The media: they’re not going to take it anymore!
Remember this?
That was a character named Howard Beale in the movie “Network.” And now comes another Howard—Kurtz by name—of the WaPo. He’s pretty mad, too, and he’s not going to take it any more.
Who’s Kurtz mad at, and who’s he saying the MSM is mad at? Why it’s McCain, Fox News, and the Republicans.
Study his jeremiad for yourself; if he were an Obama operative up-front, it could hardly be more partisan. Despite the obligatory single sentence of lip service to “both sides do it,” the lengthy three-page piece reads like a litany of liberal talking points, leaving out almost entirely the astounding media frenzy against Palin that should be almost impossible to ignore.
But Kurtz somehow manages to do so.
[NOTE: And please read Mark Steyn’s funny take on the same subject.]
He’ll take it an like it, as Humphrey Bogart explained to Peter Lorre in The Maltese Falcon. Bloggers such as you have seen to that.
Kurts is the rallying cry of a field commander to his embattled fifth column, after suffering major casualties at the battle of MSNBC 😉
I read Mark Steyn’s piece (thanks for the link) and it was pretty funny. I guess HK is angry that the media is being manipulated when he is used to the media doing the manipulation. He mentioned Olberman and I laughed the other day when MSNBC announced he an Mtthews were being demoted from anchoring the election coverage to “commentator” roles. Then I heard that Babs was going to sing at a high priced fund raiser (it appears Sen Obama’s coffers aren’t staying filled). I thought to myself that a better fund raiser would be Olberman, Matthes, Streisand, (and maybe a few others who get the vapors every time Barack’s name is mentioned) in a fight to the death cage match on pay per view with the winner receiving a night in the Lincoln bedroom (if Barack wins) and the trophy – no not a gold belt but instead a bronzed replica of Monica Lewinsky’s “presidential kneepads”.
Howard Kurtz doesn’t make decisions that affect people’s lives. Howard Kurtz may very well never make a direct decision that changes a law, deploys a single soldier, or send a single diplomatic note. If you make the focus of the campaign Howard Kurtz to the exclusion of issues that truly affect the American people, you may well end up regretting it. And the people who regret it most may include most of the people who identify with Sarah Palin.
Right now, the the great American middle class, the people whose prosperity makes up the bedrock of the society Jefferson hoped for, the people who hold Fourth of July barbecues and wave the flag and join the army, find themselves under seige from three sides.
A generation ago, American workers could speak about the dignity of labour and believe it meant something. Today, with the acquiescence if not the blessing of the US government, corporations cheat workers in the crudest and most dehumanizing manner I can imagine. If American corporations no longer honour the social contract with American workers, if they no longer treat workers, if not as equals then at least fellow citizens, then how long will the work and employment ethic that underpins the American middle class last? The people you elect will make decisions that will directly bear on these practices and the issues they raise. Howard Kurtz won’t.
Another part of the social contract for Middle Class Americans, the part that says if you serve your country, we’ll see you have an opportunity for a better life, has also come under pressure. Senator Obama wants to extend this contract to cover all forms of service. Senator McCain wants to reduce the scope of this contract, even for young people who have joined the military and put their lives on the line. This particular debate dates back to the very dawn of democracy. I think the manner in which you resolve it has a little more to do with the prosperity of the American nation and the American form of democracy over the next four years than the fate of on Howard Kurtz.
Note that I don’t expect anyone to agree with my position here. Perhaps Neo or one of the other people here can find an article explaining how corporations treat their employees better than ever before. Perhaps Senator McCain’s proposals for veteran’s benefits actually serve real life veterans better than Senator Webb’s. But the answers to those questions will determine how well the huge mass of middle Americans can translate the American dream into their personal reality. Those questions matter more than Howard Kurtz.
This blog has had some things to say about the supposed “condescension” shown by the “liberal media elite” to working Americans. This comes from a credentialed professional on the East coast arguing that working Americans in Michigan and Missouri ought ignore issues such as employers who cheat them and a grateful nation that cuts their veteran’s benefits, just for the pleasure of sticking it to the latte loving msm and Howard Kurtz. I don’t speak for those people, but I suspect that in their place, I would find that more condescending than anything else.
