From Media Matters: The Right-wing Media Spin Cycle: Lie, Terrify, Win, Repeat

Media Matters releases new video showing right-wing media's leading role in driving movement

Washington, DC - Today, Media Matters for America released a new video demonstrating how the conservative echo chamber operates in the age of President Obama. Conservative activists - aided by Fox News, a political organization disguised as a news network - use distortions, lies, and smear tactics to shape public opinion and influence national policy.
"Unlike the Clinton and Bush years, the right-wing echo chamber is now aided by a network that has thrown any remaining shred of journalistic credibility out the window, " said Eric Burns, President of Media Matters. "The modern conservative movement has gained an enormous megaphone in Fox News that they are using to impact legislation and shape public opinion."

Burns added: "People need to decide how long they will allow the policies of their country to be dictated by a media outlet accountable not to voters or constituents but to ratings."

Media Matters did an amazing job putting this video together. I really think it's some of their best work yet.

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David Gregory asks his panel on Meet the Press about Alan Grayson's remarks on the House floor this past Tuesday and whether "there's a level of shrillness in the debate that is not helping America".

As Rachel Maddow points out, this type of rhetoric is so common with the GOP that it's hardly noticed, but when a Democrat does it everyone's suddenly paying attention to it.

David Brooks responds by trying to say it's all just a media circus and by doing his best to try to distance the Republican party from the likes of Beck, Limbaugh and Levin. Brooks is right about the media circus, but he's wrong about America being a "center-right" country and he's wrong about the influence of right wing talkers on the Republican Party. Just because a few of them are trying to distance themselves from Glenn Beck's madness doesn't mean they're not still dancing to their tune.

Transcript below the fold.

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David Frum spoke out this weekend about the reckless direction America's right-wing talk-show hosts are taking our national discourse -- embodied by the nuts bringing guns to events featuring President Obama:

Nobody has been hurt so far. We can all hope that nobody will be. But firearms and politics never mix well. They mix especially badly with a third ingredient: the increasingly angry tone of incitement being heard from right-of-center broadcasters.

The Nazi comparisons from Rush Limbaugh; broadcaster Mark Levin asserting that President Obama is "literally at war with the American people"; former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claiming that the president was planning "death panels" to extirpate the aged and disabled; the charges that the president is a fascist, a socialist, a Marxist, an illegitimate Kenyan fraud, that he "harbors a deep resentment of America," that he feels a "deep-seated hatred of white people," that his government is preparing concentration camps, that it is operating snitch lines, that it is planning to wipe away American liberties": All this hysterical and provocative talk invites, incites, and prepares a prefabricated justification for violence.

And indeed some conservative broadcasters are lovingly anticipating just such an outcome.

Frum notes that conservatives were quick to attack a Homeland Security bulletin warning law-enforcement officers of a looming threat from right-wing extremists -- only to have those warnings come all too true:

Newt Gingrich tweeted: "The person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired."

I don't think the former speaker could tweet such a thing today in good conscience. The person who drafted that homeland security memo has gained very good reason to be worried. The guns are coming out. The risks are real.

It's not enough for conservatives to repudiate violence, as some are belatedly beginning to do. We have to tone down the militant and accusatory rhetoric. If Barack Obama really were a fascist, really were a Nazi, really did plan death panels to kill the old and infirm, really did contemplate overthrowing the American constitutional republic—if he were those things, somebody should shoot him.

Frum was on CNN's Reliable Sources this Sunday and talked about it with Howard Kurtz:

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Um, just before I came out here, David Frum, I read a column that you wrote for The Week magazine about people who bring guns to these town meetings or Obama events. And you really took on some on the right, on your side, so to speak -- Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity -- you talked about hysterical talk about violence, you said that we have to tone it down, we have to tone down, excuse me, "the militant and accusatory rhetoric."

DAVID FRUM: Ah, we do. We do. Because --

KURTZ: Is it fair to blame the broadcasters for this atmosphere?

FRUM: Uh, yeah, it's very -- coping with a downward trend in advertising revenues for talk radio, the broadcasters have ramped up what they are saying. When you have broadcasters saying the president is, quote, literally at war with the American people, um -- literally at war is a very serious thing, Al Qaeda is literally at war with the American people.

KURTZ: And has a deep-seated hatred for white people.

FRUM: And has a deep-seated hatred -- so it's inflammatory. And the thing that is so enraging about all this, is obviously people are getting more excited about that, than they do about the details of health insurance.

