You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (917)

PLAYS: (2654)

Granted, it's hard to hear because the voices speak over each other, but the graphics are pretty clear: this ad for Anderson Cooper 360 was meant to claim that Anderson Cooper challenges the status quo and goes beyond partisan spin. Whether the ad is true or not is arguable, but the fact that it mentions both the right and the left is not.

Which makes this op-ed in Time Magazine by Michael Scherer that much more puzzling:

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn appeared Sunday morning on Howard Kurtz's CNN show Reliable Sources to discuss her comments in my TIME magazine story this week. She continued her criticism of Fox News[..].

The ironic part came later, during the commercial break. All morning, CNN has been intermittently running a promo for Anderson Cooper 360, a show that has long billed itself as a classic straight news program with an investigative front man who digs "beyond the headlines" with "many points of view, so you can make up your own mind." The new promo, by contrast, consists of a woman's voice, pitching Cooper's show as, essentially, a liberal alternative to Fox News: "I'm a lifelong Democrat," she says, "and that's why I watch Anderson Cooper." Hmmm. The voice goes on to say that Cooper is the person she can turn to hold "right wing" conservatives accountable. Cooper is not exactly aiming for the political middle ground here.

But then who is? MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz are committed liberals, increasingly focused on the dual project of holding President Obama to a liberal line and attacking his detractors. Fox News, on the other hand, is, well, Fox News. Dunn, on Kurtz's show, made a point of criticizing Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace for "fact checking" an Obama administration official but not its other Republican guests. So it goes.

Interesting. So Scherer thinks that Cooper is playing to the left like those other "committed" liberals on MSNBC. And lemming-like, here comes Dan Abrams, tweeting from his new gig at Mediaite:

UPDATE to WH-Fox 'Gloves off' post: CNN promo calls Anderson Cooper left's answer to FNC.

The only problem? There's no there there. Cooper wasn't playing to the left, as Scherer was forced to acknowledge in an update:

CORRECTION: Ahh, the pitfalls of technology. In the post below, I wrote about an ad that kept running Sunday morning on CNN, which I watched in the background as I scribbled away at my office. Several times, I heard an ad for Anderson Cooper's show that included a woman's voice talking about being a "lifelong Democrat" and watching Cooper because he called out the "right wing." But that's not the whole story. I was told Monday by CNN that I only heard half the ad, which was dubbed in stereo. (Apparently my television is mono.) The other half of the ad had a male voice saying he was a Republican who turns to Anderson Cooper because he holds accountable "left wing politicians." The two voices are recorded to be talking over each other, reaffirming CNN's place in the center of the cable news spectrum. This makes my subsequent analysis largely wrong. Cooper was not signaling a shift to cater to a left-wing audience. He was signaling that he wanted both a left-wing and a right-wing audiences at the same time. The CNN dream of post-partisanship, in other words, is still alive.

Actually, Michael, your analysis is not largely wrong, but completely wrong. As polarized as this country is now (a fact for which I hold the media mostly accountable), it is not the desire of the entire country to get their news filtered through ideological lenses, confirming their pre-conceived notions. Fox unapologetically fills a niche for a select few, who cannot stand to have their ideas challenged. But MSNBC, despite shows with Maddow (the only self-professed liberal listed), Olbermann and Schultz does not cater to the left. If they did, would they fill 15 hours every week (the same as Maddow, Olbermann and Schultz put together) with Scarborough?

And for what its worth, I actually watch Maddow not for a liberal slant, but because she strives to actually present the news, not propaganda. But that seems to be a dying breed in your industry, doesn't it?

A crack surveillance team has found footage from Fox News Channel's security cameras of Glenn Beck's office after he discovered that ColorOfChange.org's campaign has resulted in ten more sponsors pulling out of advertising on the Crazy One's show, bringing us to a total of 46 advertisers just saying no.

Continue reading »

That irresistible line about the caveman, by the way, came from a reddit commenter. He was probably feeling celebratory over the fact that GEICO pulled all its advertising from Glenn Beck's hateful Fox TV show. And GEICO isn't the only company to have decided that advertising on the show of a vicious hate monger inciting violence and racial hatred is a bad marketing idea. Men's Wearhouse and Sargento are the latest companies to ask Fox to stop running their ads on TV. And today-- Blue America did the same.

