Afghanistan Hysteria

July 26th, 2010

Jesus Christ!!! You want to know what it is like to witness an eleven year old boy on the cusp of testosterone city seeing his first pair of naked titties? Well, just take a look at the breathless New York Times and the British newspaper The Guardian. They get their first look at the intelligence community’s version of Playboy pictures and they cum in their jeans. They are acting in the same way that Forrest Gump did with Jenny:

The NY Times pants breathlessly:

A six-year archive of classified military documents made public on Sunday offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.

The secret documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.

We are now in an alternate universe.

Unless you have lived in a cave or had your head shoved completely up your ass, you might have picked up in the media that we have had some problems in Afghanistan. Why? Bush withdrew key military resources starting in December 2001 and did not consider making Afghanistan a priority until the summer of 2008. Yes, things have not gone well in Afghanistan. But this ain’t news.

In fact, the New York Times even grudgingly acknowledges this fact:

Over all, the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war. But in some cases the documents show that the American military made misleading public statements — attributing the downing of a helicopter to conventional weapons instead of heat-seeking missiles or giving Afghans credit for missions carried out by Special Operations commandos.

How fucking stupid are journalists? Honest to God, this is ridiculous. They want the military to tell the enemy exactly what is going on? Congress has been briefed on these things in secure session. Just because the Pentagon is not announcing to the world everything that is being done by Top Secret units does not mean all is lost and that we are getting our ass kicked.

Read this crap if you must, but don’t get your shorts in a wad. We actually are doing better in Afghanistan and have a reasonable shot at keeping Afghanistan out of the hands of the Islamic crazies.

The Race Card Hoists the Obama Administration on its Own Petard

July 25th, 2010

Leave it to Maureen Dowd to miss the forest for the trees in her argument that

“The Obama White House is too white.”

In Dowd’s latest NYT column, You’ll Never Believe What This White House Is Missing, she discusses the Shirley Sherrod incident, and writes that “unlike Bill Clinton, who never needed help fathoming Southern black culture,” the Obama white house just doesn’t get the “central African-American experience.”

Dowd contends the Obama administration had better shape up otherwise…

“…[T]his administration will keep tripping over race rather than inspiring on race.”

and

“We may not have a “nation of cowards” on race, as Attorney General Eric Holder contended, but we may have a West Wing of cowards on race.”

They are cowards. Period. Yet they use the Rovian tactic of blaming others for sins of which they themselves are guilty.

While Dowd understands that Barack Obama’s exotic background and upbringing in Hawaii may be a contributing factor to his seeming lack of understanding, she cannot admit that White House insensitivity on racial issues is due to much more than his being surrounded by “smart-ass white boys” as she puts it. The real problem stems from something far worse. His administration’s actions are governed by branding, political expediency and preserving Obama’s popularity.

When polling rather than conscience drives your actions, the Shirley Sherrod firing fiasco is the result.

Dowd then resorts to the typical “let’s attack FOX News for the hell of it” gambit:

“The West Wing white guys who pushed to ditch Shirley Sherrod before Glenn Beck could pounce…”

Dowd does not clarify what Glenn Beck “pouncing” actually meant – Glenn Beck pounced on the White House, not Sherrod. Beck felt they had unjustly fired her. But Dowd could not possibly admit that Beck took Sherrod’s side. Sherrod could not either from the looks of it and wanted to continue to paint FOX News as the bad guy when the network held off on covering the story until they got all the facts – unlike President Obama. Sherrod was forced to resign before FOX did any “pouncing.”

And what of the NAACP? They were the ones with the entire tape – why didn’t they speak on her behalf, if indeed they had the basis to do so?

Perhaps Andrew Breitbart was wrong to show the edited tape of Sherrod’s remarks. It is up to you to decide whether you believe he did so less to slam Sherrod and more to slam the audience at the NAACP dinner who reacted appreciatively to what he felt were reverse racist sentiments on her part.

Dowd also complains…

“At some level, [Obama] acts like the election was enough; he shouldn’t have to deal with race further. But he does.”

…“Who knew that the first black president would make it even harder on black people?” asked a top black Democratic official.

Um. I did. So did a lot of other folks on this blog.

