Category Archives: Journalism

‘When Is Fox Going To Deep-Six Megyn Kelly?’

Celebrity, Donald Trump, Feminism, Gender, Journalism, Media

My good friend, retired flight test engineer WILLIAM B. SCOTT, author of “The Permit,” spared me the agony of watching Megyn Kelly’s journo porn. I could not possibly tolerate the bedroom voice, the affectatious ringed-hand gestures and the dumb bimbo questions. How disappointing that Donald Trump found this tack tolerable. The Washington Post echoes comments I had already made about Kelly. Briefly, and before we clear Bill to fire, here’s WaPo’s take:

Kelly is going to have to learn about listening, and, wherever possible, resist the urge to bring attention to herself. But I don’t think that’s really her thing. … Kelly’s last words to her viewers were spent crassly plugging her forthcoming memoir.

My version’s more colorful:

… A serious journalist with a grasp of the enormity of the Trump Revolution; a journalist who didn’t wish to give up on ever again interviewing the candidate, or forever forfeit access to a possible future president, a journalist with gravitas would have labored less at promoting herself and more on mending a professional relationship. … Not Kelly. And Kelly’s colleagues and bosses are enablers; they’ve taught her everything about ratings, make-up and hair. …
… Yes, your new hair is magnificent, Megyn Kelly. Glad you got rid of the old, matted shag that likely needed extensive reviving before each show. You’re a pretty girl. But boy, are you vain and a tad vacuous. The way you always bring the Kelly File show back to … yourself. Does that take skill or just all-consuming narcissism?

Bill’s the best:

When is Fox going to deep-six this woman? America has had it with the Blond Ego of the Fox News Channel!!!
This interview was moronic. What dumb questions Witch Megyn asked! Where are the questions about policy, ISIS, the economy, etc.?
Megyn was determined to get an apology from Trump, but it didn’t happen (good!). Then Kelly asked the dumbest d*** questions, again focusing on personal trivia and trying to portray The Donald as something he isn’t.

My gut-feel sense: Kelly’s popularity among Fox viewers has plummeted, since that first Republican debate and her moronic, aggressive “women question.” Since then, her unremitting campaign to undermine and discredit Trump has further infuriated the Fox audience, even though she’s merely carrying the water for Rupert Murdoch. She’s the most-ambitious Fox-babe—one willing to do anything to please Murdoch, a paragon of the global elites threatened by Trump presidency.

Roger Ailes (sp?), the FNC news chief, would probably “deep-six” Ms. Megyn, but Murdoch is trying to save her pretty little face by giving her a separate, new personality-based show that’s distributed to Fox affiliates. (Kelly as a new-generation Barbara Walters?) I suspect her FNC show will vanish shortly. Kelly’s star is in free fall, and giving her a new show smells of desperation.

Merely an old reporter’s sensors and news radar at work. I may be wrong.

The last straw for me last night was Kelly’s not-so-subtle “suggestions” that Trump change his ways to become more of what the mindless elites and media (pardon the redundancy) think he should be. Fortunately, Trump is far more attuned to today’s American psyche than are the elitists paralyzed by fear of the distinct possibility that Trump will upend their cozy little exclusive club and money machine—the political-corporate-media-globalist complex that empowers and enriches everybody but working citizens.

UPDATED: Larry Wilmore Roasted The Reporters

Barack Obama, Celebrity, Journalism, Media, Race

Actually, I was wrong to dismiss comic Larry Wilmore; he had his moments at the White House Correspondent Dinner, 2016. When those came, they were good. Did you see all the sourpuss faces, Wolf Blitzer and the females, especially? (Wilmore was easy on Donald Trump, for some reason.)

My favorite lines:

“It’s nice to match the names (in this room) to the faces in the Panama Papers.”

Apropos the president’s drone dropping, “Obama can’t be killing print journalism tonight, that industry has been dead for a while.”

“Speaking of drones how is Wolf Blitzer still on TV?”

“I used to watch CNN back when it was a news network.”

“Beyoncé is not anti-cop, at the most, she’s anti-pants.”

“MSNBC put Chris Hayes on probation because they thought he was related to Isaac Hayes.”

“MSNBC got rid of so many black people I thought Boko Haram was running it.”

“Lincoln Chafee is back to doing what he does best, manning the pottery booth at the craft fair.”

“In less than a year, Mr. president, you’ll be playing golf every day. Some things won’t be that different.”

“After eight years in the White House, Mr. president, we are really going to miss Michelle.”

UPDATE (5/1): No good jokes from Obama, who used to turn in good performances at the DC Sycophants’Dinner.

2016 Annual White House Sycophants’ Supper

Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Ethics, Government, Journalism, Media

The annual White House Sycophants’ Dinner is where the most pretentious people in the country—in politics, journalism and entertainment—convene to revel in their ability to petition and curry favor with one another, usually to the detriment of the rest of us in Rome’s provinces. Those gathered at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, or its Christmas party, are not the country’s natural aristocracy, but its authentic Idiocracy.