John,
I am a middle class worker. I’ve lived long enough to figure out that government is not nor cannot be on my side.
You show me a govt that can rid business of unfair greedy assholes, and i’ll show you a govt RUN by those greedy assholes. With laws and police power behind them no less.
John:
Since you don’t hail from America, why the heck do you care?
This is your media what your take on them neoneo?
Or you just likes the media’s tone that match yours?
No End In Sight
In 2008 with presidential election a new White Moose a wiled hunter described as a straight shooter, Chuck Heath, a school teacher, and Sally Heath, a school secretary. Raised in a Pentecostal church, she has called herself “as pro-life as any candidate can be.”played flute in the junior high band (and years later in a beauty pageant.) running for City Council in Wasilla, population around 9,000. There was no police department and a dusty airstrip ran through the middle of town, an opponent of government financing of sex-education programs that her 17-year-old unwed daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant, She married her high school sweetheart Todd, a a North Slope oil field worker, Alaskans like her enthusiasm for more drilling for oil,
They aren’t going to take it any more, Neo? How about we aren’t going to take it any more.
Howard Kurtz doesn’t make decisions that affect people’s lives. Howard Kurtz may very well never make a direct decision that changes a law, deploys a single soldier, or send a single diplomatic note.
A convenient excuse for causing the deaths of others. “I didn’t make that decision. I just caused somebody else to make that decision”.
Spragge cares because Empire matters. Controlling other people and making them do what you want, matters. It has always mattered and unfortunately, America is too susceptible to being controlled by that ravenous beast called Europe and international law.
This also reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt’s remark about critics compared to doers.
Do critics have the right to criticize those that are actually doing things that the critics could never be capable of?
No. They have the luxury only because better men and women than they, died and killed for such things.
The people you elect will make decisions that will directly bear on these practices and the issues they raise. Howard Kurtz won’t.
Howard Kurtz will make it so that it doesn’t make who people elect, for Kurtz will have decided that for them with his lies and smears.
When the electorate is nothing but a tool in your hands, suddenly what matters is the “institution”, corrupt and broken as it is?
SteveH: Whether or not the government can “rid business of unfair greedy assholes”, it can enforce the laws to prevent greed crossing the line into crimes such as uttering forged documents (falsifying time sheets). The law applies to businesses as well as private individuals, if the people you elect agree to enforce it.
stumbley: I have American friends and American relatives, and I’d prefer them to have good government by people chosen in an election the issues, not media personalities, dominated the discussion. At the very least, I will not hesitate to point out that this election involves issues that matter to many, many Americans.
I just love the way Canadian Liberals lecture Americans all the time.
Pardon me if I do not waste my time reading a three page collection of what I would read if I picked up any newspaper and patterned the stories together, listened to a professor for more than a half hour, sometimes in class, or read a textbook for material not involving the material it is supposed to cover, thank you. However, I wish to state that if the msm is half as mad as I am, it is only the beginning of where I want them to be. Them being angry at FOX news, however, is like me being angry at… I don’t know, the military or something? FOX is theirs, as I see it (and yes, I consider the military, constrained and defined as it currently is, as a friend). I hope they get so mad they do something. Trust me on this score, I think I can handle it.
MSM has become irrelevant. Even if/when they switch to the internet, they become one voice in a billion or more. Their material can be stripped, checked, edited, and sent back for revision before their seats becomes cold as they head home after another “hard days work”. Their jobs are going to people who can either offer real information or who can spin it in the way the buyer likes it. Buyers don’t seem to like socialist revisionism, so that whole niche which used to be the whole and only arena of thought available through restrictive ownership, limited mutual opinions, elitist non-sensical attitudes (required for obtaining an “education” even before getting a “job”, then that attitude needing to be maintained when hired, even NR has fallen to this to some degree, imho), and all the other limitations are gone. MSM can no longer force their views favoring failed social and economic understandings.
Mad, they ought to be. But not at us, at FOX, or at anyone else. If they were honest, they would be angry at the filthy lie they have been perpetuating and living for the last 50 plus years. I know of a few bridges which would happily bring them peace, ropes which would send them to bliss, and other items which would show them the way. Well, their version of peace, bliss, and the way, anyway. Events which would fully put them in with people like Saddam, Stalin, soon hopefully Castro and Kim, and the rest of the people these morons have supported through their hateful, foolish, emotional, leftist reporting. I hope, one day, they and many educators, see the error of their ways, perhaps that their very existence has become a part of evil, and just… go away if they cannot change. Mad? Good.
