Media pick up where they left off 8 years ago
To anyone who lived through the media feeding frenzy of the 1990s, during which the nation's leading news organizations spent the better part of a decade destroying their own credibility by relentlessly hyping a series of non-scandals, the past few days, in which the media have tried to shoehorn Barack Obama into the Rod Blagojevich scandal, have been sickeningly familiar.
Whenever reporters think -- or want you to think -- they've uncovered a presidential scandal, they waste little time in comparing it to previous controversies. Yesterday, CNN's Rick Sanchez tried desperately to get the phrase "Blagogate" to stick -- the latest in a long and overwhelmingly annoying post-Watergate pattern of ham-handed efforts to hype a scandal by appending the suffix "-gate" to the end of a word.
Sanchez's efforts to create a catchphrase aside, the criminal complaint filed against Blagojevich this week isn't the Watergate of the 21st century -- though it shows signs that it may become this decade's Whitewater.
Right about now, you may be scratching your head, trying to remember what, exactly, the Whitewater scandal was. Didn't it have something to do with a bank? Or a land deal? But didn't the Clintons lose money? How did the congressman who shot the pumpkin fit in?
But Whitewater is quite simple, when it is understood as it should be -- as a media scandal, not a presidential scandal.
As an endless series of investigations, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, revealed, the Clintons broke no law and violated no ethics regulations in connection with Whitewater. They lost money on a failed land deal in which their business partner cheated them. That's all there was. Republicans Ken Starr, Robert Fiske, Robert Ray, Al D'Amato, and Jim Leach, among others, investigated the matter, and none of them found illegality. There was simply nothing there -- except year after year of obsessive, and often dishonest, media coverage, fueled by conservatives who would stop at nothing to destroy the president.
As Joe Conason explains today, "The madness that was eventually classified under the quasi-clinical rubric of 'Whitewater' began, in no small degree, with the dubious idea that Arkansas, the Clintons' home state, was a peculiarly corrupt place -- and that any politician from Arkansas by definition was suspect (but only if he or she happened to be a Democrat)."
Arkansas journalist Gene Lyons noted in Fools for Scandal, his 1994 book about how the media invented Whitewater, "Scarcely a Whitewater story has appeared in the national press that hasn't made references to the state's uniquely 'incestuous' links between business, government, and the legal establishment -- concepts utterly foreign to places like Washington, D.C., and New York City, of course." (Conason and Lyons co-wrote The Hunting of the President, a book that -- along with Fools for Scandal -- are must-reads for anyone interested in the media or politics.)
By portraying Arkansas as thoroughly, and uniquely, corrupt, the media (and Clinton's political opponents) tied him to a long line of misbehavior that had nothing to do with him -- and created the impression that Clinton must be corrupt merely for being from such an ethical cesspool.
Of course, Arkansas was neither thoroughly nor uniquely corrupt.
In addition to the ages-old clichés -- big cities like New York and Chicago; the anything-goes Wild West of Las Vegas and Texas; perennial whipping boy New Jersey -- countless other states and cities have reputations for "unparalleled" corruption. People experienced in Connecticut politics will forcefully argue that their state takes a back seat to no other when it comes to the frequency with which public officials are caught in various degrees of wrongdoing. Then there's Florida, about which the less said, the better. And on and on and on.
Such reputations stem not only from actual examples of actual corruption -- California gave us Nixon; Maryland gave us Agnew; two of the Keating Five, including John McCain, hailed from Arizona -- but from the fact that many people, particularly those who work in politics and the media, tend to engage in a bit of tongue-in-cheek bragging about their home city or state's propensity for scandal.
The point isn't that everyplace is corrupt, or that nowhere is. It's that no location has a monopoly on crooked politicians (nor has there yet been a location over which crooked politicians held a monopoly) -- and that any claim of a city or state's unique history of public officials abusing their office should be taken with a whole shaker of salt. (For what it's worth, USA Today determined this week that "[o]n a per-capita basis ... Illinois ranks 18th for the number of public corruption convictions the federal government has won from 1998 through 2007," behind both Dakotas, Alaska, Alabama, Florida and several other states.)
And yet, here we are again, with an incoming Democratic president who hails from a city we are all supposed to believe is the most corrupt place this side of Dick Cheney's undisclosed location. Chicago, we are told, is a den of villainy so irredeemable it defies credulity to suggest anyone could emerge from so much as a long layover at O'Hare without a closet full of skeletons.
This nonsense was well under way during the presidential campaign, during which John McCain suggested a lack of integrity on Obama's part simply because he is from Chicago. You might think that a man who was a participant in one of the most notorious scandals in the history of the U.S. Senate would be laughed at if he tried to claim his opponent lacked integrity simply because of his ZIP code. Instead, the national media laughed along with McCain, endlessly repeating his witty zinger about Chicago.
