do these things and I would love to appear on television on a regular basis (and yes, the problem is I have a face for telegraph, I freely admit it).

The trouble is that it’s perfectly OK so hold such views if you’re a Republican but not if you’re a dirty hippie. Amanda Marcotte was drummed out as John Edwards’ campaign blogger despite the fact that she had never done anything as insane as calling for violence against elected officials. But she was a cuh-wazy feminist so she clearly didn’t have the right to say such uncouth and uncivil things.

Department of Jihad?

The most trusted name in news...

The Awesomeness of Repeated Failures

You have been warned. The first three paragraphs of this Washington Post article (dictated, not typed by Rahm Emanuel) are filled with so much bullshit it will make your head spin:

Rahm Emanuel is officially a Washington caricature. He's the town's resident leviathan, a bullying, bruising White House chief of staff who is a prime target for the failings of the Obama administration.

Why is Rahm a caricature? I'm sure the dozens of fawning tributes that the post has run over the past year have nothing to do with this at all. He may be a prime target for some, but you sure wouldn't notice that if you read the post.

But a contrarian narrative is emerging: Emanuel is a force of political reason within the White House and could have helped the administration avoid its current bind if the president had heeded his advice on some of the most sensitive subjects of the year: health-care reform, jobs and trying alleged terrorists in civilian courts.

A contrarian narrative where the president's chief of staff was mysteriously not involved with any of the Administration's failures?

It is a view propounded by lawmakers and early supporters of President Obama who are frustrated because they think the administration has gone for the perfect at the expense of the plausible. They believe Emanuel, the town's leading purveyor of four-letter words, a former Israeli army volunteer and a product of a famously argumentative family, was not aggressive enough in trying to persuade a singularly self-assured president and a coterie of true-believer advisers that "change you can believe in" is best pursued through accomplishments you can pass.

I want you to re-read that first sentence, just to make sure you understand that this was printed without comment in a publication that once broke the watergate scandal:

It is a view propounded by lawmakers and early supporters of President Obama who are frustrated because they think the administration has gone for the perfect at the expense of the plausible.

Can you name something, no matter how small, in Obama's first year where you can claim he went for the perfect at the expense of the plausible?

It's actually just as hard to think of a time when he didn't go for a watered down Republican idea at expense something that might actually work.

There's a reason Rahm is ghostwriting all these articles and trying to save his legacy. The Obama administration was has been run exactly how Rahm wanted it done. He knows those failures are on him, and none are bigger than Health Care, which was run like his own personal Blueprint on how to pass a bill.

I understand why he's trying to rehabilitate his legacy. Why the Washington Post feels the need to transcribe his alternate reality in their news section is beyond me.

But Terrorism is different!

As usual, Glenn Greenwald makes a very good point:

If I had the power to have one statement of fact be universally recognized in our political discussions, it would be this one:

The fact that the Government labels Person X a "Terrorist" is not proof that Person X is, in fact, a Terrorist.

. . .

A very long time ago, I would be baffled when I'd read about things like the Salem witch hunts. How could so many people be collectively worked up into that level of irrational frenzy, where they cheered for people's torturous death as "witches" without any real due process or meaningful evidence? But all one has to do is look at our current Terrorism debates and it's easy to see how things like that happen. It's just pure mob mentality: an authority figure appears and affixes a demonizing Other label to someone's forehead, and the adoring crowd -- frothing-at-the-mouth and feeding on each other's hatred, fears and desire to be lead -- demands "justice." I imagine that if one could travel back in time to the Salem era in order to speak with some of those gathered outside an accused witch's home, screaming for her to be burned, the conversation would go something like this:

Mob Participant: Hang the Witch!!! Kill her!!!

Far Left Civil Liberties Extremist-Purist ("FLCLE-P"): How do you know she's a witch?

Mob Participant: Didn't you just hear the government official say so?

FLCLE-P: But don't you want to see real evidence before you assume that's true and call for her death?

Mob Participant: You just heard the evidence! The magistrate said she's a witch!

