Tom Brokaw lectures Chris Matthews over NH election coverage: "We have a lot of explaining to do."
By John Amato Tuesday Jan 08, 2008 11:01am 
Tweety was completely out of control yesterday during the NH coverage and frankly he should not be part of any more election coverage from here on in. As the night went on and it became evident that Hillary Clinton would beat Barack Obama---Chris Matthews tried to take some of the heat off of the Village elders and himself for their egregious behavior towards Hillary after she lost in Iowa. Tom Brokaw would have none of it.
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Brokaw: Chris, I was watching you earlier today and you kept referring to the Suffolk University poll as being the anomaly in the group because it showed a 1% margin between Obama and Hillary Clinton and it turns out that was the poll that was correct and the others were wrong. So my investment advice to you tonight Chris is invest in the Suffolk University poll....
Brokaw: Let me just read you some of the headlines of the last 24 hours here. "So Yesterday," with a picture of Hillary on the front page of the Boston Herald. "Panic," in the NY Post with Hillary. "The End of the Clinton Era," a lot of pundits saying that on this channel and all the other channels as well.
Brokaw: This is one of the great triumphs in recent years in American presidential politic---Hillary Clinton is back and the rest of us who were saying out loud that this was not going to happen, you know we have a lot of explaining to do.
The Big losers in NH: The "Village Elders". I hope this starts a very unique trend in our political discourse the rest of the way: the Villagers do their jobs and report the news and then add some reasonable analysis along with it. Fat chance of that happening, I know.
UPDATE: Glenn has more...
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Twitty couldn't 'explain' anything if his life depended on it.
hey thanks, john!
my motto: it never hurts to ask!
good remarks from brokaw... hope he is listened to...
oh... i'm mistaken... this is not the clip i asked for...
ah well... or, "never mind"...
Good work, Mr Brokaw. Keep yanking his chain until he behaves like a sane person. It might work. Let's hope it does or else, show him the door.
Thanks John. SC and NV will be better. The pundits needs to stop. Chris Matthews has been out of control on both parties.
Next to "bloviate" in the dictionary is a picture of Tweety. Unbearable.
Something else that drives me crazy, speaking of dictionaries--no offense meant, but something is either "unique" or it's not. You can't modify "unique." It's like fingernails down a blackboard to me.
Brokaw can "news" circles around Tweety. He was generous in saying "we." Har de har har.
I'd argue the "village elders" scored a huge victory, with the DLC candidate winning by way of a cheap ploy (aka her "outpouring of emotion")
Tweety pukes out what the Reslugs tell him to.
The big losers in New Hampshire are the Iranian people, and the American soldiers in Iraq, if the U.S. or Israel attack Iran based on unsubstantiated and hyped up claims
What terrifies me about the results of the New Hampshire vote is that the two war candidates won.
Senator Clinton and Senator Mc Cain who sang "bomb Bomb Bomb Iran" with delight a while back both voted for the Kyl Lieberman amendment in October....which Senator Webb described as "tantamount to declaring war on Iran". The "cakewalk in Iraq" zealots who have been repeating unsubstantiated claims about Iran for the last four years have not stopped pushing for military action against Iran. We recently witnessed the MSM turn an event in the Straits of Hormuz into an inflamed event.
Justin Raimando of Antiwar.com writes "The commander of one of the U.S. warships has been quoted as saying that they were "a heartbeat away" from opening fire on their Iranian tormentors, and that just about sums up the chances of an armed conflict breaking out – we're an incident away from going to war with Tehran, and there is every indication that the administration is marshaling its forces, political and diplomatic as well as military, to launch an assault before Bush leaves office."
I am deeply worried by this vote in New Hampshire. I do not want to witness the U.S. attack Iran based on unsubstantiated claims.
I have not heard Hillary or McCain talk about focusing on diplomacy in regard to Iran. Our invasion of Iraq has destroyed the Iraqi peoples lives. This vote in New Hampshire for the war candidates has me worried about the Iranian peoples lives.
The cakewalk in Iraq zealots are not backing down. They continue to stir the lies and inflame our relationship or lack of with Iran
Read Justins latest
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12176
January 9, 2008
'A Heartbeat Away' From War
With Iran and Pakistan
It's too bad I don't watch Faux News, I'll bet Britt Hume looked like he just kissed the business end of a toilet brush.
But if the great unwashed masses stop listening to the Village
IdiotsElders then how will they know who to vote for?Tom Brokaw. Head Meme Pusher.
Matthew has truly lost it. He has shown once and for all he is incapable of being fair and balanced. Always injecting his agenda.
While I agree that he has consistently pounded on Hillary often about very stupid things her clothes, her hair, whether she is "warm and cozy". Matthews truly has been ignoring Edwards all year, and recently had Elizabeth Edwards on after it became oh so obvious that Matthews had completely ignored Edwards second place win Matthews was so sarcastic and demeaning. Why is it that Matthews has it out for Edwards?
Are his corporate bosses instructing him to ignore him, demean him by demanding that he concede. Yet Matthews does not do this to anyone else. You could even see that Olberman had had it with Matthews last night.
Site-People ... The WMV file wont download, it give an error message that says
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I have major issues with Chris.. because he says things about the person i'm voting for, if she makes it. But I think over all he tries to be honest. I just take him as having a bias.
What is it with these people? They’re acting like this is the first time this has ever happened. This crap has been going on for years.
Put tweety out to pasture. He's done.
Tweety is an embarrassment. This is the guy who called Bush "Lincolnesque" and drooled over Bush's flight suit "Mission Accomplished" afternoon. This morning he claimed Hillary won because she's living off the fact that Bill cheated on her. He uses the public airwaves to push his own personal and financial agenda, masking it at hard hitting reporting. He's a lazy, self serving bully and the poster boy for all that's wrong with the media today.
"I hope this starts a very unique trend in our political discourse the rest of the way. The Villagers do their jobs and report the news and then add some reasonable analysis along with it."
as tweety himself would say, "HA!"