And so this week, we've heard over and over how politics in Illinois are rotten to the core.
At Obama's press conference yesterday, the third questioner asked, "What's wrong with politics in Illinois?" Chris Matthews made sure viewers knew that "Barack Obama, of course, rose to political power in a city, Chicago, in a state, Illinois, known for corruption."
ABC's Rick Klein chimed in: "[W]ith one stiff wind, Chicago has grabbed Obama and his transition -- and blown it off-course. ... The underbelly of the Obama political operation, with all its Chicago tints and taints, is now fair game for reporters looking for a story." (Nonsense. If the "Obama political operation" has an "underbelly" featuring actual wrongdoing, it's fair game whether or not a governor is busted in a scandal that has nothing to do with Obama. And if that "underbelly" hasn't actually done anything wrong, Blago's bust doesn't change that -- regardless of tint or taint.)
On his radio show, Bill O'Reilly asked Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass if it is even possible for Obama to have existed in Chicago without being dishonest, leading Kass to reply: "Yes, that is possible. It's also possible that he was found as an infant in a reed basket floating in the Chicago River."
The similarities between the media's current behavior and their shameful performance in the 1990s doesn't stop with their bizarre suggestions that geography is destiny.
One of the central flaws of the media's coverage of the Clintons was that they portrayed nearly everything as evidence of guilt. Perhaps most perverse was the suggestion that the conviction of Clinton Justice Department official Webster Hubbell was evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons. What made that so perverse? Hubbell was convicted, essentially, of stealing money from the law firm in which he and Hillary Clinton were both partners. Hubbell, in other words, stole from Hillary Clinton. The Clintons were Hubbell's victims -- and yet many journalists portrayed his conviction as evidence of their guilt.
Which brings us to Tuesday's New York Times. As Will Bunch has explained, the Times reported that Obama supported an Illinois ethics reform package that passed over Blagojevich's veto, which led to Blagojevich pressing state contractors for contributions before the reform takes effect, which "indirectly contributed to the downfall." Good news for Obama, right? He supported a reform package, even urging the state Senate to pass it over Blagojevich's veto. And yet the Times concludes that this story demonstrates that Obama "has never quite escaped the murky and insular world of Illinois politics" -- as though the fact that Blagojevich allegedly did something improper in an effort to avoid the effects of the reform Obama championed somehow taints Obama. Bizarre.
Most telling is the tendency of many journalists to speculate that the Blagojevich scandal may ensnare Obama without acknowledging that the complaint against Blagojevich contained absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing by Obama, or that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said, "I should make clear, the complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever, his conduct." (You may remember The New York Times' reaction to the Resolution Trust Corporation investigation that exonerated the Clintons of Whitewater wrongdoing in 1995: The "paper of record," which had been relentlessly hyping the non-scandal, all but ignored the RTC report and continued pushing Whitewater.)
Even worse than ignoring Fitzgerald's exculpatory comments, Time actually suggested they are bad news for Obama:
On more than one occasion during his stunning press conference on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald bluntly said he has found no evidence of wrongdoing by President-elect Barack Obama in the tangled, tawdry scheme that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly cooked up to sell Obama's now vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. But for politicians, it's never good news when a top-notch prosecutor has to go out of his way to distance them from a front-page scandal.
Got that? Fitzgerald said there's no evidence Obama did anything wrong. Bad news for Obama! (For the record: The reason Fitzgerald "has to go out of his way" to distance Obama from the scandal is that news organizations like Time keep going out of their way to baselessly link Obama to the scandal.)
Such attempts to link Obama to scandal via tortured logic and geography rather than more substantive ties were necessary because of the complete lack of substantive ties.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the media's attempts to link Obama to the Blagojevich scandal has been the volume of news reports that are purely speculative -- and not only speculative, but vaguely speculative. That is, they don't even consist of conjecture about specific potential wrong doing. They simply consist of completely baseless speculation that Obama might in some way become caught up in the investigation at some point in the future, for some reason. It's little more than, "Maybe Obama will be involved." Well, sure. And maybe he'll play shortstop for the Washington Nationals next year.
Associated Press reporter Liz Sidoti set the standard for pointlessly speculative news reports with an "analysis" piece declaring that "President-elect Barack Obama hasn't even stepped into office and already a scandal is threatening to dog him." In the very next sentence, Sidoti had to admit that "Obama isn't accused of anything" -- but that didn't stop her from continuing to offer ominous warnings that Obama could be implicated in the scandal, interspersed with concessions that he, you know ... isn't.
Not that Sidoti was unique in stringing together a bunch of coulds and mights and maybes and ifs to create something that vaguely resembles -- but is certainly not -- an actual news report.
