Limbaugh now merely a parody of himself

I stopped getting angry at anything at comes out of Rush Limbaugh's mouth long ago. But that doesn't mean that I'll stop pointing it out.

During one of his latest tirades, well documented as always by Media Matters, the drug addicted, bloated one dropped the curtain to give us a deep look into the commode that passes for his soul to reveal his MO for the length of the Obama administration (let's hope it's 8): that he hopes Obama "fails."

All I can say is this: Typical.

I find it pretty stupefying how quickly Repubes have changes course in just over 30 days since Obama took office. For eight years, they whined, sniveled and complained about liberals and progressives "rooting for Bush to fail in Iraq" (among other places), yet now they openly despise Obama while shamelessly rooting for his policies to fail. Talk about Party Before Country.

As much as I despised Bush's policies in Iraq (and will go to my grave with the unflinching belief that our misguided war was and is a wast of taxpayer money, not to mention all of the bloodshed), I never, EVER hoped that our military would fail. I think Bush led us down many disastrous roads, but I do believe that he believed he was doing the right thing for the country and the American people. Well, that's not entirely true, though - I think the last six months of his presidency (and especially during the last three), when he knew Obama was going to be president, Bush quietly did all he could to make sure that Obama got handed a big steaming turd on January 20, 2009.

I do support Limbaugh's right to say what he says, and quite frankly I hope he keeps on saying it. Hey, God bless him - it just reaffirms my belief that Obama is doing something right if he's driving Limbaugh nuts.

I also wouldn't be surprised to see Limbaugh's ratings go up, not down; so many conservatives now feel under siege because Obama is president - you know, that they've losing their country, and blah blah blah.

However, I do think that the government should step in and do something to promote a diversity of voices over our radio airwaves. NO, I'm not advocating that anyone should have his or her "microphone taken away" (already a trite right-wing talking point), but the government should do all it can to strongly encourage companies to provide a diversity of voices on their airwaves. Actually, no, the government should REQUIRE a diversity of voices. I'm sick and tired of right wingers whining about the phantom "liberal media."

I wrote about his last fall before the presidential campaign got into high gear, but perhaps it's best to remember one of Sun Tzu's maxims from The Art of War: It is wise to present your greatest strength as your greatest weakness, and that's precisely what Republicans have been doing for the last 40 years with regard to our mainstream media. (Thanks once again, President Nixon.)

If you think I'm exaggerating, go back and find some Sarah Palin interviews from last fall's campaign - whenever bad news came out, she just went on the offensive, bashing the "liberal media," which is always red meet for the drooling drones on the right.

Anyway, Limbaugh is simply a modern-day Joseph Goebbels, although thankfully many more Americans dismiss Limbaugh than Germans dismissed Goebbels.

By the way, if you're one of the few liberals left who doesn't support and visit Media Matters, I strongly encourage you to do just that. The folks over there are doing tremendously effective and important work.

I'll be back later this evening with lots more, so please check back. (And, as usual, there I'll have lots to share on Sunday.)

Debunking the b.s. lie about our media

I really don't know what happened to Lou Dobbs, but he's become the biggest braying jackass on a once great network. To hear Dobbs, the most notorious walking, talking xenophobe on a network not named Faux Noise Channel say that the media is largely "liberal" is a joke of the highest order (this footage is from a week or so ago). It's also worth noting that Dobbs has a partisan history going back to his earliest days at CNN, where he hosted Moneyline, later leaving the network after refusing to interrupt his precious show to air a speech delivered by President Clinton at Colombine just days after the shootings.

Anyway, what's been most evident since John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate is the Republicans' return to their dog-eared playbook of Richard Nixon, which on page one says, "Slam the media for being overly liberal whenever there is news that's unfavorable to us."

And it's been parroted by every single Republican ever since when unflattering or bad news (much less a scandal) has befallen someone with an "R" behind his or her name.

I was listening to Thom Hartmann the other day, and he brought up an excellent point about Sun Tzu's centuries-old famous tome, The Art of War. The world-famous work deals with the art of military strategies and warfare. As Hartmann mentioned, in it Tzu reasons that a principle tactic of warfare is to present your biggest strength as your biggest weakness to your enemies, and that's precisely what modern-day Republicans are doing with our mainstream media - decrying the presence of a phantom "lib-rul media" whenever there is unfavorable coverage of their party or their candidates. Not only is the presence of a "liberal media" a fallacy, but it's unarguably on of the GOP's largest strengths.

To wit, there are over 1,000 radio stations in the United States that offer predominately conservative programming. How many liberal/progressive stations are there? Less than 100; and according to Hartmann, there are 70-80 He should know, since he's arguably the premiere liberal radio voice in the United States, and he has had a very difficult time getting on terrestrial radio stations in some leading media markets primarily because there are no stations to get on. The tide is starting to turn ever so slightly, but it largely favors hate conservative radio.

Some other interesting facts:

• Every major television network in the United States is owned by a multinational corporation - CBS, NBC, Fox Network, ABC, CNN, Fox Noise Channel, Clear Channel Radio, Comcast, and on and on. These giant corporations could hardly be considered Democratic (large D) leaning companies.