In May of 2008, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson penned a piece entitled The Card Clinton Is Playing – accusing Hillary Clinton of playing the race card to advance her candidacy while ignoring the fact that the Obama campaign had been playing that card daily and with impunity. I responded to Mr. Robinson’s accusations. In pertinent part, I wrote:

…The few like Tavis Smiley, who criticized Sen. Obama for skipping the State of the Black Union, and I believe [Senator Obama] also decided not to speak at MLK’s anniversary event, raise an interesting point. Senator Obama is, perhaps of necessity, courting the white vote and taking for granted the African American community who vote for him in droves. I believe, if he were to be elected, aside from the great symbolic value of having him in office, which I grant you is no small thing, the AA community may suffer because the white liberal elite in the party pushing to elect him will feel they’ve put a band aid over the racial divide in this country, while in actuality doing little to heal it.

Apparently Dowd agrees, complaining that Obama is “light years” behind Bush on developmental help to Africa and wouldn’t let Muslim women in head scarves appear behing him at a rally because Obama staffers were afraid he would be painted “as a radical/Muslim/socialist.” She accuses his staffers of insensitivity — as if Obama were somehow not involved in these decisions. Isn’t he the President?

Ms. Dowd – it is not “insensitivity.” It is Obama’s ‘you are a notch on my bedpost, I use you for my own purposes and otherwise you can get lost attitude.’ This White House is run by a bunch of arrogant frat boys. What do you expect?

Dowd also reported:

“I don’t think a single black person was consulted before Shirley Sherrod was fired — I mean c’mon, “ said Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina. [snip]

“The president’s getting hurt real bad,” Clyburn told me. “He needs some black people around him.” He said Obama’s inner circle keeps “screwing up” on race.

A laughable comment to be sure. I don’t know whether President Obama needs “some black people around him” as much as he needs to grow some genuine leadership ability and the willingness to do his homework before making a judgment on an issue of which he knows nothing.

A disproportionately high number in the black community have been adversely affected by high unemployment, something NYT columnist Bob Herbert has pointed out many times. He too, is wondering why the President is “screwing up on race.”

Perhaps Rep. Clyburn and others are now regretting having played the race card on the Clintons during the primaries, who have done more for the African American community than Obama ever has.

President Obama had never in his career exhibited compassion or understanding of these issues, certainly not to the point of taking action on them. How did Dowd, Herbert, Robinson, Clyburn or anyone else assume he would be magically transformed once elected?

President Obama’s administration only uses the race card as a defensive tool and a shield against criticism of his inane policies and actions. That has officially backfired. It backfired in Massachusetts with his “the Cambridge police acted stupidly” remark, as it has once again with Shirley Sherrod.

More is required than different advisors.

The White House has a horrible habit of working reactively, resorting to a “don’t blame me — it’s the other guys fault” mantra. That is not genuine leadership, which, of course, has been the problem all along. Every time one of these incidents gets played out before the American people, it is further evidence that those in charge have not done their homework and cannot grow beyond making pathetic excuses for the same. Slowly but surely, the country is getting a glimpse into the real character of this administration.

Unsound

July 25th, 2010

“What Does it Take?”  

Unusually unironic remarks from the MSNBC celebrity Ed Schulz at the Netroots NPPPation confab at Vegas on Friday 23 — and the suggestion that the insurgency of 2006 has moved toward Stand-Up and resume shopping and away from VBIED planning.

Large robust man in a blue suit wandering a stage with a corded mike does not communicate confidence and violence. This appears to be one of the stages of grief — the stage where you start to comfort the aggrieved and use this power to endorse yourself. Ed Schultz comforts the wounded Netroots ops.

Wounded how? After two years of empowerment, the young have lost the sense of mission.

Netroots is organized as an anarchist band on the web — not as a cadre of revolutionaries. NEtroots selected Candidate Obama because he resembled None of the Above.

Now that POTUS resembles Same Old Same Old, the Netroots ops are disconsolate. They can see the GOP insurgency gathering in the valley for the assault in November.

They feel helpless.

What was the point of 2006 and 2008? Obamcare and FinReg? Those are patchwork documents that will be torn apart by the GOP.

What about the stimulus? Well, it did keep the teachers employed, and the teachers do make up a third of the Democratic convention delegates.

Is that a positive?

Van Jones? Is he a success? Hey, he’s a Yale Law grad.

In fact, POTUS likes the Harvards and Yales way too much? POTUS has a weakness for the blessed establishment.

“What does it take?” It takes more than iconoclasm and herding on the web.

What Is To Be Done?