ABC's Rick Klein, for example:
The scandal surrounding Blagojevich, the Democratic governor of Illinois, may or may not implicate members of Congress, in addition to at least the outer ring of advisers in the incoming Obama administration.
Got that? The scandal may or may not implicate members of Congress. Awfully hard to argue with that. The modifier "at least" is a nice touch, too -- suggesting that the outer ring of Obama advisers has already been implicated in the scandal (they haven't).
That was par for the course this week, as reporters breathlessly asked what Obama knew and when he knew it (the decidedly non-scandalous answers are apparently "very little" and "very recently").
If you want to make a "scandal" stick to someone despite the inconvenient truth that they aren't actually guilty of the purported wrongdoing in question, one thing you do -- if you're the media covering a Democratic president, or an overzealous conservative -- is continually expand the scandal's definition. So the "scandal" grows and evolves into an amorphous mass of innuendo as political opponents and journalists begin throwing everything against the wall, hoping something will stick.
Eventually what begins as a land deal (in which the Clintons did nothing wrong and lost money) includes an investigation of the tragic suicide of a White House staffer -- and the next thing you know, some B-list congressman is traipsing into his backyard with a shotgun, taking aim at a perfectly innocent pumpkin because the voices in his head told him that gunning down some produce would somehow "prove" that the staffer was murdered as part of an elaborate cover-up of ... well, of nothing. There was nothing to cover up, and no murder to cover it up. The pumpkin died in vain.
And so on Wednesday, the Associated Press issued an article headlined "Questionable associations of Obama." Prompted by the Blagojevich scandal -- which, again, involves no indication that Obama did anything wrong -- the article announces, "In his life and career in Illinois, President-elect Barack Obama has crossed paths with some notable figures who have drawn scorn and scrutiny."
From there, the AP proceeds to describe several such "notable figures," most of whom have little if anything to do with Obama -- or the Blagojevich scandal. What, for example, is Jeremiah Wright doing here? None of their connections to Obama involve so much as a hint of an allegation of legal or ethical wrongdoing. To the extent they are controversial, it is for their views. They couldn't possibly have less to do with the Blagojevich scandal; there is no conceivable reason for the AP to bring them up now -- except to try to fling a bunch of garbage against the wall in hopes of something, somehow, sticking. It's as though the AP, recognizing how tenuous Obama's ties to the Blagojevich scandal are, tried to make it look more substantial by tossing in a bunch of other "notable" ties.
Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz complained that it took Obama "24 hours" to decide that Blagojevich should resign, worrying "that kind of excessive caution" could "define his presidency."
Obama called for Blagojevich's resignation within 24 hours, and Howard Kurtz thinks that wasn't fast enough. It's so fast, Kurtz had to measure the time elapsed in hours rather than days. And yet, Kurtz thinks it constituted excessive foot-dragging. This is simply not a sane assessment. It's a desperate attempt to find something to criticize about Obama. Obama is not involved in the scandal, so Kurtz sits by with a stopwatch, trying to document Obama's slow response to it.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer announced yesterday that "some are calling this Obama's first presidential scandal." It isn't. There is no evidence he has done anything wrong. This is not Obama's first presidential scandal -- but it shows signs of becoming the first media scandal of the Obama presidency.
Obviously, the news media should aggressively investigate and report on actual involvement in actual wrongdoing by public figures. There was far too little of that reporting during the Bush administration. (Remember when the media refused to report on the Downing Street Memo? Good times.)
If the news media regains a bit of the skepticism so many of them set aside for the past eight years, that would be an unequivocally good thing, and it should be applauded.
But this week brought signs that much of the media is set to resume the absurd and shameful behavior that defined the 1990s -- guilt by association, circular analysis whereby they ask baseless questions about non-scandals, then claim they have to report on the "scandal" because the White House is "besieged by questions," grotesque leaps of logic, downplaying exculpatory information, and too many other failings to list.
If that happens -- if the media continue to behave as they did in covering Whitewater -- they will damage the country. It's really that simple. We cannot afford to be distracted from serious problems by overheated conjecture and baseless insinuation masquerading as journalism.
Not to mention the outright fabrications. To take just one of many examples, Jeff Greenfield and ABC selectively edited Hillary Clinton's comments during a Whitewater press conference, then accused her of lying -- an accusation that, based on Clinton's full comments, was clearly false. It was a shockingly dishonest report; Greenfield and ABC were simply lying about Clinton -- there's really no other way to put it. Those involved should have seen their reputations take a serious hit -- at the very least. Yet they suffered no consequences due to their dishonorable and unprofessional actions.
That's how the media behaved the last time we had a Democratic president. They devoted wall-to-wall coverage to invented "scandals," ignored exculpatory evidence, saw evidence of guilt everywhere, took people out of context in order to accuse them of lying, and generally behaved like a pack of wild animals who couldn't tell right from wrong or truth from fiction -- or who simply didn't care. As a group, they behaved without ethical standards and without regard for the truth.