WOO HOOO!
GO SUFFOLK!
That's my school! And haha, the *only* poll that was right about how things turned out. I FEEL SO PROUD! Too bad I'm a CS major.
But anyways, what is up with Mathews? It seems like "playing hardball" involves being an arrogant hard headed bastard who keeps repeating the same things over and over again until his opponent gives up. Too bad Brokaw knows how to swing the bat and hit the ball.
And I do think this is somewhat bad news. I lean more towards Barack.
if it wasn't for the village elders, bush would never have been elected. and he never would ahve been able to go to iraq.
Thanks for putting this up C&L!
There is one part of this conversation that you left off and that was where tweety starts going on about how maybe NBC should revisit their polling methods and how there are Universities and Polling organizations that make specialize in this.
Brokaw, pardon the paraphrasing, went on to say that we shouldn't be telling the people what they are going to do. Tweety jumped in and said, well we might as well pack it in and go home. Brokaw came back with no there are other things for us to analyze...
As an example of what those other things might be to analyze... how about the frickin' issues and where the candidates stand, what they are proposing, is it realistic and do they have a chance of getting things accomplished.
I am so sick of these pseudo journalist like Tweety blathering on about the superficial pap and treating this campaign, the candidates, their platforms... as if it were the "runaway bride" story.
This is not journalism... it is infotainment and the stakes in this election are too high to have jackasses like Tweety denigrating candidates as we saw with his Hillary remarks and the interview Elizabeth Edwards and ignoring the substantive issues that all of the candidates have raised.
I am amazed at the speed at which Barack Obama has been slung under the media bus, even though he posted a respectable 2nd place finish, and collected that much more delegates going towards the convention, because at the end of the day, the candidate with the most delegates gets the nomination.
As long as that's remembered, it's a race until the end, and it serves both Obama and Hillary right that the electorate is really going to determine who gets POTUS, and not the media, or Tweety Matthews with a turkey neck.
from Horse's Mouth, what Tweety said this morning:
this morning Matthews had already forgotten his newfound respect for her. He said: "The reason she's a U.S. Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front-runner, is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be Senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win it on the merits..."
Put aside for a sec just how loathsome this statement is on its own terms. The larger point here is that a mere half-day after acknowledging that he'd gotten it wrong and that she deserved a lot of "personal credit" for winning over voters, Matthews was already imposing his own narrative on her entire political career, the current race included, saying that her past and current success have nothing to do with "the merits."
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/one_day_after_s.php
MSM~Lame Stream Media.
Personally I'm going to call it the Ronald McMedia from here on out.
I think Chris and everyone has a lot to question about these results.
NH Primary: Pre-Election Polls Wildly Different Than Results Announced for Clinton/Obama
Diebold
strikesagain???Has Mathews analized the latest from Rudy Mussolini and his statement from January 8?
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9502E0D91E3DF934A25750C0A...
"Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."
huh?
I think the people who answer polls are like the people who actually wait on the phone when a machine calls up with "a very important message".
I would like to see how many hangups or none of your business responses these people get.
Why is it that Matthews has it out for Edwards?
Try jealousy.
Face it, Edwards is good-looking and chicks dig him (aka Tom Glavine "Chicks dig the Long Ball" ;-)}
Plus, Edwards is articulate and speaks to the every man. He's also anti-establishment and can admit when he's wrong. He threatens people like Tweety because they know if he gets the White House, he is in the position of ignoring shows like "Hard Ball" and telling Tweety and other members of the Beltway Cocktail Weenie Circuit where they can go and how fast they can get there.
How Hillary Got Her Groove Back
I think this quote pretty much sums up the entire punditocracy and political consultancy:
"Trust me, one’s view of the world isn’t any clearer from the back seat of a limo." --Pat Sajak
Pawsie @ 16:
I watch Matthews at least three times a week. For over a year he has been hammering away at Clinton, singing the OBamarama spin machines praises and ignoring Edwards.
Come on Matthews is not even close to being fair and balanced. Not even close
John,
I hate to nitpick but if you check your records, I think you'll find that Tweety was a loser long before New Hampshire.
The Political Junkie @ 30:
I'm with you. I think corporate media is really threatened by Edwards
Oh, on that jealousy thing:
As I said, Edwards has an appeal to women, which Tweety, even when he was writing speeches for Jimmy Carter, wishes he had, and can never get.
And the turkey-neck is not a manly look at all, and Matthews isn't that old to be having such a one.
Duke Nukem McCain. On with the Rapture!
Please replay Morning Joe Scarborough's comments this morning. He will have no criticism of his buddies for their clueless predictions.
video wont play
cant download it either
Id like to see this video, is there another link for it??
Village elders?
More like Village idiots
.
From your lips to the CREATOR'S ears...let last night be the beginning of the END of the "village elders" (I like that but not as much as what I was screaming at my TV last night)...it killed those overpaid opinion pundits to have to FINALLY declare Hillary the winner last night...let's all get together and keep on making them look like the money grubbing idiots they actually are...and someone pull the plug on MODO for God's sake...she and Tweety should have an affair and set each other on fire!!!
Come on Matthews is not even close to being fair and balanced. Not even close
Tweety is so "fair and balanced" I expect an announcement that he's joining Brit Hume over at the Pravda Network (aka Fox Noise) any day now.
Kinda reminds me of the interview Jon Stewart did with tweety....basically - you're an idiot so go away...
Just think 10 years ago, with President Clinton you could hop in your car and rush to the airport, rush into the terminal, buy your ticket, and rush onto the plane. No fuss no muss!
Yo site monitors. Please contact the link fixers.
This just shows how the news media is trying to control how Americans vote.
Looks as if Bush and Cheney are using the cover of the elections to attack Iran with their new propaganda approach, before Americans know what happens.