The national economy is on pause. Too much Fed play money, too many foggy regulations to be determined, too many costs of unintended consequence from the knuckleheads of the 111th Congress.

Mrs. Pelosi’s wrath needs a name. The Money Wreckers. The Soft Money Crowd. The Unsound Dollar Congress. Just the Unsounders.

Trillions and trillions and right back to where we started, Fannie and Freddie and no job growth.

Now Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tells us that the government money has done enough to rescue the economy, it is time for private investors to begin again.

Can’t make this stuff up. We’ll be there, Tim, right after we get back from Vegas, cleaned out and happy, since Vegas is a much better investment than what you’ve made of the unsound dollar economy.

Screen shot 2010-07-19 at 5.57.24 PM.png

Skin Color Games

July 25th, 2010

I know a lot about prejudice because of my skin color first-hand. Am I black? No. Brown? No. Tan? No. Light beige? No. (More on my color later.)

But wait! Now there is an app for changing your skin color—in the virtual world (and beyond).

Yes, that skin care company, Vaseline (owned by Unilever), launched a Facebook app to help people—especially Indians– look whiter. Te-Ping Chen observes:

The Facebook app — which helps users fade out any offending pigmentation in their complexions — advertises the bleached-white features of Bollywood actor Shahid Kapur. It’s designed to promote Vaseline’s skin-lightening creams for men, and so far, according to the advertisement’s architects, response has been “pretty phenomenal.”

This isn’t the first time Unilever has drawn serious controversy for its less-than-discreet attempts to market the virtues of white skin in India. Back in 2008, for example, the multinational tried to hawk a skin-whitening product called “White Beauty.” In India, skin-whitening creams are extremely popular, accounting for fully 60% of nationwide cosmetic sales.

Is this a racist product? Many think so. Or is it just playing on people’s need to be something that they are not?

This brings me back to my color. I give new meaning to “white as a sheet.” Growing up in sunny Southern California, my nickname (not by choice) was “Blanco.” Family members wondered how they could ever tell if I was frightened. At the beach friends would stay things like, “It’s a good thing you’re skinny or people would think Moby Dick washed ashore.” Futile attempts to get just a slight natural tan at the beach landed me in a doctor’s office more than once.

In desperation I tried that nasty goop you can slather on your body promising to dye your skin tan. I tuned orange—jail jumpsuit orange!

So I have always wondered why anyone would want to be white? Or whiter? Yet why do so many white people, who are presumably advantaged in all of this, go out and spend time and treasure to get browner? Crazy world, huh?

Dumbo and the Polls

July 24th, 2010

The elephants in Dumbo always make me laugh, and this nostalgic trip to the Melbourne Zoo, to witness young Molly frolicking with her Mum and Aunts, is ready made for remembering Dumbo and the Crows. “I’ve seen everything when I’ve seen an elephant fly!”

The White House is in shambles.

I mentioned recently that it cannot get much better for the Democrats, but it can get worse.

The analogy is to the GOP in 2006. Polls were bad through the summer, but the Mark Foley scandal made the polls go extremely negative.

Sherrod? No, not just her, but the accumulation of the impression that POTUS is not ready.

That’s negative.  And flying elephants, that’s GOP positive.  Elephants over the Oval Office?

Dumbo Flying w-Crows Painting.jpg

Bill Clinton: Hillary’s Albatross Or Her Bridge To The Presidency?

July 24th, 2010

I’ve always been amazed at how the Democrats cannibalize their former heroes. Every Democrat who has failed in their bids for office or re-election for major office have been repudiated, ridiculed, and forbidden to run again for the races they lost. John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter, George McGovern… all were devoured by their own kind, became objects of ridicule after they failed to win election or re-election. The ridicule wasn’t just “oh dang, he lost.” It was more like “What a LOSER!!” They went for the jugular!

The Republicans don’t do that! That kind of repudiation didn’t happen to Bob Dole, GHW Bush, or Gerald Ford. Of course, the Republicans have the advantage of not losing nearly as many presidential elections. I guess that kind of skews things. Dubya still has plenty of supporters among Republicans, and thanks to Obama’s miserable presidency, even some Democrats nowadays think wistfully back to the good old days of The Dub!

