Summit Watch: 257-111, But who's counting...

By GottaLaff

Photo via

Earlier today on Twitter, I made a prediction that one of the talking points after the health care summit would be that the poor GOP didn't get enough talk time. The big bad Democrats were hogging the conversation, as was stated during the meeting by the GOP, several times.

Okay, so that wasn't really much of a prediction, then.

But just the same, I did call it... and the ever dutiful CNN picked it right up and regurgitated it:

Democrats spoke for a total of 135 minutes while President Obama spoke for 122 minutes, for a total of 257 minutes. Republicans, meanwhile, spoke for just 111 minutes, about 30 percent of the total speaking time.

The time discrepancy did not go unnoticed by the top Republican in the Senate

Shortly after President Obama, Vice President Biden and legislators from both parties returned from a lunch break, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office released a statement detailing how long President Obama had the floor, versus how much time members of each party were allotted during the nearly three-hour morning session.

Let's break it down: The Dems got 135 minutes and the GOP got 111. The president was moderating. And he's the president.

Now let's compare that enormous, terribly unfair 24 minute gap to this post of only 1 year ago:

In a new analysis, ThinkProgress has found that Republican lawmakers outnumbered Democratic lawmakers 75 to 41 on cable news interviews by members of Congress (from 6am on Monday 2/2 through 11pm on Thursday 2/5):

Some observations from our analysis:

– Last week, Fox News came the closest to balance with 8 Republicans and 6 Democrats. But the so-called “fair and balanced” network was not able to maintain such a ratio this week, hosting 24 Republicans and only 11 Democrats.

– The business news networks were particularly egregious this week. CNBC had more than twice as many conservatives, with 14 Republicans and 6 Democrats. Fox Business was even worse, hosting 20 Republicans for just 4 Democrats.

– In the previous study, the supposedly liberal MSNBC favored Republicans 15 to 9. This week, however, MSNBC became the only network to host more Democratic members of Congress than Republicans, with 17 Democrats and 12 Republicans.

[...] Some of the most frequent Democratic guests this week were outspoken critics of the proposed stimulus plans, such as Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Kent Conrad (D-ND).

Fortunately, the imbalance on the networks is not going unnoticed. A House Democratic leadership aide told Politico’s Michael Calderone yesterday that “what happened with cable last week is that Republican House members were the only show in town.” A “very senior” Democratic aide told The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that the leadership is “aware of the problem and are taking steps to fix it.” The aide noted that “there is also an onus on producers to remedy this issue.”

Let's not forget this post. Or my post entitled "Mything In Action-- Librul Media. Network news coverage favored Republicans 1992-2004". Or this one.

Call me crazy, but I kinda think they owe us a few minutes.

Rachel Maddow gives Meet the Press another ratings bump, beats Fox easily

By GottaLaff

See, NBC, it goes a little something like this: Viewers like Rachel Maddow. Why? Because she's smart, witty, fair, classy, prepared, knowledgeable, and-- What's that word again? Oh yeah-- liberal.

Yes, NBC, America elected a bunch of Democrats, and we'd like to see them fairly represented on shows like Meet the Press:

The NBC Sunday morning program moderated by David Gregory averaged 4.162 million total viewers for first place. That's the show's highest total viewer delivery since March 22, 2009. [...]

Maddow's first appearance, in August, brought the show its highest numbers since April.

Wowzers, over 4 million, huh? Wonder how ClusterFox did:

"FOX News Sunday" averaged 1.208 million total viewers in its FOX broadcast.

Get the hint, NBC?

MythInformation Watch: Response to WaPo's "Condescending" liberals piece

By GottaLaff

You must read this op-ed by Robert Parry from OpEdNews.com. It gets into a lot of what I've been ranting about lately (media propaganda, Sarah Palin's speech, the death of accurate reporting), only with a twist: Psy-ops.

The trick, [CIA psy-war specialist Edward Lansdale] said, was to plant propaganda in a publication that was perceived to be open and honest because the readers' defenses would be down and thus they would be more susceptible to the message. In other words, they first had to be fooled about who controlled the outlet and what its biases were.

Several things came to mind as I read this: How do you unfool an entire country? Why can't we control the message?

And how do you educate low-information voters?

Pleaseohplease go read the whole thing:

A key strategy of the Right has been to convince as many Americans as possible that the U.S. news media has a "liberal bias," a canard that has stuck even though newspapers have been traditionally pro-Republican and most media outlets are owned by giant corporations reflecting the interests of wealthy individuals. [...]

Alexander's article in the Post is, in essence, a fancily written version of the Right's "populist" anti-intellectualism. Anyone who insists on checking out facts and applying reason must be an "elitist."

