I remember watching a TV show, perhaps it was Law and Order, in which at a court proceeding, the prosecution attorney made a comment in court to or about a witness that was obviously designed to undermine the witness's credibility. The defense objected, and the judge sustained, telling the jury to 'please disregard those comments.'

But, after the proceeding, in discussion, the defense attorney said something like 'but they rang the bell with those comments and the jury heard that bell ring even though it was instructed to disregard.'

I think we're seeing this here with these Republican attacks and comments that are later withdrawn or apologized for---they still have rung the bell, and people have heard it. The media made the bell ring louder. So a climbdown later might be ineffective.

..where there was variety in programs, but the viewer, listener had to tune around on radio, and channel switch a lot more on TV since good programs were locally and nationally produced---in today's case, the local part is the internet and also the basic cable channels such as USA, Spike, etc.

Most of my TV watching is via cable, very little on TV broadcast, for example, NCSI, CSI, and Leno/Letterman. And on radio, most via the Internet, to local and national and international programming. Not to mention TV podcasts and radio and indy podcasts. I spend more time will this combination than with 'broadcast TV.'

The main CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox broadcast television networks are not even 10% of my media content these days. And the same is true for major radio--NPR, the networks, and major talk shows on radio.

"NEED" an SUV? Are you kidding? How in the heck did families raise kids in the years 1908-1980 without SUVS!? Must have been totally impossible I guess, which is why there were no births until the advent of the SUV.

Another Gen-Y'er buying into the 'lets look like everyone else,' meme, while pretending not to. Very lame.

What some if not all of these about to be killed off brands is the incredible vibrancy of the early auto industry in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile

When the Model T was being developed, Henry Ford (for all his faults with labor in later years) discovered a new kind of steel being used in French race cars. The steel was incredibly stronger than that used in existing US cars, and so Ford built his own steel plant in Detroit to make that steel, and used it in the Model T---which many say is why the T was so durable.

And: the Model T got 24 miles per gallon. This was in the 1900's.. so today's CAFE standards represent the 'modern' Detroit's inability to step up and innovate. Playing it safe.

Perhaps some of these soon to be killed brands will be taken up by entrepreneurs as they develop low quanity, but truly innovative transportation for American neighborhoods, cities and towns. Maybe. Of course, in LA, you can visit the LA subway system and learn that GM and others bought up that system, shut it down, and filled the tubes with cement--to assure the car would be king. Who knows what will happen.

I was reminded of the oh-so-sure-they-were-right blowhards I grew up around in Southern Illinois/Missouri. Simple working class people who just had a gift to know, what you should do and think, and were very verbal about it with an authority of voice that was truly stunning. And there was my econ teacher in high school--the man who believed in Ayn Rand---who would pontificate like Limbaugh does about lazy Americans, why should we sacrifice ourselves for them, or for anyone actually, and who treated his daughter like garbage in front of everyone.

I could not wait to get away from that Southern Illinois/Missouri bluster, since it struck me as so mean spirited and nasty.

When I heard Limbaugh so many years ago, I flashed back to my Southern Illinois/Mo. days and clicked off the radio, knowing he would have a huge audience who wanted to know: what to think, what to do, and how to treat others, just like those certain folks in Southern Illinois/Missouri do every single day. Only now, this has spread to the entire nation, and to the GOP, which now in Limbaugh has a simple set of rules that are so clear, who could doubt them? Hate the poor, hate minorities, and keep driving that white panel truck so that soon, you too will live in Palm Beach County. Oh yeah.

Look at what Obama is doing, not what he said previously on the campaign, or on the floor of the Senate 'back in the day.'

If it looks like he's following BushCo with more Bush-like ideas, in foreign policy, in economics, in education, then well he IS! This sure leads to cognitive dissonance, but its hard to ignore a 'trout in the milk:'

"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk." Henry David Thoreau's vivid image, coined in the 19th century, is only one of a number of phrases and sayings contributed to the language by the legal profession.

Many of them suggest that engagement with the law can be perilous. The Scythian prince Anarchasis, in the 6th century BC, thought that "Written laws are like spider's webs," as they catch the vulnerable but can be torn to shreds by the rich and powerful. "The devil," says a 16th-century proverb, "makes his Christmas pies of lawyers' tongues and clerks' fingers."

http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/quotations/quotefrom/trout/