Bill O'Reilly was all giddy last night about the news that in the wake of the seat-shuffling that followed Helen Thomas' departure from her front-row seat at White House press conferences, Fox News has managed to nab a front-row slot (the AP was awarded Thomas' coveted spot).
BillO even implied that he'd be coming down and making things rough on Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Ho ho ho ho hah.
But as Lynn Sweet's report notes, Fox was awarded the spot over two other superb news organizations: NPR and Bloomberg. Indeed, both are at least legitimate news organizations and not the brazen propaganda outlet that Fox News has become.
If you want a clear example of just how openly Fox now propagandizes, check out the house ad it was running all day yesterday, touting speculation about what strategy is most likely to hurt Democrats and help the GOP:
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Fox has been able to get away with being a propaganda organ while pretending to do real "news" because of the cowardice of real working journalists, who have simply failed in their supposed role as the profession's "internal policing" mechanism.
This was exemplified, really, by the White House press corps' craven surrender to Fox's campaign to get that front-row seat, even though every working journalist in that room knows that at the end of the day, even a semi-decent guy like Major Garrett has to answer to Roger Ailes. Every one of them knows, too, that Fox churns out right-wing propaganda as a 24/7 operation.
See that empty seat front and center? That was Helen Thomas' official seat in the White House press pool, the only such designation in the press room. It was given to her in honor of her 57 years of covering presidential press conferences.
In the wake of her resignation, three news services are vying to take Thomas' seat: Fox News Channel, Bloomberg and NPR.
But let's be honest: giving Fox News Channel--the same outlet that elevated Breitbart's ACORN and Sherrod scandals to national prominence, that continues to push the NBPP non-story, that employs that inciter of insanity, Glenn Beck--the seat is a slap in the face to any American who actually cares about news.
Credo Action is asking progressives to contact the White House Correspondents Association and ask them to not award Fox News Helen Thomas' seat. From an email sent to members:
We need help.
There's a new front where we can chip away at the perceived legitimacy of FOX as a news organization.
The White House Correspondents Association is scheduled to decide in a Monday meeting which news outlet will get the White House press briefing room front row seat vacated recently by Helen Thomas. (we're trying to confirm reports that this meeting has been moved up a day to Sunday. more on that when we get better info.)
Three organizations are vying for this seat: FOX, NPR and Bloomberg News. [..]
We need your help. CREDO launched a campaign yesterday morning to call attention to this and already 140,000 people have signed our petition. We are faxing and working on petition deliveries to the board members and executive director of the organization in advance of their meeting. The petition is here: http://www.credoaction.com/campaign/fox_or_npr/
"Joe the Voter" at OpEd News has a boilerplate letter that you may want to use to send in your name:
White House Correspondents' Association
600 New Hampshire Avenue, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20037
202-266-7453 (v)
202-266-7454 (f )
Julia Whiston, Executive Director.
Do not give Helen Thomas' seat to FOX !
They are NOT news...they are a politically motivated racist organization who lie, distort and deceive viewers to promote a specific political agenda. They have FCC complaints filed against them for using their "news" status contrary to federal rules against bias and distortion in the news. The recent scandals where Fox assisted in slander and personal attacks against blacks such as Shirley Sherrod, Van Jones and Acorn all indicate their inability to present news using accepted and honorable journalistic standards.
Putting FOX in that chair would be a black mark on your organization as it would amount to an acceptance of their extreme distortions as being the equal of your other distinguished members.
How can a candidate who has already lent her campaign $59 million and hired the best consulting team money can buy find herself in a dogfight with three weeks to go?
In conversations with close observers of California politics, a few reasons for Whitman's struggles stand out.
First, the state has a history of wariness toward free-spending business people running for office. From Michael Huffington to Al Checchi to Steve Westly, candidates whose money stands at the center of their campaigns have been rejected. (Poizner is something of a flawed messenger on this issue, having already donated $19 million of his own money to his bid.)
Second, Whitman has allowed herself to be defined as the insider in a year when being the outsider represents the political high ground. With former governor Pete Wilson serving as her campaign chairman and endorsements from national political figures such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, Whitman has turned into the de facto incumbent. Poizner has sought to drive that point home to voters with an ad in which Whitman morphs into Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) -- a decidedly unpopular figure among Republican voters.
Third, Whitman's adversarial relationship with the press -- she has had several high-profile run-ins with the media in the state, and her campaign has been accused by Poizner of hiding her from reporters -- has contributed to a sense of entitlement and aloofness that voters find unattractive.
While there is little debate in California Republican circles that Whitman has lost considerable altitude in the primary, there is far less certainty about where the race is headed.
