Vintage media bashing

Link blag

Why DOMA Must be repealed: Reason offers yet more reminders.

Cato: Obama promised to post bills online and wait 5 days between passing and signing them. So far, he's 1-for-11.

Why do Republicans think the public perceives them as obstructionists? Because of the media, of course.

Gays begin to marry in Iowa; world keeps spinning.

Jimmy Carter is just another clueless advocate of gun control.

The Federalist Society is now pro-torture?

Hey look this stuff is getting cheaper

So why won't the media report the good news?! [Was that an ironic question? -ed.]

Sanity at CPAC?

There is some -- sort of:

Tucker Carlson attempts to convince the audience at CPAC that the New York Times actually cares about the accuracy of its news, but the audience isn't buying it and regularly interrupts him with boos and jeers.

He also says that the conservative movement needs its own news gathering organizations who will create news that reflects its values and wishes there were twenty-five outlets like the Fox News Channel:

Twenty-five Fox Newses? Could this nation survive the hysteria?

Meanwhile FiveThirtyEight's Sean Quinn attended CPAC and rambles a bit trying to understand what makes people Republicans.

Update: Leave it to The American Conservative to have the most interesting CPAC post yet

That vast left-wing media conspiracy

(meme) Politico:

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) believes that the media deliberately tried to bring her down during her vice presidential run.

As part of an interview with conservative filmmaker John Ziegler for his new film out this week, Palin said she believes the media made a decision that “we’re going to seek and we’re going to destroy this candidacy of Sarah Palin ’s because of what it is that she represents.”

“Obviously something big took place in the media,” she added. It is “very frightening, I think, what the media was able to get away with, this go around.”

Palin suggested that unbalanced media coverage posed a threat to democracy.

“This is for the sake of our democracy that there is fairness in this other branch of government, if you will, called the media,” she said. “It is foreign to me the way some in the mainstream media are thinking.”

“There have been lies told, there have been reputations trashed, there have been children that have been harmed,” she continued.

Looking back on her interview with ABC News’ Charles Gibson , in which Palin seemed unsure of how to define the Bush doctrine , the Alaska governor said she was disrespected in a way that another candidate would not have been.
“I’d have to say there would be much more respect shown to the subject, yes,” she said.

Update: TMV

Churchill bust

(meme) Original story:

A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government's art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.

The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush's tenure.

But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks."

Diplomats were at first reluctant to discuss the whereabouts of the Churchill bronze, after its ejection from the seat of American power. But the British Embassy in Washington has now confirmed that it sits in the palatial residence of ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, just down the road from Vice President Joe Biden's official residence. It is not clear whether the ambassador plans to keep it in Washington or send it back to London.

Wingnut version:

It appears that President Obama is dissing the Brit's most famous and stalwart leader by quickly returning the most famous bust of the man loaned to this country by the United Kingdom in the aftermath of 9//11. The return of the bust of Churchill flustered the British government because they didn't ask for it to be returned. Our best ally was nonplussed and even quickly told Obama he could keep it in the Oval Office where Bush had displayed the piece of art. Obama told them no thanks which made the Brits even more amazed.

[...]

I mean, this abrupt return of the Churchill statue is sort of odd. Would it have hurt anything to keep the thing? After all, it made the Brits feel good and American's have a connection to Churchill, too (besides WWII). His mother was from our shores after all.

Whatever the case may be, the bust now sits in the home of the British ambassador in Washington D.C.

Now I wonder if anyone in the U.S. media will bother to report on an incident that that has caused diplomatic consternation, an incident perpetrated by the Obammessiah himself.

TBogg concludes:

There is really nothing too small or petty that it won't make these people go batshit crazy(ier).

Norman Podhoretz and Elliott Cohen claimed that 9/11™* was the beginning of World War IV. I guess this slight by President Hates Whitey heralds the beginning of American Revolution II: The Dissing.

* 9/11 is a registered trademark of Giuliani & Associates.

Partisan media

Yglesias, 29 September:

I wonder how an Obama White House will deal with MSNBC’s flirtations with establishing itself as the progressive-friendly cable network. An incumbent administration has a lot of ability to reward particular reporters, hosts, and networks with access, scoops, and choice interviews. In principles, a White House inclined to think and act strategically about the media could do a lot to push MSNBC to transform in that direction while simultaneously bolstering the news credibility of Maddow and Keith Olbermann.

Yglesias, 11 October:

One issue I’m interested in that I think hasn’t been aired yet is whether or not a new Obama administration will try to use the considerable leverage at its disposal to enhance the credibility and standing of some of the new more progressive media — with Maddow’s show certainly being a big part of that. People forget, but Fox News had quasi-pariah status at the beginning, but conservative politicians really insisted on getting it taken seriously and the Bush administration, when it came into office, did a lot to further entrench that.