President Bill Clinton hasn’t been completely cannibalized, but many Democrats have tried to cut him off at the knees. I find that hard to understand. Bill Clinton was the only Democratic President since FDR to win and serve two full terms of office (the only other Democrats to do so were Woodrow Wilson, and the founder of the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson). He presided over a period of unprecedented prosperity, turned the national deficit into a surplus, and managed to conduct military operations (as part of NATO) in Bosnia and Kosovo without loss of American lives. Despite his accomplishments, many Democrats, those of his own political party, hate the man! And they extend that hatred to his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clinton Derangement Syndrome, or CDS, is how some of us refer to this bizarre hatred of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Obama is President because the Democrats would have won in 2008 no matter who they nominated, and the leadership of the Democratic National Committee, in the delirious throes of CDS, decided amongst themselves that they didn’t want Hillary to win because they didn’t want the Clintons back in the White House. That’s why so many people blame Bill Clinton’s controversial impeachment for Hillary’s loss.

She was the best candidate in the field of aspirants, but the Clinton’s themselves often promoted the idea that they were “two (Presidents) for the price of one,.” starting with the campaign of 1992. Many people of both parties really disliked that notion for some reason. Perhaps it’s too much like royalty for their tastes, having a family in charge of the country instead of one leader. Maybe it’s just too much of a good thing.

It seems these Democrats, most of whom defended the Clintons in the 1990s, have bought into the Republican propaganda with the militant zeal of the newly converted. We expect it of Republicans, but it just seems weird coming from the those who are still Democrats. The vast right-wing conspiracy against the Clintons won, I guess.

Republicans started trying to take the Clintons down during Bill’s first election to the White House by calling him a draft dodger and Communist sympathizer. They pounced on accusations from women who claimed Bill had affairs with them, or worse. They tried to bring the Clintons down with endless investigations. They couldn’t find any legal wrongdoing by the Clintons, even after years of a Special (Republican) Prosecutor trying to pin the tail on the donkey.

They finally managed to corner Bill into denying, under oath, that he had “sexual relations” with Miss Blue Dress, sparking the national debate over whether oral sex performed by one individual on another constituted “sexual relations” when no intercourse occurred. Many agreed with Bill’s definition, others didn’t. But no other president has ever been forced to testify under oath about his sexual dalliances. If they had, the list of perjurers could be quite long, but Bill was the only one faced with it in the age of DNA testing. So far.

This fudging of the truth, when confronted on camera with evidence of marital infidelity, resulted in his being impeached (accused) on the charge of perjury by the House, but subsequently acquitted (found “not guilty”) by the Senate. How conveniently people overlook that acquittal.

Bill stood his ground, continued as President, and finished his second term. He even remained very popular, with high approval ratings to the end of his term of office.But because he had been impeached, he became anethema to many in the Democratic Party. His impeachment will be forever remembered by both dumbasses and selective-memory types, as “he was thrown out of office for getting a blowjob at his desk.”

Listening to some of these idiots, you’d think Bill so befouled the Oval Office that Dubya Bush had to have it sand-blasted before he’d set foot in it.

Meanwhile, during his travails and after, Hillary won much sympathy from many people, while others got very angry with her for staying with Bill. My own view is that it’s nobody’s business but the Clintons. But talk about class and character! How many of us, of either gender, could keep our chins up as well as she did when Bill’s sexcapades made headlines? I think there were a few news reports that she was furious, maybe even one report (true or not) that she threw something at him. Rumors abounded that the reason Bill strayed was because she was a lesbian, and other rumors that their sexual relationship was definitely over when the Monica story broke. I doubt any of those rumors and reports held much truth. She may have made him sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom for awhile, but I believe their marriage is based on love and devotion, and that they weathered the storm as well as any couple could, or better.

But these opinions carried over into Hillary’s political career, with some saying she had no chance of success because of Bill, or because she stayed with Bill, or just because they’ve always hated her for being too outspoken. So Bill was the albatross around Hillary’s neck as much as he was, as others have put it, her escalator to the Senate.

What I was hearing during the early part of the primaries, in 2007 and early 2008, was that Hillary didn’t stand a chance because of Bill. They just couldn’t imagine Bill keeping his nose clean, let alone keeping it out of her decision-making. Ironically, these are some of the same folks who used to joke about President Hillary being the one who was really in charge in the 1990s.

What my liberal friends kept saying was that they REALLY didn’t want to have Bill Clinton back in the White House. They offered a variety of reasons. Some have always hated Hillary for their own twisted reasons, or they are desperately ashamed of Bill because of his impeachment and all that it entails. Or perhaps they’re just jealous of him because they’ve never had a BJ themselves.