FLCLE-P: But shouldn't there be a real trial first, with tangible evidence and due process protections, to see if the accusation is actually true?

Mob Participant: A "real" trial? She's a witch! She's trying to curse us and kill us all. She got more than what she deserved. Witches don't have rights!!!

Return to Question 1.

That's essentially how I hear our debates over Terrorism, and how I've heard them for quite some time. And it's how I hear them more loudly now than ever before. And with those deeply confused premises now locked into place on a bipartisan basis ("no trials are needed to determine if someone is a Terrorist because Terrorists don't have rights"), imagine how much louder that will get if there is another successful terrorist attack in the U.S. But in fairness to the 17th Century Puritans, at least the Salem witches received pretenses of due process and even trials (albeit with coerced confessions and speculative hearsay). Even when it comes to our fellow citizens, we don't even bother with those. For us, the mere accusation by our leaders is sufficient: Kill that American Terrorist with a drone!

Our discourse is so absurd on these issues that radical ideas like "following the American justice system" have been equated with varying degrees of treason.

Blame The Left

In Evan Bayh's world, THE ALL-POWERFUL LEFT always wins:

If you lose Massachusetts and that’s not a wake-up call, there’s no hope of waking up. ... It’s why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren’t buying our message. They just don’t believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems. That’s something that has to be corrected. ... The only we are able to govern successfully in this country is by liberals and progressives making common cause with independents and moderates. Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Dem party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country -- that’s not going to work too well.

Single Payer?
Public option?
Employer mandate?
Medicare buy-in?
Not paying for mandatory private insurance by taxing the middle class?

Yep, the same people who have gotten exactly none of their principles included in the health care bill are clearly the ones responsible for it's demise. Now this is nothing new for Evan Bayh, but I'd be much less annoyed if it wasn't becoming the conventional wisdom for our lazy political media. Digby:

In case you were wondering, the consensus on all the Sunday gasbag shows is that Obama is an abject failure because of his radical leftist ideology and that his only hope of even maintaining the presidency, much less winning a second term is to take a sharp turn to the right and enact the Republican agenda. Several commentators, including such luminaries as political cross dresser Matthew Dowd on ABC, insisted that the first thing the president has to do is pick a huge fight with the Democrats to show the country that he isn't one of them. Cokie said he should have asked John McCain from the beginning what he was allowed to do.

The historians and expert political observers on Fareed Zakaria's CNN show all agreed that Obama is no Reagan, a president who never governed ideologically and always worked across party lines. Oh, and he needs to be a president or a prime minister, but nobody could agree on exactly what that means except that he should try to be more like Scott Brown, the white Barack Obama, except without all the liberalism.

Oddly, the Republicans weren't mentioned, although Robert Caro did note that Obama inherited something of a mess. Peggy Noonan said he ran to win not to govern and they all agreed that was a brilliant observation. Zakaria did point out that Obama had a higher approval rating at this stage than both Reagan and Clinton and that the two Bush's were higher at this point because of wars and they all stared for a moment and then went on about centrism and prime ministers again.

The idea that this health care bill was anything close to what "the left" or "liberals" wanted is so far from the truth and easily dis-proven it's stunning. But that would mean we live in a strange world where the broader-fication of the bill would have made it less popular, and we can't have that.

They can't acknowledge that because it would shatter the lazy cookie cutter world view that shapes the thinking among 90% or so of the beltway media. Most of them have already made up their mind on the slant they'll give these stories, so why let the facts get in the way? And no one is promoted high enough to challenge this thinking because it's so clubby and cliquish that LUKE FUCKING RUSSERT is under consideration to host "This Week", a thought so mind blowing that it would make David Gregory seem like a goddam savant in comparison.

The never ending stupidity contest between the corrupt idiots like Evan Bayh who rule us and simplistic idiots who cover them is so fucking depressing.