Ezra Klein recently:

... the important thing Obama could do for the "liberal" media is not have dinner with them. That's good for egos but meaningless for influence. It is, however, well within Obama's power to increase the influence of progressive outlets. Covering the presidency is the central concern of political reportage. And an outlet's ability to cover the presidency can be affected by the favor of the President. If The American Prospectand TPM Cafe and Huffington Post and others of our ilk were given the occasional interview with Obama, and fed useful scoops, that would rapidly increase our readership, our importance in the broader media ecosystem, and the likelihood that members of our outlets would go on to hold key positions in more mainstream institutions. To give just one example, if was understood that Mark Schmitt had more contacts with the Obama crew than Howard Fineman, the Sunday shows would be more likely to turn to Schmitt for analysis. In the long-run, that would be good for both Obama and for progressivism. And he wouldn't even have to waste time watching me chew my dinner.

Ross Douthat today:

Now obviously if I worked for The American Prospect or HuffPo I'd be thinking exactly along these lines: It would be absurd for a ideologically-motivated publication to turn down a shot at political influence to preserve its sense of purity. (And I'm all for Mark Schmitt on Meet the Press - or better, as a permanent replacement for David Gergen.) But it's still worth noting that this is roughly how the Bush Administration treated the conservative media - rolling out scoops to partisan outlets, wooing right-wing media types with Presidential face-time, bypassing mainstream outlets in favor of talk radio and Fox News, and so forth. And in the long run, it was good for neither the Bushies nor for conservatism.

Gah. He's damn right it would be counterproductive, for both the left and the earnestness of our politics. Eight years of FOX exclusives was enough. No thanks.

And I doubt it would jive with Obama's pledge to be "the President of all Americans".

Blame the media, Jihadist edition

Via Andrew, Al-Qaida is pissed:

Global reactions to Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri's controversial condemnation of U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama as a "House Negro" have begun to pour in -- including via the top jihad web forums used by Al-Qaida to disseminate its propaganda. Though hardcore Al-Qaida supporters have predictably dismissed any criticism of Dr. al-Zawahiri and are fiercely backing his choice of words, there is a rather ironic (if not entirely unfamiliar) twist to this issue. After observing international press reporting on the incident, these same supporters are now bitterly attacking the media for its "unfair" pro-Obama bias and for deliberately "confusing" the meaning of al-Zawahiri's message.

Churlish Republican partisans and Al-Qaida jihadists against Obama, unite!

Same shit, different horse.

Blame the media IV

Jon Swift's post on Election Year blogging is a must read. Long, but must read.

Blame the media III

Now they're writing comedic parables:

Sarah Palin and the Pope [Lisa Schiffren]

So, Sarah Palin's advisors decide that it is time for her to meet a bunch of serious world leaders. They head to Europe, where, first up, she has an appointment with the Pope. The Pope and some of his Cardinals invite her for a boat ride on the Tiber. As they are sitting in the gondola talking, a wind starts up and blows the Pope's hat into the water. Palin looks around and realizes that no one is going to do anything about it, so she calmy rises, takes off her her high heels, and steps off the side of the boat. Instead of diving into the water, however, she walks across it, to the hat, picks it up and walks back across the water to the boat. She climbs in, hands the Pope his hat and continues discussing whatever it was they had been talking about. The Cardinals are open mouthed in astonishment at what they have just seen. The news media, in nearby boats are busy discussing among themselves how to report it. Headlines the next day at the New York Times, The Washington Post and the networks all blare: New Revelation: Sarah Palin Can't Swim.

10/24 12:45 AM

Do they really believe that this is the reason their hero is failing? Is it like how in 2005 the only problem with Iraq was that the media "wouldn't report the good news" ?

Republicans have taken the art of denial to surprising levels. It goes like this:

1. Media reports reality
2. Republicans don't like reality
3. Republicans deny reality and attack the messenger

Now it's true that the media leans left. This will always be the case, because educated people like the journalists themselves lean left. But there is no "vast media conspiracy" to systematically portray an anti-Republican reality that can be meaningfully blamed for their many ills.

Palin on SNL

Spoiler alert: there's a press conference! We can all breathe easier now.



Hmm, really not enough emphasis on the "Saturday night". C'mon, say it with me:

Live from New York, IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT!!

You gotta be a little primal there at the end.



Amy is amazing sometimes.

In other talented actor news, I may be going to see Bradley Whitford (best known for his role as Josh Lyman on The West Wing) who'll be a special guest at the High Noon Saloon at 7pm tonight. It's an organizational meeting for Obama's rally this Thursday.