The Political Junkie @ 24:
There is growing evidence that the NH primary election was rigged. You know . . . Diebold machines . . . listening to Bev Harris (HBO's Hacking Democracy) who is contacting NH cities and finding that both Barrack Obama and Ron Paul were under-reported.
It happened before . . . why isn't it even being discussed . . . the mainstream media is crooked . . . face it.
Hey there, can anyone here tell me where to get the ACTUAL NUMBERS ??? I would really like to see the breakdown.( I was without power here by the Great Lakes for the past 12 hours....) if anyone knows best source, please leave messege, thank you, at http://watergatesummer.blogspot.com/
Many Dems like kos and his blog agree with tweety.
Like President Clinton said, she will have a hard time winning the primary but will win the general easily.
Tom Brokaw was one of the second generation television news anchors, along with Dan Rather and Ted Koppel.
I used to think they weren't up to the standard set by Cronkite and Murrow, but they are head and shoulders above the current crop (except for Keith O.)
Hopefully they can get that fixed.
enigma4ever @ 49:
(Something smells bad in NH and it isn't the fish)
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ned=us&q=bev+harris
AndyZ @ 19:
Tweety also attributed her stunning win to (paraphrasing) lying racists. He said white people lied to the pollsters & the media about who they would really vote for because they didn't want to say they wouldn't vote for a black. He was trying so hard to play the race card, it was beyond embarrassing. You had to see his whole tirade to believe he actually said it. He's not only a blatant misogynist with an almost visible hard-on for Hillary, he sees things that aren't there. He'd all but cannonized Barack as the next King of the Universe, never considering he just might have to come down from that cloud & admit Hillary won NH. They replayed Hillary meeting up with Tweety and his face was red with embarrassment, like a little boy whose crush on the teacher had been exposed to the whole school. He should be nowhere near any TV or media apparatus after the way he embarrassed himself & MSNBC the past several months but especially the past 48hrs. He's gone beyond blatant misogyny (a prejudice that's unfortunately not unique to him in his profession) & into some dark hole where it's so viciously personal for him that he has to try & play the race card. Double shame on him. He owes an apology to Hillary, Barack & the audience but especially to the people of NH.
Please answer this someone...how in the hell does Matthews stay on the air. Even for him he is vile, hateful, mouthy, spews lies and spittle. I guess MSNBC wants conterversary, but hell I'd rather have a tooth pulled than watch him.
And I was floored with the statements from Keith. I thought he was neutral when it came to democrats. That's the way it should be, don't slur any of them.
Brokaw is one stand-up dude. Always has been.
Help me understand where Brokaw is coming from, please. Is he the same one that said "we don't just have egg on our face, we have an omelet on our suits" (with regard to declaring Gore the winner of Florida in 2000) or is this a different Brokaw? I can't keep track.
wvng @ 25:
What a despicable thing for him to say. He is a f&@kin' loser whose sum total of accomplishments in his pathetic life would amount to a blip in the life of Hillary Clinton. How dare he? I swear I think Tweety knows his days are numbered on MSNBC and he's auditioning for Faux News. He'll go there once NBC cans him, and you know they will because he just got totally dressed down by Brokaw in front of the whole world! What a joy to watch!
Aside from incorrect polling data and msm pundits doing what they've been doing for years (i.e. chris matthews has never hid the ball on this one), what scares me just as much as lets say a mitt-o-tron 5000 or mike huckabee's gomer pyle veneer is clinton for president. If her husband were running, i would vote for him a 3rd time, no ifs ands or buts about it. However, she is not he; she is a former walmart board member, corporate welfare proponent and absolute shill for the healthcare industry. When given the proper information she voted to allow the idiot king his war and then went a step further, just recently, and laid the possible groundwork for the US to head into Iran. I am in disbelief that people are calling her the 'comeback kid' - she has always been here, doing what entrenched politicians do, looking out for themselves and their corporate interests.
Oh. CFR mouthpiece spanks media whore. So what?
http://www.cfr.org/bios/6245/tom_brokaw.html
At some point we need to decide if poling is a legitimate science or not. If it is then any deviation from the poling data more than about 2.5 percent should trigger an investigation. The exit poling data for years and years was always within a close margin of error until the advent of electronic voting machines. Now the pollsters themselves will not back up their own data.
I have watched several programs (maybe not all the way through) that Chris Matthews and the Village elders were attacking Hillary for the hour and they included all the political hacks on MSNBC... This included Tim Russert, who is in charge of politics on MSNBC... It also included Andrea Mitchell, who I always respected up to then... I still don't understand why they would spend an hour on bashing just one candidate... Maybe this helped her win....
Tweety reminds me of the character Junior Bruce from Death Race 2000: he's a cheerleading dupe to the point that it kills him at the end of the movie. Sort of an annoying, yet tragic figure.
Matthews' performance last night speaks volumes about why I stopped watching his show. I have no idea what his agenda is, but it's pretty obvious he's pushing something, because he's very consistent about what he says about particular politicians (loves Bush II, hates anything Clinton), but his standard lines are, well, just dumb. Hillary Clinton's whole political career is based on the fact that her husband cheated on her? Tom Delay as a commentator on the NH primary? Ann Coulter as a literary goddess? Right-wing hack is too nice a term for this guy. How about right-wing weenie? How about right-wing butt boy? What in the hell is this guy thinking? It's not even worth watching him to find out.
I suppose I wouldn't feel so bad about this if I hadn't flipped to CNN at one point to see William "Blackjack" Bennett and Ralph Reed sitting on a panel acting as if they had something to say that wasn't completely out to lunch. Can't these cable networks find anyone anywhere who isn't some beltway loser on the take? Someone should fire every single one of the bookers on MSNBC and CNN and start over from scratch. All of this is why I monitored most of the primary by watching the nice unbiased and non-loony (and non-talking) graphic at nytimes.com that gave results county by county as they were coming in, only dabbling in talking heads after it was clear what the trends were. I'd just love to hear a little intelligent conversation about these things, but instead all I get is a circle jerk from the usual gang of idiots.