Blue America is running a second wave of ads on Arkansas TV explaining Blanche Lincoln's duplicitous role in the health care debate. After looking at the logs of the first wave and noticing that some of our ads in Little Rock and Pine Bluff ran on Beck's show, we instructed the cable networks to not run any more ads on his programs in the towns we are advertising in this week-- the towns where Lincoln is doing her health care forums. Here's the note the Blue America media buyer sent to the Arkansas cable networks:

Blue America PAC has instructed me to tell you to not place any of their advertising within the Glenn Beck program on Fox News Channel for their upcoming flight.

There is a national boycott of his advertisers ongoing. as Mr. Beck has been promoting racism and violence on his program. We do not want to appear to support his efforts in any way, shape or form.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Jacqueline Propps

As for Men's Wearhouse, DailyKos published a letter yesterday from Matt Stringer, the vp of marketing/creative services:

Thank you for contacting Men’s Wearhouse and bringing to our attention your concerns with the Glenn Beck program on Fox News. While we support free speech and do not make advertising decisions based on our own personal ideologies, after reviewing his recent incendiary comments we have decided to remove our advertising from his program. We hope that this decision will allow you to continue to patronize Men’s Wearhouse. I would encourage you to please share our decision with anyone else who may have expressed a similar concern.

And Media Matters published a similar note from Pat Lombardo from the Sargento Consumer Affairs Department:

We deeply appreciate your reaching out to us and sharing your comments and concerns about Sargento ads appearing during The Glenn Beck Show. We sat down with the marketing department to talk about it and I learned that we buy time periods not specific programs. But in any event, they've made the decision to exclude that program from our future ad rotation. Simply stated, Sargento ads won't be airing during that show. Again, thanks for contacting us.

As Color Of Change, the online civil rights group that initiated the boycott, points out, these defections come on the heels of pull outs by LexisNexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance and SC Johnson.

So what's wrong with Travelocity? Why do they insist on still underwriting the hatred, bigotry and violence? As a reader pointed out on my travel blog this morning, "perhaps someone could clue Travelocity into the fact that racists aren't the biggest travelers..."

CNN has a similar type of problem with their own in house racist sociopath, Lou Dobbs and, according to MediaBistro.com the network is moving away from using Hate Talk Radio commentators on the air from now on, although they still refuse to fire Dobbs (who also hosts a hate talk radio show).

TVNewser has learned, and a CNN spokesperson confirms, that in his morning editorial meeting today, CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein asked his show producers to avoid booking talk radio hosts. "Complex issues require world class reporting," Klein is quoted as saying, adding that talk radio hosts too often add to the noise, and that what they say is "all too predictable."

Yesterday I spent over 4 hours at a town hall meeting hosted by Rep. Adam Schiff in Alhambra. The disruptive clowns who had come to prevent a discussion were shouting slogans straight from the Astro-Turf outfits' talking points and their world views were clearly formed by Hate Talk Radio and Fox "News." These people are hysterically opposed to immigrants' babies getting health care and opposed to the government making it illegal for Insurance companies to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. What they chant instead is "Tort Reform" and what they mutter is divisive and racist epithets most Americans thought went out of style with Lester Maddox, George Wallace and the cavemen.

UPDATE: Bad News For Teabaggers-- You're Being Played

The teabaggers like to take their thumbs out of their asses and jump up and down in front of the TV cameras claiming how real and genuine their grassroots protests are. I talked to so many of them with long lists of legitimate grievances-- one woman was suing her insurance company and very angry man with strange eyes is suing the gold company Glenn Beck shills for on radio that he claims cheated him-- but their grievances had nothing to do with what they disdainfully call "ObamaCare." How did they get from there to here? It wasn't via Pluto. According to a former Insurance Industry executive, Wendell Potter of CIGNA, the insurance companies are indeed the unseen hand behind the curtain manipulating the righteous-- or self-righteous-- indignation of the angry crowds getting their matching orders from hate-mongers like Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity ,etc.

"The industry is up to the same dirty tricks this year," Potter said at a Capitol news conference after meeting with House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), an avid supporter of the Democrats' plans for a healthcare overhaul.