I see the Clintons as a Power Couple, a pair of equals who communicate well and share their opinions with each other openly. I suspect Hillary voiced her opinions to him when he was the POTUS, and I would imagine he is her closest counsel as well. Personally, I like the idea of getting a two-fer.

There’s no doubt Hillary has always been a power in her own right, a force to be reckoned with. Having been a successful high-profile attorney, after a brilliant university performance, she married an aspiring politician who became governor of Arkansas a few years after they married. She was First Lady of Arkansas for ten years, which put her into politics.

To detractors who say she wouldn’t be the powerhouse she is on the national political stage without riding Bill’s coattails, I would say that’s also true of all the (mostly male) politicians who got where they are by hitching their wagons to other (mostly male) politicians already in power. Or perhaps they were born into it. And they say America hates dynasties.

Bill may have made Hillary a star, but she helped make him what he was/is, and she shared with him the experience of being Arkansas’ First Couple for a decade. Did she rise to fame in politics because of him? Certainly. But the same is true of him. It’s definitely true that successful couples nurture each other, bring out the best in each other, and grow together. True, he held the offices, but it’s not like she was confined to the kitchen in an apron and pearls. She’s no Donna Reed. And definitely no Tammy Wynette!

So the questions remain, the speculation continues, and the opinions are all over the road. Did Bill’s notoriety keep Hillary from winning the nomination? Or will he eventually help propel her into the Oval Office? I hope for the latter. But she may have to have it sandblasted first.

ECRI Warning

July 24th, 2010

 

Spoke Paul Vigna, WSJ, re the ECRI, a private index that is regarded privately as a careful leading indicator of economic activity.

The bad news is that the ECRI has now gone negative to -10.5. What does this mean? Every time since 1980 that the ECRI has gone beloew -10.0 there has been a recession in 13 weeks.

How can this be? We are in recovery?

Yes, we are in recovery, and this makes the ECRI very worrisome to the traders.  The ECRI climbed from the December 2008 lows of the last thirty years, -29 plus, to a recovery in early 2010 to positive numbers.

Then this sudden reversal of the last few months.  What now.  Joe Brusuelas, Bloomberg, points to the European bank stress test results.

The seven banks that failed, the 84 that passed will now come under the scrutiny of the smart money traders who will do their own stress tests with the bank numbers.  The European stress test was deliberately easy to pass.  For example, the Greek banks were tested with bond losses of 23%, whereas the average losses of bonds the last part of the 20th century was 46%.  The usual turmoil and doubts starting Monday 26.

The underlying tale is the extreme caution for the remainder of the waiting time ’til the Election.  Joe Brusuelas asserts there will be no credible rally.

Waiting on the New Year.  And housing starts will wait until 2012.  If you can trade the downside, or the volatility, enjoy.  For now, quantitative easing is available for the Fed, not much else.

Just Sayin’ Open Thread [With Update]

July 24th, 2010

Just sayin’ — a world of hurt and misery for the Gulf of Mexico’s inhabitants, ecological future, and the humans who depend on the Gulf for their livelihoods COULD have been prevented for many reasons, including this, from the A.P., via NPR.org’s Web site:

Worker: Gulf Rig’s Alarm System Was Partly Disabled

An electronics technician aboard the ill-fated oil rig Deepwater Horizon told an investigative panel Friday that an alarm system was partially shut down on the day the rig exploded.

Mike Williams, who worked for rig owner Transocean Ltd., said a three-way alarm system to warn of fire, explosive gas and toxic gas was turned on to monitor conditions, but its sound and light alarms had been disabled.

He testified he knew the alarm settings from a computer monitor into which it fed. He said in 2009 he asked about the settings and was told the company “didn’t want people looking up at 3 a.m. to a false alarm.”

Williams said that if the system had been fully operational, an alarm likely would have sounded before the explosion … on the night of April 20.

READ ALL.

There’s much more in the story, including this:

Williams also said the Deepwater Horizon was to be sent to a shipyard for extensive repairs. He said he was told the rig would be there for an extended time because “it was in very bad shape.”

UPDATE via Huffington Post: “Deepwater Horizon Alarm System Was Partly Disabled Prior To Explosion, Technician Tells Congress. This is another A.P. story on the alarm system.

KENNER, La. (AP) — An alarm system was partially shut down the day the ill-fated oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico … an electronics technician who was aboard told an investigative panel on Friday.

