Letters to the Editor
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Where is Hunter Thompson when we need him?
I can only imagine how the Doctor would savage this band of spoiled, petulant sissies who hold such enormous power over the common folk and wield it like the drunken, whorish assholes they are.
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The Mean Kids
The best guide to media coverage of the President race is, well, Aliens in America (http://www.cwtv.com/shows/aliens-in-america). To understand the press, you have to understand high school. Overall, though, I would have to say that these fictitious high school students in Wisconsin are much more mature than our so-called pundits.
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Well, it sure makes me wish
...for a general election between two candidates, neither of whom the beltway press can stand.
Wouldn't that be a lot of fun?
More popcorn, please.
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the smarted thing Hillary can do
is to keep ignoring the press and then call them out on the podium when they suck up to an opponent. The public hates politicians, but they also hate journalists.
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Candy Crowley ...
talking about how ugly Dennis is? ... she's one to talk .. sounds like another media figure who has never looked in the mirror
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Media Watch
GG:
the tidal wave of uncritical group-think that pours forth from our political journalists.
Thank goodness for the blogosphere, which now allows me to filter their crap, and provides a wonderful alternative. This year's run-up to the primaries has been so much more clear and focused due to you and Digby, FireDogLake and TPM, and the satiric stylings of Blue Texan and others. It's almost as if the MSM's sole purpose now (for me) is to provide grist for the bloggy mills I actually enjoy reading.
I do intend to watch some of our Nation's Finest FratLemming-Reporters cover the Iowa caucuses tonight at the Drinking Liberally gathering in Santa Monica. If any other Glenn fans are planning to be there, too, it would be great to meet you!
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21st century oxymoron
"journalistic integrity"
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Milbank - the press will savage her no matter what
http://mediamatters.org/items/200712310001?f=h_latest
"On the December 30 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, Washington Post national political reporter Dana Milbank said of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) that "[t]he press will savage her no matter what.""
And of course, the incomparable Bob Somerby has his say on the same topic here:
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh010308.shtml
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The "Mean Kids" are the "Cool Kids"
Or so they must think.
This is why I seldom read the dailies except for the sports page. At least there, they can't fudge the outcome.
TV commentators are worse, if only because their smugness is there for all to see.
I've always thougth that the best way for reporters to cover government is at a distance. Report what they've said, but more importantly what they've done. (And I don't mean on the campaign bus.)
I. F. Stone knew this which is why his work from half a century ago still serves us well.
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Sorry Glenn.
I respectfully disagree with you on HRC.
She had not been taking Q&A from Iowans and was not doing interviews just previous to this incident with the bus. This was after her series of missteps a few weeks ago. She didn't even caucus in Iowa as much as Obama did-not by a long shot.
The press-after being played and used by the politicos (GW especially)are suspicious now-both for all of the secrecy in Wash. and the way everything GW has said has turned out to be a lie.
I imagine that makes them a lot less willing to play the fool and want to be free to ask the questions they want.
Had I been shut out and given the cold-shoulder by HRC or anyone else-I'd be contemptous too.
Hence the silence on the bus-they all knew they were being played. It's not like HRC is a very authentic candidate-making impromptu speeches everywhere.
It's all been very scripted.
Inauthenticity/opportunistism/power/greed can be very easy to spot in people not connected to thier own feelings/thier own skin.
iow; you make the bed you lie in.
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gads. "frat-boy" repartee...
'Um never grew up.
O, use a piece of shoplifted Wall-Mart 'tp' napkins to blow the nose on a greyhound school bus.
O, buff shine the bald head. Not that being bald is wrong.
Post-skinny dipping in high school long ago...and here they are still sneaking a wad of tobacco 'snuff' on the school bus...and smooching?
It is a must is to confess ya's spit a chew-wad glob and stuck 'it' like it was a clump of pink bubble-gum, placed under the bus seat. shame.
Th whole Presidential Bus Crew of Politicians seem to me that they are paid doggone pundit-fake-journalist, and they may as well begin confessing to the DC Zoo manager they hate all humans. gads. okay. Don't judge? apologies.
The make-'um-look good-artist in tow seem to sound O very errie.
Why make what is baloney and textured baloney look or seem to sound so acceptable and pretty? In drab speech too, the speech writers and hair stylist ... YIKE...in lieu of poll-words and hair-gel-dodo, WHY not utilize one of those gasoline-powered leaf-blowers to style presidential candidates hoodoo's.
O, and chocolate 'Godiva' at the bus pillow too?
How about a Chocolate Easter Bunny or a waist high pitch via a bus-window of chicken-dung poo?
I best go put on some shaded sunglasses?
I'll go practice my little league knuckle ball pitch.
I'll go visit somebody for a calm dinner and shush up.
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Hillary and the mean kids
Personally, I couldn't care less whether reporters are chummy with a candidate or treat him/her with frosty aloofness. What concerns me is that they be objective, independent, and that they cover what's relevant.
It's obvious, however, that none of those criteria have been met by the media in recent campaigns. Reporters plainly allow their personal prejudices to color their reporting. Who they like matters far more than the issues or what's really happening. Bob Somersby has spent the last 8 years detailing how Al Gore was savaged by the media based on the fact that many reporters disliked him personally.
Equally obvious is the intellectual laziness of reporters and their tendency to allow group think to take over their coverage. It's hard work to delve into the intricacies of a candidate's health care proposals and to discover whether the proposal makes sense or is phony. But, it's easy to write stories that are based on titillating if ultimately irrelevant little events. If one reporter writes that John Edwards got an expensive haircut twenty others will file stories on the same non-issue.
Political campaigns are surely aware of these tendencies and so, they play to the reporters' egos and feed them stories that will get handed to the public as gospel regardless of their truth. The end result is that what we, the public, receive rarely resembles actual reporting on the issues raised in a political campaign. When reporters treat all campaigns as if they were reporting on Britney Spears' latest custody fight the public loses. And, ultimately, we get elected officials who are elected not because they are better qualified to to do the job than their opponents but because they are more adept than their opponents at sucking up to the press.