Romney's Today comments high comedy

I saw Mitt Romney on the Today show on Friday, and I was pretty surprised at the ineptitude of his appearance. First, it's a GOP talking point (that of course Lauer let Romney get away with saying) that Obama "determined his policies in Afghanistan and Iraq before going there." In essence, yes, but John McCain has done the same thing regarding Afghanistan, as Media Matters has thoroughly documented. But, that inconvenient fact hasn't stopped people like Romney, Rudy Giuliani (remember him?) and McCain himself from repeating, over and over, how Obama shouldn't have laid out much of his Iraq policy before going there.

Quite frankly, it doesn't take a trip to Iraq to determine that we need to withdraw from the country as soon as humanly possible. What's more, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has in most ways endorsed Obama's plan to withdraw in 16 months upon taking office. If Obama is elected, of course that plan could always change, depending on developments on the ground, but it sure beats McCain's plan of staying in Iraq for up to 100 years through his first term, oh, I don't know what his position is this week.

Anyway, more on Obama's Iraq and Afghanistan plans in a minute.

What I found really telling in this interview is when Lauer asked Romney about McCain and the differences the two had in January. Romney just laughed and shrugged it off, and Lauer let him get away with it.

Is it just me, or is the media making considerably less of a big deal about McCain's differences with his former opponents like Romney, Giuliani and Mike Huckabee who all now support him than it's making about Barack Obama's differences with Hillary Clinton? The differences in media coverage are stark, and telling.

I do get tired of hearing the same old trite media bias debate over and over and over, but the more I see in the mass media, the more I'm convinced that our corporate media is going to pull out the stop to try and cause a John McCain victory in November.

Oh, and about the coverage of Obama stating his Iraqi plan before going there? Again, McCain has done the same thing, but not according to our corporate media. From Lou Dobbs, late last week:

Above is video of John McCain during an appearance in New Mexico last week, openly mocking Obama's plans for Afghanistan and Iraq. Again, McCain's hypocrisy knows no bounds - as mentioned above, he's done the same thing regarding Afghanistan, a country he hasn't visited since 2006, yet he's laying out all sort of proposals for "victory" in that country.

(Quick aside: It's painfully obvious that our political leaders learned nothing from our national tragedy in Vietnam and from the Soviet Union's disaster in Afghanistan that our presidential candidates (McCain, mostly) are talking about victory in either country. It's just plain preposterous.)

One other quick note, however. I laughed quite hard when McCain said in the video above, "I know how to win wars." Um, exactly when have you won a war, Senator? We certainly didn't win in Vietnam, an experience that I'm certain he didn't enjoy (but never misses an opportunity to remind us about). What annoys me even more than McCain saying "he knows how to win wars" is that the media lets him get away with such "straight talk."

Way to hold 'em accountable, Lou Dobbs - I would expect nothing more.

As for the Faux News channel's coverage of Barack Obama at the end of the clip above, I'd also expect nothing more. (Soon Brit Hume will be gone, what a sad day that'll be.) I'd love for FNC to devote its highly powered flip-flop microscope to McCain's record, but I know it'll never happen. That's okay, liberal bloggers are only too happy to highlight McCain's multiple positions on a multitude of issues. With BIG assists from both Crooks & Liars and Keith Olbermann, I blogged about McCain's many issue changes earlier this month - take a look.

Maverick McCain's lobbyist ties: Unreal

Crooks & Liars has been all over John McCain's ties to lobbyists, despite his spoon-fed persona (that the media happily gobbles up) that he's a lobbyist-hating, Straight-Talking Maverick who is a champion of campaign finance reform. From C&L:

Last week we brought you this story about McCain campaign Co-Chair Phil Gramm and his lobbying efforts that put him on the wrong side of the ongoing mortgage foreclosure crisis. Now, it appears Gramm's association with the aging Republican senator's campaign is doing far more harm that previously known. UBS, a bank for which Gramm lobbied, is now under investigation for alleged use of overseas tax havens to hide assets of its wealthy clients from U.S. authorities — while in office, Gramm also supported these tax havens after 9/11, which hampered the government's ability to track Osama bin Laden's financial network before 9/11.

It gets better. Last night on Countdown, Keith Olbermann, along with The Nation's Chris Hayes, had a pretty lively discussion about what Gramm's role on McCain's campaign means for McCain's reputation as a:

Straight Talker
Maverick
Champion of Campaign Finance Reform
Vehement Anti-Lobbyist

Sheesh - could it be reasoned that pretty soon, McCain's darling media could run out of attractive labels for him? I doubt it, but it doesn't hurt to fantasize.