That this "condescending" attack line against the Left is being trumpeted by the supposedly "liberal" Washington Post makes it all the more powerful to many Americans.

Now, with the emergence of Sarah Palin as the latest heir to Ronald Reagan's legacy and as a potential next President of the United States it is clear that empiricism will be snowed under again by a blizzard of half-truths, emotional appeals, historical myths and nasty zingers.

Anyone who dares speak up for facts and reason will be portrayed as a pointy-headed intellectual out of touch with "real Americans." [...]

The American Right again has taken on the "populist" mantle of the plucky underdog facing down the "elitist" Obama and his arrogant entourage of House Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, defenders of Big Government, not to mention the "liberal" news media.

In this narrative, Palin, the Fox News personalities and poor Rush Limbaugh are the real victims who must face the cruelty and condescension of an all-powerful, arrogant Left.

Go read. Now.

H/t: Gr8RDH

"Now you have to go crying to Maddow and Shuster. How pathetic."

By GottaLaff

Dan Gainor has 817 followers on Twitter as of this writing. My pal Shoq has 5,304.

For the fourth time this week, according to Shoq, a different Media Research Center employee has come after him on Twitter. Last night it was Dan Gainor himself. Why? Because Shoq calls MRC out publicly.

As a result, MRC feels they have to control the message on Twitter, read by thousands, because they rarely if ever get attacked directly, let alone by name. Most people may not realize what these people do, and how much money they spend doing it. Per Shoq, they "own us".

Who is Dan Gainor? I'm glad you asked. He's a big gun at the Media Research Center under Brent Bozell. They are the right wing attack machine in the media:

The Media Research Center (MRC) is a conservative^[1][2] content analysis organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 1987 by L. Brent Bozell III. Its stated mission, according to its website, is "to bring balance and responsibility to the news media",^[1]and the MRC catalogs and reports on what it asserts to be widespread liberal media bias in the United States press.

The MRC has received financial support from several foundations, including the Bradley, Scaife, Olin, Castle Rock, Carthage and JM foundations.^[3]
[...]

In 1989, the MRC began monitoring the entertainment industry through its Entertainment Division and newsletter TV, etc.^[11] MRC president L. Brent Bozell III branched out the Parents Television Council from the Center in 1995 after he felt that decency on prime-time television was decreasing. The PTC monitors prime-time television for what it believes to be indecent content and publishes content-based reviews of television shows and oversees campaigns to make advertisers withdraw from programs that they believe to be morally offensive.^[12] Extra!, the magazine published by left-wing group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, asserted that the MRC's former newsletter TV, etc. inspired the group and "tracked the allegedly leftist politics of entertainment industry figures".^[13]

^[...]

In the summer of 2005, Media Research Center launched the NewsBusters web site in cooperation with Matthew Sheffield, a conservative blogger involved in the CBS Killian documents story. NewsBusters is styled as a rapid-response blog site that contains posts by MRC editors to selected stories in mass media.^[19] Although the site is advertised chiefly as a conservative site, it frequently defends Neoconservatives as well.^[20]. Not only does the site highlight journalists it deems to be liberally biased, but also non-journalists (writers, musicians, producers, scientists, etc.) who have a perceived liberal viewpoint ^{[21] [22] [23] [24]}. The site is also highly critical of bipartisan Republicans. ^{[25] [26] [27]}

^[...]

MRC released a report in 2007 claiming that the network morning shows devoted more airtime to covering Democratic presidential candidates than Republican ones for next year's election. Producers for such shows criticized the MRC's methodology as flawed,^[39] as did media critic Terry Krepel of the site ConWebWatch and organization Media Matters for America.^[36] During the 2008 US presidential election, MRC released a report claiming that the vast majority of news stories about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had a positive slant.^[40] MRC president Bozell praised MSNBC for having David Gregory replace Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann as political coverage anchor beginning September 8, 2008, but MSNBC president Phil Griffin disputed the statements by Bozell and others who have accused the network of liberal bias.^[41]

^[...]

Progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America^[42] has also repeatedly criticized the MRC, charging they view the media "through a funhouse mirror that renders everything--even the facts themselves--as manifestations of insidious bias". ^[33]

To see what kind of "conversations" Shoq and Gainor have had, click on images to enlarge (or go to Shoq's page here and Gainor's here and find last night's tweets), and read from the bottom up, chronologically. The top image is Gainor's stream, so you only see his side of the exchange. The other image is Shoq's stream which only shows his side.

It's not easy to post Twitter streams, so do the best you can to read these as they're meant to be read. You'll get the gist without too much difficulty. If the images are still too hard to see, go to their respective pages, or zoom in on your actual screen view:

This is only part of the exchange.