Look – one of the greatest lines of the last half century was Ronald Reagan’s “the nine scariest words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.
MSM has become irrelevant. Even if/when they switch to the internet, they become one voice in a billion or more.
The Main Sewer Media aren’t irrelevant for the precise reason that even if people pay attention to “internet” news, they are using the same sources, Reuters and AP, as the MSM themselves. It doesn’t change. Nor do the editors.
Evry bunch of crackpots, from black to white racists, whines about hte media being in the hands of their enemies. Instead of being objective, the right has tuned their tinny orchestra to play the same worn out tune about how the media is so terrible. and given the limited mental capacity of the people they aim at, it works. When I hear smae kneejerk right wing morons whine about media bias, then take the Limbos, Hannitys and bloggers at face value, it just reminds me that irony is lost on fooks.
Don’t talk about the issues, just keep up the slime then cry media bias when your preciouos little gun toting pitbull or war hero gets a barb. The last time we had one of those simple, common sort of the Christian country guy come to DC to straighten things out, it was Bush, and he did such a good job.
and given the limited mental capacity of the people they aim at, it works.
People may not realize this, but propaganda works better on people with higher intelligence quotas than dumb folks.
Dumb people are slow in terms of sucking in information, so propaganda operations targeting them must design the ops based upon limited bandwidth. That puts a huge crink into how much and what type of propaganda you can affect dumb people with.
Smart people, however, can suck in loads of data and very fast. There’s no limitation on what you can make them believe.
When I hear smae kneejerk right wing morons whine about media bias
As I’ve said before, the media isn’t biased. It’s murderous. There’s a difference. Being biased isn’t that bad of a thing. Being murderous, getting people killed, telling lies that get people killed, manipulating people so that they kill others, that is what is implied when conservatives speak about media “bias”. But if that is what is implied, just speak it plain.
There’s no sin or dishonor in being biased. We all are, to one respect or another. But the Main Sewer Media has gone far beyond just being biased, people. And it’s time to stop using the language that the MSM has vetted for our use.
it was Bush, and he did such a good job.
Given that you are still alive and able to use the internet, Bush probably did.
The McCain campaign has been so scummy, so dishonest, so full of shit, so trivial, so small-minded, and so utterly full of contempt for the voter that they have lost Howard Kurtz, the go-to guy for right wing spin, the man who single-handedly has pumped more bullshit memes from the right wing blogosphere into the mainstream discourse than anyone else.
And they have lost him. If I were the McCain campaign, I would begin to worry. You are no longer fooling the WSJ, Fred Hiatt’s WaPo editorial page, or even Howard Kurtz.
Even George Bush never lost Howard Kurtz.
Must have been linked too from some leftist forum – lots of posts today from one shot posters who try and sound “reasonable” but always end up not being so. Of course, as Jakester said they think we are all stupid so no one will notice.
I stand in awe of the vast intellect that could produce great lines like “When I hear smae kneejerk right wing morons whine about media bias, then take the Limbos, Hannitys and bloggers at face value, it just reminds me that irony is lost on fooks.” Good thing brilliant people like that are out there to see through all the subterfuge us yokels can’t even begin to comprehend.
I know I will vote for my betters now and follow along like the proper obedient country hick that can’t even figure this new fangled computer thing out (I have no excuse, unlike McCain my fingers work and with graduate school and 5 or so years at a govt research lab as research staff in High Performance Computing I should be able to use one – alas I’m too stupid and obviously uneducated).
Funny, I was thinking the same thing about the media Howie.
And they have lost him. If I were the McCain campaign, I would begin to worry.
Hrm, I was getting worried over how we were going to sell off Kurtz on the slave block auction. Given that the Left now thinks he is valuable for us trying to get rid of him, my worries are less now.
Hey, economic deals are always about mutual benefit, right? They gain, we gain. They get Kurtz, we get rid of Kurtz.
Goodie.