Later in Washington, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the spill, asked Transocean Ltd. for documents concerning safety and the condition of equipment on the rig. Transocean owned the rig, which was being leased by BP PLC. …

Technician Mike Williams told the panel that the alarm system was turned on to monitor for fire, explosive gas and toxic gas but that its sound and light alarms had been disabled. The Marine Accident Investigation panel was meeting in Kenner. It is made up of Coast Guard members and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement – formerly the Minerals Management Service. …

Did I miss the renaming of MMS? When did this happen?

In the second A.P. story, there is this reference to a NYT story that I haven’t seen. Have any of you? Can you assist in finding this?

The House committee also cited a New York Times story this week which reported rig workers’ concerns prior to the explosion about safety and the condition of some equipment on board.

Of Note: Huffington Post has a thorough special section on all the news pertaining to the oil spill. Among the many new stories today is Dems Demand That Salazar Stop Dragging His Heels And Investigate BP Whistleblower Allegations.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ON AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT NOTE: My initial reason for visiting the NPR Web site was to view their story on the death of journalist Daniel Schorr. The NPR report on Schorr’s life includes links to several NPR interviews with Schorr.

I remember many, many years ago when Schorr’s sharp, biting commentaries were a regular feature on CNN. Like too many features and programs I enjoy on TV, CNN did away with Schorr’s commentaries. It was one of many of CNN’s dubious decisions that made the network less and less interesting to view.

Here’s a snippet from part of NPR’s coverage of Schorr’s passing:

Schorr joined CBS News in 1953 as one of “Murrow’s boys,” the celebrated news team put together by Edward R. Murrow. He reopened the network’s Moscow bureau, which had been shuttered by Joseph Stalin in 1947. Ten years later, Schorr scored an exclusive broadcast interview with Nikita Khrushchev, the U.S.S.R. Communist Party chief — the first-ever with a Soviet leader. Schorr was barred from the U.S.S.R. later that year after repeatedly defying Soviet censors.

He covered the building of the Berlin Wall as CBS bureau chief for Germany and Western Europe. In 1962, he aired a celebrated portrait of citizens living under Communist rule in East Germany.

He was reassigned to Washington in 1966. Other reporters in the bureau were already covering major institutions such as Congress or the State Department, so Schorr assigned himself to cover the implementation of President Johnson’s Great Society programs.

“No one had such a beat,” recalled his bureau colleague Roger Mudd. “He was everywhere. He had almost carte blanche to cover Washington.” …

Often, I disagreed with Schorr’s views, but that never stopped me from listening to him, and I was glad he was on NPR for many, many years. Scott Simon of NPR also wrote a moving tribute to Schorr.

What’s on your minds? What have you found today?

Do You Have Something In Common With The JournoListers?

July 23rd, 2010

Hey, you just might. I admit, I was surprised to see that I agreed with at least one opinion of theirs. But I did. Turns out, the JournoListers hate Keith Olbermann, too! I know, right??

Now, I have said before I used to love the guy, DVR’ed him every night. But, once he started with the raging misogyny against Hillary Clinton, even defending David Schuster for calling Chelsea a whore and Hillary a pimp, I knew I could not stomach him anymore. But then again, I wasn’t an Obama sycophant like the vast majority of the JournoListers are, and Olbermann is. So imagine my surprise when I read that was one of the reasons they hate him, too:

[snip] At issue was a segment Olbermann had run about Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California who stirred debate in 2009 when she defended traditional marriage.

Following the segment, the subject on Journolist was “I hate Keith Olbermann again,” and the members of the list let it rip.

The Nation’s Katha Pollitt began the group’s rant. “He and Michael Musto did this whole long riff about beauty contestant Carrie ‘opposite marriage’ Prejean’s breast implants, stupidity, breast implants, tacky clothes, earrings, breast implants. They went on and on about how she was ‘part plastic’ and pathetic. You’d think they were celibate vegans who spent their lives zen meditating. It was just a whole TV humiliation of her, and it made me feel sorry for her, which wasn’t easy,” Pollitt said.

Michael O’Hare, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the segment was “about as funny as a rubber crutch. Odd when a reasonable person’s internal alarm doesn’t go off in a situation like that …’I’m going to ridicule a girl who’s obviously at her personal limits just trying to look conventionally pretty on national TV? What does that make me’?”

