Saturday, February 07, 2009

Morning Jo(k)e

As Grumpy Demo pointed out below, the GOP has found NPR a great place to get its message out, and out, and out... This morning's Saturday Weakened Edition beat all with NPR offering GOP mouthpiece Joe Scarborough yet another venue to give his sloppy and slippery take on the stimulus plan and the end of bipartisanship (this in addition to listeners having to suffer Juan FOX Williams - not once, but twice - offering his "analysis" of the stimulus issue and Scott Simon longing for a flat tax - how original.)

As a disclaimer, I'm not an Obama apologist. I campaigned for him in Indiana in October and voted for him in November, but I continue to feel that he's far too accommodating to US militarism and predatory capitalism. However, looking at the past month, even a simpleton would have to conclude that the stimulus plan Obama backed early in January was an extremely GOP-friendly offering (with 40% of the plan being tax cuts) and that the GOP has worked as hard as it (and its media mouthpieces) can to torpedo any meaningful economic recovery plan. As Paul Krugman accurately predicted at the time, "Republicans are not going to come on board. Make 40% of the package tax cuts, they’ll demand 100%. Then they’ll...demand that the plan focus on the affluent. Then they’ll demand cuts in corporate taxes. And...that state and local governments should get loans, not aid...."

If anything, you'd think Obama would be criticized for being naive about reaching out to Republicans. As the dominant federal party for years the Republicans have a track record: rewarding incompetence, upholding secrecy and corruption, winning at all costs, destroying essential government services, overfeeding the Pentagon, helping the rich, and screwing everyone else. But Morning Joke doesn't see it that way, he pretends that Obama is just like George Bush who "campaigned saying he was going to be a uniter not a divider." According to Joe there's "just something about Washington DC that divides parties." He feigns shock "because around Tuesday or Wednesday, Obama started going out and actually openly mocking the Republicans" and he was "surprised how quickly Pres. Obama has moved to using the type of language he used Thursday, Friday and then again this morning."

And is there any challenge to this propaganda? Any reminders that Republicans had their way with disastrous tax cuts, and their disastrous bailouts with Democrat cooperation? Any reminder of how utterly and illegally partisan the Bush years were? From Scott Simon? Now that is a joke!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't listen this morning, but it would be interesting to know if joe scar has ever endorsed cutting govt. funding for npr. Both george will and newt gingrich are on npr, and both have called for no govt. funding. Fercrisesake, bill buckley, the odious toad that he was, owed his popularity at least in large part, to his gig on pbs. These wingers got their schtick down pat when it comes to starving public broadcasting, but they love the exposure and credibility the npr gives them. Why npr gives them venue is beyond me.

Anonymous said...

These wingers got their schtick down pat when it comes to starving public broadcasting, but they love the exposure and credibility the npr gives them. Why npr gives them venue is beyond me."

The irony is that if Congress listened to the suggestion of the wingers to defund NPR, the wingers would no longer get free air time for their propaganda on the national airwaves.

Juan "Toss" Ensalada said...

MTW- Morning JOKE! Love it! -JET

Life As I Know It Now said...

I listen less and less to Morning Edition and it seems I haven't missed much.

Anonymous said...

These wingers got their schtick down pat when it comes to starving public broadcasting, but they love the exposure and credibility the npr gives them.

That suggests a simple way to get the wingers off the air: DEFUND public radio entirely.

In other words, dispose of the whole stinking pile of propagandist crap in one fell swoop.

Get rid of the wingers ...and at the same time get rid of the likes of Steve Inskeep, Michelle Norris, Don Gonyea, Mara Liasson, Linda Werthheimer, Cokie Roberts and the rest of the overpaid NPR VOAIA (Voice of America IN America) crowd.