The beauty this mornin' -- everybody's talking about this. Whether we call 'em the Village Elders or MSM or Lame Stream Media or Cocktail Wienies [our family favorite], the consensus is in. Stop with the infotainment/propaganda/big bro/bullypulpitpress...
We have all had enough of you. Twould appear the voters have, as well.
Geez Louise, I guess for once the media was right on this one.
This NH voting was rigged. As some of you know, the voting was tabulated both electronically and by hand.
When the count was done by hand, Obama won.
When the count was done electronically (meaning Diebold, the private firm that rigged both the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections), Hillary won.
http://drunkardslamppost.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/diebold-and-new-hampsh...
http://homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/diebold/adworks.htm
http://presscue.com/node/38034
Before any of you start saying "Ha ha told you so", about Hillary, please be advised that it is Hillary who was selected by the NWO to be the next President. It is THEY who decide elections now, not the people. I am simply amazed after what has transpired over the previous two elections that people have such short term memory.
Hillary is a Neo-Lib, and Diebold are a company contracted by the NWO to rig the elections in her favour. Voting can be rigged today, and here is the most important thing, it is UNDETECTABLE. Get it? UNDETECTABLE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs
This man was approached by some members of the GOP (Tom Feeney, speaker of the house in Florida, along with his lawyers, et al) to secretly fix elections. The hacking program would flip the vote 51% to 49% to whoever is wanted to win. He wrote it and it was used in Florida.
Look at the results of Hillary and Obama in NH. Between the two of them, the vote was in favour of Hillary using Diebold and Obama using handcounts.
Ladies and gentlemen, this country is now fascist. We are no longer living in a democracy. I am not that surprised, because the ancient Greeks of all people said that democracies cannot last, they will end up with 51% ruling by tyranny over the remaining 49%, no matter what is right or wrong.
It is time that we all start to accept the fact that this country is fascist. Once we do that, w can start to fix it again.
"Brokaw: This is one of the great triumphs in recent years in American presidential politic"
You've got to be kidding me! All she did was lose one state, and then win one state. I'm pretty sure that happens all the time. The only amazing thing is how wrong the media was.
well, we all know matthews has a big fat hate-on for hillary.
Would it not be ironic if the mass tabloid media came up with evidence and pics of Hillary and Mathews in a lovers embrace? Hahahahaha....I think they are BESTEST friends or have been.
Seeing Mathews put in his place last night by Brokaw and sitting beside the always cohearant Oberman made me realize how intellectually immature Mathews is and how childish his analysis so often is. Some how he gets away with being an intellectual puff ball because his act is "entertaining". Of course so are O'Reilly and Tucker - in the same stupid, outrageous way.
It was uncomfortable to see Joe Scarborough acting like he desperately had to make the most of his return to prime time by being loud, bullying and dominant. It looked like he wanted to take over the panel and even the main show by making loud rude noises, even when the focus of the show had returned to the "main anchor desk" with Mathews and Oberman. Sad really.
Please grow up MSNBC!
Drew @ 66:
That is precisely why our founding fathers designed a republic and not a democracy.
Brian Kaufman @ 71:
Ya, so 1% can rule by tyranny over the remaining 99%
Brian Kaufman @ 71:
Tell that to 99% of the population and you will either be laughed at or chastised as being "unamerican" for saying bad things about this God called democracy. Everyone believes it works because all truth is for them IS belief, not rational facts.
Good-bye America, it's been a blast, but stupid people are inheriting the Earth.
Drew @ 66:
I'm amazed that there are any Diebold machines left that haven't been sledgehammered. And you are entirely correct in your diagnosis of fascism. Mussolini himself would certainly agree:
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power"
There are no political parties. There are no free and fair elections. There is only propaganda.
Smash the machines. Then smash the power of the people who control the machines.
ConcernedCanuck @ 72:
HAHAHAHAHA....no you have it all backwards. A Constitutional Republic is one in which 99% cannot violate the freedom of the remaining 1%. You are a prototypical example of the type of person I said makes up this country. People with ideas like yours are the reason for all the crap.
myiq2xu @ 12:
The corporate media spends a lot of money on these bobbleheads in order to influence our thinking. Remember the lead-up to chimpy's Iraq war? There were polls that showed the American public justifiably skeptical of the rationale and evidence. But when you turned on CNN, MSNBC, Faux, etc. the chyrons and graphics all read "Showdown with Sadddam", "Showdown Iraq", etc. All of the pro-war pundits had impressive post-graduate credentials and all the anti-war speakers were musicians or worse yet-actors! Needless to say, those mushy, goody-goody Hollywood lib'ruls had it right and all those pseudo-intellectual war mongers had it wrong. That's why the internet and the blogosphere scares the shit out of the corporate establishment; They can't control the message anymore.
It used to be that newscasters shied away from 'commentary' and 'opinion' without making it explicitly clear that this is what they were offering. (Keith Olbermann is closest to the old style by clearly identifying his 'special comment' segments.)
Slowly, but steadily, media personalities like Tweety have become victims of their own success - presented as having captured the pulse of the political scene (or whatever patch they cover), there's a drive to be the first with the story, or first with the insight, that conflicts with the necessity of facts. (The media at large is also a victim of this trend, the 'breaking news' meme - most of the time, people don't notice ... but every now and then, we get something like the mine disaster where people reported that the miners had survived, when the facts were that only one had. CNN had an erroneous banner up, and so did others.)