It's our responsibility -- all of us -- to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.
that's correct on the downing street memo. the head of british intelligence had been to washington to confer with his counterparts six months before the invasion. he came back and reported that the decision to invade had been made, but the evidence for wmd was thin, so the "facts were being fixed around the policy". when that came out, it was headlines in britain. here, not so much. just like bush continues to lie that he had to invade because saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in, when they had been there for months. and the media doesn't call him on it.
saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in, when they had been there for months.
And it was Bush who ordered the inspectors to leave so he could invade and have his little revenge war.
Superb work, MMFA, thank you. But this, IMHO, appears to be the results of years & years of right-wing hammering on a supposed "liberal media bias". The MSM feels that if they run a non-issue into the ground against a Dem, it makes them feel warmy & fuzzy to the right-wingers. It is simply following the GOP style script that Obama never tells the full story. Just like he never said enough about having a hidden relationship with Rezko & Ayers, right?
A "non issue"? Hardly. A cover up is more like it. For the lost here is a refresher:
Whitewater revisited
Foser convienietly leaves out all the close friends and associates of the Clinton's who did get convicted in the Whitewater investigation; Jim McDougal, Susan McDougal, Jim Guy Tucker, and the meatball himself Webster Hubbel.
The Clinton's came out squeaky clean...makes one wonder...where was the press?
Where was the press during Whitewater? You really don't remember the stories all over the national media?
What are you talking about? All we heard for 8 years was "Whitewater, Whitewater".
My God.
No, Foser mentioned the "smear by association" tactic. You provide a good example of it. Frankly, I think if either Clinton had done something wrong, it would have been proven during this massive investigation. Your post consists of a smear, a link, several more smears, and a whopper of a nonsensical question. Thank you for my daily dose of wingnut entertainment.
Here is exactly what Foser posted:
As an endless series of investigations, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, revealed, the Clintons broke no law and violated no ethics regulations in connection with Whitewater. They lost money on a failed land deal in which their business partner cheated them. That's all there was. Republicans Ken Starr, Robert Fiske, Robert Ray, Al D'Amato, and Jim Leach, among others, investigated the matter, and none of them found illegality. There was simply nothing there -- except year after year of obsessive, and often dishonest, media coverage, fueled by conservatives who would stop at nothing to destroy the president.
He DIDN'T mention close clinton associates AT ALL. To say "there was nothing there" is intellectually dishonest and proves Foser is one more in a long line of liberal hacks that has his head in the sand.
Are you asserting that there was "nothing there" in Whitewater? I'd bet McDougal and Meathead Hubbel will beg to differ.
it quite clearly says "the clintons". "none of then found illegality". that's correct. the clintons were found to have done nothing illegal, after 70 million dollars spent.
Spot on about the "-gate" suffix to every scandal. You could tell "Spygate" was as forced and slap-me-with-a-good-name as it could have been. I seriously hope the Blagojevich scandal name of "Blagogate" doesn't stick at all...
Thanks so much for your excellent article. I appreciate your weaving the examples of what happened in the 90's and tying it into what's happening today - as I didn't fully understand the whole mess in the 90's. Probably because it was so tedious and I got that it was conjured up baloney against the Clinton's.
It's a crying shame that with Obama having won the presidential election it still isn't enough to shut up the media from conjuring up fake scandals to placate the right wing and that Reid doesn't stand up to the G.O.P. as the example last night on the automakers bail out that failed.
Outstanding comments from MMFA. This non relationship has turned into stories suggesting Obama and the Gov were best buddies. I am glad MMFA is around , 8 years ago when the media smeared Clinton we had no watchdogs and the GOP led the way with lies and smears. Some things never change.
And while GWB and "Kenny Boy" Lay were pretty much "Best buddies" and there was hardly any coverage of that (if there was any).
they were obviously pretty good friends. if you read this birthday letter, it's not something a secretary typed up.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bushlay5.html
"And while GWB and "Kenny Boy" Lay were pretty much "Best buddies" and there was hardly any coverage of that (if there was any)."
The closeness of the Bush-Kenny Boy relationship was nothing if not that of blood brothers.... and yet... according to the rightwing corporate owned media...
Obama's relationship with Bill Ayres was... when the reality of it is more closely related to that of fourth cousins twice removed... if even...
Mefirst.... Good link... good site
but here's one that speaks to the fact that even the corporate owned media was speaking the truth initially about the close relationship of Bush and Kenny Boy... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/08/politics/main628320.shtml
PS... Anyone else believe that Ken Lay is really dead? I for one think that he is alive and well in an undisclosed location... but if he's dead... who cares.
Exactly, and how Kenny Boy was a Bush family friend. Unlike the Governor and Obama.
