This morning, the Conservative Media Machine and their incestuous Beltway enabler (Motto: "So Inbred We Creep The Hell Out The Lanisters And Pedigree Dachshunds") are having howling fantods over the fact that George Stephanopoulos -- former Clinton Pedigree Dachshund and current host of the wretched "This Week...with George Stephanopoulos" -- gave money to charity through the Clinton Global Initiative and did not disclose it while grilling the author of made-up fairy-tale book about the Clintons.
Here is a headline sampler (no links because these are mostly terrible people):
Hot Air:
Stephanopoulos: I apologize for being so awesome, or something An error occurred.
NewsBusters:
George Stephanopoulos Apologizes On-Air: I Made a 'Mistake'
Washington Free Beacon:
ABC News Anchor George Stephanopoulos Donated $50,000 to Clinton Foundation
HuffPo:
George Stephanopoulos Discloses $50,000 Contribution To Clinton Foundation
Politico:
The great Stephanopoulos mess
ABC anchor proves to be his own worst enemy.
The Daily Beast
Stephanopoulos Caught in Clinton Cash Trap
The Pajama Media wasteland reports that all the usual Republican scuttlefish are refusing to sit at Lil' George's lunch table until he performs sufficient acts of obeisance to sooth their bruised sensibilities (which these days bruise easier than a month-old banana with scurvy in a paint shaker):
Republicans Revolt Over Stephanopoulos’s Conflict of Interest at ABC (Video)
In addition, my Twitter stream runneth over with the news that this was Topic A at the even-more-wretched "Morning Joe", and while taking kids to school, I heard a great deal of huffing and moaning on the Mikey Smerconish program who, in turn, also had his rundown of Beltway concern troll pundits and politicians who were obviously thrilled at the chance to take a break from cashing checks from Shelly Adelson and giving Roger Ailes' ass a tongue bath long enough to complain about how Stephanopoulos not disclosing the $50K he gave to the Clinton charity out-Herods Herod!
Because we have standards here, people! Standards!
Look, I'm in favor of journalistic standards in the same way I'm in favor of, say, decontamination protocols on Moonbase Alpha. Someday we may actually have a base on the moon, and when that day comes we'd better have some pretty good procedures in place for people coming and going and getting sick and having babies and such.
Also too, we may someday actually have a D.C, press corps which values and rewards competence and integrity. And when that day comes, I think it would be just dandy to have in-place the kind of standards one heard about in classrooms but rarely sees in operation among the wildly overpaid weasels, con men, PR flaks, nepotistas and clout-mongers who make up our elite Beltway media.
Still, if the curia of Pope Leo X actually wants to pretend it's interested in reformation, then two suggestions.
First, programs will need a new block of credits that roll at the beginning of each show disclosing the relations each person in front of the camera has with any organization or relative that might cause any reasonable member of the viewing public to raise an eyebrow. On MSNBC, for example, this will mean that any program with Luke Russert or Andrea Mitchell Abby Huntsmann or Al Sharpton will need an additional 8-10 minutes to disclose all the reasons why you should take what these people say with a deer-lick sized block of salt.
Second, before we rake Mr. Stephanopoulos over the coals any further for showing modestly poor judgement in giving $50K to the Clinton Global Initiative and not disclosing it, can we first find an active-volcano-size fire-pit over which to rake him for his inexcusably and orders-of-magnitude more horrid decision to give a serial liar and sociopath like Bloody Bill Kristol --
-- a job on network teevee?
Crossposted with permission from driftglass