While this back and forth can seem silly, it represents more than just squabbling. Think about who Gainor is, and why he feels it so necessary to carry on continually with someone most people have never heard of.

VIDEO: Michele Bachmann on the liberal media + ACORN is a "cold storage unit "

By GottaLaff

Video shot by TWI’s Lazar Backovic:

At a briefing for conservative bloggers at the Heritage Foundation today, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) dismissed MSNBC as a network neither she nor “most of the American people” paid attention to. [...]

“I’m certainly not going to fear the likes of Keith Olbermann.”

Oh Michele? Keith's not exactly shivering in his boots over you, either. But here's the thing: He's a lot smarter, and has the actual, you know, facts on his side. Be afraid.

Oh, it hurts. The crazy hurts! But I... I just. Can't. Stop. Reading.

Here's some more. Put on your helmets, you'll need protection. Incoming!

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) called for a "strong investigation" into a variety of nonprofits in the wake of political corruption allegations at ACORN.

Never mind BushCo and all that torture. That investigation would be wrong. This one would be swell. Moving on...

Bachmann, who has been an outspoken critic of ACORN, said that a broader investigation of other nonprofit organizations is needed because they could be using federal funds to influence the outcome of elections, like ACORN did.

"We need a strong investigation into nonprofits," she said in a conference call with conservative bloggers hosted by the Heritage Foundation. "No political party should be funded through a quote 'nonprofit.' "

"Without [government] money they would not be in existence," she added.

Neither would Blackw-- er, Xe. Or any of these. As with most things that pop out of Michele's empty little noggin, this, too, will backfire.

While you're at it, please read Jason Leopold's very thorough piece on the ACORN witch hunt here.

Bachmann also accused ACORN of wrongly playing a role in the close Minnesota Senate race. After several recounts, Al Franken (D-Minn.) prevailed over incumbent Norm Coleman (R).

I bet Obama's overwhelming victory was all due to ACORN's super duper double secret plan, too. What a loser.

She called ACORN a "cold storage unit for campaign people to elect Democrats."

Yes, yes. That's it! She is so damned astute, how does she do it? We Dems throw all of our best and brightest into a big fridge and thaw them out just in time to commit fraud. Brilliant! No wonder we win so many elections!

Oh. Wait. Never mind.

She said there should be "six or eight" investigations into ACORN conducted by the Justice Department, IRS and appropriate congressional committees.

Aren't the Rushpublics the ones who say Obama and Congress are too overwhelmed, into multi-tasking overdrive? Wouldn't another 6 or 8 investigations be kinda sorta compounding the alleged problem? No? My bad.

"If this was a Republican organization, they would be dead right now," she said. "There would be scalps of Republican congressmen hung out to dry."

Only old, white ones.

Okay, ew. Nauseating mental image.

Bachmann also called on the president to publicly distance himself on ACORN.

Only after Bachmann publicly distances herself from us, permanently. Deal? Deal.

Video- Cillizza: Van Jones and ACORN stories "suggest we better pay attention" to what Beck and Hannity are reporting "because they have power"

I tortured myself this morning skipping around back and forth to Fox and Friends earlier. Cillizza is absolutely correct, we are in the bus being driven by the rodeo clowns.

"The ability of the conservative media machine to generate a controversy for this White House is amazing"

By GottaLaff

Via Taegan:

First Read: "Finally, here's one more thought about the entire controversy over Obama's education speech on Tuesday: Since the White House has said the text of the speech will be available for 24 hours before he delivers it and since they altered the lesson plan language, why is this still a controversy? The ability of the conservative media machine to generate a controversy for this White House is amazing. In fact, this is an example of a story that percolates where it becomes harder and harder for some to claim there's some knee-jerk liberal media bias. (Does anyone remember these kinds of controversies in the summer of 2001?) The ability of some conservatives to create media firestorms is still much greater than liberals these days."

Hmm, why would that be? What could be missing from that analysis? Think... think...

Ooo! Ooo! I know! ::waves hand wildly, jumps up and down like a fool:: And the answer is....

Nearly all of them enable the "conservative media machine"! Dingdingdingdingding!

Read my lips: If drooling corporate employees like those who contributed to the above piece didn't run like rabid Pavlovian dogs to cover the likes of TeaDeathers, Birthers, Tenthers, other -Ers, Rushpublic windbags, and wingnutty punditiots-- and actually offered the same amount of air time to facts, substance, information, and, you know, more progressives-- guess what? They wouldn't have had to write that paragraph!

Wow that was easy. Way to avoid responsibility, guys.

