Category Archives: Journalism

Updated: The Accursed CNN/YouTube Debates: What to Expect

Elections 2008, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Republicans

You surely recall the kind of questions asked by the liberal media’s brain trust, Anderson Vanderbilt Cooper, during the last Democratic debate. Refresh your memory with “Jackass Cooper & The 1-Trick Donkeys.”

Darling Anderson is an intellectual pigmy. Affirmative appointments—the dumbing down and feminization of the media—has meant that we are not only subjected, day-in-and-day-out, to soft news stories about pets and pestilence (flu, food poisoning, childcare, the nation’s ballooning bigotry and weight); but also that competent, critical, hard-nosed, older reporters (Jack Cafferty, for example) are stashed behind the scenes.

You can detect the difference when one of the androgynous front-people is replaced for a session—things look up somewhat when poor Miles O’Brien, for example, is allowed occasionally into the studio to interview a challenging subject. Suddenly real questions are asked, then, rather than, “How hopeful are you, Mr. ambassador, about the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations?” To be sealed with a, “Thanks for your insights.” I’m sure O’Brien’s a pinko, but he has a brain, unlike girls such as Don Lemon, Cooper, and Kyra Phillips.

In any event, with the YouTube questions for the St. Petersburg, Florida debate to be selected by the CNN “V” Brigade (“V” is not for victory), rest assured that the Republican candidates will be honing their Democratic bona fides. I predict whiny demands such as, “What are you going to do about making taxpayers pay for my health care?” Or, “When will you join Gore in admitting there’s a global-warming crisis?” Economic nonsense about energy independence and renewability will also abound.

Update: The debate was excellent. Cooper did a 180 degree about-face from the previous YouTube debate he hosted, and I described in “Jackass Cooper & The 1-Trick Donkeys.” Compared to the cretins Cooper picked to pose questions to the Democrats, the questions selected this time were conservative and clever. The demographic was different, sure, but so were Cooper and his cohorts at CNN. Perhaps they got the message that quirky would not cut it. Hey, perhaps he read “Jackass Cooper & The 1-Trick Donkeys

Update # II (Nov. 29): Further impressions about the debates: Dr. Paul, of course, was given the least amount of time. Also, I wish he had remembered to count the IRS among the departments he’d abolish, before the phony saccharine Huckabee muscled in.
Huckabee’s Fair-Tax scheme will not see the demise of the IRS—it may change its name, but not its function. The Fair Tax—a contradiction in terms—will not necessarily see a reduction in taxation. Bruce Bartlett has demolished that myth in “Fair Tax, Flawed Tax.” If anything, and as I wrote in the “Flat Tax Limits State Theft”:
“In a free enterprise system, people do not pay for goods and services in proportion to their income (or else Bill Gates would be paying a million dollars or so for a loaf of bread). Rather, they all pay the same amount. The fairest method of taxation then would be a poll or head tax, where we are all taxed equally. That the poor would not afford much would limit government spending like nothing else.”
Choke those chickens! Huckabee is such a spender; out of one side of his mouth he disavows the national; out of the other, he vows to fund the space program, which can be done best privately.
On a more intuitive level: There were two honest-to-goodness, plainspoken non-politicos on stage last night: Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo. Very shortly after George Bush was elected, I told you he was not a good man. I was vindicated. You can trust me to make sound character judgments. You’re used to the analytical me; today you got gut instinct. (In rational individuals there is no bifurcation.)
Next: Did you notice how sour and superior John McCain behaved? It was as though he came down from the heavens to grace the rest with his presence. Give me a break! It goes without saying that he was one of two pinko candidates who eschewed carrying a gun. The other was gunless, gun regulator, Benito Giuliani. BOOOOO! Mitt Romney supports farm subsidies, which hurt third-world farmers immensely. Doing away with those would be infinitely more productive than sending more money down the African foreign aid rathole.

Al Jazeera: Fair, Balanced & Banned In The US

Journalism, Media, Middle East, Propaganda

I first saw Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American psychiatrist who regularly exposes Islam’s true hue, on Al Jazeera. Well, not quite; Al Jazeera is banned in the land of the free. This particular broadcast was made available on the Internet by the Middle East Media Research Institute. What I saw of the Al Jazeera program was fair and balanced. Unlike “Fix News,” it was also intelligent—the moderator made reference to, gasp, Samuel P. Huntington. Most of “Fix News’” bimbos and beaus have no idea who that American intellectual is. At the time, I wrote:

“For my money, if Al-Jazeera continues to provoke viewers with the likes of Sultan, I’ll be signing on when they start to transmit here. It’s a whole lot better than enduring Chris Matthews’ incestuous love-ins with ‘The ‘Hardball’ hotshots.’ That’s when MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough, and Rita Cosby aka ‘Throaty McHuskington,’ who each torture us independently during their respective programs, combine to amplify the unedifying effects.
As for the girls at CNN—Paula Zahn, Kyra Phillips, and Anderson Cooper appear indifferent to professional competition. Edgy reporting elsewhere never rubs off on this crew. They prefer to kvetch interminably about colorectal, breast, and lung cancer; anorexia nervosa, and Katrina. In this stream of soporific, soft-news stories, Wafa Sultan is indeed a rarity.”