Interestingly, Kurtz a little later discusses Fox's flaming hypocrisy in backing anti-Obama protesters when previously it had dismissed anti-war protesters as "loons", something they were called out for by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show:

KURTZ: [H]asn't Fox, in fact, flipped -- some Fox hosts, I should say -- from slamming liberal protesters to defending these anti-Obama protesters?

That, in fact, is part of the bigger picture: The teabaggers are being inflamed and openly encouraged to act irrationally and disruptively by Fox News and its right-wing radio cohorts, specifically because they know that no matter how crazy they act -- even bringing guns to events featuring the president -- they will be actively defended for it, instead of exposed for the thugs they are.

Transcript below the fold:

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David Frum, who I don't agree with about much of anything came on Bill Moyers Journal this week, and he took Rush Limbaugh to task for calling President Obama a Nazi. I'm sure he's just put a big target on his head from the right wing hate mongers for even appearing on Moyers' show in the first place, but I'm glad to see at least one Republican speaking up and telling the truth about how dangerous this type of talk is. So here's something I thought I'd never say. Good for David Frum for speaking out on this matter.

BILL MOYERS: I'm reminded that you grew up in Canada.

DAVID FRUM: I did.

BILL MOYERS: Couldn't the conservative, a calm conservative make a case for that kind of national insurance plan in this country?

DAVID FRUM: Look, where those plans have grown up, as in Britain, for example, you've seen conservatives make their peace with them, as the British conservatives have done. And once something is integrated into the status quo of your country, it gets conservative. There are I think a lot of reasons not to regard it as a preferable system.

It stifles the possibility of innovation and diversity. It means that ideas that get into the minds of people in Washington are very difficult to get out. And it creates a -- it also creates this tremendous problem where every malfunction in the system becomes the fault of the politicians.

BILL MOYERS: You describe yourself as a calm conservative. But you have certainly aroused those to your right in the Republican Party. You know, talk show hosts like Mark Levin have come after you saying you're kneecapping your own. What about that?

DAVID FRUM: Look, a lot of the conservative movement in this country is conducting itself in a way that is tremendously destructive. Both of the basic constitutional compact of the requirements of good faith and of their own good sense. I mean, when you were going on the air and calling the President of the United States a Nazi as Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly done. When Mark Levin -- you mentioned him -- he said the President of the United States is literally at war with the American people.

And then people begin, unsurprisingly, showing up at rallies with guns. Well, obviously, if the President were-- I mean, folks, if I believed the President of the United States were a Nazi, were planning a Fascist takeover, it would be contemptibly cowardly of me not to do everything in my power, including contemplating violence, to resist such a thing. Every decent person should do that.

That's why you don't say it when it's not true. And I mean, one of the ways that the constitutional system works is with some understanding that the people on the other side have slightly different priorities but they share your constitutional values. They have invested in the same system. The problems they've got are hard problems. And even if you don't like their answers, you have to have some restraint in the way you talk about them, as you would hope they would have about you.

And I think it's just outrageous. It is dangerous. It's dangerous for the whole constitutional system. Now, I'm absolutely prepared to fight with them. And by the way, it's dangerous to conservatives because the effect of the talk of people like Levin and Rush Limbaugh is to kill our cause with voters who are under 65.

You make that man the face and you say let us contrast him to Barack Obama who is maybe too expensive but who seems calm and judicious? That's an ugly comparison.

BILL MOYERS: For this appearance alone, your website, NewMajority.com, is going to be besieged by some of those folks, right?

DAVID FRUM: We have been besieged but this is a fight worth doing. And I have to say I'm thinking of changing our slogan. I'm adapting something from the old Panasonic folks, our new motto's going to be "just slightly ahead of our time." I know the conservatives of this country are not with me on these issues today. But I know equally well they will be with me on these issues in the future. They are just going to learn it, unfortunately, a harder way.

BILL MOYERS: The book is COMEBACK: CONSERVATISM THAT CAN WIN AGAIN. David Frum, thanks for being with me on the JOURNAL.

DAVID FRUM: Thank you.

VIRGINIA FOXX: Republicans have a better solution that won't put the government in charge of people's health care that will make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans. And that ensures affordable access for all Americans, and is pro life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.

You can watch the entire interview here.

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Mark Levin is happy now that he's got a bestseller decrying the tyranny certain to descend upon America under liberal rule, which Sean Hannity touted on his Fox News show last night. The appearance produced some plum bon mots fresh from Planet Wingnuttia:

Levin: What's going on in this country is really anti-liberty. The president is -- you know, they just put Bernie Madoff away for life. The president's policies are Bernie Madoff times a thousand. He is taking a wrecking ball to this society.

