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.
Comcast Says NO to RightNetwork
Right Wing Nut Case
Comcast responded to this post, which caused quite a stir in the media yesterday. Their response confirmed to me that they have nothing to do at all with Kelsey Grammer’s new right-wing outfit, RightNetwork.
Here is a statement from Comcast to clear up any confusion:
“We have no partnership with this venture and have no plans to launch or distribute the network. As we have done with hundreds of other content providers, we have met with the network’s representatives. We do carry a number of independent networks on Comcast representing a wide variety of interests and diverse viewpoints.”
Keith Olbermann called RightNetwork liars for making a connection between the two.
Olbermann: A head of one of its subsidiaries has some of his own money in the thing, so RightNetwork starts by lying about who’s backing it….
Johh Amato: “As far as I’m concerned Comcast’s answer is fine. We’ll also definitely be keeping an eye on RightNetwork. It’s got a fishy smell to it.”
American Main Street Media FAILS To Report European CIA Drug Story
Telegraph UK
March 11th, 2010
A 50-year mystery over the ‘cursed bread’ of Pont-Saint-Esprit, which left residents suffering hallucinations, has been solved after a writer discovered the US had spiked the bread with LSD as part of an experiment.
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.
Polls
Loading ...IYFR Broadcasters
-
-
IYFR Supports
-
-
- InYourFaceRadio: Rally in DC - Beck Scores a Home Run! Progressives Laugh Till Nov - full story @http://inyourfaceradio.net 08/28/10 09:38pm
- InYourFaceRadio: Rally in DC - Beck Scores a Home Run! Progressive Laugh Till Nov from: @inyourfaceradio 08/28/10 09:37pm
- InYourFaceRadio: Rally in DC - Beck Scores a Home Run! Progressives Laugh Till November 08/28/10 08:48pm
-
-
Our Sponsors
-
-