Here's a brief excerpt by Hayes during last night's Countdown:

"...What this reveals is actually a really profound contradiction at the heart of the Republican coalition, the conservative coalition and McCain's campaign, which is on the one hand, it's home to the most sort of, chest-beating, self righteous moralists about foreign policy - we can't talk to Ahmedenajad because he's an anti-Semite, at the same time it's a party who's agenda is run by global conglomerates that pursue dollar and profit with no regard for any kind of sense of morality..."

It doesn't get more sage than that. Well said, Mr. Hayes. Again, I wonder, will the media follow this up, or gloss over it and get on to more important stuff, like what so-and-so's pastor said in church last Sunday?

Hayes again makes the astute point (one that I made a few days ago, too) that while Bush was in front of the Knesset a few weeks ago, effectively calling Obama an appeaser for wanting to talk to Hamas and Iran, Israel was simultaneously opening up talks with Syria, a country that it's not an overreach to say it's mortal enemies with. Ooopsie, Bushie! There was very little media coverage of that, too.

I have no hope for our corporate media, save for a Democratic victory this fall. Either way, once the new Congress and administration take power, we can and we MUST demand an end to corporations' hegemony over the mass media in this country.

CN8 Host fired for criticizing Bill O'Rielly

I got this from Crooks & Liars the other day, so I'm getting most of my information about this story from that site, which, by the way (as I frequently mention) is arguably the best liberal blog and information site on the Internet (along with HuffPo & Think Progress). The people over at C&L do tremendous work, and liberals owe that site a debt of gratitude for the hard work they put in by bringing us spot-on commentary and raising and highlighting issues that otherwise wouldn't get the attention they should. I get lots and lots of my video clips from that site, too. I don't always remember to post h/t's (hat tips) to C&L for providing video clips, but I try to remember. Anyway, if you haven't visited that site, 1. Where have you been? It's the best, and 2. Please spread the word and support C&L, a site that I hope CMB is 1/8th as good as, some day. Anyway, moving on...

This is the most stark example I've seen in quite some time as to why our corporate media needs to be broken up - now. More on that point in a minute.

Barry Nolan of CN8 in Boston, Comcast's news channel, has been fired for daring to criticize the fact that Bill O'Reilly, of all people, was being honored at the Emmy Awards.

I am appalled, just appalled," [that O'Reilly was being honored] Nolan told the Track. "He inflates and constantly mangles the truth... and his frequent target is the 'left-leaning' media - the ones who do report the news fairly. And those are the same people who will be sitting in the room honoring him."... More Here.

It's pretty refreshing to see someone have the balls to put his job on the line for daring to oppose this blowhard:

"Their take is that I was insubordinate," Nolan told us yesterday. "They wanted me to sit down and shut up." The host of "Backstage With Barry Nolan" had argued that O'Reilly, the volatile Fox News host and former Channel 7 anchor, was unworthy of the Governor's Award. (Past recipients include the likes of Mike Wallace, Ken Burns, and Natalie Jacobson.) "The idea of honoring someone who does their job with constant factual errors, name-calling, and mangling of the truth... It's ridiculous," said Nolan...

We're told Nolan was warned by his bosses at CN8 to pipe down, but at the May 10 dinner honoring O'Reilly he handed out a six-page document listing some of O'Reilly's wackier errors, utterances, and information about the talk-show host's sexual harassment settlement. Seems Comcast was concerned that Nolan's actions could harm the network's relationships with the academy and Fox. He was immediately suspended without pay for two weeks and then fired over the phone Tuesday.

One particular instance that I find incredibly nauseating is how O'Reilly goes after crime victims (or victims' surviving family members, like when he attacked the son of a man killed in the World Trade Center on his show, an then threatened him with violence). John Amato over at C&L has thoroughly documented and written about how O'Reilly went after Shawn Hornbeck, an 11-year old who was held captive for over four years by Michael J. Devlin in Kirkland, Missouri. Devlin is currently serving 74 life sentences, and if there's any justice in this world, a prisoner where he is incarcerated will test out a new shiv on him. (Posted above is video O'Lielly discussing attacking Hornbeck during a discussion with Greta Van Susteren, the princess of plastic.) Take a look at the video - it's just plain sickening and revolting. By the way, O'Lielly's attack on Hornbeck got him uninvited to a speaking engagement to the National Center for Missing Kids. (Due in part to the efforts of Amato over at C&L; predictably, no comment from BOR.)

This is just one example of the kind of sewage and filth that O'Reilly continually spews forth to his listeners. The truly frightening thing is that people listen and believe a great deal of it.

As Amato succinctly put it over at C&L the other day (and I whole-heartedly agree) - it's worth considering whether Rupert Murdoch is now going after anyone who criticizes O'Reilly, his networks or their executives? After all, he's not above going after NBC over Keith Olbermann's criticisms of Roger Ailes, the head of Fox Noise Channel.

