I'm sorry, I was utilizing the Dead Sea Scrolls for my analysis. Damn Christian sectarianism! I hope HE wasn't offended. I must don my hairshirt post-haste.

haven't finished it yet ...

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Glenn, I watch Olbermann on occasion, mostly for the sensational crap with pictures the internet doesn't capture, but just another bloviating "talking head" to me now -- in Chris Matthews' league -- and I was a fan since back his evening 1/2 hour sports program on CBS in Los Angeles in the 1980s (irrc). He blew my trust.

"Watching them on MSNBC, I'm reminded how many Buchanans are represented in the chattering class, yet how few Maddows there are, tacking to the Democrats’ left. And if you think the party’s nominee is left-wing, you haven't heard a progressive pundit lately."

really? there are more anti war america first conservatives out there? I can't think of one. certainly not on tv.

name another prominent talking head who was arguing forcefully AGAINST the iraq war before it started.

there was just one I can recall and that was patrick Buchanan. and he continues to oppose the neocons while the democrats are ready to make hillary the vp and invade south ossetia

They both are still cops. There are no liberals and no conservatives - those are bogus terms. There are propagandists and news readers.

A&E has a cop show called 48, You can watch the good cop, bad cop game being played. The good cop will get the guilty parites to confess and implicate their pals with the threat of a murder one charge if they don't fess up. So they do and they help the cops make the case against their pals in hope of getting a lesser charge. Then all of them are charged with murder one and prosecuted.

Liberal and conservative just a con to get you to think you have a choice and a chance. Your choice is what the defense industry gives you, war from a "liberal" or war from a "conservative".

Here is the bill - let your grandkids pay it off for you.

Keep in mind that Bill Clinton is what passes as a "liberal" these days and he makes Nixon look like a Green Party candidate.

Come on Glenn, who owns MSNBC?

I'm with you on both accounts. Conspiracy theories have been around forever, but for shows like the X-Files and 24, surely such "theories" (because they aren't theories so much as frameworks, eh?) wouldn't be so popular. Why, just the other day on NPR's Talk of the Nation, some caller suggested that Bush's mishandling of the economy was part of a greater conspiracy to give the nouveau riche their come-uppance.

As for ignorance, a few semesters ago I gave an ethical problem to my class to discuss. The case involved a former East German (and current German) bureaucrat who suspended pension payments to a former SS man who was in jail in Germany, even though it was the policy of the German government to continue to make payments to said SS men. One student asked me--in all seriousness--"Where is East Germany?" I am not making this up.

I was one of those angered by Clinton's comment. The threats to Sen. Obama's personal security are very real, and her comment, whether intentional or not, seemed to me to paint a bull's-eye on Obama's back.

This article may explain these concerns:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9102

I know this is tangential to your thoughts--which deal with slanted media coverage, not individual reactions to her comments.

I haven't had the opportunity to scour through her archives, but it was plain as day that -- especially after the Dem race narrowed to two candidates -- msnbc had its thumb on the scale in a big way.

From literally the second that the votes were counted in 2006, Chris Matthews said things like this:

We were watching Hillary Clinton earlier tonight; she was giving a campaign barn-burner speech, which is harder to give for a woman; it can grate on some men when they listen to it -- fingernails on a blackboard, perhaps.

... she'll have to go head-to-head with this president. How does she do it without screaming? How does she do it without becoming grating?

...it's a yelling match among -- and that clapping. I just don't get it. It's not appealing. It's Chinese or something. I mean, what is this applauding yourself thing all about? I don't -- I don't get it. And then, of course, him [President Clinton] playing Lothar behind her, like he's the -- she's the Phantom -- this gigantic guy behind her and he's just there. It's a strange sight.

In that segment, Matthews also made a little hay with Obama's middle name, but that was pre-leg tingle and just quick aside.

Olbermann was with Matthews during this and didn't dispute him, just went "hmmm-mmm," though near the end he started to interject with perhaps a little disagreement but got cut off.

Before long, Olbermann began making a routine of trashing Hillary himself, David Shuster said she was "pimping" her daughter, and Maddow was a party to this slanted coverage. She certainly didn't establish herself as a defender against it, and when it hit perhaps its zenith (nadir) with RFK-gate, she was fully on-board.

How routinely she was an active participant/propagator of this, I couldn't tell you, but the part I saw made a rather disturbing impression, and it was after months and months of this behavior from her colleagues, so it's not like she shouldn't have known what pool she was swimming in.

If it was truly anomalous and she regrets it, I'd like to hear that. But I'd also like to know why she continued to collaborate uncomplaining (to the best of my knowledge) on a program that was positively riddled with such false and demeaning coverage.

Keep in mind that Bill Clinton is what passes as a "liberal" these days and he makes Nixon look like a Green Party candidate.

-- rupert_c

Ironical that since you make post after post about how foolish we or anyone is to buy into the possibility that their might be a dimes bit of difference from one pundit or news service from another you would use a bullshit claim of framing as if it were actually true. Bill Clinton doesn't "pass as a liberal". Not to me, and not to millions of others.