"When you hear someone complaining about traveling down a 'slippery slope to socialism,' some insurance flack, like I used to be, wrote that," Potter added.

Potter said during his 20 years in the insurance business, the industry would funnel money to large public firms who would create front groups and find friendly voices in conservative media.

In particular, he cited front groups created to fight "Patients' Bill of Rights" legislation in the 1990s, as well as a campaign to discredit the Michael Moore film Sicko, which harshly criticized the industry.

Slaughter joined in the attack, saying "the notion that this is going to be something devilish comes from the people who would lose money on it."

Americans United for Change just put out a new ad. The Republican tactic to stall the bill is their idea on how to destroy it. The ad is quite good and falls in line with what I've been saying. To stall the bill is an attempt to kill the bill. Say No to the August Recess if Congress can't get their act together. I've been contacting the Senate for quotes to see if they will forego their vacation to work on health care.

The Republicans claim the health insurance reform debate has been moving at lightning speed.

In fact for 15 years, it’s hardly moved at all.
Now the Republicans say Congress should slow down?

Meanwhile premiums have gone up 3 times faster than wages, health insurance profits have soared and 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance everyday.

Now the Republicans say Congress should slow down?

That’s because when something goes slow enough it’s easy to kill it dead in its tracks.

Tell Congress you want health insurance reform NOW.

Call your representative at (202) 225-3121.

Please donate to Blue America's Campaign For Health Care Choice.
We're working on our next move and will need your help.

Judging from the talking points being constantly spewed by the likes of Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Eric Cantor (R-VA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Paul Ryan (R-WI), Max Baucus (DLC-MT), Blanche Lincoln (DLC-AR), Mary Landrieu (DLC-LA), Joe Lieberman (DLC-CT), and Ben Nelson (DLC-NE), and by the coverage in the corporate media, all of it driven primarily by corporate dollars, one would think that most people oppose Obama's tyrannical plans to impose dreaded health care reform on the American people. But, no. Americans overwhelmingly want health care reform. Wisely, they don't trust the crooked CEOs who run the insurance companies and they don't trust the bought off, sold out Republicans in Congress. Every single poll that comes out shows that Americans-- by gargantuan margins-- favor genuine, government-run health care.

That's why the insurance companies and their shills in Congress are fighting tooth and nail, like mad dogs, to kill the compromise between an Insurance company bailout (the Senate Finance Committee plan authored by Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley) and single payer. The compromise, which offers consumers a choice, is called the "public option." Anyone who likes their for-profit Insurance company's service can stick with it. Otherwise, they can opt for the non-profit government run plan. Studies by the insurance industry show that within a couple of years there will be virtually no people choosing for-profit insurance companies.

John is in Florida but he e-mailed me this story from the NY Times and asked me to pass it along and remind people that Blue America is asking for donations for the television ads we're doing to make Arkansas voters aware that their senator isn't really their senator; Blanche Lincoln belongs to the Big Business CEOs who have financed her career. While she works behind the scenes to protect the interests of her Insurance Industry patrons, Americans "are strongly behind one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll." Even half the respondents who admitted they are Republicans prefer this plan, while among normal Americans, the margins are staggering. Look at this chart and then please consider learning more about (or donating to) our Campaign for Health Care Choice.

Giving in to his inner lech, Bill O'Reilly decides that we should find supermodel Heidi Klum's take on spoofing Tom Cruise in Risky Business for Guitar Hero really, really offensive. My gosh, she was wearing just a bra and panties for a while there. Not like anyone who has ever received endless mailings of Victoria's Secret hasn't seen that, Bill. Like you don't know.

Kotaku has the whole O'Reilly segment...where he posits that this might upset the children who are subjected to the ad while watching those wholesome Waltons on their tv show. Um, huh? The Waltons went off the air almost 30 years ago. And somehow Heidi Klum dancing is more traumatic than the continually running ads for erectile dysfunction? Dude, I know you like to style yourself as a "culture warrior" but seriously, pick your battles.

It appears that would be President Camacho er,...McCain still doesn't understand that newfangled spellcheck device.

Is it elitist of me to say that if his team can't face a copy editor, how could they face a world leader?

