Part I - School Daze
Mara Liasson - on Tuesday (September 8, 2009) ATC, tries to normalize the wingnut stupidity, insanity and virulence of the Republican-led attacks on Obama's live address to schools. Of his speech she says,
Even though the chairman of the Florida Republican party stated that "I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology....schoolchildren across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans....an invasive abuse of power" - Liasson equates this rabidly stupid, hypocritical attack with the "political sniping" of Democrats who denounced Bush 41's school speech as "paid political advertising" and investigated the use of federal funds in producing the broadcast."Inspiring perhaps, but not very controversial. And not unlike the politically innocuous study hard, stay in school messages of previous presidents. Of course, those messages were subject to political sniping as well. Back in 1991, when George H. W. Bush gave a similar speech, Democrats called it political advertising."
Part II - You Lie
Inskeep on September 10, 2009 ME weighs in on Rep. Joe Wilson's unprecedented interruption of Pres. Obama's joint session speech the evening before:
"Now, in the middle of that booing, you can hear Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina shout out, 'You lie!' There's been a lot of the coverage of the etiquette of this. Wilson has apologized, but let's ask about the substance. Was the president truthful in saying that his plan is not going to cover illegal immigrants?"Well dang, there's a lot of reactions one might have had to Wilson's I-thought-I-was-at-a-Tea-Bag-Party outburst. Instead of questioning what role race - and decades-old Republican virulence and hypocrisy - played in Wilson's rebel yell, Inskeep wants to get to the "substance" of his squeal. At least if NPR was going to focus on the "substance" - it might have focused on the depravity of our political culture in general - where a supposedly liberal President is heckled for not being anti-undocumented immigrant enough when he is defending how hard-hearted he wants his healthcare reform bill to be toward those undocumented immigrants.
Blue Texan at FDL really captures the role that Liasson, Inskeep and NPR are playing: the American Right flings the most outrageous, dishonest, and ignorant poo it can and trusts that media outlets like NPR will work their hardest to shine it up as nothing but normal, mainstream, acceptable politics.
6 comments:
Scott (moist flushable wipe) Simon had on David Gergen (apparently Newt Gingrich wasn't enough Republican punditry for one Sat. AM) who noted that not all politicians from SC are mean, crazy racists. He cited Lindsey Graham as an example, who he characterized as "sweet." I could not help being reminded by that of this and this.
Agreed. Your blog is excellent. To the extent you can deal with the BS, I hope you keep with it.
NPR is basically a "crap balance". They balance "left-wing crap" with "right wing crap".
Problem is, there is MUCH (tons) more crap on the right.
But not a REAL problem.
NPR just adjusts their "balance" appropriately so it reads "zero crap" when there is already a load of right wing crap on it big enough to fill two football stadiums (to the top).
"See. It says 'zero'. Fair and balanced." -- Steve Inskrap (official crapologist)
NPR might tell you what wood a certain cross was composed of, how it was constructed, the heft involved in raising it up on Golgotha, but it would not dare tell you why it was used to kill a rabble-rouser in Jerusalem. They might even pass the event off as a minor kerfluffle experienced by an occupying army (their favorite!).
It's all horse races to those who don't want us to question the primacy of the track.
++++
..and NPR would undoubtedly interview Pontius Pilate and Judas to make sure they provided "balance" in the latter case.
And they would certainly not call the crucifixion "torture" or "murder".
They would probably call it an "enhanced stress position" or some other such Newspeak.
It's really kind of funny (in a pathetic sort of way) that in trying so hard to appear "objective" (appearance is everything, after all) NPR has effectively thrown real objectivity out the window.
Newspeak is all they have left.
Inskeep, Norris, Kestenbaum, Davidson, Gross, Liasson, Gonyea and most of the rest at NPR have no clue what real objectivity (and real journalism) is about.
People like Amy Goodman and Bill Moyers put the above quacks at NPR to shame.
^ yep, and in just under one hour per week!
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