Rasputin @ 23:
Thanks for bringing that up! There ARE other things the media/press should be doing.....should have been doing all along instead of replaying Hillary's cackle or showcasing her cleavage. Nora O has a worse "cackle" than anyone so shut it about "The Cackle" already. Every single cable talking head eventually admitted they didn't examine anything substantive & then shrugged helplessly "Why wasn't this done sooner & who's going to do it now that Hillary won NH?" CNN's round table actually sounded clueless as they discussed who would do this "examination of the issues & records" now that it's a 2-person race. Hello? What is it again that they're supposed to be doing which pays them those hefty salaries? Fox Noise I could understand so much handwringing over what to do, what to do. Order up more Kool-aid. But the other channels, to be unashamed to admit they don't know how to do their jobs anymore was stunning. Stop running the loop of Hillary "breaking down" or "faking a break down" (take your pick) and do your damn jobs! Last nite proved how uninformed & LAZY the press/media truly has gotten after years of swallowing & regurgitating whatever garbage BushCo hands them. Go back to who the candidates are (not who their spouses are or what they smell like) and the issues. No more Spears vs. Lohan treatment of the 2008 campaign.
brokaw doesn't have too much room to talk. as the man who anchored nbc world news for however many years, he is not known for his great journalism. but he reads the news pretty darn good. i have no personal beef against tom, but for him to lecture about coverage is pretty hypocritical. i don't seem to recall nbc world news being exactly a in-depth, investigative, truth-to-power-speaking, news organization...
that said, i view the NH predictions and the very different results as the product of a small handful of access-addicted, for-sale political strategists, and pundits that play off of each others egos and actually believe the bullshit that drools from their mealy mouths.
this is just another instance of the shit-ass coverage we get as americans. i still fume when i hear newsmodels saying/agreeing that "everyone thought saddam had wmds." they believe their own shit doesn't stink, when in reality most americans are dying to open a window to let the shit-smell out.
Another brilliant Greenwald piece.
He's got the press corps number down cold.BTW,I think its become painfully obvious--for some time now-- that the modern Presidential hopeful must now tailor their campaigns to suit the depraved needs of the so-called pundits.Light on substance,heavy on the Theatrics.
Its not the American people,the VOTER that craves empty slogans,its the vindictive mindless press,who having been neutered and rendered powerless by their corporate Overlords,seek ways to keep themselves amused.Its an all pervasive tragic sickness that threatens Democracy itself.
Brian Kaufman @ 71:
And precisely why our individual freedoms actually depend on collective adherence to the Constitution which defines our Republic, including the authority granted to the government.
Perhaps the lazy presscorpse is a reflection of the lazy populace of this country?
I speak with a lot of people who don't give a damn about politics -- even in this day and age. It's truly scary.
L.A. Confidential @ 45:
AND be able to afford it on a working persons pay!
Never in history has one man loved one woman so much! That her name comes across his lips every night on his show!
jwf @ 76:
While you are correct about this, we should understand that it's not an attempt to influence the people's choice of candidate.
If the vote is already rigged, the idea is to feed the people a vaguely plausible explanation of how an 'unexpected' result could come about.
It's all theater.
And the plot stinks.
When self important tv bobble heads start believing their opinion is more important than the actual facts it's time to ship them to faux noise and find a replacement. Preferably someone educated in how to do the job properly.
I believe that Jon Stewart got it right when he once told Mathews, "I'm not trashing your book, I'm trashing your philosophy of life." Still holds.
frank verismo @ 85:
Agreed.
One thing the shrub co. crime syndicate could never explain away was the strange, unexpected and totally against all the numbers "swing" for shrub that stole him the election. I guess they're preparing for that this time.
peaceful easy feeling @ 81:
I couldn't agree more... well, I'm sure we disagree on what authority the constitution gives the government. No reason to get into it though.
Dr. Acula @ 82:
I think a lot of that apathy is the result of people turning off.They get tired of being spoon fed weak,sugary pablum by gossipy nitwits like Tweety.
pinkobait @ 80:
Let's finish that thought.
It's not just the media and the American people. Even the progressive blogs, which are supposedly above all this, do it, too. Look at all the posts about "Hillary's Meltdown" (my own, included). Then show the clip to someone outside of it all (such as my wife or, shock-horror, Jon Stewart). Their reaction: "that's not a meltdown."
Brian Kaufman @ 71:
nope, sounded good, but you give the FF too much credit.
they didn't trust the commoners, the peasants, the little people to be responsible enough to vote for themselves. they thought it best that a grown-up, granted of the people's choosing, would speak for the simpletons. that way no "crazy" idea, that would hurt the monied interests, could become a law.
it has been well documented that the rich and elite formulated the constitution in order to further their economic clout. see, charles beard's revealing book: An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of The United States
Kathleen @ 10:
Sad isn't it...and very frightening. Politics as usual won out and people think they were heard by Hillary...give me a breakor to quote someone we all know..."That is a fairytale" It will be 4 years of nothing but divisive politics and hatred if she gets in the Whitehouse.
I am just holding my breath at this point hoping we can make it until george is out of there finally. He and his cronies scare me more than terrorists.
Samson- @ 92:
oops, i meant to direct that to drew...
LPD @ 54:
I don't think most voters evn think of any of the canidates race. But Twitty Tweety sure wants people to doesn't he.
Did anyone notice last night how Tweety was overtalking Olbermann? He wouldn't let Keith finish a sentence there for a while and you could see Olbermann getting a little steamed. I don't think they'll be a team for much longer, methinks.
fuck it dude. let's go bowling.
Who cares. The elite win again. And we'll all be screwed. Barack, you already have big balls, but you will have to grow them bigger to deal with the Clintons and the gullible American public
MargeAggedon @ 88:
"Oh - I'm not going to lose" GWB interviewed by Tim Russert 2004 - with not even the slightest sign of humor whatsoever.
The more blatant the rigging/theater becomes, the longer the psychological paper-trail that has to be laid becomes.
This whole election cycle will be one big, long psy-op.
Tweety?
You got some 'splainin to do!
Sue @ 93:
Why the distinction?
I think about the nicest things one could say about Tweety is that he's bi-polar and not taking his meds. Geez - why is this fool on anyone's TV. NBC is crazy for keeping this man on the air and has anyone caught his Sun. morn gig? Just flat out awful and embarrassing.
walter @ 97:
great flic.
