I hope Olbermann felt a twinge of guilt after he sold himself to the Obama campaign.

The media is catering to an audience that can't understand two-syllable words. And that's what they're left with, anyone who wants real news is on the internet.

Your right Ruth. MSM's obsession with Obama and Hillary(Not the scandal that is breaking that the Bush Adm. knew of the cooruption and waste in Iraq) is dominating ALL coverage. It's so bad I watch reruns of Married with Children for God's sake!

There are so few true Journalists left in America. All too often we are stuck with pundits and tabloid-like news pretending to be honest journalism.

It's a good thing we still have Bill Moyers around to make all those pseudo journalists look bad.

I constantly have Rancid's "Avenues and Alleyways" running through my head. The part about how the media "pits the dogs against the cats" seems prescient when there's a discussion about how the corporate media keeps us distracted with petty crap so that we don't drag the masters out of their gilded mansions and eat them.

Also. I got my Obama '08 t-shirt in the mail yesterday. The site said they were back-ordered, but it only took about a week. The sleeves come off today. Booyah.

Sad part is that if you seek the truth and strive to eliminate ignorance, you get labeled a "Liberal".

(...as if it's a bad thing.)

Eric Hussein Elite Almighty @ 10:

I constantly have Rancid's "Avenues and Alleyways" running through my head. The part about how the media "pits the dogs against the cats" seems prescient when there's a discussion about how the corporate media keeps us distracted with petty crap so that we don't drag the masters out of their gilded mansions and eat them.

Also. I got my Obama '08 t-shirt in the mail yesterday. The site said they were back-ordered, but it only took about a week. The sleeves come off today. Booyah.

Rockin' the John Oates look, Eric?

bumper sticker media for bumper sticker mentality. Journalists are a dying breed and educated citizens are also. I am sick and tired of being taken for a fool by the TV industry. And they can't even figure out why their audiences have dwindled down year after year. I don't have cable and I only watch my TV for the weather and local news. After that, I either read, do a hobby, clean, get on the internet(s) or talk with other human beings. It's really enlightening to get away from that idiot box telling me how to feel, look, think and act. I advise everyone to try it :)

centralilgirl @ 16:

bumper sticker media for bumper sticker mentality. Journalists are a dying breed and educated citizens are also. I am sick and tired of being taken for a fool by the TV industry. And they can't even figure out why their audiences have dwindled down year after year. I don't have cable and I only watch my TV for the weather and local news. After that, I either read, do a hobby, clean, get on the internet(s) or talk with other human beings. It's really enlightening to get away from that idiot box telling me how to feel, look, think and act. I advise everyone to try it :)

You won't find any argument here. But when I do watch the TeeVee, I get more truth from a half hour of The Venture Bros or Spongebob Squarepants than I would from 10 years of FoxNoise. My TeeVee is programmed to skip right past their craptacular channel, anyway. I'd have to make a special effort to see it at all.

McCain: Tax cuts for rich kids, the bill for yours.

pissed off patricia @ 9:

I've noticed that MSNBC runs some news on their crawl but they don't talk about it, instead they go on forever with the same Obama/Hillary stories over and over.

It's their CYA policy.

Everyone does it and none of them can be blamed for ignoring real news stories.

Now, back to Obama vs Hillary ....

a great moment in press history. truth and truthtellers in one space. a true pleasure.

L.A. Confidential @ 19:

There's a Bill Moyers show on PBS where college and high school-educated respondents were asked to find Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel on a world map and only 23% of the college-educated under the age of 25 and 6% of high school-educated could find all four, despite the fact that the map they were given was labeled.

War is God's way of teaching geography to Americans.

johnnypunchclock @ 25:

I know more about Obama from YouTube than any other source. Keep your chin up. The world is changing... fast. And the tv can't keep up.

Note that "reading" was not included on the list.

This has been my complaint during this entire primary season. I guess I just wasn't watching as much television news before. It's hard not to be annoyed and disappointed at the lack of good questions, the poor quality of follow-up on issue questions and the repeat, repeat, repeat of the same "expert" commentators.

I've seen just about enough of Carville, Matlin, Buchanan, Cokie Roberts, etc., to last me the rest of my days. It's insulting to think that these people, with their comments on the impact of the Reverend Wright, Bill Clinton, lapel pins, pant suits, Monica Lewinsky and on and on, will decide the nomination and the election.

So many of the news people seem to be lazy types who don't want to do the research to get the right answers so that they can refute the wrong information given out by candidates and their surrogates. It takes staff (money) for the research and time to prepare for the broadcasts. A lot of our favorite talking heads, such as Tim Russert and Chris Matthews are all over other shows as contributors, and they don't want to take the tme to prepare themselves for the tough interviews. They also attend too many cocktail parties with a lot of the people they interview and want to have decent social relationships with them.

This is killing independent news. Too bad. The American people are definitely paying the price.

L.A. Confidential @ 19:

There's a Bill Moyers show on PBS where college and high school-educated respondents were asked to find Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel on a world map and only 23% of the college-educated under the age of 25 and 6% of high school-educated could find all four, despite the fact that the map they were given was labeled.

Some couldn't find the MILKY WAY on a map of the Virgo Super Cluster !!

SM @ 2:

I hope Olbermann felt a twinge of guilt after he sold himself to the Obama campaign.

What a silly person you are!

From Media Matters, a multiple choice question:

Of the following, which outlet covered two recent major national security stories -- NBC, CBS, NPR, PBS or Comedy Central?

You get three guesses and the first two don't count.