A partial list of professions with more accountability, ethical standards, and competence than journalism:
If you happen to be a journalist who is good at journalism, you aren't going to get anywhere. Better start sucking real hard real fast.
The ingredients of american journalism are very clear in this article: two scoops of bias, two scoops of stupid.
"It's our responsibility -- all of us -- to make sure it doesn't happen again." -- this comment seems to suggest that the media is somehow capable of accepting criticism, being embarrassed, or getting better. No such luck. Our responsibility can only be to get others to stop feeding from the trough.
I notice members of Congress did not make your list.
I'll be more than happy to include them. Members of congress have, on occasion, voted yes on a bill that got something done, expressed a relevant thought regarding a serious national problem, been held to some sort of ethical standard, and been voted out of office for poor performance.
That post reminds me of that one Bob Knight PC, where he implied that journalism was one or two steps above prostitution...
Somehow, I bet the press will now find the "courage" to press the President on these things. Amazingly, they had no interest in looking into GWB's "adolescence" tthat lasted until his late 30's, his failed business ventures, his AWOL or anything else he was involved in.
Sadly though, I think it was partly because they felt like pusing Bush on something was like kicking a sick dog. Who didn't feel bad for that man, completely out of his league, completely uninterested in anything political? But now, they have Obama, a smart, forceful man of integrity. They no longer have to feel like bullies when they question him.
Still, it's despicable the way the media treats this as an Obama scandal, and not a Blagojevich one.
I can forgive the press for not digging too much into Bush's youth, but their refusal to dig into anything he's done since 9/11.... that I will not forgive.
I think historians will look back and state that after 9/11 the press was paralyzed in this nation. They feared retribution. Look what happened to Phil Donahue .
So what do we do to make sure the media's one-sided "Clinton Rules" and endless faux scandels don't plague Obama presidency? How do we stop the media this time? Because I don't think they've changed much since the Clintons. I think they're planning to do the same ugly, unethical, and stupid schtick. Do we just write letters to the editors? I don't think that works. Stop our subscriptions? I've already done that. Can Jamison and Co give us some suggestions?
The absence of credibility in the main stream media reminds me of the problems facing Detroit auto makers. They are producing at lousy product and therefore losing their market and yet they are SO stuck in their old way of operating that they can't change. Very unprofessional.
The broad right wing conspiracy of stupid.
Thank God we have the internet today, where right-wing talking points and false accusations get debunked within a matter of hours, sometimes minutes.
But we still need to convince most of the public that the best way to glean a fact is to spend a couple minutes searching the internet for the debunking, rather than watching CNN and flipping a coin to decide which guest to believe.
Even the internet is full of misstatements, their sources and authors often claiming to be highly credible, and eventually, credibility is achieved when the examiner of the source agrees with it or not.
As an example, Keith O considers MMFA to be a credible organization, while Bill O does not.
maybe that's because o'reilly has no credibility and this site points it out.
KO and BO are both A** Holes. Neither has credibilty. When this nation continues the war crimes under Obama that started even before Bush was in office you will not hear a peep from KO , and BO will turn around and talk about them. They are both phony creeps.
When this nation continues the war crimes under Obama
Any examples? Haven't you heard Obama say that he'll close Gitmo and pull out of Iraq? Haven't you been listening?
Yes closing Gitmo is great, but America still has a leader at the DOD who is friends with the Bushes, and bombing civillians in Afghanistan is a war crime, and if we continue to expand the illegal war in that country i am sure the war crimes will be ignored by partisans like Olbermann.
In other words, Caseysprings, it's the same "no difference" garbage that the dividers and idiots of this nation push to try and get their fringe whackjobs into office and only succeed in ruining the country further.
You just want something to complain about, really.
No i just want a nation to be proud of again.
then i have a question. if you're so anti bush, and so worried about all these war crimes, then why did you refer to the artist who made that "impeach bush" christmas ornament as "scum" and a "disgusting piece of garbage"? she made a protest, so what's the basis of your wrath towards her?
This thread is not the place for the discussion on the christmas ornament, i know you intend to change the topic but I am not playing your games.
it's not the ornament, it's your reaction to someone who was protesting bush. it seems all out of proportion to the "offense". suppose i said that sarah palin was "dangerous". what would be your reaction?
She was dangerous, very unqualified. That would be my reaction.
Casey, what war crimes (or wars) started under the Obama administration before GWB was in office?
The enforcement of the no fly zone and bombing of the Iraqi civillians that started in the First Bush administration is one example.
And by their actions, the msm-tards are accelerating the rate at which people give up trying to get reliable information from them, in effect, driving themselves out of business. Brilliant.
I really think the big difference between BushieCo and the incoming Dems is that the GWB administration threatened the corporations that ran communication companies. I believe they made it a point to have very powerful and wealthy attack dogs go into boardrooms (especially after 9/11) and lay down the Bush law regarding coverage (probably with tax lien threats or the like).