As Howard Kurtz of WaPo has reported, last summer Ailes threatened to go after NBC if Olbermann didn't cease going after him and Fox, using BOR and The New York Post.

This is exactly why our corporate media conglomerates must be broken up. I find it outrageous that any CEO of a corporate media entity would see fit to going after a critic by using TV stations, commentators and newspapers as cudgels. But, that's exactly what Murdoch has been doing for years. Phew! Thank GOD his corporation was permitted to buy The Wall St. Journal!

I'm very thankful (and hopeful) that if Barack Obama gets elected, he will reverse this troubling trend in our press. He recently stated that if elected, he feels it's time the U.S. government start enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act, a law that is still in the books (if you can believe that) that would break up these multi-media giants. I don't care if we're talking about liberal or conservative media conglomerates - they all are a threat to destroying our free press. (I do wonder and worry that Obama may have incurred the wrath of these multi-media giants by saying he would like to bust them up, before he wins the election. God only knows what lengths these companies will go to in order to get McCain elected now. We've always known that our corporate media is on McCain's side - Obama's recent comments did nothing to ameliorate this worrisome concern.)

In the meantime, O'Reilly goes on as one of the loudest mouthpieces for Murdoch's News Corporation, the parent of Fox News, carrying out his marching orders from the abominable Murdoch.

McCain's med records & age ARE legit issues

Here's an interview in August 2000 between Jim Leher and John McCain where McCain opined that he would be too old to run for president in 2008. A partial transcript:

Lehrer: Finally for the record, you have not lost your desire to be President of the United States have you?

McCain: Certainly it's been put in deep cold storage. Haha...

Lehrer: You haven't lost it?

McCain: Well, in 2004, I expect to be campaigning for the reelection of President George W. Bush, and by 2008, I think I might be ready to go down to the old soldiers home and await the cavalry charge there.

Those are his words, people.

I think it's entirely fair to ask McCain questions about his age. After all, the American public has been blatantly misled about the health of its presidents in the past, from both sides of the aisle.

History now strongly suggests that Ronald Reagan was suffering from the effects of Alzheimer's Disease during his second term. (Of course, I paid attention, and it felt like he was acting that way during his first term, but I digress. And I'm kidding.) Seriously though, Reagan underwent surgery to remove about two feet of his colon after cancer was discovered. He also had several instances of skin cancer. The colon cancer wasn't kept secret, but several of his other medical maladies were kept secret from the public while he was in office.

More serious instances of the American public being misled about presidents' health falls on the Democratic Party side of the aisle - most notably presidents JFK & FDR. Kennedy had Addison's Disease, along with a host of other medical problems, and FDR successfully ran for a fourth term while he was already dying. To be fair, in FDR's case, it was during World War II, and the press was very different back then. And, of course, no president, barring a Constitutional Amendment, will ever run for even run for a third term, much less a fourth.

Anyway, what's most outrageous about McCain's medical condition? That he's so secretive about it.

Yesterday, McCain gave a handpicked, small group of journalists [Read: journalists who are subservient to him who have given him friendly coverage] three hours to look over his medical records. Three hours to look at over 1,200 pages of medical records.

Ridiculous!

I do believe that presidents (and presidential candidates) have the right to keep certain things private, but Americans do have a right to know what sort of medical condition they are currently in, as well as what they have suffered from in the past.

Preliminary reports indicate that McCain is in generally good health, and that's good to hear, but what reporter can adequately go over 1,200 pages in three hours? It should be noted that reporters were not permitted to take any documents with them, too. To me, McCain's allowing very limited access to his medical records indicates that he's got something to hide. At the very least, it appears that way.

However, McCain thinks he's clever - releasing the documents on the Friday before Memorial Day, in addition to hosting three possible running mates at his ranch for the weekend, which is also getting a fair amount of press. Actually, I guess he is clever, because the press is sopping up his running mate pow wow on a plate with a biscuit.

Despite McCain letting a few select reporters peek at his records for a mere three hours, that aspect is getting virtually NO PRESS COVERAGE whatsoever, which strikes me as absurd.

What's more, another pseudo-scandal, Hillary's RFK gaffe yesterday is getting very prominent, national coverage by our corporate media. Coincidence? Not on your life. A chimpanzee could figure out that the corporations that run our national media want McCain elected at all costs over either Obama or Hillary, so how convenient it was for them that Hillary stuck her foot in her mouth yesterday, playing right into their hands.

By the time most Americans begin paying attention to the news after the holiday on Tuesday, McCain's "release" of his medical records will be ancient history, but Hillary's gaffe probably won't be. Bet on it.

In fact, NBC's Chuck Todd hit the nail on the head the other day with his comments about the timing of McCain's release of his medical records...

(h/t to Media Matters for the video immediately above)