Video- President Obama takes aim at Fox News

Hey, you call them the way you see them. If Bush had said something similar in the past few years about MSNBC I probably wouldn't have disagreed.

(CNN) – Brushing off suggestions Tuesday the media is not critical enough of his administration, President Obama couldn't help but take aim at one cable news channel in particular.

"It's very hard for me to swallow that one," Obama told CNBC when asked whether he thinks the media is too easy on him. "First of all, I've got one television station entirely devoted to attacking my administration."

The interviewer quickly assumed Obama was referring to Fox News, a suggestion the president didn't disagree with.

"Well, that's a pretty big megaphone," he said. "And you'd be hard-pressed, if you watched the entire day, to find a positive story about me on that front."

"We welcome people who are asking us some, you know, tough questions," he continued. "And I think that I've been probably as accessible as any president in the first six months–press conferences, taking questions from reporters, being held accountable, being transparent about what it is that we're trying to do. I think that, actually, the reason that people have been generally positive about what we've tried to do is they feel as if I'm available and willing to answer questions, and we haven't been trying to hide them all. "

Eric Cantor blames media for GOP obstructionist meme

Yep, and this guy is their great generational leader? h/t Heather.

Where's the media? The Rotting Racist Underbelly of the Tea Party Protests

By GottaLaff

At one of the many "Tea Party" protests, this one in Cleveland, not a single participant believes that President Obama was born in the US. Numerous McCain Palin voters, even the organizer, refused to say Barack Obama was born in the US.

The following is a very astute post and should be required reading for anyone who doesn't get (and even those who do) exactly what is behind the so-called Tea Parties.

We can make all the "teabagger" jokes we want (And I am not suggesting we stop... I sure won't. I live for the Rachel Maddows and Ana Marie Coxes, among others.), but the underlying motives, per the lengthy copy-and-paste below, are hateful, racist, and dangerous. Think: John McCain's/Sarah Palin's 2008 election crowds on crack:

Many white supremacists report planning to attend Tea Parties or already have and some are looking for a way to recruit into their White Nationalist movement. There’s an awful lot of Tea Party chatter among these folks. Why doesn’t the media cover this angle? Here’s a telling and typical comment from Stormfront.org:

Ladies and gentlemen, I think every WN needs to not only attend the April 15th Tea Party nearest you (I’m going to the Alamo in San Antonio) but then stay involved and help provide leadership to this movement.

I believe that this is the white revolution we’ve been waiting for.

It doesn’t look what we expected but this is it.

I’ve seen probably 50 videos on TV showing previous marches and what strikes me is that the participants are all WHITE. It stands to reason . . . we’re the ones being taxed to support Affirmative Action, Welfare and other worthless social programs. It’s our tax dollars going to ACORN and supporting the 12 million illegals swarming into our neighborhoods.

I would urge news media and citizen journalists covering the tea parties to scratch below the surface to get at the rotting racist underbelly of these protests and ask revealing questions like these top five:

• “How do you know Obama is a socialist?”,
• “Do you believe Obama’s presidency is a conspiracy by the Jews and Blacks?”,
• “Who do you think Obama takes his orders from?”,
• “Is Barack Obama an American citizen like you?”,
• “How do you feel about having a black president in the White House - what’s the worst that could happen?”

I’ve re-activating my criteria for an undercover racist attack on Obama from the campaign and revising it for the new reality. ... The original criteria for the racist attack zone from Oct 2008 [...]:

1) Is it unique to Obama, i.e. is it a phrase we’ve never heard before applied to any other presidential candidate ever or is it something we haven’t heard in recent memory? For example: elitist or drug seller.

2) Is it illogical or impossible - does the assertion plainly contradict the facts? For example: elitist, drug seller or tax raiser.

3) Is it repeated, over and over, by a desperate person whose team is falling in the polls & who adopts a wide-eyed, credulous, nodding stare pronouncing the lie slowly and precisely with a watchful eye to see if the listeners are buying it. For example: elitist, drug seller, tax raiser or terrorist.

Optional: Does the assertion cause nervousness, embarrassment or confusion among non-blacks? When other white people such as Tom Brokaw sense something wrong and start to ask questions like “Do you really believe that?”, you know for sure you’re in the racist attack zone.

Here’s the new criteria for an undercover racist attack:

1) Is it unique to Obama, i.e. is it a phrase we’ve never heard before applied to any other president or is it something we haven’t heard in recent memory? For example: he’s not an American citizen or he’s a socialist who’s planning re-education camps for young people.

2) Is it illogical or impossible - does the assertion plainly contradict the facts? For example: not an American citizen, socialist, tax raiser, re-education camps for young people.