"Pro-Obama advocacy organization" watch

A New York Times editorial blasts the McCain campaign.

More Hewitt fun

Sullivan comments that the questions are actually funnier than the answers, but there was one answer I liked:

Palin: there’s a lot of mocking of my personal faith, and my personal faith is very, very simple. I don’t belong to any church. I do have a strong belief in God, and I believe that I’m a heck of a lot better off putting my life in God’s hands, and saying hey, you know, guide me. What else do we have but guidance that we would seek from a Creator? That’s about as simple as it gets with my faith, and I think that there is a lot of mocking of that. And you know, so bet it, though I do have respect for those who have differing views than I do on faith, on religion. I’m not going to mock them, and I would hope that they would kind of I guess give me the same courtesy through this of not mocking a person’s faith, but maybe perhaps even trying to understand a little bit of it.

If that's truly the extent of Palin's faith, I have no problem with it. Like Coates, I surely want to understand what's going on here. That's part of why I began writing on them here 'Internets'.

Hewitt: Have you followed the attacks on you, say, via Drudge or the blogs? Some of them are just made up and out of left field, others are just mocking. Do you follow those?

Gasp! She's not looking at me, is she? Make it stop! ... I would like to take this moment to apologize to Sarah Palin for mocking her.

It has now been divinely revealed to me that Sarah is a Very Serious Candidate for the Vice Presidency and that I must endeavor to "show deference". Oh I'm sorry, not divinely revealed. That was actually McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis on Fox News Sunday. I get the two mixed-up sometimes.

All the magazines and all the king's newspapers

Couric: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?

Palin: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —

Couric: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.

Couric: Can you name any of them?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.

So Palin has "great appreciation for the press, for the media" but she won't mention any one by name?

I suppose she wouldn't want to freak voters out about her subscription to the End Times.

But seriously, this response is ridiculous, and reading a Hannite try to stay ahead with more spin is also funny:

suppose for instance she had tossed out a couple national newspapers or magazines. Let's say she'd said, 'Oh, I pick up the NY Times occasionally, or the Washington Post, or Time or Newsweek. Well, then Katie would have pounced with the 'follow-up' gotcha... 'Oh, you read the NY Times? Who's your favorite columnist?' or 'So you read Newsweek? What do you think of their cover story on the crisis in Georgia?'

She was very smart to say nothing. Don't even play the game...

Gotcha journalism at it's worst...

Yes, it's gotcha journalism to ask whether a presidential-level candidate stays well-informed via the press. We couldn't possibly have a legitimate reason to be skeptical of Palin's credentials on this point. Your man Hannity's "interview" was much fair and balanced-ier:



Obviously Katie Couric is incapable of working up to the exacting ethical standards of Sean Hannity and requires journalism lessons, as Palin explains:

Hewitt: Now Governor, the Gibson and the Couric interview struck many as sort of pop quizzes designed to embarrass you as opposed to interviews. Do you share that opinion?

Palin: Well, I have a degree in journalism also, so it surprises me that so much has changed since I received my education in journalistic ethics all those years ago. But I’m not going to pick a fight with those who buy ink by the barrelful. I’m going to take those shots and those pop quizzes and just say that’s okay, those are good testing grounds. And they can continue on in that mode. That’s good. That makes somebody work even harder. It makes somebody be even clearer and more articulate in their positions. So really I don’t fight it. I invite it.

Ah yes, Palin's education. So complete, it took five colleges. One college just wasn't enough to satiate Sarah's vast appetite for knowledge & understanding.

Oh but she doesn't fight the press, she invites it? This parallel universe in which she's held regular press conferences must be fascinating. Is that also the one that's only 6,000 years old?

Wool, meet eyes

Jonah Goldberg splutters:

let’s not forget Biden, whose gaffes are the unavoidable byproduct of his limitless gasbaggery. Biden could shout on Meet the Press, “Get these squirrels off of me!” and the collective response would be, “There goes Joe again.” But if Palin flubs the name of the deputy agriculture minister of Kyrgyzstan, the media will blow their whistles saying she’s unprepared for the job.

When you give 80 interviews to your opponent's 2 and in general make yourself much more available to the press, you're not in the same ballpark. Have Palin give something like 78 interviews to catch up, then we can compare meters on gaffes and media bias.

I assume 80 is a high estimate and that they weren't all serious interviews. But it's still a very large ratio and this doesn't even account for Biden's frequent non-interview conversations with press.

Myself, I don't think Sean Hannity infomercials count for much:



It's more like 80 to 1.

Rile the base

Palin's email today:

Friends, in the course of a few weeks, the Obama-Biden Democrats have launched attack after attack on me, my family and John McCain. They're desperate to win and they'll no doubt launch these attacks against other reformers on our ticket.