Rusty Shackleford @ 14:

Eric Hussein Elite Almighty @ 10:

I constantly have Rancid's "Avenues and Alleyways" running through my head. The part about how the media "pits the dogs against the cats" seems prescient when there's a discussion about how the corporate media keeps us distracted with petty crap so that we don't drag the masters out of their gilded mansions and eat them.

Also. I got my Obama '08 t-shirt in the mail yesterday. The site said they were back-ordered, but it only took about a week. The sleeves come off today. Booyah.

Rockin' the John Oates look, Eric?

Here in South Florida, we wear sleeveless T-shirts to reduce our carbon footprint.

As for Oates, I think he's doing a gig this weekend at Gitmo...

Bonkers Hussein @ 17:

Doubting_Hussein_Terrance @ 1:

My bumper stickers:

Got Osama?

Google PNAC

Is that second one for real? I love it.

I had to make my own. But everyone should know about PNAC, who was in it and their influence in our GWOT.

And why is our #1 enemy still on the loose? MAJOR FAIL!

mudshark @ 41:

ysbaddaden @ 39:

I always wanted a bumper sticker that said, "I break for hallucinations."

But only if you wear a hat and wear coke bottle glasses.

I already wear coke bottle glasses

That's why my eye's get so sticky

And if my bald spot gets any bigger

Haberdashery is next.

The real issues are too boring for the average American to pay attention to. Start talking healthcare, social security, national debt, etc. and the average American stares blankly back at you. They may know of the issues but they do not know the issues. Talk about gas prices and inflation and food shortages and they are likely to quote back the drivel they got from watching 10 minutes of "news" the night before - no critical thinking whatsoever.

Our politicians don't help when they think flag burning, gay marriage, and steriods in baseball is more important than $9 trillion+ in national debt, for example. It is not in their best interest to pursue the tough issues because 1) the harsh reality of the fixes needed to address the tough issues won't get them re-elected and 2) the electorate usually don't care until it is too late.

Who is going to vote for someone that says that we need to raise the national gas tax, raise taxes on everyone, cut spending drastically, and tell the baby boomers they will get less because we have spent and promised ourselves to oblivion? I would because I know the issues and I see what is going on the world, but the average American would not vote for someone like that because they do not know how the world is changing.

The average American will vote for someone who will maintain the status quo without much disruption to their personal lives. They want to have cheap gas to fill their SUV. It does not matter to them that life as we know it in America will be changing and not in a way that will benefit them. How can they know this when they know so little about the world around them in the first place?

The right has long been aware of the power of media used as a weapon. You can bet your last dollar that the latest takeover and control of american news outlets was planned and put in motion as far back as nixon by the neo and PFNAC gang of criminals. Chenney, Rummy,wolfie and the boys learned a hard lesson with viet nam and nixon being exposed by news media. Make no mistake these people are far from stupid and they plan everything they do far in advance, right down to the smallest detail. Go to the, project for a new american century website and read their "plan" to see just how expert they are at it. Conspiracy you say? No shit sherlock. The germans had a long and very detailed plan to control the english citizens after invasion, right down to church, labor leaders,police,fire,roads,waterways, anything you can think of, the smallest detail. This "plan", after any one of the planners taking any step to set that plan in motion is a "conspiracy". It happens every single day, in fact a large percentage of criminal charges are for conspiracy, it only takes two to tango. We must take our airwaves back from them or not a damn thing will change, that is a hard fact we must learn or we will never be the land of the free again. CEO

Obama supporters who are true progressives should be taking their cues from the man himself.

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing between really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Barack_on_torture.html

The operative words are "exercise judgment." This is obviously lost on the self-ordained left-wing fundamentalist "preachers" in the 'sphere who behave as if their own personal political and religious choices give them license to pass moral judgments on other people. Ironically, such people are sounding more and more like Pat Robertson all the time.

centralilgirl @ 16:

bumper sticker media for bumper sticker mentality. Journalists are a dying breed and educated citizens are also. I am sick and tired of being taken for a fool by the TV industry. And they can't even figure out why their audiences have dwindled down year after year. I don't have cable and I only watch my TV for the weather and local news. After that, I either read, do a hobby, clean, get on the internet(s) or talk with other human beings. It's really enlightening to get away from that idiot box telling me how to feel, look, think and act. I advise everyone to try it :)

I am with you on the TV thing. The only things I watch are C-Span, Bill Moyers, and a few selected special documentaries. On nice days, I am out on the property doing yard work, or enjoying the outdoors. When inside, I make my daily trek through a dozen (or more) news/political websites, like C&L, Firedoglake, Huffington, Carpetbagger, BBC, WaPo, Mcclatchy, TMmuckraker, etc. Then it is video post-production work. It keeps the noodle active and properly active. Finally, one day a week I do veteran outreach in Seattle. I go out looking for recently returned veterans from Iraq/Afghanistan, who are already headed in the wrong direction (living on the streets). I am a Vietnam combat veteran, who also had issues to work through early on. I am able to communicate with them. I try to get them into various programs, or into the VA system. I find it very rewarding. I wish I had more time to spend on this, there is so much to do, and the problem is growing.

It's the internets, I tell ya. "May the tubes always be clear." (C&L, you may pat yourselves on the back here.)

Cenralilgril #16, Thanks for the comments, I do the same. I refuse to be insulted by the blow heads on TV. They can't even count to ten. They stated thay Clinton won Indiana by double digits. By the time kids lead kindergarden, they know double digits starts at ten. I usually watch the Andy Griffin show, or Leave it to Beaver when I watch TV.

Bill Moyers belongs on an major network with a weekly show
and if not then MSNBC should do it.