• One of the most visited Websites on the Internet, and the most visited political Website is The Drudge Report. According to his Website, here are the stats from the last year: "27,151,658 IN PAST 24 HOURS, 723,014,663 IN PAST 31 DAYS & 6,455,462,513 IN PAST YEAR." (And no, I'm not linking to Drudge's GOP tip sheet Website.)

• Faux News Channel is the most watched news channel in the United States, by far, whether on cable or on regular TV.

• The top three most listened to radio talk show hosts in the United States are Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael "Savage" Wiener, in that order - hatemongers all, and most importantly, purveyors of GOP talking points, and often, lies and hate messages of their own.

• As far as newspapers go, there are plenty of them out there of all stripes, but the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall St. Journal has the second highest circulation in the United States, just behind USA Today; the WSJ's circulation is just over two million per day.

Some other newspapers...

#1 - USA Today - owned and operated by Gannett.

#2 - Wall St. Journal - see above.

#3 - The New York Times - owned and operated by the Sulzberger family - liberals by anyone's definition.

#4 - The LA Times - corporate owned and operated.

#5 - The Washington Post - also a liberal paper.

#6 - The New York Daily News, owned and published by Mort Zuckerman, whose conservatism is well known.

#7 - Chicago Tribune - a traditionally conservative paper operated by the Tribune Company.

#8 - The New York Post - a Rupert Murdoch rag - what is understood, needn't be discussed.

#9 - Long Island Newsday - is about to be purchased by Cablevision. Hmm, a newspaper that's going to be owned by a cable company. Just wondering where those loyalties lie?

#10 - Houston Chronicle - owned by The Hearst Corporation, a huge media conglomerate, and it's no mystery where that company's loyalties lie.

Other highlights...

#11 - San Francisco Chronicle owned by Hearst.

#12 - New York Newsday - See #9.

#20 - The Philadelphia Inquirer is now controlled and effectively owned by the insipid Brian Tierney, the CEO of Philadelphia Media Holdings. He is a well-known conservative "commentator" and also a failed GOP campaign manager. This same company also owns the only other major Philadelphia daily newspaper, the Philadelphia Daily News.

As you can see, it's quite obvious that you can find liberal and conservative media outlets if you look hard enough, but with the exception of newspapers (where it's relatively balanced, but a medium that's rapidly declining in circulation and reach), our media is anything but "lib-rul," despite what Repubes would have all of us believe.

As I've mentioned, Republicans just slam the media the minute some bad news hits - we are seeing it on an almost hourly basis with McCain, and especially with Sarah Palin. Their strategy is simple - just cry "liberal media," and said media outlet(s) will quickly fold under the scrutiny. If history has proven one thing in the first decade of this century, it's that virtually all outlets in the media go soft the minute they are accused of being "liberal." And when that doesn't work, just spread lies - it never takes them long to go from a conservative pundit/commentator/columnist to the mainstream media; just in the past few days, examples abound of conservatives doing just that to try and steer press coverage toward McCain.

The truth is, it's the media's duty to scrutinize all candidates, no matter what party they are from, including independents.

Palin's speech full of lies and empty rhetoric

But don't take my word for it - watch it for yourself and make your own judgments. God only knows plenty in the news are doing just that, and the right is already crying foul. We all know that drill, too; it's the liberal media trying to derail a Republican presidential run. What a tired (and wholly inaccurate) argument. It's as if the GOP has dug up Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew to make the same old trite complaints about anyone in the media who dares oppose them. It's as hackneyed as it is pathetic.

Anyway, on to Palin's speech. My first thought was that she gave a pretty good performance. She's obviously a very polished public speaker, and it shows. However, many news organizations have begun to do some fact checking about some of her statements in the speech, and (surprise), her partisan witticisms aren't holding up. (And should it be any wonder, since her speech was written by the McCain camp? Some reports have most of it being written before she was even nominated.)

As C&L notes, it's also interesting that she kept the broken record of GOP lies spinning last night with some previously debunked and long-ago refuted falsehoods:

"I suspended the state fuel tax, and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress." Strike One.

"I told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks,' for that Bridge to Nowhere." Strike Two.

"If our state wanted a bridge, we'd build it ourselves. When oil and gas prices went up dramatically, and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged - directly to the people of Alaska." Strike Three.

Thankfully, the Obama camp didn't wait long for the stench of rank partisan bullshit to die down before responding. Here's Obama Campaign Spokesman Bill Burton:

"The speech that Governor Palin was well delivered, but it was written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years. If Governor Palin and John McCain want to define 'change' as voting with George Bush 90% of the time, that's their choice, but we don't think the American people are ready to take a 10% chance on change."

Crooks and Liars has the rest Here.

To be fair, I think much of the coverage of Palin has been overdone, overblown and undeserved, but the more her record is examined (as all four candidates' records should be by the press), the more disturbing things seem to stand out - her husband's membership in a very powerful, belligerent movement for Alaska to succeed from the United States; and even more ominous, her abuse of power as governor of Alaska. Much, much more a bit later today.