When asked about this, a campaign aide responded with 3 points:

1) Obama finance committee member Howard Gutman questioning Palin's parenting and her willingness to take on the Veep candidate role when her family is so consuming -- a comment he subsequently apologized for.

2) Andrew Sullivan's demand that the McCain campaign release medical records putting to rest rumors about the birth of Trig Palin.

3) A user diary on DailyKos, which is of course the site of leading Obama supporter Markos Moulitsas, raising questions about that pregnancy.

Markos is dismissive:

You could use a Daily Kos diary to justify just about any charge ever made. Same with the Free Republic message boards, etc. But that's patently absurd, and just more of her `rile the base' bullshit. If something stupid can be said, you can believe someone on Daily Kos has said it.

So let me see if I understand this correctly:

3) "Obama-Biden Democrats" are responsible for random users' diaries at the website Daily Kos, which anyone can post to.

2) Andrew Sullivan was an "Obama-Biden Democrat" who's repeated insistence that she (and all other candidates) should release their medical records constitutes an attack on her family, particularly his request for Trig's birth records to set that rumorfest to rest.

1) Questioning her time commitments as a parent and then apologizing for it is a "desperate to win" attack, and one of "attack after attack".

Did I get that right? Gee, I wonder who's desperate.

Blame the media II

Ambers:

A reporter asks the McCain campaign to back up some basic claims made by a senior strategist in a public conference call.

The campaign refuses, with a prominent spokesperson accusing the reporter, Ben Smith, of being "in the tank."

As in -- no, we don't have to justify what we say, and the fact that you would question our assertions is proof-positive that you've absorbed the Obama campaign's worldview.

He goes on to hope "today's outburst was an abberation."

It had better be; they can't keep this up and expect to be taken seriously.

UPDATE, Sullivan:

We're all in the tank. Anyone asking a fricking question is "in the tank." I'm with Coates:

It's clear that the McCain campaign has basically decided on using the Bush playbook for handling the press. But I think the campaign made one critical error. The whole bully/lie/clamp-up method of handling reporters works swimmingly if you're already in power. Not so much if you're still trying to get power. It's fine to appoint unqualified hacks to office, especially if you're in your second term. Not so much when you're still running for your first.

Blame the media

Ambers, quoting McCain's Steve Schmidt:

"We are first amendment absolutists on this campaign," he said. "Of course, it is constitutionally protected with regard to writing whatever they want to write. Let's be clear and be honest with each other. Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization."

"It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day, attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Gov. Palin and excuses Sen. Obama."

"There is no level of public vetting. There is no level of outrage ... let's not be dishonest and call it something other than what it is. Everything that is in the New York Times that attacks this campaign should be evaluated from that perspective."

Schmidt's particular bill of complaints included the lack of scrutiny directed at Sen. Joe Biden's son Hunter, a lobbyist.Schmidt's particular bill of complaints included the lack of scrutiny directed at Sen. Joe Biden's son Hunter, a lobbyist. The Times has covered the story, twice.

I'm not a fan of some of their opinion columns, but I've found the Times' reporting to be the most reliably informative as single outfits go. Attacking the world's most respected paper may win you points with the Rush Limbaugh crowd, but to do so in a conference call with other journalists? Most would give their left arm to write for the Times. Well ok maybe not an arm, typing is important these days, but you get my point.

If he wants favorable media coverage, Schmidt needs to get his ducks in a row and have his campaign do something worthy of praise.

For instance, today is day 24 and Palin still hasn't given a press conference. Will she wait until after her debate with Biden? If she's betting the farm, it's going to be do or die. I guess it gives the debate moderator fewer pertinent questions to ask, since there won't be many substantive answers to build on.

UPDATE: a fuller quote

But let's be clear and be honest with each other about something fundamental to this race, which is this: Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not by an standard a journalistic organization. It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Sen. McCain, attacks Gov. Palin, and excuses Sen. Obama. There is no level of public vetting with regard to Sen. Obama's record, his background, his past statements. There is no level of outrage directed at his deceitful ads. This is an organization that is completely, totally, 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate, which is their prerogative to be, but let's not be dishonest and call it something other than what it is. Everything that is read in the New York Times that attacks this campaign should be evaluated by the American people from that perspective, that it is an organization that has made a decision to cast aside its journalistic integrity and tradition to advocate for the defeat of one candidate, in this case John McCain, and advocate for the election of the other candidate, Barack Obama.

It must be tough running a campaign when places like The Economist and even Fox News occasionally take you to task over your outrageous lies. I'm sure that's all the Times' fault, too. Those elitists and their facts, who do they think they are? Show deference!

UPDATE II: here is Mother Jones