With Obama the editors and producers simply don't have the pressure from up above. So if one mention gets one rating point, two will get two.
The media has no interest in ratings. If it did, it might cater to the majority once in a while.
Perhaps. But they raked it in, ratings-wise, going after Clinton and strategically they don't have the clamps (as I mentioned above) that BushieCo put them under. 1 + 1 = 15 share.
I think there may be something to that theory, or maybe the billionaire media moguls just liked President Numbnuts because he gave them huge tax cuts. Either way, the press reaction to "Blagogate" is a clear indicator of a double standard. I don't remember this kind of media hyperventilation over any Bush scandal. Hell.... Karl Rove is in contempt of a Congressional subpoena... and he's working as a news analyst! WTF?
The MSM has yet to delve into the cooked intelligence that led us into Iraq. I know that 60 minutes has glanced at it, and there have been books and documentaries on it, but the Talking Newsheads have simply refused to go there. Even when it was revealed that the Pentagon planted spokespeople on the networks to drum up support for the war, they hardly batted an eye. When the subject came up on MSNBC, David Gregory said that the public had "moved on" and considered that issue settled? Really?
Liberal Media, my a$$.
I'm waiting for the first noncreative reporter to label it Blago-gate.
Didn't you read the article? Rick Sanchez already tried it.
I, for one, am not surprised. But I don't think it's going to work this time. First, Mr. Obama is one of the cleanest politicians we have ever seen and his staff has been meticulous in making sure that those around him are likewise free of scandal. And I find it amusing in that they are talking about Blagojevich as if he is a <i>Chicago</i> politician when the reality is that Illinois state politics take place in <i>Springfield</i>.
Second, less people are buying the BS, literally. As Jon Stewart said, "What's Black And White And Completely Over?" Newspapers across the country, including the snarky Chicago Tribune, are spilling more money than ink these days, mainly because their credibility is only slightly higher than the Weekly World News. Which by the way is also finished, print-wise.
Third, there are organized groups, of which MMFA of course is one, of calling BS when they see it, and more people are paying attention. The only people who think these "scandals" are serious things are the idiots who would believe anything bad about Mr. Obama in particular and Democrats in general, no matter how ridiculous it is. They're much more in the minority now.
As to why the media continue to push these stories, well, that's anybody's guess, but none of the conceivable answers reflects well on them: the best you can say is that they're just doing a pretty lousy job, at worst, when you consider the enormous amounts of real scandal that have gone on over the last few years that they have blatantly ignored, is that they really are just corporate versions of Pravda and Isvestia.
There's so much work we need to do in this country and I hope we can go about doing it even as the windbags of the press corps scream their heads off about nothing. And I think most people in the country recognize that.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer announced yesterday that "some are calling this Obama's first presidential scandal."
And some people say they can see the Virgin Mary in your beard, Wolfie.
Damn, I really hate that "some people say" crap.
I have this (possibly stupidly optimistic) idea that it will be somewhat different than the 90s, for a few reasons.
in the terrifying economic environment we're in now, i do not think as many people will find it to be such a delightful sport to destroy the president. The media will still be doing it, but less people will be buying it. In the 90s, it became this excitingly new, tittilating, pass-time. Now some of those same people might be thinking this obama fella had better succeed, because these are serious and scary times. In the 90s, Fox was new, and the whole right-wing machine was at its apex, and it was a category of entertainment that was new. i think people are a bit more inured to it now. Back then, we had virtually no infrastructure to oppose the crap information (like we are starting to do now). Of course the right-wing-media-infotainment-complex is still huge, but some factors have changed. a lot of us were blind-sided by what happened back then, and we will not be blind-sided again.
i have a sense that obama will not attract the weirdly extreme hatred clinton attracted. with clinton, it was like moths attracted to a pheromone trap-- it was almost a physical drive for some people. obama is a very different guy with a different history. i know, i know, all the "muslim" crap, and I know there's always going to be hard-core obama-haters out there. but i sense that the things they try to trot out against obama don't have "legs" like the clinton stuff. and some the clinton stuff had to do with "sex", which makes people go caa-razy.
,
i think there are a lot of the regular-every-day, non-attention-payin', busy, struggling, crap-TV-"news"-watching folks out there, who vaguely bought into the clinton nonsense, who are now:
a tiny bit wiser; a tad bit inured to the media techniques; were kind of bummed out about what happened to clinton; who now kinda think it matters who the president is, it matters if government is competent. One thing about having the worst administration in the history of the country is that it's a good learning thing for people.
I hope you're right. It is important to remember that the Right Wing Hate Radio Machine was virtually unanswered during the 90s. They still dominate that medium, but they aren't so dominant on the Blogosphere, and the FOX "News" barrage is balanced to some degree by a couple of shows on MSNBC.