3) Is it repeated, over and over, by a desperate person whose team lost badly in the last election & who adopts a wide-eyed, credulous, nodding stare pronouncing the lie slowly and precisely with a watchful eye to see if the listeners are buying it. For example: not an American citizen, socialist, elitist, drug seller, tax raiser or terrorist.

Optional: Does the assertion cause nervousness, embarrassment or confusion among non-blacks? When other white people such as Tom Brokaw or John Stewart sense something wrong and start to ask questions like “Do you really believe that?”, you know for sure you’re in the racist attack zone.

[...] My main concern here is that the heated rhetoric around the protests could lead to violence against African-Americans, Jews and Latinos if some Tea Party recruits go from non-violent to violent. That’s why it’s important to drag the masked racism here out into the daylight so we can deal with it and force denials from their movement leaders before certain elements become more brazen and people start getting hurt.

I share those concerns. The corporate media have concentrated on crowd sizes, jump-cut-laden visual loops, montages of hand-painted signs, endless shots of tea bag-waving protesters, and the word "taxes". Unsurprisingly, they have yet to investigate anything beyond the superficial.

Fox News is promoting much more than a "grassroots (in reality, Astroturf) uprising". It is promoting further incitement of violence and bigotry.

While peaceful protest is perfectly acceptable and healthy, it's time to put a stop to bloodthirsty extremists who encourage and fuel blatant hostility, hatred, and outright violence.

Please go here to read the rest.

H/t: Dr. President

Myth-information: Because the media is so freakin' liberal edition

By GottaLaff

See, in case you didn't know, see, the media is so liberal that more wingnuts are mandatory to keep things fair and balanced. Via TPM:

CBS: We Still Need More Right-Wingers: CBS hires Dem-hating right-wing consultant as new PR Chief.

More on who this guy is:

Conservatives have complained for years that there are too many liberals in the mainstream media. Starting Monday, though, they'll have at least one of their own at CBS News.

Jeff Ballabon, an Orthodox Jew and political and communications consultant whom The Forward called "the architect of Bush's 2004 re-election effort in the Orthodox community," is the new senior vice president for communications at CBS News. He starts Monday and, according to a CBS press release, will be in charge of "all media relations and public affairs for CBS News, including strategy and planning, day-to-day publicity, internal and external communications" and coordination with the CBS News website. [...]

Ballabon said CBS reached out to him [...]

"The key to success is the ability to be empathetic with a diversity of viewpoints," he said, adding that his background as an Orthodox Jew has sometimes made him feel like "somewhat of an outsider in society" and thus he never thinks that he should be imposing his viewpoint on others.

And he quips that "with the current political environment, the mainstream media actually seemed like the more moderate atmosphere."

[UPDATE: Ballabon's self characterization doesn't fly with Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council. Forman tells Capital J that during one forum the two participated in, Ballabon said that Democrats in Washington are evil and Republicans in Washington are good.]

There you have it. Another objective member of the corporate media.

It's good to see he won't have much control... except for his fingerprints showing up on anything and everything CBS Newsy.

Full press release here.

Mything In Action: Librul Media, the sequel

By GottaLaff

You already knew this. I already knew this. But I'm betting most others don't:

In a new analysis, ThinkProgress has found that Republican lawmakers outnumbered Democratic lawmakers 75 to 41 on cable news interviews by members of Congress (from 6am on Monday 2/2 through 11pm on Thursday 2/5):

Some observations from our analysis:

– Last week, Fox News came the closest to balance with 8 Republicans and 6 Democrats. But the so-called “fair and balanced” network was not able to maintain such a ratio this week, hosting 24 Republicans and only 11 Democrats.

– The business news networks were particularly egregious this week. CNBC had more than twice as many conservatives, with 14 Republicans and 6 Democrats. Fox Business was even worse, hosting 20 Republicans for just 4 Democrats.

– In the previous study, the supposedly liberal MSNBC favored Republicans 15 to 9. This week, however, MSNBC became the only network to host more Democratic members of Congress than Republicans, with 17 Democrats and 12 Republicans.

[...] Some of the most frequent Democratic guests this week were outspoken critics of the proposed stimulus plans, such as Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Kent Conrad (D-ND).

Fortunately, the imbalance on the networks is not going unnoticed. A House Democratic leadership aide told Politico’s Michael Calderone yesterday that “what happened with cable last week is that Republican House members were the only show in town.” A “very senior” Democratic aide told The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that the leadership is “aware of the problem and are taking steps to fix it.” The aide noted that “there is also an onus on producers to remedy this issue.”

And yet the president maintains a high level of support and popularity. Imagine how he'd do if there were no bias. If you can.