I don't know how to tell you this, Jean, but craven Republicans desperate to hold on to their seats cut and run from their word, patriots never do. Don't look now, but I think your knickers are on fire.

Just one week after making this pledge(.pdf), Schmidt releases an ad attacking rival (and Blue America candidate) Victoria Wulsin as a physician. Way to stay on the issues, Jean. In the interest of disclosure about the charges in the ad, I received this from the Wulsin campaign:

(I)n 2006, the Ohio Elections Commission ruled that Jean Schmidt displayed a “reckless disregard for the truth” during her 2005 campaign for Congress.

In 2004, Dr. Wulsin was hired as a consultant by the Cincinnati-based Heimlich institute to review existing research on a controversial treatment for AIDS and other diseases. Dr. Wulsin determined that the experiments failed and her consultancy was promptly terminated.

In April, after a “thorough review,” the State Medical Board of Ohio determined these false charges had no merit. Steve Black, who originally raised this issue in the Democratic Primary Election, endorsed Dr. Wulsin and said he accepted the State Medical Board of Ohio’s decision that these charges had no merit. [Rulon, Cincinnati Enquirer “Politics Extra Blog”, 8/7/08]

Though the ad attacks Dr. Wulsin’s record as a physician, she is supported by the Ohio State Medical Association and the American Medical Association as well as 10 other medical and health groups. Over 350 individual physicians have supported Dr. Wulsin’s campaign.

The false charges in Schmidt’s new ad are identical to charges made by the Congresswoman in fundraising letters earlier this year. After analyzing one such letter, the Cincinnati Enquirer characterized Schmidt’s attacks as “stretching the truth.” [Rulon, Cincinnati Enquirer, 6/15/08]

Well, turnabout is fair play, so Wulsin is putting out this ad in response:

Continue reading »

It's been 8 years since they said "Whassup?!" to each other...

(h/t Debra C for first picture)
WCBS-TV:

They're ads you may have seen around New York City. They're supposed to be promoting storage, but they have a political and comical edge to them.

But their latest ad doesn't have too many people laughing.

Its billboards have always been edgy, but has Manhattan Mini Storage gone over the edge?

The ad causing controversy depicts a coat hanger and takes a stance on abortion, along with the slogan: "Your closet space is shrinking as fast as her right to choose."

Needless to say, it didn't take long for the backlash to come.

"These billboards, we think they're absolutely disgusting," said Kiera McCaffrey of the Catholic League. [..]

Manhattan Mini Storage often uses liberal messages in its billboards, reflecting the politics of a city in which three-quarters of voters picked John Kerry over George Bush in 2004.

Their latest ad, as shown in a NYC subway station shows a woman's body, wearing a Palin-esque suit with a button that says "Choice" with a circle and a line through the word, with the ad line, "What's more limited, your closet space or her experience?"

Personally, I like the coathanger ad. I think that image is a stark reminder of the dangers of letting the government take choices away from women. Abortions will not decline if they repeal Roe v. Wade, they'll just become more dangerous.

(This segment aired Friday on MSNBC) Andrea Mitchell questions McCain's economic advisor---Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and current chief McCain economic advisor on the personal attack smear ads they are running against Obama which include making William Daley a convict.

Mitchell: Do you feel comfortable with that attack on William Daley?

In fact Bill Daley says he went to a Sen. McCain event recently and got a autographed picture from Senator McCain. What is this implication?

Eakins: Why does the standard doesn't apply to Sen Obama who on a daily basis attacks John McCain's staff as riddled with lobbyists. Ah, if Sen Obama is comfortable with mischaracterizing the relationship with John McCain and the aides that served him so faithfully, why is Sen. Obama not held to the same standard?....All we're asking is that he solve a problem that he has started.

Mitchell: I'm not quite sure of what you're saying because it seems to be that you're saying Sen. Obama has done this therefore it's OK to do that. I'm not even acknowledging what the charge is to Sen Obama, but I still don't understand the sort of guilt by association tactic and whether you as an economist and as a former economic official think that this is the way that he should be going.

Mayor Richard Daley is very upset over the fact that McCain used his brother in the ad.