I also don't think Obama has Bill Clinton's weakness for women. The Professional Liars will fabricate all kinds of stuff about his "associations", but, unless they find the equivalent of a semen-stained dress, I don't think much of it will stick.
On the other hand, it is essential that the Democrats maintain control of Congress. If the RepubliCons take it back, they'll cripple Obama's presidency with endless, trivial investigations, just like they did with Clinton.
Everytime there is some really big 'issue' (whatever that is) flying through the web, I come here and you have ten pages on it. Not ten pages of opinion. ten pages of quotes and cites. I really think you guys do the best job of clarifying and I usually agree with your conclusions. This Illinois Governor felon says forget you to the President-Elect, the DA says Barack had nothing to do with this series of felonies and the media all of a sudden has something to talk about.
As always, very good job.
Does not matter who and what party is involved in the scandal. Media loves a scandal because it sells. And with the recent past history of Illinouse politics is it any wonder why the media are suspicious of Obamas connection to Blagojevich. The media would be losing what little credibility it has if it were not there asking the tough but neccessary questions about what role if any Obama had in $$ for power crimes.
Without bragging too much, let me say that in April, 1994, I was among the first to expose the Whitewater investigation as a hoax. My venue was CNN, where I was Senior Investigative Correspondent for nine years (yes, once upon a time, the network did meaningful muckraking). My 30 minute CNN story was proven correct seven years later when the final Whitewater report was released. Bragging aside, it is encouraging to see that the the perpertrators of the Whitewater "scandal -- namely the New York Times and Washington Post -- have not yet bought into rumors of an Obama link to Blago. By the same token, it is a big discouraging because Gene Lyons, Joe Conason and I will be limited in our criticisms of the nation's two leading newspapers. But given the state of my former employer, CNN, and television news in general, I can keep my "old codger" bitching engine running until death do I part. Hopefully, not too soon.
For the media types who peruse this thread and believe scandal sells regardless of the truthfullness I have a message for you. Keep it up and the broadcast/print media industry will go the way of music industry. All you chauffer driven NYP plate types will be lined up in Washington waiting for a bailout behind GM. WE ARE SICK OF THIS .....! Cut it out. And to the NYT, one more post that has even the shread of reasonableness and I will cancel my subscription forthwith. I'm already tired of tieing them up for recycling so maybe it wont be sucsh a loss. I'll be sure to call that one in Monday morning. But hey, maybe you can afford to loose another seven day subscriber. I have niether the time nor desire to filter my reading by author. I EXPECT IT TO BE RIGHT ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now some of you here may want to label me an Obamaite or any of the other slick nicknames that make for a good laugh. I'm not. I am a DAD who is desperately trying to hold on the promise of this country for his children. A veteran who until recently would have loved nothing better than to see one of kids graduate from a military academy. A Reagan Democrat, for better or worse, who believed in the Revolution minus the fire and brimstone. You are destroying US. And for what? So you can grab an extra share of the ratings for a week. Sell a few extra newspapers for a day. The music industry went down the same path, make an album with one song and sell it for $20. Janet Jackson breathed hard and that was a track. The technolgy caught up with the demand and......CAN YOU SAY APPLE TV? You are cutting your own throats and just might take the rest of US with you because there are just enough crazys out there to believe that one story that one day. THEY DON'T READ/WATCH THE OTHER SIX DAYS OF THE WEEK.
MMFA you just earned my donation. And if I can make you my Redefine-Christmas charitable contribution you can count that one too. GOD HELP US!!!!
Of course Obama worked in Chicago and Al Capone also worked there. I wonder if Hannity and Bill O will note the obvious connection?
Bill O and Hannity are reaching to the point of no return. On a side note I read that Hannity will have the 9pm slot to himself on FAUX on January 6. What a joke.
I don't get why it is so hard to understand what is happening with the media. In the '50s the CIA began a program called "Operation Mockingbird" where their mission was to bribe and blackmail their way into the media. This became easier with meida consolidation when all the media essentially is owned by 6 corporations. In recent years the previous retired Director of the CIA bragged about the success of Operation Mockingbird claiming there was not anyone of importance in the media who was not controlled by them.
We are living in a time where the republican party consists of people who have been cultivated by the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly. Coulter, Savage, Hume, Gibson...it's a huge list that only recently managed to allow 2 liberals on the TV.
Just google Operation Mockingbird. This is part of the move from a democracy to a corporatocracy...controlling the media. Conservatives (which includes many dem leaders) have no new ideas or policies that are for the good of the people...just ones that protect the holdings and business of the very wealthy and multinational corporations. Their mission is to demonize or "Clintonize" Obama while using the filibuster to block and obstruct any change initiated by dems or liberals...despite that the majority in our nation poll liberal. Prepare for years of the press demonizing Obama while the senate blocks legislating by the majority. The People's Obstructionis Party (POP), formerly the republicans, care only for preventing the dems from being successful for even if the economy fails...they will lose nothing.
