Upgrade: ‘This Week’ goes to Amanpour
Finally, someone who can pronounce “Iran” and “Iraq” correctly. Way to turn the page, ABC! (You gave us a scare last week…) Christiane Amanpour will be the first woman to host a Sunday show, and I’m sure she’ll be great (and give the show more of an international view.) Meanwhile, CNN just went down another notch, having lost Ms. Amanpour and gained Erick Erickson. I see doom on the horizon in Atlanta …
New CNN analyst’s website accuses Obama administration of eugenics
New CNN hire Erick Erickson, who I’m assuming is part of the flagging network’s attempt to recover from having had Lou Dobbs on the payroll for so long by hiring someone even worse … is carrying a lot of baggage to the network, namely a history of racist, crazy commentary on (and off) his site, RedState.com, leading the charge for an ideological purge of the Republican Party and calling for the president of the United States to be “sent to a death panel.” That apparently doesn’t bother the brass at CNN, but they may want to start reading Erickson’s site, which just yesterday accused the Obama administration of practicing “eugenics,” while repeating the long-since disproved abortion falsehoods of Bart Stupak. From a diarist named Lori Ziganto comes a string of Murdoch/Wall Street Journal-backed conspiracy theorizing worthy of Glenn Beck: Read more
This day in ‘fair and balanced’ — Fox News makes Pelosi a ‘monster’?
Who's Fox calling a "monster"?
Notice anything strange about the above picture? While Googling for a picture of House and Senate leadership for a post about healthcare reform, I happened to come across this pic that was posted as part of this Fox News story on how resignations were complicating Democrats’ 2010 election picture. And while I couldn’t find anything about “monsters” in the story, the picture, an AP photo that’s also not about “monsters,” was given this title by the news editor: “pelosi_clyburn_110709_monster_397×224.jpg.” What’s that all about? I used to work as an online news editor, and I can tell you, NBC wouldn’t have been amused if we had, say, created news photos with a Republican lawmaker, let alone a senior one or a female one, with “monster” in the title. I guess the standards are just a little bit different at “fair and balanced” Fox News … Read more
Charlie Crist’s salty Fox News interview
Maybe the stress of the campaign, and the polls are getting to Charlie Crist. But his interview this morning on Fox was kind of salty. Crist had some audio problems at the top of the interview, and then snapped at the (insert generic blonde Fox News Host here) for interrupting him. For her part, the Fox-y lady kept pressing Crist to explain just how he’d fallen so far behind Marco Rubio, and why he so foolishly accepted that stimulus money that every other governor accepted too, except without the hugging. Well Crist was in no mood for that. He cut her off a couple of times but eventually responded that people haven’t begun to look at Rubio’s record, which apparently is full of nasty tax hikes. Crist ended the interview on an up-note, telling the Fox-y lady how much fun it was to “play with their cameras.”
And just in case Camp Crist doubted that Fox is unfriendly territory, the network has forced Youtube to yank a DNC ad that mocked Marco Rubio for the “back wax” (or whatever he got for $134 at a chichy Miami salon with donor money. But as Media Matters points out, Fox doesn’t always mind political parties using its video: Read more
Politico carries GOP water (again) on the Eric Massa mess
Dick Cheney’s favorite online news outlet tries hard to advance the Republican narrative on the Eric Massa story today, with two misleading headlines, including the ominous news that “Nancy Pelosi aide knew of Eric Massa concerns in October” !!! But when you actually read the story, it turns out that the allegations they’re teasing have nothing to do with groping, tickling or otherwise boorish sexual behavior. The key passages:
… There is no indication that anyone in Pelosi’s office knew of allegations that Massa, a Democrat from New York, had improper physical contact with aides until February, when Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office was informed of the accusations and shared them with a senior Pelosi staffer.
Really, you could stop reading the Politico story right there. But what fun would that be? Read more
Misleading headlines: Politico tries to save the GOP on Bunning
Politico’s grand headline: “Republicans rip on Jim Bunning” doesn’t quite match the actual story, in which exactly one Republican — Susan Collins of Maine — “rips,” while the exactly three other Republicans quoted or named in the article either 1) express generic concern, but only when asked by the reporters, 2) express support for Bunning and then jump on their cellphone to avoid further self-immolation, or 3) “rip” on Democrats. Read more
For increased color, MSNBC turns to … Armstrong Williams???
The new face of MSNBC?
