And It's Working Out Just Great For Them
The Republicans, I mean, as the vicious, traitorous fascist Trump pulls nearly even with Hillary. This is, of course, because if you read the mainstream press, you will discover that it is appropriate to be suspicious and filled with contempt toward Hillary, because of an endless series of phony scandals with no substance behind any of them, while Trump gets caught bribing two State Attorneys General to drop criminal prosecutions for fraud against him, and he makes an utter fool of himself in Mexico, and the press just ignores it. And to complete the picture, even the members of the media who do notice things like this will do anything to attribute it to the wrong cause. Here's a classic example, from Will Wheaton at Medium, although I am sure you have seen a thousand more pushing the same pathetic narrative:
WRONG! It is exactly because the media are in the tank for one candidate, which happens to be, over and over again, the one on the Republican side. We have seen this with Bill Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama and every Democratic candidate for any national office. We never, ever see it happening to Republican candidates like Bush and Trump, who deserve to be eviscerated by the press, because they are so utterly incapable of being decent leaders for anyone but their hyper-rich friends. And Will, there is a "cloud" over everything the Clintons do, because that is how you guys report everything about them, even though a quarter century of endless investigations has left them untouched.
And here comes the other bogus claim that we here every day: That the media just wants a horse race because that will somehow, in some unproven way, increase their profits. Once again, buying this requires people to ignore the fact that the media never works to give Democrats a pass when they are behind; this helping hand is something only reserved for Republicans
And here's the hilarious punchline of the whole joke. It's not about both siderism, you see, it's about both sides taking advantage of our "massively corrupted our pay-for-play political system*," even though the press has to invent and endlessly fob off lies on the American people, to accuse Hillary of "pay-for-play," while absolutely ignoring the clear evidence, including a criminal conviction, that Trump really did make campaign contributions to buy his way out of a massive fraud.
I actually found this request by Paul Krugman sort of amusing:
Paul, do you need to urge them to do this? Do you think there is one second when they do not know what they are up to? Thanks to Ronald Reagan and deregulation, the mainstream press is totally owned by Republicans, and they use it not to report the news but to push their anti-American agenda with lies and smears against Democrats, while carefully censoring the massive evidence that Republican politicians are, every single one of them, members of a vast, subversive conspiracy to destroy the country and turn the shattered remains over to a few hundred rich families. There is no "horse race," and there is no "so damned suspicious." There is only a corrupt, vicious long term plot to destroy whatever shreds of democracy are left in the United States, in which the media are not dupes but full partners.
And so, I must repeat something I have had far too many occasions to say lately: The Democrats could destroy the Republican party permanently without hardly trying. What they cannot do is beat the Republicans and the press working together to delude the American people into sticking knives in their own backs over and over again. And it looks darned likely that we are about to get another lesson in that truth.
"The story the media wants to write about the Clintons exists, but it looks more and more like it won’t be written, because it’s about Trump. I don’t think this is because the media is in the tank for either candidate, but is because there is a narrative: Trump’s a buffoon and dog bites man, while Clintons are just so damn suspicious and there’s a cloud over everything they do."
WRONG! It is exactly because the media are in the tank for one candidate, which happens to be, over and over again, the one on the Republican side. We have seen this with Bill Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama and every Democratic candidate for any national office. We never, ever see it happening to Republican candidates like Bush and Trump, who deserve to be eviscerated by the press, because they are so utterly incapable of being decent leaders for anyone but their hyper-rich friends. And Will, there is a "cloud" over everything the Clintons do, because that is how you guys report everything about them, even though a quarter century of endless investigations has left them untouched.
"This isn’t really a horserace election...That’s a problem for cable news, because cable news needs a horserace. It’s the only way cable news knows how to fill all the time in the 24 hour cycle, and keep its advertisers happy.