Levin evidently seems to have conveniently forgotten that Bernie Madoff was an exemplar of the laissez-faire capitalism practiced by Republicans generally and George W. Bush particularly. This is essentially accusing the person in charge of cleaning up after a demolition with having wielded the wrecking ball in the first place.

Levin also keeps referring throughout to Obama and his policies as "something foreign" and claims that he's undermining the Constitution.

Levin also claims that Obama "wants to destroy the health-care system that most of us like."

Oh really? That must be so, if your definition of "most of us" is "less than 15 percent of the population".

I suspect "us" for Levin and Hannity is their little claque of right-wing pundits and wealthy Republicans, as well as Levin's perfervid readers who've been just as eagerly drinking the Limbaugh/Beck Kool Aid.

He wraps up with this classic bit of wingnuttery:

Levin: This president has some very bizarre and alien viewpoints, ah, that were -- that, that were, you know, he was indoctrinated with, and now that I believe that he really believes in, and advances. He is a -- he is about as left wing and about as radical as anybody ever to be in the Oval Office.

Hoo boy. Talk about bizarre and alien. It must be quite the interesting view, out there on Planet Wingnuttia.

I have been really enjoying this stuff, I can't lie. Watching conservative wingnut talk-show hosts attack other Republicans has been a joy. It's not only Limbaugh fighting with the GOP and then watching them come a crawling back to beg forgiveness either. They usually focus on the evil liberals and dirty f*&king hippies who hate America (people like you and me), so after I listened to this segment back in March, I knew we had won more than an election.

The infrastructure of talk radio (and FOX News) that was built to try and make America a one-party (conservative) system is now cannibalizing itself and Rush Limbaugh is the Zombie King. Mark Levin was offended by Frum's criticisms of Limbaugh in this article:

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

Levin took offense at what he considered personal attacks against the Zombie King; he wouldn't even link up Frum's columns, but did read some of it to his audience while Frum tried to debate the merits of his case. Frum's central point was that Limbaugh is taking the GOP in the wrong direction -- something that's become obvious to everyone except the Zombies like Levin.

Every slimy thing Karl Rove did before and after Bush is unraveling, no matter how much Villagers like Gloria Borger elevate Rove to godlike status:

And they haven't stopped fighting...

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After reading this piece from Hannity's new pal, Erick Erickson, I'm really at a loss for words:

Peter, under pressure and fear, denied Christ not just once, but three times. Peter, though, feared death. The strain on Peter was great. The rest of us, though, typically fear the opinions of others.

There are those who like it when we feel guilty for associating with someone. More troubling, in the conservative movement and in the greater right-of-center coalition, there are many, many fellow traveler who would rather spend their time throwing their own under the bus than fighting the left....

....The incidents of late with Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Dick Cheney, and others is why I raise this. Putting it bluntly, were these guys on the left, their fellow leftists would at best be cheering them on and at worst silently nodding along. There wouldn’t be any on that side rushing to the nearest microphone to condemn them.... Peter denied Christ three times. Our goal should be to not deny Christ and also to not deny the valuable members of our own movement. Embracing them does not mean we embrace every word and every deed. But it should likewise mean we don’t race to the nearest microphone to condemn our own when they do something [indiscreet]. The people we should shun are the ones who are quick to throw the rest of us out for daring to stand up for our friends.

When guys like Erick resort to Biblical analogies in this way, it always raises the question in my mind: Who will be the Judas who betrays Jesus -- and in essence the entire conservative movement?

I'm sure they'll come up with someone. They're good at that.

Blue Texan at FDL has more.

On Monday, Keith Olbermann delivered a post-script to his Special Comment from last week in which he told President Bush to "shut the hell up." Since some lunatic fringe commentators were deliberately twisting Keith's words and implying that he called American soldiers -- and not Bush administration officials, to whom he was clearly referring -- "cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives," he felt compelled to clarify his remarks.

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It seems to me that these right-wingers have inadvertently shown their true colors, their instinctive hatred of and contempt for, these self-sacrificing Americans, who have been needlessly placed in harm's way by these very commentators and the politicians they support.

They hear criticism of our nation's collective conduct in Iraq, and immediately assume it's the fault of the soldiers.

In the wake of an insult that exists only in their minds and never in my words nor in my heart, there remains, I think, only one question to ask: Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin: Why do you hate our troops?

Full transcripts below the fold:

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