A year of media vapidity

[Lycurgus]

LOL ......... Some may enjoy this!




A year of media vapidity
By L. Brent Bozell III

Sunday, December 28, 2008


Sean Hannity marks 2008 as the year journalism died. But it could just as easily be the year journalism felt a thrill going up its leg.

That Chris Matthews announcement in February -- that a Barack Obama speech caused him a mild ecstasy -- represented the everyday "mainstream" media view. Reporters didn't so much produce "news" during this election year as they tried to make a sale. Every story seemed to say, "You know you want Obama."

The Media Research Center has tallied the year's worst reporting or "The Best of Notable Quotables." (The center's annual "Quote of the Year" and runners-up appear tomorrow in "Media Monday.") Among outrageous quotes, the "Obamagasm Award" went to Nancy Gibbs, Time's senior writer in charge of obsequious fawning, for using her post-election cover story to compare Obama to Jesus Christ, only better: "Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope."

A Kool-Aid-abstaining Obama critic might see in that line a reference to how Obama's memoirs are a melange of biographical fact and self-serving literary invention, as authors from David Freddoso to Jerome Corsi have revealed. But no, Gibbs was celebrating the Obama victory as a massive crusade to save America: "He won because in a very dangerous moment in the life of a still young country, more people than ever spoken before came together to try to save it."

Even anchormen couldn't resist the urge to "save the country" by selling Obama. NBC's Brian Williams won the "Let Us Fluff Your Pillow Award" -- for soft and cuddly interviews -- for trying to help Michelle Obama identify the worst Republican lie about her husband: "What of the attacks has busted through to you? What makes you angriest at John McCain, the Republicans? What's being said about your husband that you want to shout from the mountain tops is not true?"

Do you remember Cindi McCain being asked claptrap like that?

The day after the last primary, ABC's Diane Sawyer won the "Media Hero Award" by conflating Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ: "This woman, as we said, forged into determination and purpose her whole life. As someone said, 'No thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown." (The quoted "someone" was William Penn, who wrote a book on Christianity and Quakerism in 1669 titled "No Cross, No Crown.")

By contrast, liberal journalists loathed Gov. Sarah Palin from the moment she took the stage in Dayton, Ohio, as John McCain's running mate.

Chris Matthews won the "Half-Baked Alaska Award for Pummeling Palin" for insisting in October that comparing Palin to Hillary Clinton "is the comparison between an igloo and the Empire State Building!"

Liberal reporters often assumed that anyone who criticized these sainted Democrats must be inventing things out of whole cloth. Deborah Solomon of The New York Times Magazine won the "Damn Those Conservatives Award" by trying to shame T. Boone Pickens for backing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against John Kerry in 2004. She asked if he regretted funding them, and when he responded, "Why would I?," Solomon shot back: "Because it's such an ugly chapter in American political history."

Boone protested: "Everything that went into those ads was the truth." Solomon retorted: "Really? I thought it was all invented." Thus proclaimeth a scribe for that bastion of objective news, The New York Times.

But Solomon was no Bill Maher, who's in his own category of viciousness. On his little HBO show in February, Maher earned the "Crush Rush Award for Loathing Limbaugh" by reveling in P.J. O'Rourke's mockery of Rush Limbaugh's old OxyContin addiction. Asked Maher: "Why couldn't he have croaked from it instead of Heath Ledger?" Maher's HBO rants also won the "Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity Vapidity" when he railed against the Catholic Church as both "a child-abusing religious cult" and "the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia."

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann ran away with the "Madness of King George Award" for yelling at President Bush in May to "shut the hell up" and attacked him for "a final crash of self-indulgent nonsense." (That would pretty much describe the entirety of Keith's not-so-special comments during the Bush era.) Olbermann also insisted Bush was a "fascist" who was "urinating on the Constitution."

Up until convention season was over, MSNBC thought this kind of commentary qualified Olbermann for "objective" anchorman duties sitting beside ecstatic Chris Matthews. That also sums up the media's year in review.


A year of media vapidity - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

 

[William Joyce]

The media is TREMENDOUSLY satisfied with Obama's win -- one because they love Obama, and two because, hey, our power to select the president is confirmed. Why wouldn't they be happy?