"Hard-hitting" questions dog the president at press conference

Hat tip to Crooks & Liars for bringing my attention to this one.

This brief transcript dramatically illustrates just what is wrong with the press in this country. I'm tired of the whole "liberal media" vs. "conservative media" camps; regardless of where you stand, few can argue that Bush has received a "pass" from many members in the media - specifically during the run-up to the war, but also since the 2004 election.

Following a speech to the annual gathering of the Associated General Contractors of America, these are the four questions that Bush was asked:

1. "In May of 2006, my second cousin was on his second tour in Iraq. Corporal Cory Palmer, he’s in the Marines, he was on patrol in a Humvee, and they ran over a roadside bomb. He and many others in that Humvee perished. What do I need to do, what does the media need to do to help you, so that my second cousin, and others like him, have not died or been injured in vain?"

2. "I'd like to know, like a lot of other people in this room, we have family members — we have family members who are actively involved in the security of this country in various ways. From them, we've received positive information that we consider credible, who say about the success and the good things that are happening as a result of us being in Iraq. I would like to know why and what can be done about we, the American people, receiving some of that information more from the media."

3. "What do you pray about, and how we can we pray for you?"

4. "You talked about the terror of 9/11, and what I wanted to share with you, my wife and I had our first child two months after 9/11. We named her Grace, because we felt that the world needed some grace at the time. And what I wanted to (inaudible) is the fact that our appreciation and keeping my family and also the families of America safe for the past five years."

Sickening. Just sickening. Every question doesn't have to be a "gotcha" question, but this is the quality of questions the media asks our president these days? Just despicable.

By the way, the answer to question one should have been: "Heh heh heh, keep asking questions like that one! NEXT!"

With Gonzo-gate, Karl Rove being investigated, Gonzo getting subpoenaed yesterday, the War in Iraq, the funding of the war, Bush's second veto, etc., these are the questions that Bush fields? His aides were no doubt high-fiving aboard Air Force One on the way back to Washington.

These questions are so ridiculous, I would not be surprised if there were a few "plants" put in the audience by Karl Rove. It's not like it hasn't been done before by this White House. As I read the above questions, I kept thinking of Jeff Gannon.

Nice job, "liberal media" - keep cheer leading disastrous leadership.

Rupert Murdoch's fourth divorce...

This time, it's from reality.

Listening to Rupert Murdoch defend President Bush strikes me as profoundly sad. It reminds me of parents whose child has been caught in a nasty prank, when the evidence is overwhelming, and they are the only people left defending the child. Admirable and understandable in many ways, but hardly a credible source. And Murdoch falls into that same category - hardly a credible source - papa Rupert defending his infant, W.

Murdoch, attending Michael Milkin's Global Conference in Los Angeles, resumed his hackneyed Bush PR campaign earlier today. (Isn't that what your network and newspapers are for, Rupert?)

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Murdoch remains solidly in the president's corner:

The News Corp. chairman and CEO said that, personally, Bush is "persuasive, strong and articulate" but that "he seems to freeze whenever a television camera appears."

Motioning to Paul Gigot, editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, Murdoch said, "Apart from your newspaper and mine, there's a sort of monolithic attack on him every day of the year."

News Corp. is the parent company of Fox News Channel, the New York Post and dozens of other media assets.

"The atmosphere is absolutely toxic," Murdoch said of the partisanship of U.S. politics and much of the media. "You can't really expect anything to be achieved in the next 18 months, and it's a very serious, sad problem for this country."

Yes, the atmosphere in Washington, and in fact around the U.S. is toxic, but Murdoch and his media outlets never, ever miss an opportunity to slam, defame and defile anyone with the audacity to oppose President Bush and his disastrous policies, both foreign and domestic.

The examples are too numerous to mention, and quite frankly, I grow bored of pointing out all of them. Okay, disclosure - it's fun, especially when there are so many who insist that Fox News is merely doing what other networks have done for years. Yea, sure.

I haven't been above some name-calling at times when someone really makes me angry, but I'm not running a daily newspaper with a circulation into the hundreds of thousands, either.

The New York Post has made sport out of embarrassing Democrats or anyone who dares oppose the president. The example at right is just one of literally dozens of examples. This headline ran when the Iraq Study Group (a.k.a. the Baker-Hamilton Commission) released its report saying what the rest of us have known for years - that the War in Iraq is a waste of American and Iraqi lives, to say nothing of the half-trillion dollars we've spent (and counting). (The Baker-Hamilton was a bipartisan group made up of five prominent Democrats and Republicans.)

Again, I repeat - it's people like Murdoch, who defile and denigrate those who oppose Bush's radical, right-wing agenda, who are principle architects of the toxic atmosphere in Washington.

One other thing from Murdoch's comments that had me heaving with violent fits of laughter - he called Bush "persuasive, strong and articulate." Yea, and I'm Tickle Me Elmo.

Has Rupert gone senile? Maybe he thought he was at a Comedy Central roast of President Bush.