Have Conservatives Gone Mad?
From The Atlantic -Marc Ambinder
Serious thinkers on the right have finally gotten around to a full and open debate on the epistemic closure problem that’s plaguing the conservative movement. The issue, to put it in terms that even I can understand, because I didn’t study philosophy much in college: has the conservative base gone mad?
Can anyone deny that the most trenchant and effective criticism of President Obama today comes not from the right but from the left? Rachel Maddow’s grilling of administration economic officials. Keith Olbermann’s hectoring of Democratic leaders on the public option. Glenn Greenwald’s criticisms of Elena Kagan. Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn’s keepin’-them-honest perspectives on health care. The civil libertarian left on detainees and Gitmo. The Huffington Post on derivatives.
I want to find Republicans to take seriously, but it is hard. Not because they don’t exist — serious Republicans — but because, as Sanchez and others seem to recognize, they are marginalized, even self-marginalizing, and the base itself seems to have developed a notion that bromides are equivalent to policy-thinking, and that therapy is a substitute for thinking.
Conor Friedersdorf thinks the problem lies with the conservative movement’s major spokespeople – its radio/net news nexus — and the “overwhelming evidence that their very existence as popular entertainers hinges on an ability to persuade listeners that they are “‘worth taking seriously as political and intellectual actors.’” That is why the constant failures of these men to live up to their billing is so offensive, destructive, and ruinous to conservatives. There are plenty of women, too, is all I’ll say.
I think this sensibility is pervasive throughout the smart media — old and new. I think it’s one reason why, say, Jake Tapper and other good reporters are very keen about direct fact-challenging — why the media is reasserting itself as gatekeepers. (CNN might want to think about branding themselves here, even at the risk — well, the reality — of calling out Republicans more.) I think it’s because there’s so much misinformation out there — most of it spread by the conservative echo-chamber.
With the advent of Fox News and the power of that echo-chamber, complaints about liberal media bias are quite irrelevant — the reaction to it being like lupus’s reaction to the body, as Jon Stewart correctly noted.
Rep. Alan Grayson To Smug Repug: ‘Your Principles Are Anger, Hatred and Violence’
One day after Congressman Grayson was kind enough to be on In Your Face Radio (see our pod cast) he went up against this clown from Young Americans For Freedom on a CNN interview hosted by Rick Sanchez.
Congressman Grayson proved how insane the fringe right Tea Party is.
President Obama Says Stop Watching Cable News
On Wednesday, President Obama had a Howard Beale moment. Speaking to a group of Democratic senators, the President exhorted his listeners — and, by extension, all Americans — to break the cable news habit.
“If everybody here turned off your CNN, your Fox, just turn off the TV, MSNBC, blogs, and just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics,” Obama said, things would be an awful lot better in Washington.
His appeal threatened to alienate some of his loyal supporters in the media – MSNBC cut away from Obama’s remarks shortly after, with a nervous joke — but it was dead on target.
It doesn’t really matter whether Bill O’Reilly or Keith Olbermann is the bigger blowhard, or whether Shepard Smith is less biased than Wolf Blitzer. The fact is, if you’re getting your news from cable, you’re getting misinformed. You’re being told things are important that aren’t. You’re getting a diet of stories selected primarily for their strong visuals and sensationalistic details, not for their news value. You’re watching a lot of split-screen shots of people talking over each other so loudly that none can be understood.
In short: If you watch a great deal of cable news, you are making yourself stupider. Put down the remote control. Pick up a newspaper. You may not have that luxury much longer.
TIME Does Fluff Piece on Glenn Beck
This is not a joke. TIME did a cover story on Glenn Beck. David Von Drehle penned it. With out skipping a beat Drehle failed to mention the 62 sponsors Beck lost. He also omitted Beck’s recent charge that Obama has a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” Von Drehle kissed Beck’s ass in this piece.
Here’s a sample:
Lured by the Fox News Channel from CNN’s Headline News channel last year, Beck has lit up the 5 p.m. slot in a way never thought possible by industry watchers, drawing upwards of 3 million viewers on some recent days. Indeed, despite his late-afternoon start, he sometimes beats even Bill O’Reilly, Fox’s prime-time behemoth, in key ratings demographics. The value of his Fox contract is reliably said to be about $2 million per year. With a staff of about 25 employees at Mercury and 10 or so at Fox, Beck Inc. is doing its part to jump-start the economy. And there are ancillary industries feeding on the success of Beck and others like him.
IYFR: HOLY SHIT! Look closely at TIME’s Logo on their web site. See the “partnership” between TIME & CNN? The same CNN who just released a scathing ad against FOX (see story below) .. The same FOX who employs BECK? …. WTF???
You can read Von Drehle’s garbage yourself. Glenn Beck
CNN Takes a Swipe At FOX: “Distorting Not Reporting”
It’s a softball at best. Remember this is the home of Lou “Birther” Dobbs.
Fox News took out a full-page ad in Friday’s Washington Post (and a half-page ad in the Wall Street Journal) to boast about its coverage of the Tea Party protests last weekend in D.C. and to goad its rivals by asking “How Did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN Miss This Story?”
CNN’s Rick Sanchrz took the bait. “Let me address the Fox News Network now perhaps the most current way that I can, by quoting somebody who recently used a very pithy phrase, two words. It’s all I need: You lie,”
CNN aired an ad that strikes back at Fox News’ claim.
The ad’s slogan: “Fox News: Distorting, Not Reporting.”
IYFR: Why did FOX take out a full page ad in the very liberal Washington Post and not the Washington Times, the conservative friendly newspaper?
The Neo Nazi Conservatives ( FOX Rovians) went after a mourning nation by using no holds barred lies and deception. They took Congress (Cantor/Wilson) to a new low and now FOX Rovians are taking on the media. And guess what? CNN played right into their hands. FOOLS. WHERE WAS CNN – MSNBC – ABC during the many war protests? FOX may be full of Hitler youth, but like the GOP they are UNITED in their insanity … and the insane LOVE IT!
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