Maybe MSNBC has been shaken more by the Dallas Tea Party people than they’d like to admit. You’ll recall that the Texas teas put out a viral Youtube video in which they highlighted the three non-white members of their movement they were able to scare up (one of whom appears in the video more than once) to show that nah, they’re not an all-white deal … but MSNBC is. Keith Olbermann has felt compelled to respond to them twice … Olbermann-hating Palin/Beck flak site Mediaite has pimped the Tea Party’s race claim relentlessly (the revenge of Dan Abrams?) and for the most part, Black people have yawned, since we already know that the cable networks are a pretty blanchy situation. But now, MSNBC has gone and added to the myriad African-American analysts Keith has trumpeted over the last couple of days. And the winner is … Armstrong Williams??? WTF???
Isn’t this the same Armstrong Williams who took $240,000 from the Bush administration to sell “No Child Left Behind” in his syndicated column (a column he lost as a result) AND as a cable TV pundit? Disgraced black conservative parody and PR flak who insinuated other columnists were getting paid but didn’t have the guts to name names, Armstrong Williams?? That Armstrong Williams? Really, MSNBC???
Medaite pretends Glenn Beck is distancing himself from ‘revolution’ talk
Medaite has this thing about Fox News (and Ann Coulter) … they kind of swoon over them, the way some of the geeky kids in the marching band have the hots for the football players who occasionally stuff them and their friends into lockers… So now, the site’s Glynnis MacNicol has convinced herself that FNC’s Glenn Beck is in fact not certifiably insane, and that instead, he is “distancing himself” from all that crazy talk about “revolution” on the right. Really? Glynnis starts by quoting from Beck’s reaction to anti-government terror pilot Joseph Stack:
We have no idea what this man’s ideology was…he could be from the left, he hates capitalism, he has an anti-business creed that goes on and on. It sounds like anything you could hear in a speech from Van Jones. When you read his anti-tax ravings and his anti-tax or IRS stuff it sounds like you could be reading bumper stickers off the cars or the signs of the Tea Party. We have no idea. But here’s the point. I have no idea if he’s left or right. Is he a communist or a radical constitutionalist. Here’s the point: it doesn’t matter. The guy is a killer.
And then …
Beck went on to compare Stack to Osama bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh and warned against rationalizing any of their actions: “I don’t like the IRS either, but I don’t kill people.” Taken all together it sounded to me like a bit of a shot across the bow to anyone who wants to suggest Stack is representative of a larger disgruntled populous.
Later, Beck took to the chalkboard and came thisclose to suggesting that President Obama is very close to allowing radicals like Stack into his inner circle, though he did manage to note that Van Jones “hasn’t killed anybody.” He also emphatically suggested that the country needs to “get away from anybody who’s calling for a revolution…whether it’s a Tea Party revolution or a communist one.”
Well, Glynnis, I think you’ve been had. If Glenn did indeed suggest “getting away from anybody who’s calling for a revolution,” he’s going to have to run far and fast, to get away from himself. Read more
Sarah Palin’s FNC debut: talking points, Iran incoherence, and 9/11
In her Fox News debut on The O’Reilly Factor, Sarah Palin (whose candle wattage Chris Matthews has been having lots of fun with this week, and maybe, just maybe, O’Reilly too…) seems to be trying so hard to sound intelligent (and remember her talking points), you can actually see her eyes roaming the room in search of her mental cliffs notes. In this segment, the Facebook blog millionaire declares that Nancy Pelosi is out of step with San Francisco, calls Alaska a “very diverse state” (it’s 75 percent white, 18 percent Alaskan native, and about 4 percent black) and says the time for talk and sanctions on Iran is over, so now it’s time that we impose those financial sanctions there (even O’Reilly catches the contradiction.) Watch:
But wait, there’s more! Read more
Let the incoherence begin!
I for one can’t wait to see Sarah Palin make her Fox News debut. Oh, the sentences she can mangle — the facts she can confuse! And she’s about to create jobs — there will soon be a serious need in the mainstream media for people who can translate — whatever that language is that Ms. Palin speaks. Once I’m able to figure out what in god’s name she’s saying, it’s gonna be great! (And she’s going to get great ratings, for cable, of course, and her goofy soundbites will spread the ratings around to MSNBC, CNN and of course, the blogosphere…)
Meanwhile, the HotAirians are still taking Sarah seriously as a potential president. Seriously? I guess they haven’t figured out what this gal is up to — why would she want a dumb job like being presuhdent, when she can make sooo much more money just being Sarah? Think Paris Hilton, but not as skinny or knowledgeable about geography (why are there two Koreas again…???)
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