The events and the invited say a great deal about the press, its ethics and code of conduct. Like nothing else, the Sycophant’s Supper is a mark of a corrupt politics and press, as the un-watchful dogs of the media have no business frolicking with the president and his minions. This co-optation, however, is the hallmark of the celebrity press, in general. The days following these glitzy events, the Gilded Ones will spend genuflecting to … themselves.

The 2015 gig was given to an affirmative action stand-up comic, talent-less Cecily Weak. Expect a repeat with this year’s anti-white prize fighter, Comedy Central’s Larry Wilmore. Wilmore is neither talented nor funny. He’s going to be gunning for The Great White, Donald Trump, who should, frankly, give the event a miss.

Warned Omarosa Manigault: “I think there’s going to be a lot of jokes about Trump. But I think the biggest joke is on them because he’s going to be the President of the United States.”

President Barack Obama, however, is capable of being very funny, although his political exploits have marred his ability to make thinking people laugh at any of his jokes, no matter how self-deprecating.

Funny Obama past jokes:

* “And I’m feeling sorry — believe it or not — for the Speaker of the House, as well. These days, the House Republicans actually give John Boehner a harder time than they give me, which means orange really is the new black.”

* “Let’s face it Fox, you’ll miss me when I’m gone. It’ll be harder to convince the American people that Hillary was born in Kenya.”

* Obama on CNN’s wall-to-wall coverage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 – a frequent target of the night’s jokes: He noted that he had just returned from a trip to Malaysia. “The lengths we have to go to to get CNN coverage these days,” Obama said, adding, “I think they’re still searching for their table” at the Hilton ballroom.

* “MSNBC is here, they’re a little overwhelmed. They’ve never seen an audience this big before.”

Jay Leno’s routine at the SS 2010 was the best, because he was way smarter and certainly more politically astute.

‘Shahs of Sunset’ Christiane Amanpoor Mocks ‘Poor Me’ America

Celebrity, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Iran, Journalism, Media, Race

In ways intellectual, Christiane Amanpoor is impoverished. The famous CNN anchor, however, is not poor. Amanpoor’s net worth is $12.5 Million. She’s lived, loved and worked among the upper echelons her entire life, in her birth place of Iran, too. Amanpoor is more authentically “Shahs of Sunset” than ordinary America.

Read how Amapoor conflates America (“rich”) with Americans (many of whom are awfully poor).

Via Media Matters comes Christian Amanpoor’s take on Trump’s America. She apparently is unfamiliar with white, working-class demographics:

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: [Donald Trump] always comes back to the dollars and cents. So, America’s broke, therefore, America’s weak. These are not true, right, so everybody else has to pony up. This is a businessman’s view of the world, presumably. But it doesn’t make sense when he talks about, for instance, NATO. NATO is not obsolete. Yes, NATO was created 60-plus years ago in response to the Soviet threat. But still, NATO is the organizing principle by which American and the Western democracies’ security is taken care of. And NATO is not just about the United States putting money in. It’s about all the other countries putting in their two percent of GDP as well. Now, they don’t all, that’s true, and America wants them to put more than they do right now. But a good number, nearly half of the NATO countries, put their two percent of GDP in. And the other countries do certain things that America doesn’t do. Now, America, because it is the most powerful military in the world, does a lot of the heavy lifting. You know, you have a military operation and America will do the troop lifting, for instance. Or it will do, you know, many of those kinds of things. But many of the other countries, whether it’s in Afghanistan or elsewhere, pick up a huge lot of the burden as well.

BROOKE BALDWIN (HOST): What about his point on nukes, how he said specifically he would be open to allowing Japan and South Korea to build their own nuclear arsenals so they can protect themselves from North Korea and China?

AMANPOUR: Well again, that puts on its head decades of the United States and its Pacific allies’ security relationship, and this is one of the first times we’ve heard a serious candidate, if not the first time, who will probably be the nominee for the Republican Party, put that forward, and it’s not a Republican sort of point of view that I’ve ever heard in previous elections. This poor me, America’s weak kind of thing is not the way Republicans generally see their view, and Americans’ view in the world. So one of the reasons why Japan does not have a nuclear arsenal is because of the horror that Japan committed during the Second World War. So Japan has been kind of forced to be a pacifist, pretty much, state. It has a military but it’s not an offensive military capability. And so there was a tradeoff. OK, you trade that off. And if there’s a problem, we’ll come to your rescue. But in the meantime, you’ll help us keep the peace in many other ways in that region. So that’s one of the reasons why Japan doesn’t have nukes. And then of course, well, when it comes to ISIS and all the other things, you need allies to be able to go and help you. [CNN, CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, 3/28/16]