We recently saw that AP was more than happy to provide the something to help tighten the polls and create that horserace, by reaching a conclusion, doing reporting that didn’t support that conclusion, and rewriting the story and headlines to support their foregone conclusion. Cable news and most newspapers picked up on the AP’s story, and used it to raise a lot of ethical questions (to which the answer was “no, there’s nothing going on here”). It’s working, though. Since AP’s story broke, and the simple narrative it created was repeated all over the place, the race tightened."
And here comes the other bogus claim that we here every day: That the media just wants a horse race because that will somehow, in some unproven way, increase their profits. Once again, buying this requires people to ignore the fact that the media never works to give Democrats a pass when they are behind; this helping hand is something only reserved for Republicans
"The problem here is not just that our national political media and cable networks are substituting lazy both sideism for actual reporting, it’s that these media organizations, who we rely upon to inform us, are ignoring a real scandal that goes to the heart of not just who Donald Trump is, but how massively corrupted our pay-for-play political system is..."
And here's the hilarious punchline of the whole joke. It's not about both siderism, you see, it's about both sides taking advantage of our "massively corrupted our pay-for-play political system*," even though the press has to invent and endlessly fob off lies on the American people, to accuse Hillary of "pay-for-play," while absolutely ignoring the clear evidence, including a criminal conviction, that Trump really did make campaign contributions to buy his way out of a massive fraud.
I actually found this request by Paul Krugman sort of amusing:
"So I would urge journalists to ask whether they are reporting facts or simply engaging in innuendo"
Paul, do you need to urge them to do this? Do you think there is one second when they do not know what they are up to? Thanks to Ronald Reagan and deregulation, the mainstream press is totally owned by Republicans, and they use it not to report the news but to push their anti-American agenda with lies and smears against Democrats, while carefully censoring the massive evidence that Republican politicians are, every single one of them, members of a vast, subversive conspiracy to destroy the country and turn the shattered remains over to a few hundred rich families. There is no "horse race," and there is no "so damned suspicious." There is only a corrupt, vicious long term plot to destroy whatever shreds of democracy are left in the United States, in which the media are not dupes but full partners.
And so, I must repeat something I have had far too many occasions to say lately: The Democrats could destroy the Republican party permanently without hardly trying. What they cannot do is beat the Republicans and the press working together to delude the American people into sticking knives in their own backs over and over again. And it looks darned likely that we are about to get another lesson in that truth.
* Not both siderism, no, because the guy who said it assures us that it is not. Case settled, huh?
And More: Here's a quote from CNN, featured in an article from Daily Kos. Dana Bash answers a question from Wolf "No Brain" Blitzer:
Maybe it's not fair. MAYBE it's not fair. We're auditioning the two candidates for President of the United States, two people to have their finger on the nuclear button, and maybe it's not fair that we hold one of them to a standard light years beyond what we will accept from the other. But, as Dana says, that's the way it is, because that is what they going to do, regardless of the fact that one of the candidates is an ignorant, racist, lying, crooked bully. And let's cut the crap, Dana. There are not "lots of reasons;" there is only one: You are in the tank for the Republicans, and are so fine with that, that you are letting people know in advance that you intend to call all of the debates for Trump even if he takes all his clothes off, gets down on all fours and runs around on the stage braying like a donkey. Because, "that's the way it is." That's how we got Reagan, that's how we got George W. Bush, and you are determined to see to it that it's the exact same way we are going to get Trump.
"That's the way it is." I remember when that was Walter Cronkite's signature line, and indicated that he was doing his very best to tell people the truth. Now, it just means "That's the lie I am going to tell, and there is not one fucking thing you can do about it. And after I tell that lie, I will get a huge paycheck for telling it, and you will be sitting in your living room seething in frustration. But I will still have the money, and I killed off my conscience a long time ago, so what do I care?
And More: Here's a quote from CNN, featured in an article from Daily Kos. Dana Bash answers a question from Wolf "No Brain" Blitzer:
"But I do think that the stakes are much higher in this debate and all the debates for Hillary Clinton because the expectations are higher for her...So for lots of reasons, maybe it's not fair but it's the way it is, the onus is on her."