And for 2009, they can busy themselves with creating the greatest presidency America has ever had through fawning Obama coverage. Is he Jesus? God? JFK? Time will tell!

 

[alan1]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAjs0vb94bc&feature=related[/ame]

 

[midcan5]

Boy, do I agree, read any of the following and you sense America has become brain dead or at least a part of it has! Newsmax, Freerepublic, Townhall, Real Clear Politics, Human Events, Or Hannity Limbaugh Savage Coulter etc. But these buffoons are also dangerous fools as the following demonstrates.

Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis: I: Projecting Fascism

 

[alan1]

Boy, do I agree, read any of the following and you sense America has become brain dead or at least a part of it has! Newsmax, Freerepublic, Townhall, Real Clear Politics, Human Events, Or Hannity Limbaugh Savage Coulter etc. But these buffoons are also dangerous fools as the following demonstrates.

Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis: I: Projecting Fascism

I'm not really sure where you are going with this post, midcan5.
You cited a lot of conservative leaning publications and people as your argument that Americans have become brain dead.

The major network news agencies controlled the presidential debates and yet I never heard one debate question about the presidential oath of office.

Here it is,

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Now, how is that no questions were raised to deal with that subject?

 

[Gord]

Boy, do I agree, read any of the following and you sense America has become brain dead or at least a part of it has! Newsmax, Freerepublic, Townhall, Real Clear Politics, Human Events, Or Hannity Limbaugh Savage Coulter etc. But these buffoons are also dangerous fools as the following demonstrates.

Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis: I: Projecting Fascism

John Ziegler conclusively proved that it was Obama voters who were "brain dead". All they knew was what the mainstream media told them - "hope", "change" and about Sarah Palin's children and wardrobe. But they knew nothing of Obama's background or his policy proposals.

I only read a few paragraphs of your link, but that was enough to realize that this guy hasn't actually listened to Rush Limbaugh - he's just passing on smears he has read at other leftwing websites that haven't listened to him either.

 

[Old Rocks]

I'm not really sure where you are going with this post, midcan5.
You cited a lot of conservative leaning publications and people as your argument that Americans have become brain dead.

The major network news agencies controlled the presidential debates and yet I never heard one debate question about the presidential oath of office.

Here it is,

Now, how is that no questions were raised to deal with that subject?

Batboy, that question needed to be asked of George W. Bush early on. Since the candidates do not have power to do anything at the time they are running, all they will answer is that they will abide by the Constitution.

 

[Gord]

Batboy, that question needed to be asked of George W. Bush early on. Since the candidates do not have power to do anything at the time they are running, all they will answer is that they will abide by the Constitution.

Except that Obama has declared the constitution defective, so his oath will be a sham like the rest of his politics, and his life, for that matter.

 

[Old Rocks]

John Ziegler conclusively proved that it was Obama voters who were "brain dead". All they knew was what the mainstream media told them - "hope", "change" and about Sarah Palin's children and wardrobe. But they knew nothing of Obama's background or his policy proposals.

I only read a few paragraphs of your link, but that was enough to realize that this guy hasn't actually listened to Rush Limbaugh - he's just passing on smears he has read at other leftwing websites that haven't listened to him either.

Well, I have listened to Limpbaugh from time to time. A liar, using adolescent reasoning, and a racist bastard. And then there is his addiction. He should have spent prison time, just like any other doctor shopping addict. Like OJ, he used his position and wealth to avoid what any other citizen would have justly deserved.

Gord, I consider you to be braindead. Now there are a number of conservatives on this board that are hardly braindead. We may disagree, but their viewpoints are well worth thinking about, and considering. Thus far what I have seen of yours is simple reiteration of Talking Points. Obama won because he presented policy that the majority of Americans decided that was better than the policies presented by McCain. Those that voted for McCain are not braindead, but people who see the present situation differantly than I do. And people like you have a chain much easier to jerk than they do.

 

[alan1]

Batboy, that question needed to be asked of George W. Bush early on. Since the candidates do not have power to do anything at the time they are running, all they will answer is that they will abide by the Constitution.