What does it matter, in the end? Is there any chance the electors will throw the presidency to McCain? NO. Is there any remote chance the Democrats will impeach Obama for this? NO, goddamnit, NO! Is there any chance this could result in a massive republican swing in Congress next time? THIS we have to guard against, but it sure seems unlikely at this point.
That's why the media is such a factor, Half the country seems to have wised up, but as shown by this item, and to anybody who's watching the news lately, those voters who aren't completely brain-dead Republo-zombies, those in the center who can be swayed either way, will be the mark of the media for the next few years.
If the corporate media can convince enough of them that GW Bush isn't responsible for anything, and convince them that everything they see and hear is not the way it appears, the GOP will remain viable in its present state.
Well...well...well...
I'm not surpised this article is posted at Media Matters; however, I'm surprised at the intellectual dishonesty.
Anyone with common sense, and I'm a common sense liberal, knows that Chicago politics is as corrupt as it can get. No person, including Barack Obama, gets anywhere in Chicago/Illinois politics unless he/she plays the game. It's absurd to suggest Obama is immune to the corruption so common in Illinois politics.
As liberals, we should be displeased that it took Obama 24 hours to release a rather innocent sounding rebuke of the Illinois governor. If Obama is the agent of change he claims to be, then he should be the first in line to condemn the governor.
Please try to refrain from the the righteous posturing regarding the fact that Obama is and apparently still is a product of the corrupt political system in Illinois and, especially, Chicago. I'm hopeful that Obama can actually overcome the handicap of being born again into the corrupt Illinois political machine. If not, we're all in trouble.
After 8 years of the Bush presidency, cronyism and all the other misdeeds of that administration, Media Matters should be the first media site demanding some explanation from Obama. However, it appears Media Matters, similar to Townhall.com and Newsbusters.org, are only interested in playing the same, tired partisan nonsense the American people have suffered through for so long.
Obama is NOT immune to mistakes and, if Media Matters is truly interested in intellectual and media honesty, then it should be the first to question Obama's ties to the corrupt Illinois political machine.
Quite an artful piece of concern trolling there. Very impressive.
However, it's easily addressed. There is no indication that Obama did anything wrong here. If there was, you would have a point. As it is, there's no reason for MMfA to say anything other than what they've said.
"If the news media regains a bit of the skepticism so many of them set aside for the past eight years, that would be an unequivocally good thing, and it should be applauded."
But, Brab... as a liberal, don't you think it's important to realize that Obama is not immune to things, and to question any ties that you might imagine exist?
And may I add, Well...well...well...
You're right, let me give the response that Terlingua seemingly expected.
"Anyone with common sense, and I'm a common sense liberal, knows that Chicago politics is as corrupt as it can get. No person, including Barack Obama, gets anywhere in Chicago/Illinois politics unless he/she plays the game. It's absurd to suggest Obama is immune to the corruption so common in Illinois politics."
Gosh, I hadn't thought about it that way. Of course if there's other corrupt people in that large network of people, then everyone is corrupt.
"As liberals, we should be displeased that it took Obama 24 hours to release a rather innocent sounding rebuke of the Illinois governor. If Obama is the agent of change he claims to be, then he should be the first in line to condemn the governor."
24 hours? What an outrage! We should protest in the streets!
"Please try to refrain from the the righteous posturing regarding the fact that Obama is and apparently still is a product of the corrupt political system in Illinois and, especially, Chicago. I'm hopeful that Obama can actually overcome the handicap of being born again into the corrupt Illinois political machine. If not, we're all in trouble."
I will pray for him every day.
"After 8 years of the Bush presidency, cronyism and all the other misdeeds of that administration, Media Matters should be the first media site demanding some explanation from Obama. However, it appears Media Matters, similar to Townhall.com and Newsbusters.org, are only interested in playing the same, tired partisan nonsense the American people have suffered through for so long."
Right! Saying the media should act in accordance to the evidence is wildly partisan, and I'm ashamed that I patronize a place so obviously comparable to Townhall.com.
"Obama is NOT immune to mistakes and, if Media Matters is truly interested in intellectual and media honesty, then it should be the first to question Obama's ties to the corrupt Illinois political machine."
Of course! The fact that he's not immune means that we should assume he's guilty of some unnamed violation no matter what the actual investigators have said. Thank you so much for setting everyone straight!
Very nice. You could have mentioned that you were a liberal a few more times, though. That's one of my favorite concern troll flourishes.
You have to wonder at the mind that thinks that stuff is going to fool anybody except for their equals, who are more likely at Townhall than here.