Brian Williams Courageously Calls Out President McGwire

Last night on NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams was outraged:

Good evening. Because this is a family broadcast, we probably can't say what we'd like to about the news today that Mark McGwire—the home run hitter, the family favorite from the St. Louis Cardinals—stopped lying today and admitted that he did it while on steroids. For those of us who were raising young baseball fans and baseball players who looked up to Mark McGwire, that summer of ‘98 was magical stuff, as he and Sammy Sosa vied back and forth for the title of Single Season Home Run King. He didn't tell the truth to Congress or to his fans until finally, formally coming clean today. He's been unable to get into the Hall of Fame and, apparently—even for him—the shame here was too much.

See what he did there? He called someone who knowingly concealed/distorted the truth a liar.

It would have been nice if he'd showed similar outrage during the Bush Administration, the run up to the Iraq war, the health care debate, either presidential election... really anything meaningful that's happened over the last 10 years.

I'm glad to see that NBC News is comfortable holding Mark McGuire to a higher standard than any elected official they've ever covered. But I guess their lies are different, because as their slogan says: IT'S JUST POLITICS BRAH!

Fixing the Sunday Shows

A great idea from journalism professor Jay Rosen:

Look, the Sunday morning talk shows are broken. As works of journalism they don't work. And I don't know why this is so hard for the producers to figure out.

The people who host and supervise these shows, the journalists who appear on them, as well as the politicians who are interviewed each week, are all quite aware that extreme polarization and hyper-partisan conflict have come to characterize official Washington, an observation repeated hundreds of times a month by elders in the Church of the Savvy. Ron Brownstein wrote a whole book on it: The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America

If the observation is true, then inviting partisans on television to polarize us some more would seem to be an obvious loser, especially because the limited airtime compresses political speech and guarantees a struggle for the microphone. This pattern tends to strand viewers in the senseless middle. We either don't know whom to believe, and feel helpless. Or we curse both sides for their distortions. Or we know enough to know who is bullshitting us more and wonder why the host doesn't. I can think of no scenario in which Brownstein can be correct and the Sunday shows won't suck. (Can you?)

It's remarkable to me how unaware someone like David Gregory appears to be about all this. He acts as if lending stage to extreme partisanship, and then "confronting" each side with one or two facts it would prefer to forget, is a perfectly fine solution. But then he also acts like his pathetic denialism about the adequacy of press performance as Bush made his case for war is sustainable, normal, rational. ("I think the questions were asked. I think we pushed. I think we prodded. I think we challenged the president.") Maybe he thinks we buy that. Or forgive him. Or something....

Well, Gregory is a special case. But in fact the whole Sunday format has to be re-thought, or junked so the news divisions can start over with a new premise. Of course the problem is that the people who would have to make that decision are the same people whose entire knowledge base and skill set lies in producing the "old" style of political television. That is what they know, so that is what they continue to do. I guess it's not hard to understand complacency of this kind. But do they really think we don't notice the growing absurdity of bringing to a common table people who agree on nothing?

I think the situation calls for cynicism. But I have to admit that is not much of a call. So instead I propose this modest little fix, first floated on Twitter in a post I sent out to Betsy Fischer, Executive Producer of Meet the Press, who never replies to anything I say. "Sadly, you're a one-way medium," I said to Fischer, "but here's an idea for ya: Fact check what your guests say on Sunday and run it online Wednesday."

Now I don't contend this would solve the problem of the Sunday shows, which is structural. But it might change the dynamic a little bit. Whoever was bullshitting us more could expect to hear about it from Meet the Press staff on Wednesday. The midweek fact check (in the spirit of Politifact.com, which could even be hired for the job...) might, over time, exert some influence on the speakers on Sunday. At the very least, it would guide the producers in their decisions about whom to invite back.

The midweek fact check would also give David Gregory a way out of his puppy game of gotcha. Instead of telling David Axelrod that his boss promised to change the tone in Washington so why aren't there any Republican votes for health care? ... which he thinks is getting "tough" with a guest, Gregory's job would simply be to ask the sort of questions, the answers to which could be fact checked later in the week. Easy, right?