Maybe it's not fair. MAYBE it's not fair. We're auditioning the two candidates for President of the United States, two people to have their finger on the nuclear button, and maybe it's not fair that we hold one of them to a standard light years beyond what we will accept from the other. But, as Dana says, that's the way it is, because that is what they going to do, regardless of the fact that one of the candidates is an ignorant, racist, lying, crooked bully. And let's cut the crap, Dana. There are not "lots of reasons;" there is only one: You are in the tank for the Republicans, and are so fine with that, that you are letting people know in advance that you intend to call all of the debates for Trump even if he takes all his clothes off, gets down on all fours and runs around on the stage braying like a donkey. Because, "that's the way it is." That's how we got Reagan, that's how we got George W. Bush, and you are determined to see to it that it's the exact same way we are going to get Trump.
"That's the way it is." I remember when that was Walter Cronkite's signature line, and indicated that he was doing his very best to tell people the truth. Now, it just means "That's the lie I am going to tell, and there is not one fucking thing you can do about it. And after I tell that lie, I will get a huge paycheck for telling it, and you will be sitting in your living room seething in frustration. But I will still have the money, and I killed off my conscience a long time ago, so what do I care?
Comments
(1) The group that explicitly is in the tank for the GOP (Fox, Newsmax, talk radio, the Washington Times, etc.).
(2) The mainstream, which is mired in a combination of "he said, she said" style and "ooh, shiny new story" attention span that is extremely easy for the GOP to exploit. This includes a number of newspapers where the editorial section endorses the Democrat, but the front pages help the Republican.
**Simply put, the "he said, she said" style simply reports on what people say, without trying to determine if what they say is actually true. Obviously, if you have one group that comes up with a new (and usually false) talking point every day, and another group which merely repeats the truth, what's going to be lead story? The big new lie, of course.
We have Chuck Todd to thank for blurting out the truth. First,
MSNBC host Chuck Todd said Wednesday that when it comes to misinformation about the new federal health care law, don't expect members of the media to correct the record.
During a segment on "Morning Joe," former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) speculated that most opponents of the Affordable Care Act have been fed erroneous information about the law. Todd said that Republicans "have successfully messaged against it" but he disagrees with those who argue that the media should educate the public on the law. According to Todd, that's President Barack Obama's job.
"But more importantly, it would be stuff that Republicans have successfully messaged against it," Todd told Rendell. "They don't repeat the other stuff because they haven't even heard the Democratic message. What I always love is people say, 'Well, it's you folks' fault in the media.' No, it's the President of the United States' fault for not selling it."
*If GOP bigwig Howie Boguss says, "Obama has is a secret Satanist who has sold nuclear weapons to Fidel Castro," it's easy for the media to say something that's technically true. How? It writes, "Boguss says Obama worships Satan and provides nukes for Cuba." Well, Boguss did make that statement, so technically, the media hasn't lied. It's just spread one by refusing to refute it.
We didn't see a spike in stories about Trump's "alt-right" ties until Clinton made a speech about it. Then, instead of investigating further, the mainstream reported on Trump's reply to the story.
[More from the incompetent Chuck Todd below.]
Charles Pierce shows us another Todd classic here, this time during a conversation with a correspondent from The Daily Show.
LEWIS BLACK:...here's a sense of disenfranchisement now that I think that is seen in the number of people who went and voted. I have just never experienced this in my lifetime. What you and everybody else, when these people come on, you just sit there, and I, uh, I'd be barking at them (guests).
TODD: "We all sit there because we know the first time we bark is the last time we do the show..There's something where all of the sudden nobody will come on your show."
If the mainstream media (as opposed to the GOP propagandist media) were to challenge the GOP lies, the GOP won't speak to them anymore. Then they can't be balanced by providing both sides, which is demanded by the "he said, she said" model. Driftglass has some very good commentary on that Meet the Press episode, too.
See how easy it is for the GOP to manipulate the media when it isn't already in the tank for them?
Seems like nothing is a pretty good deal in that situation. I can think of plenty of fact-filled ways to fill up the time left open when they determine that they are going to govern without any public access.