Perhaps someone could make a little notation in the heading of this article, once the WMV links are fixed? That'll help us poor folks waiting for it, and help take some load off your servers produced by our frequent reloading of this page.
Thanks.
JTM @ 91:
Its a toxic disease.
DeighvedHSternMD @ 104:
I'm having a problem as well.The Quicktime link is active however...
pissed off patricia @ 4:
Mr Brokaw: The Way It Use To Be
Tom Brokaw, along with a few others, used to be a sane element you could count on to give it to you how it was supposed to be reported. Nothing has changed with him; however, much as changed with his network.
I often wondered, hearing Chris Matthews go on day after day, spending much of his show bashing Hillary Clinton, as he tried to hide behind a noble cause of wanting what is best for the country. He paraded guest after guest to his daily party of bashing Clinton. Where was the executives of MSNBC? I have lost all interest in MSNBC as a result of Matthews' unchecked actions. I have told myself many times: If I see something unusual and unfair, chances are many other see the same thing. Now I am hearing many noticed this daily trashing of the Democrats' front runner.
Often, I was sadden at how much the so-called liberal left chimed in on Matthews' chorus of hatred for Clinton. Many on this site seem to repeat much of what Matthews had to say and contributed a bit of their own brand of "I hate Clinton too." Hook line and sinker, the people on this site sounded like Republicans answering to the call of Republican talking points.
MSNBC, CNN, and Fox may of crossed the line with trashing Hillary. If any one of the candidates had to pay for what they were doing for free, they would be broke and exiting the campaign arena. The right-wing media was trying to hand Barack Obama a victory, and you can bet it was not because they liked him. No, they had a grand scheme in mind, one that involved getting the Democrats to trash their front runner. After the Democrats' front runner is trashed, they would of completed half of what they needrf to do to avoid an overwhelming defeat in November 2008. I know it sound like another conspiracy theme, but it is one I will not give up. The good think about all this is Clinton's victory may of stopped this shit in its tracks.
Joseph
the fix was in -- discrepancies rivaling florida 2000 (didn't you know carl rove was secretly advising hillary's campaign) --- she's the corporate master's pick for the dem party, they have invested a shitload of $$$$ in her and how dare the citizens of the united states (the crumbling empire) think they can just unite in great numbers and change the program.
we're doomed.
frank verismo @ 85:
I agree to an extent. No doubt that the 2000 election was stolen from Gore. And sufficient evidence sugggests that Kerry actually won in 2004, and the combination of Diebold, disenfranchising, voter caging, and a variety of Rovian dirty tricks flipped a lot of votes the the chimp. But the corporate MSM decides early on who's electable and who isn't. Witness pumpkinhead Russert's demeaning UFO question to Kucinich. It was meant to make him seem like a kook. He didn't say he saw little green men from Alpha Centuri. He saw an Unidentified Flying Object- as have many pilots, military personnel and people from all walks of life have seen. Most are later explained by plausible science, but are difficult to explain at the time of the sighting. If Kucinich looked like Romney, he'd be a very strong candidate, because most of what he says makes very good sense, and he's been right about Iraq, impeachment, etc. more than he's been wrong. The same is also happening to John Edwards, whom I support. He gets very little coverage beyond the superficial shots at his appearance and that he was a trial lawyer.
pinkobait @ 106:
Yeah, I know. Maybe its just my system, but the MOV files sound unbearably tinny when I play them. I'd rather wait for the WMV. (I did look around for an FLV elsewhere, but couldn't find one.)
I'm spoiled, what can I say?
man -- i can't believe all the hillary supporters on this site -- what the hell is wrong with you people? you are supposed to be informed and knowledgeable about this stuff -- she's a friggin' chicken hawk neo-con . . . bought and paid for by special interests and will be a bigger disaster (if you can believe it - BELIOEV IT!) than george bush ----- wait and see.
if we americans had any real concept of what is truly taking place with supreme powers in this country edwards would be unstoppable --- i'd like to see obama get a chance --- hillary is: A SNAKE IN WOLVE'S CLOTHING CROSS-DRESSING AS A SHEEP!!!! A NEO-CON MOLE JUST LIKE LEIBERMAN!!!
PLEASE WAKE UP!!!!
we, fuck it.
"This is one of the great triumphs in recent years in American presidential politic—Hillary Clinton is back and the rest of us who were saying out loud that this was not going to happen, you know we have a lot of explaining to do."
Not to difficult, they know not of which they speak.
It's a good time for a Tweety boycott. Biased and wrong is a pretty worthless combination. I love the way he and others blame the "polls." It's just like Republican apologists blaming "faulty intelligence" (i.e., CIA) for the Iraq folly. If all the blowhards do is read polls, why do we need to watch them in the first place? We can go find the poll results directly. Even if a Tweety boycott doesn't register with lower ratings for him, it will be nice not to waste any more time on him.
I'm so sick of people whining about vote rigging whenever their favorite candidate doesn't win. The hand-counted votes favored Obama and the machine-counted ones favored Clinton because they were from different places. The exit poll numbers are nearly identical to the results (they actually show a slightly smaller gap between the two). It's people spewing out crap like this that makes most of the country ignore it when there really is legitimate evidence of fraud.
The real story here isn't Hillary's win, it's how screwed up the whole polling system is. As someone said on the radio here (Ireland) this morning, if you want to make a living being consistently wrong, go be a pollster in America (of course you could also be a Faux News commentator). People put so much weight on the pre-election polls, but the methodology is so flawed that they're often way off.
They're missing the whole fricking point of what journalists are supposed to do: TELL US THE FACTS. AND THEN SHUT UP.
We don't really care what you morons think about what's happening, we just want you to tell us what's happening. We want the information and we'll decide on our own. "News" these days is all about these morons sitting around spouting BS. What a surprise that so many of us find the MSM totally useless. They are.