The beauty of this idea is that it turns the biggest weakness of political television--the fact that time is expensive, and so complicated distortions, or simple distortions about complicated matters, are rational tactics for advantage-seeking pols---into a kind of strength. The format beckons them to evade, deny, elide, demagogue and confuse.... but then they pay for it later if they give into temptation and make that choice. So imagine the midweek fact check from last week as a short segment wrapping up the show the following week. Now you have an incentive system that's at least pointed in the right direction.

The Next Generation of Media Stupidity

Luke Russert is making a strong push to edge out Jonah Goldberg, Cokie Roberts and Julie Foudy as dumbest person allowed on television: (via Digby)

Shuster: What sort of efforts are Harry Reid and his cohorts making toward Russ Feingold?

Lil' Luke: (smirking) You remember last week or ten days ago that Mary Landrieu was able to get 300 million dollars for Hurricane Katrina down in Lousisiana? Expect Russ Feingold to possibly get something, a nice little present, an early Christmas present from Harry Reid here, possibly that could go to other members.

Obviously David, you know it's politics. These Senators want what's best for their home states, if they can hold up a major bill like this and get something in return, they just might do it.

But I think the people who are interesting to look at here are one, is Mr Feingold here, as you mentioned because he is the apotheosis of the progressive wing, but also folks like Blanche Lincoln, like Mary Landrieu, who are very fiscally conservative. If this is very expensive, they might not be on board. We also have to look at Mr Lieberman who has given a little bit of a hint that he might like this idea, but he is very much opposed to the trigger and some folks are looking at Olympia Snowe to possibly give the Democrats that buffer, that one vote buffer they could lose somebody. But she's not signed on to this 100% at all either David so there's still a lot of jockeying to be done.

It's politics at its best, as we like to say at MSNBC.

Shuster: Thanks as always, (laughter) we'll be watching the horse trading as it develops.

Lil Luke: Hahahahaha! Take care David.

Russ Feingold potentially opposing the bill on it's merits = Mary Landreu being an unprincipled whore. Clearly the same thing. IT'S LIKE WE SAY AT MSNBC, IT'S ALL POLITICS! HAHAHAHA!!!! POLITICS!

The traditional way to preform crappy journalism is to have a basic idea of what's going on, and then craft a story using cliches and baseless assumptions. The beauty of Luke Russert is that he skips the step of having even the most tenuous grip of what's going on, and bases the entire story on buzz words and cliches.

To be fair, this is exactly the type of reporting you'd expect when you give a not so bright frat boy a microphone and unlimited access, but thanks to the last name Russert, it's good to see that he qualifies as a political analyst for NBC.

Who Needs Facts When No One Calls You On Your Lies?

As David Sirota repeats, the current health care bills would REDUCE the deficit over time. This clearly isn't important to anyone in the press, who have allowed opponents of the bill to endlessly grandstand on how health care reform would increase the deficit without bothering to point out that it isn't the case.

Journalism isn't just transcribing what "both sides" say about an issue, it's also doing basic research to see if anyone is constantly lying to you. Or not.

Hey look! David Broader wrote a dishonest column about the cost of the bill! A while he probably should have used some facts to back up his points, there was a decent chance they could have been partisan and poisoned our discourse. Can't have that!

Great Moments in Journalism

After writing an article with several bullshit claims, Time magazine's Jay Newton-Small responds with this:

I presented both sides of the story. I'll leave it to columnists and readers to draw their own conclusions on who had the best case.

(Bangs head on desk)

I believe quite firmly that the proliferation of Huffington Posts, Matt Drudges and other slanted news is what's killing our profession. If you are looking for news with an opinion, that's great. But I think news should be about representing both sides; striving for balance and fairness. Unfortunately, reliably unbiased news is harder and harder to come by these days because news agencies are trying to cater to people like you: people who prefer to view the world through one lens or another but rarely both.

IT ISN'T "BIAS" OR "OPINION" TO CORRECT SOMEONE WHO ISN'T TELLING THE TRUTH.

IT'S CALLED DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB.

ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!