"You want to get tough in politics, I can get tough in politics as anyone else," Daley said. "When you start throwing mud, mud is going to be thrown at you and it’s going to be sticky.”

Continue reading »

The Bus Project saw that hacky special by John Stossel suggesting that maybe we shouldn't allow young people the right to vote and they decided that they were mad enough to get even.

Love the correspondent's moustache. So Stossel-like.

You can join The Bus Project to mobilize the youth vote (and hell, encourage people of all ages to get out and vote) and have fun too with their Trick or Vote! campaign.

It never stops...just when you think they can't get any lower, they dredge a little more slime out of the pond. Politico:

The Republican Party on Monday morning will make a new push to convince voters that distant ties between Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former radical William Ayers are somehow disqualifying for the presidency.

The Republican National Committee plans to e-mail “an audience of tens of millions” the link to a new video on the subject called “Guilt by Participation” and encourage recipients to forward it to friends and family, aides said.[..]

The 80-second video ends with a new slogan, a variation of one Republicans have used in the past: “Barack Obama: Career First. Country Second.” The slogan is likely to be used again, officials say.

The video flashes garish lettering like “WANTED BY FBI” and “DON’T REGRET SETTING BOMBS.”

The Obama campaign on Sunday released a roundup of media quotes headed “McCain's Strategy of Distracting From the Economy ... How's It Playing With Republicans?”: “In case you missed them, below are stories across the country voters are reading and hearing about McCain’s closing strategy, even conservative pundits, Republican officials and Republican voters are rejecting it."

Among those quoted was Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who said on “Fox News Sunday”: “[T]he main thing to say about these negative ads, which, I don’t think — almost none of them has been across the line — they haven't worked. Obama's favorable rating is as high as it's been in three months. It's actually gone up in the last month. So it's a stupid campaign.”

Hear that, guys? It's not working...McCain's numbers are sliding further and further down. So then it has to be asked: WHY would the RNC be launching an ad campaign not helpful--indeed, detrimental--to their candidate? If they're not interested in saving McCain's campaign, are they laying the foundation for four years of smears and distraction to an Obama presidency?

Politfact gives McCain (and now, the RNC) the official "Pants On Fire" seal for his attempt to tie Obama to Ayers.

Oh noes, McCrankypants! Your "base" is tuning you out, just like the rest of America. That's gotta hurt.

Last night, the McCain campaign issued an announcement, dutifully reported upon by Jonathan Martin of the Politico and elsewhere, that McCain would have "big news" in the morning.

The blogosphere was a-twitter. Would it be that Sarah Palin is stepping down? Or that McCain was finally making public his medical records? Or maybe that he would be REALLY maverick-y and declare with his mortgage bailout plan his official independence from the Republican Party? Oh, the possibilities were endless!

But sadly, the reality was far more humdrum. Jonathan Martin, this morning:

That "news" in the morning
Sure enough, it's Bill Ayers.
The McCain campaign is launching a web ad accusing Obama of trying to hide his ties to the 60s-era radical.

I'm loving the use of quotes around news. Another lame-ass attempt, debunked everywhere already, to tie Obama to Ayers. The McCain camp spent God knows how much money to produce a one and a half minute ad that no one cares about (including rightwingers like Michael Smerconish), that makes them look desperate and flailing and the best part, Martin and Mark Halperin over at Time didn't even bother to link up in their coverage.

My friends, that's not the work of a winning campaign. Steve Benen shows how the McCain camp really doesn't want to go there:

The web ad comes about 24 hours after top McCain campaign aides seemingly took the Ayers "issue" (I use the word loosely) off the table.

But as long as we're on the subject, McCain's associations continue to be increasingly interesting as well. We've known for a while that McCain has befriended a convicted felon who advised his supporters on how best to shoot federal officials, used the money of a convicted criminal to help buy a house, befriended a radical anti-Catholic televangelist, befriended a radical anti-American televangelist, was a long-time associate of Charles Keating, and hired for his campaign the publisher of a Confederate nostalgia magazine who has described Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist." This week, we also learned about McCain serving on the board of the extremist U.S. Council for World Freedom, where he worked alongside Iran-Contra figures, and a eugenics researcher studying "white superiority."

"Erratic in crisis"