O’Hare even suggested friends stage an intervention for Olbermann. “If anyone on the list is a friend of Olbermann, friendship demands that you give him a head-up about this lapse,” he said.

Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor and CNN contributor, said Olbermann’s root problem is his misogyny. “I can’t take him anytime. I think to write off his mysogyny (sic) as limited to Musto is just not accurate. That very much defined much of how he talked about Clinton as well as others.”

Zelizer was referring to a series of instances during the primary campaign between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama when critics from both sides of the aisle criticized Olbermann for allegedly sexist treatment towards Hillary. Olbermann was forced to apologize. [snip]

Click here to read the rest.

Incredible, isn’t it? A number of these folks really get it about Olbermann, and his blatant misogyny. No one was more surprised than I was, especially given the level of misogyny leveled at Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin by many on the left.

But still, Olbermann had some supporters, like David Roberts, who appreciated his getting out the liberal news to the masses, so there is that. But that is not so surprising.

And while I am on the whole JournoList thing again, Tucker Carlson, the Editor in Chief of Daily Caller has written a follow-up letter to address the expose of Journolist. He writes about the two arguments currently being used to justify what these journalists did, and some claims that they are making. Specifically, he wrote:

[snip]The response hasn’t been all that furious, actually, probably because there isn’t much for the exposed members of Journolist to say. We caught them. They’re ashamed. The wise ones are waiting for the tempest to pass.

There have, however, been two lines of argument that we probably ought to respond to, if only because they may harden into received wisdom if we don’t. The first is that our pieces have proved only that liberal journalists have liberal views, and that’s hardly news.

To be clear: We’re not contesting the right of anyone, journalist or not, to have political opinions. (I, for one, have made a pretty good living expressing mine.) What we object to is partisanship, which is by its nature dishonest, a species of intellectual corruption. Again and again, we discovered members of Journolist working to coordinate talking points on behalf of Democratic politicians, principally Barack Obama. That is not journalism, and those who engage in it are not journalists. They should stop pretending to be. The news organizations they work for should stop pretending, too.

The second line of attack we’ve encountered since we began the series is familiar to anyone who has ever published a piece whose subject didn’t like the finished product: “You quoted me out of context!”

The short answer is, no we didn’t. I edited the first four stories myself, and I can say that our reporter Jonathan Strong is as meticulous and fair as anyone I have worked with. [snip]

Click here to read the rest of the letter by Carlson.

I recommend reading the entire series at Daily Caller. It is certainly informative, though the piece about Keith Olbermann cannot help but make me smile. He SO deserves to receive this disdain by some of the very elite of whom he seems to count himself. Teehee! It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fellow. To quote Jeremiah Wright, “the chickens have come home to roost!”

And how.

JournoList Members Protected Obama In 2008

July 23rd, 2010

/ Bumped up /

We knew this was happening – we knew that many in the MSM were protecting Obama, were refusing to vet him, to investigate allegations against him, or those with whom he was very close, like Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

But here’s the thing. A number of these journalists (and academics), including from major news outlets, wrote down their plans to do what they could to protect Obama, both in the Primaries, and in the General Election. And did they ever. Check out this interview with Tucker Carlson (I know, I know – he was horrible to Hillary Clinton, but he does acknowledge that these “journalists” worked against her, too). It is eye opening:



We knew it – we knew they were using the race card to help Obama, and to protect him from scrutiny. And use it they did, over and over, and over again. They STILL are using it, for that matter.

But wait, there’s more. In this report, more of the actual statements by some of the so-called journalists who colluded to help Obama are brought to light:

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

And finally, and I bet you knew this was coming, these “journalists” are revealed to have coordinated attacks against Sarah Palin:

Daily Caller has much, much more on this topic, with more revelations each day, it seems (I am having some technical issues with my computer, so please forgive the lack of links to the actual stories).

I used to scoff at the charges of the “liberal bias” in the media. I thought they were ridiculous, sour grapes, and all of that. But this isn’t just bias, this is intentionally controlling news about one candidate, protecting a candidate from being properly vetted, and using a despicable tactic to deflect any questions, the race card. Despicable.

These people are not journalists, not by a long shot. Each and every one of them should lose their jobs over this. They shaped an entire election by their collusion, engaging in character assassinations, race baiting, and propaganda, to protect their chosen politician.

And they wonder why people in this country have lost faith in the media. After this revelation, they should wonder no more…