We’ll still have the other Kurtz. (Hrm, I wonder if they might have gotten that mixed up…)
I try not to expect too much in the way of intellectual coherence from people in the comment section of web logs, but perhaps “Ymarsakar” could explain what on Earth “Europe”, “empire”, or “international law” have to do with addressing the issues of American workers getting cheated out of their pay and the reduction of veteran’s benefits for American military personnel.
What baffles me is, how the typical academic, when indoctrinated, spreads the disease to some of the posters here? Maybe it is airborne. The ignorant and some of the poor and academics despise each other yet live in the same broken home. One drinks beer or uses crank, the other sports wine or cocaine, and they both seem to like odd “sex” habits, I suppose one just moved on up… to the east side.
It is odd to see the talking points of academics match the talking points of the base ignorant. Remember those toys that allowed you transfer a picture to paper by tracing the picture, which allowed a pen or pencil to replicate the motion, even scaling the thing? Well, this is similar. I also wonder, if in flesh, who their masters hand is. Though, I think there is a high turnover in that department. Gore was the lord of lies, for example, then it almost went to Hillary but Obama grabbed it out of her hands. Though, I think even they have puppet masters.
John: As stated above, Kurtz and you will take it and like it.
“Ymarsakar” could explain what on Earth “Europe”, “empire”, or “international law” have to do with addressing the issues of American workers getting cheated out of their pay and the reduction of veteran’s benefits for American military personnel.
Europe’s one of the reasons veterans in the US need benefits, cause they are the ones that create the global wars that make veterans out of green US troops.
International law creates huge economic disasters and makes the US pay for it. Thus decreasing the US government’s desire to fund their military, including benefits for them.
The EU’s “non-expansionist” Empire, combined with Russia’s ambitions, Iran’s ambitions, and the ambitions of every other Leftist-socialist-mass murdering idiot in the world, makes it extraordinarily hard for the United States to provide 24/7 world security. Something has to give, and that’s usually the benefits paid to the US military. For billions are going into overseas aid, bribes, and subsidizations. Billions that simply end up with more wounded Americans killed by Hizbollah and the other allies of the Democrats in the US. Wounded Americans that require even more veterans’ benefits.
As for American workers. They get cheated every time foreign governments use their government power to provide an unfair advantage to anti-American companies.
Ymarsakar:
Europe hasn’t started a global war for well over 60 years now, and I don’t think the legislation proposed by Senator McCain has much of anything to do with that conflict.
International law hasn’t caused any economic disasters last time I checked. Most international law has pretty much nothing to do with the economy.
Calling Hizbollah the “allies of the Democrats” makes no rational sense at all, unless you can post a link.
As for American workers, I have no doubt that macro trade policies harm American workers; while many workers lost their jobs to “globalization” in a fair competition, a lot of Americans lost their jobs to subsidies and repression. If you don’t like trade agreements, should you vote for the candidate who went to a foreign country to praise one of the deals the opposing candidate wished to re-negotiate? Senator McCain went to Canada to praise NAFTA; Senator Obama wants to reopen the deal to get binding labour and environmental standards.
Europe hasn’t started a global war for well over 60 years now
Some, okay most, of that has to do with the money spent on US bases, protecting Europe. Kosovo included.
Money spent on Europe, isn’t spent on American military benefits, you know. That money goes into the European economy, not ours.
International law hasn’t caused any economic disasters last time I checked. Most international law has pretty much nothing to do with the economy.
Wars and relations between nations have a heck load of a lot to do with economic conditions. By offsetting one, you cause major disasters in the other.
Calling Hizbollah the “allies of the Democrats” makes no rational sense at all, unless you can post a link.
When was the last time Democrats defended Iran against America’s WMD trumping, no good lying, President?
Ymarsakar:
Last time I checked, the Democrats have never defended the current Iranian government against anything, least of all President Bush. I’d like to see an actual cite of something a mainstream Democrat said that supported the current government of Iran.
It was a long time since the last time, John.
Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.
Link
When I hear smae kneejerk right wing morons whine about media bias, then take the Limbos, Hannitys and bloggers at face value, it just reminds me that irony is lost on fooks.
Umm, dude? Limbaugh, Hannity, and most of the bloggers don’t pretend to be objective, fair, balanced and honest. They are giving air to their opinions.
I wish the MSM was as…honest.