And then, when their predictions of an election don't come true, they are surprised or upset?!?! Give me a break! We don't care who you thought would win. We care who won.
Maybe its time for the whole "news" media industry to sit down and try to remember what their job is.
Roger from Ohio @ 39:
hey Flinstone, drop your dial-up and join us here in the 21st Century!
Site Monitor: No, he's right. There was some issues with the video link. It's been fixed now.
Midnight Rambler @ 114:
Tweety's always been a little unhinged, but now he's over the edge. I think he feels threatened for MSNBC alpha wolf status by Keith Obermann. Plus he's probably on some kind of prescription meds and drinking. Maybe some bad plastic surgery tugging on his face and a molting wig. He is kind of like a less noble Howard Beale. He is losing it. He thinks he's the big expert and he knows nothing. Just like the rest of us.
I thought his reaching out and touching Hillary's cheek was almost like an assault.
Personally, I think the trainwreck of Tweety should be relegated to making him a member of a panel, equal with Pat Buchanon and Rachel Maddow. That way we enjoy his spittleling madness without him having to "moderate" anyone. He can't even moderate his own mouth.
Keith's eyes say it all -- he's embarassed.
In Matthews case he has simply gotten older, not better, or wiser. Why doesn't he retire? It is not like he doesn't have enough money.
oZer @ 116:
Great to see a 12-year-old with an interest in politics!
Media Concepts @ 113:
Anyone have an email address for the MSNBC News Director or similarly influential person that we can register our Tweety complaints with?
Matthews is too twisted for color TV.
jwf @ 109:
The MSM in turn get their marching orders from the think tanks such as the CFR (of which Tom Brokaw is a member). Stephanopoulos is a member too, as is Barbara Walters and many other MSM big-hitters.
Kerry and Bush are both members of Skull and Bones. Either one would have brought the CFR/Trilateral globalization agenda forwards, but the NeoCon approach was preferable as it's both brutal and shameless and gets the job done quicker. Which is why Kerry went down without a fight. He knew the result before the first vote was cast.
Kucinich and Paul seem to be the only candidates that are not already in the pockets of the think tanks/bankers. Both have the kind of composure that only comes from personal conviction and a desire to serve the people - while the other candidates spit on their oaths of office. It was interesting to see Huckabee's fortunes surge after cozying up to the CFR. If nausea can ever be interesting, that is. Even the British press started boosting him.
I'll look more closely into Edwards' voting record.
Tweety's like the uncle you have that drinks too much at family gatherings. When he goes to the bathroom, everyone rolls their eyes. Your mom asks your dad why he doesn't confront his brother about his drinking or tell him to get help. Your dad says if it gets any worse, you'll say something. But he never does. Then your drunk uncle puts his hand on your teenage sister's knee. It's just wrong. But will dad say something?
Tom was really great on Ring Of Fire radio this past weekend. I love when people take Tweety to the woodshed
The most outrageous part of Matthews' comments occurs just after this video clip. Matthew asks Brokaw what is there for the media to do if not focus on the horse race/polling dynamics -- "go home?" Brokaw suggests that perhaps reporting on the actual issues might nice. Go Tom!
BROKAW: You know what I think we're going to have to do?
MATTHEWS: Yes sir?
BROKAW: Wait for the voters to make their judgment.
MATTHEWS: Well what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess.
BROKAW: No, no we don't stay home. There are reasons to analyze what they're saying. We know from how the people voted today, what moved them to vote. You can take a look at that. There are a lot of issues that have not been fully explored during all this.
But we don't have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed. And trying to stampede in effect the process.
zugzug @ 115:
"The business of the New York journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his race and his country for his daily bread. You know this and I know it, and what folly is this to be toasting an 'independent press'! We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." -- John Swinton, editor NYTimes, 1883
How times haven't changed.
The movie Enron, Smartest Guys in the Room is a seemingly timeless look into the Non-Reality based mindset of so many Neo-Cons like William the Bloody and other arrogant losers over there. Time and again these losers mistakenly believe that through their will alone they can shape reality or predict it, be it The Fall of the Clintons, Mission Accomplished, Global Warming Does Not Exist, Etc. They just keep adding to their list of failures and yet supposedly intellectually high organizations like the New York Times, NBC News, 30% of the American Public (ha, ha) still believe in them. One has to wonder what it will take for these Losers to be abandoned once and for all. Enron, Smartest Guys In the Room is a microcosm of it all.
Americans who think for themselves, who have critical thinking skills, already know that Chris Matthews is nothing more than a steaming pile of shit.
Finally Tom Brokaw connected a couple of his brain cells together (don't expect it so last longer than a few minutes) and noticed that Chris Matthews is a steaming pile of shit.
Why do we Americans put up with Chris Matthews?
What can be done to dump his ass off of television?
traycon @ 126:
This represents my sentiments exactly. Tom Brokaw could not of said it better. Chris Matthews has been going wild and unchecked and have moved in the area of a liability. His influence on the Democratic primary amounts to millions of dollars of free campaign attacks designed to bring Hillary Clinton down. It seems like Matthews has scared all those around him in fear of him sounding off on them. He takes the Hardball identity to an extreme.
Joseph
Brokow sounds hypocritical. Why is he not covering for Edwards?
What is so special about Obama and Clinton. I shall not vote for these two.
I think America Media plays favoritism; they are racist.
Ban MSM!
jr @ 125:
But why do we have to hear about that part of Tweety's sex life and fetishes?
#66- DREW: Go suck a lemon, you whiner. Go sit with Tweety, you deserve each other. What a display of idiocy !!!!!
This Matthews is an idiot.....NBC, get rid of him. He's trash.
If the media convinces Obama supporters that Obama is ahead by 10%, they effectively tell Obama supporters that they might not need to even show up to vote.