It looks like the vote is coming down finally. Ezra Klein is saying the vote should come down at 9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific. You can watch the streaming video of the vote on C-Span. I'm totally exhausted and let's face it---the whole country is exhausted. Obama gave a good speech yesterday and hit the republicans as he should. You can read the entire transcript here.
In what the New York Times called "an extraordinary session," President Obama began his speech by quoting Abraham Lincoln. "I am not bound to win, but I'm bound to be true," he said. "I'm not bound to succeed, but I'm bound to live up to what light I have."
"You have a chance to make good on the promises you made," Obama told the House members. "This is one of those moments. This is one of those times where you can honestly say to yourself: 'Doggone it, this is exactly why I came here. This is why I got into politics. This is why I got into public service. This is why I made these sacrifices.'" Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz described Obama's address as "the most emotional speech I've ever seen him give."
Can I just say once again how much I hate these little "Mission Accomplished" press conferences? I realize that it's human to want to celebrate the (apparent) end of a hard fought battle and that they all loved to be stroked by each other in public, but it's unseemly.
Instead of telling each other how wonderful they all are, perhaps they could spend time time explaining why the bill is important and thanking the American people for their forbearance. They can give each other big smooches and hearty pats on the back when the cameras stop rolling.
If the President had started out the process as forcefully as he has been lobbying now, the bill would have been finished before the dog days of last summer. Glenn Greenwald's take here is understandable. He wants the bill to pass too, but with tepid support and is miffed at the politics of it all.
As liberals, we have fought hard for what we believe in, but building a powerful liberal/progressive coalition in Congress is going to take time. And we need a strong ground game to go along with them. Many of us are somewhat disappointed in the final bill, but it does have some important changes that have been discussed endlessly already and I won't rehash them all now.
Remember, conservatives have been actively building their movement since Barry Goldwater and then it continued with the rise of Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed. Having the backing of billions of dollars from overzealous corporations and wealthy families that the left doesn't have access to has been a major obstacle for progressive change and will continue to be one. And we know all about the right wing noise machine that is allowed to permeate our airwaves while traditional journalism goes out of business, which will slowly turn all news into opinions.
The liberal blogosphere is still in its infancy. Kudos to the many interest groups that have been fighting the good fight for decades, but I think bloggers can build "Movement Progressivism " better in the long run because it encompasses all of our special interests and combines them.
Both on substance and politics, better to pass it than not. It does not do the important work of sowing the seeds of the insurance industry's destruction, leaving the skimmers in place, and only takes baby steps towards moving them to the regulated public utility model. It also doesn't get rid of their anti-trust exemption, leaving the effective monopolies in place.
This leaves us open to continued abuses by the industry and fails to do the most important cost-cutting measure, cutting out the paper pushers who serve no useful purpose in the economy. But there is good in the bill, too, and one has to be a bit Hopey that over time demands by the public will make the bad and unpopular stuff less bad and less unpopular.
As it pertains to the politics of it all, the President needs this bill to pass. If it does then I believe the MSM will hail it as a great achievement on his part.
I'll have a lot more on this after I get some much needed rest.
Your IraqSlogger editors are stunned that the Pentagon has released to the entire world and posted on the Web the U.S. military's new 282-page counterinsurgency war-fighting manual.
This is the first post-9/11 "war on terror"-era U.S. military counterinsurgency manual - the long-awaited doctrine meant in part to help turn the tide for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The counterinsurgency field manual's cover reads in part, "Distribution Restriction: Approved for Public Release; Distribution is unlimited."
Am I the only one who remembers during the first Gulf War, when it became patently obvious that the televised press conferences announcing troop manouvres were also being viewed by Iraqi military? What a shock, they got CNN too. Is the DoD under the impression that the US is the only country with internet access? Guys, it's called the WORLD WIDE web.
"What we desperately need is a hero -- either an individual or a group, or some combination of both. It is entirely possible that it would require only one individual of national prominence to state the issues clearly to the American public. He or she could give a series of speeches and press conferences, preferably starting tomorrow. I still would prefer to think that, if the issues were made unmistakably plain, enough Americans would respond. Our hero would have to explain the immorality of an attack on a nonexistent threat, and why it is unthinkable that we would use nuclear weapons, even "tactical" ones, in a non-defensive way....read on"
The poll, conducted for The Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs, found that 56 percent of respondents are not willing to give up some guaranteed benefits, while 40 percent said they would. Majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents were opposed to losing any benefits.
One of the only proposals that gets support in polls is raising the $90,000 limit on earnings that can be taxed for Social Security.
When asked whom they trust more to handle Social Security, 48 percent of respondents said Democrats and 36 percent said Republicans.
I think it would be better for George if he halted his tour and stopped doing Press conferences.
Bob Somerby has more on Bush's: Disinformation, disrespect, and phony fear.
Think Progress has some disturbing numbers for George Bush.