I think it needs to be asked of all presidential candidate.
Seems our media giants that control the presidential debates don't though.

 

[Old Rocks]

The Media today is far more interested in what one wears underneath their pants than in policies or real problems. They will give fifteen minutes to some dingbat broads poor taste in multiple boyfriends, before they will give 30 seconds to a major scientific discovery.

 

[alan1]

Some questions from the second Town Hall Debate
(Note, the questions were screened by the media)

Shaffer: With the economy on the downturn and retired and older citizens and workers losing their incomes, what's the fastest, most positive solution to bail these people out of the economic ruin?

Clark: Well, Senators, through this economic crisis, most of the people that I know have had a difficult time. And through this bailout package, I was wondering what it is that's going to actually help those people out.

Finch: How can we trust either of you with our money when both parties got -- got us into this global economic crisis?

Brokaw: The three -- health care, energy, and entitlement reform: Social Security and Medicare. In what order would you put them in terms of priorities?

Brokaw: There are lots of issues that we are going to be dealing with here tonight. And we have a question from Langdon (ph) in Ballston Spa, New York, and that's about huge unfunded obligations for Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs that will soon eat up all of the revenue that's in place and then go into a deficit position.Since the rules are pretty loose here, I'm going to add my own to this one. Instead of having a discussion, let me ask you as a coda to that. Would you give Congress a date certain to reform Social Security and Medicare within two years after you take office? Because in a bipartisan way, everyone agrees, that's a big ticking time bomb that will eat us up maybe even more than the mortgage crisis.

Jackson: Sen. McCain, I want to know, we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate change and green jobs?

Brokaw: Should we fund a Manhattan-like project that develops a nuclear bomb to deal with global energy and alternative energy or should we fund 100,000 garages across America, the kind of industry and innovation that developed Silicon Valley?

Trella: Senator, selling health care coverage in America as the marketable commodity has become a very profitable industry. Do you believe health care should be treated as a commodity?
Brokaw: Quick discussion. Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?

Notice how most of the questions are geared towards liberal ideology? and/or What the government can do for me?

You can't honestly say that the media doesn't try and influence the outcome of elections with tripe like this.

 

[Gord]

Well, I have listened to Limpbaugh from time to time. A liar, using adolescent reasoning, and a racist bastard. And then there is his addiction. He should have spent prison time, just like any other doctor shopping addict. Like OJ, he used his position and wealth to avoid what any other citizen would have justly deserved.

Ah yes - another Rush Limbaugh expert who knows nothing except what he reads on leftwing websites who also don't listen to him.

Gord, I consider you to be braindead.

Thank you - from you I consider that like receiving a badge of honor...

 

[Gord]

Thus far what I have seen of yours is simple reiteration of Talking Points. Obama won because he presented policy that the majority of Americans decided that was better than the policies presented by McCain. Those that voted for McCain are not braindead, but people who see the present situation differantly than I do. And people like you have a chain much easier to jerk than they do.

You are a typical liberal - you chastize others for what you do yourself. What you assert is a talking point. You have no evidence - you just believe it because it fits your meme.

But I can say with authority that Obama voters are brain dead because I have pointed to evidence - John Ziegler conclusively proved that Obama voters only knew what they learned from the mainstream press. And that included nothing about his background or his policies. All they knew was "hope" and "change" and that Sara Palin said she could see Russia from her house (even though it was Tina Fey that said it).

 

[garyd]

What is called liberalism today is little more than fascism with a smiley face painted on. It is a government solution for every problem even those problems which frankly government can only worsen. The notion of Limbaugh as a racist is a composition involving ripping a few quotes completely out of context and manufacturing other out of whole cloth.

 

[William Joyce]

Well, I have listened to Limpbaugh from time to time. A liar, using adolescent reasoning, and a racist bastard. And then there is his addiction. He should have spent prison time, just like any other doctor shopping addict. Like OJ, he used his position and wealth to avoid what any other citizen would have justly deserved.

Yes, because we all know how double knife murder and pill-popping are on equal moral footing!

 

[Xenophon]

Bozell writes much better then he speaks.