I really don't like how CNN, AP and other news organizations are the ones that call out who wins an election. Shouldn't the organizations in the state that run the election declare a winner? Then the news orgs... report the results?
tom brokaw's way of declaring that hillary will be the MSM candidate for the dems.
either
the fix is in for the corporo-fascist clinton to be the dem for prez so she can be beaten by any repug male
or
the fix is in for the corporo-fascist clinton to be the next corporate shill prez.
Chris Matthews is "a right wing tool." Stephanie Miller was 100% correct.
With Chris Matthews being so pathological, he now needs immediate psychiatric care.
Both Tom Brokaw and Keith O. got it right last night with Tweety.
Matthew's unrelenting SPEWING of anti-Hillary POV in the last six weeks has been breath-taking. Maybe HE's the one who should be replaced by Rachel Maddow. At least you KNOW the color of her stripes... but she STILL does her research and uses logic and intelligence while puting forth her ideas and positions.
Wien @ 44:
Sounds like bullsh_t to me.
With all due respect to Mr. Brokaw and Mr. Matthews, neither one of you a$$hats are doing your jobs.
When you have this many different polls all showing the same exact thing leading up to the election, and when we have a state with 81 per cent Diebold machines, which are clearly easily hacked, as seen in the HBO special, and when you have Senator Clinton ready to concede Nevada and South Carolina just two days ago, and when you have high young turnout (who overwhelmingly favor Obama) and then, on election day, the Democratic candidate favored by Rupert Murdoch and his corporate friends "miraculously" eeks out a victory, it's probably time for Robert Mueller to launch an FBI investigation.
Hillary may have won through electronic fraud...
This is so amazing and really easy to see...
you can very easily compare the two alphabetical lists on two browser windows below...
Almost across the board, Obama substantially wins wherever votes are counted by hand and he loses or at best ties, where votes are counted by the same Diebold machines.
now...statistically and honestly, how likely is it possible that this would occur?
I am not even an Obama fan, but this is the exact same kind of implausible, if not impossible, anomaly that has been going on with all the Bush elections, until now...
http://www.bbvdocs.org/NH/state/Jan-08-votingsystems-NH.txt
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2008/by_county/NH_Page_0108...
IdahoMoe @ 140:
yeah, as if Hillary requested/told and instructed the State of N. Hampshire to buy, install
and use Diebold. Get a grip on reality.
Wouldn't this be a good time to re-post that old audio clip of Chris Matthews and his 'stich-n-bitch' session with Tom DeLay on Hardball when he thought the microphone was off?
Read Hillary Clinton's speech to the Council on Foreign Relations , you know the elite group that recently claimed that " Monetary sovereignty is a thing of the past " and is hindering American capitalism . - GOOGLE CFR , HILLARY CLINTON.
What galls ME, is how they combine advancing " American principles " with we need a presence in the middle east for our economic interests . BULLSHIT , it's ALL about power and money . The U.S. isn't spending trillions of tax payer money to show off our supposed " principles " or advancing democracy .
Hillary claimed that since we got Saddam , " the U.S. should have first rights to reconstruction contracts in Iraq " , interesting since there are many IRAQI Contractors that desperately need WORK , and since it's THEIR COUNTRY , why shouldn't THEY rebuild their OWN COUNTRY ?
READ her speech . Google CFR, Hillary Clinton speech .
AndyZ @ 19:
Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus. Lincoln printed 400 million dollars of paper money that caused a five year depression from 1865 to 1870. Lincoln sent troops into the south despite the fact that he had no formal declaration of war to do so. Lincoln authorized the rape of Georgia, which would TODAY be considered an international war crime.
Sound familiar?
Strangely enough, the comparison actually WORKS.
Stop deifying Lincoln. It's all advertising.
Besides, why would you want to prop up a REPUBLICAN?
baxman @ 142:
Emmit @ 141:
Now THERE is something to think about. The time-tested 'close victory' and MSM ready to tout it's favorite candidate (and murdickKK's fave, too).
Kahoneez @ 145:
Actually, sovereignty is a thing of the past, according to the CFR. Remove the word 'American' from your above sentence and you'd be right on the money.
"In short, the 'house of world order' will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It will look like a great 'booming, buzzing confusion,' to use William James' famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault." Richard Gardner, CFR
"Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure -- one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it." David Rockefeller, director CFR, 'Memoirs' 2002
James @ 146:Sending troops down South was putting down an insurrection which is allowed under the constitution. To Declare War, as Lincoln was considering asking Congress to do, would under international conventions at the time be recognizing the South as a seperate Nation. And with England poised to help the South, he didn't want to take that option.
Additionally, Lincoln specifically asked Congress to authorize the suspension of Habeus Corpus, unlike boosh he tried to go behind Congress's back. That doesn't necessarily make it right, but it does make it a different situation.
Doggiebobo @ 143:
No. If the vote was hacked, Bill and Hillary probably knew nothing of it. Plausible deniability.
If that happened, the order probably came from someone higher up. And we do need to explore the possibilities, given what our modern oligarchy has already proven themselves to be capable of.
Boy does this site ever hate Chris Matthews.
I watch many of the late afternoon cable news shows and frankly the bias in the tone on C&L towards Matthews is so far off the chart I can't help but wonder what child of yours did Chris eat...
If you watched the shows with a neutral viewpoint, you would quickly find that each of the hosts have their own distinctive styles.
Matthews was no more wrong or right than any pundit or guest on any of the shows.
I did watch the exchange between Deedee Myers and Chris and he was absolutely right to question her statement about Hillary being the front runner for a long time.
He was also right to question one poll that did call the race more accurately than others - simply because it was one of 5 that was right! That's just reading what is said by the polling companies and drawing a reasonable conclusion.
I enjoy this site a lot, but increasingly the explicit hatred for this commentator that is doing his job (unlike O'Rielly who is wrong 7 times out of 10) is tiresome and causes me to question if the same ill founded logic is used when making other commentary.
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