Speaking recently to my fervently pro-Israel father in South Africa, he said: “The only fair shake Israel ever gets in this country’s media is from Al-Jazeera. The women anchors are also beautiful and refined,” he added. That’s more than you can say of say, Laurie Dhue—an anchor with a foghorn for a voice and a neck as thick as an ox’s. Dhue modulates her voice and pulls faces to ensure the viewer knows exactly where she stands on the issues. Kimberly Guilfoyle’s shrieking voice and large overbite are also something to behold. And have you seen Fix’s Red-Eye female representatives? Loud, crass, and crude doesn’t begin to capture their charms.

In “Bring the Real World Home,” Roger Cohen of the New York Times confirms what I surmised about Al Jazeera:

“A year after its launch, it reaches 100 million households worldwide. Its focus is on ‘reporting from the political south to the political north,’ as Nigel Parsons, its managing director, put it. The world it presents, more from the impact than the launch point of U.S. missiles, is one that must be understood.

Yet, the network has been sidelined in the United States. Representative Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, told me: ‘There’s definitely an attitude here that these guys are the enemy. But in the Mideast, Asia and Europe they have a credibility the U.S. desperately needs.’
Moran met recently with Al Jazeera English executives seeking to extend the service’s Lilliputian reach here. Right now, you can watch it in Toledo, Ohio, through Buckeye Cablesystem, which reaches 147,000 homes.

Or, if you’re in Burlington, Vt., a municipal cable service offers the network to about 1,000 homes. Washington Cable, in the capital, reaches half that. Better options are YouTube or GlobeCast satellite distribution.

These are slim pickings. Al Jazeera English is far more accessible in Israel. Allan Block, the chairman of Block Communications, which owns Buckeye, told me: ‘It’s a good channel. Sir David Frost and David Marash are not terrorists. The attempt to blackball it is neo-McCarthyism.’

Block, like other cable providers, got protest letters from Accuracy in Media, a conservative watchdog. Cliff Kincaid, its editor, cites the case of Tayseer Allouni, a former Afghanistan correspondent jailed in Spain for Al Qaeda links. This is evidence, he suggests, that ‘cable providers shouldn’t give them access.’

Most cable companies have bowed to the pressure while denying politics influenced their decisions. ‘It just comes down to channel capacity and other programming options,’ Jenni Moyer, a Comcast spokeswoman, told me.
Nonsense, says Representative Moran, blaming ‘political winds plus a risk-averse corporate structure.’

These political winds hurt America. Counterinsurgency has been called armed social science. To win, you must understand the world you’re in.

Comparative courses in how Al Jazeera, CNN, the BBC and U.S. networks portray the Iraq war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be taught in all U.S. high schools and colleges. Al Jazeera English should be widely available.”

Al Jazeera: Fair, Balanced & Banned In The US

Journalism, Media, Middle East, Propaganda

I first saw Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American psychiatrist who regularly exposes Islam’s true hue, on Al Jazeera. Well, not quite; Al Jazeera is banned in the land of the free. This particular broadcast was made available on the Internet by the Middle East Media Research Institute. What I saw of the Al Jazeera program was fair and balanced. Unlike “Fix News,” it was also intelligent—the moderator made reference to, gasp, Samuel P. Huntington. Most of “Fix News’” bimbos and beaus have no idea who that American intellectual is. At the time, I wrote:

“For my money, if Al-Jazeera continues to provoke viewers with the likes of Sultan, I’ll be signing on when they start to transmit here. It’s a whole lot better than enduring Chris Matthews’ incestuous love-ins with ‘The ‘Hardball’ hotshots.’ That’s when MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough, and Rita Cosby aka ‘Throaty McHuskington,’ who each torture us independently during their respective programs, combine to amplify the unedifying effects.
As for the girls at CNN—Paula Zahn, Kyra Phillips, and Anderson Cooper appear indifferent to professional competition. Edgy reporting elsewhere never rubs off on this crew. They prefer to kvetch interminably about colorectal, breast, and lung cancer; anorexia nervosa, and Katrina. In this stream of soporific, soft-news stories, Wafa Sultan is indeed a rarity.”

Speaking recently to my fervently pro-Israel father in South Africa, he said: “The only fair shake Israel ever gets in this country’s media is from Al-Jazeera. The women anchors are also beautiful and refined,” he added. That’s more than you can say of say, Laurie Dhue—an anchor with a foghorn for a voice and a neck as thick as an ox’s. Dhue modulates her voice and pulls faces to ensure the viewer knows exactly where she stands on the issues. Kimberly Guilfoyle’s shrieking voice and large overbite are also something to behold. And have you seen Fix’s Red-Eye female representatives? Loud, crass, and crude doesn’t begin to capture their charms.

In “Bring the Real World Home,” Roger Cohen of the New York Times confirms what I surmised about Al Jazeera:

“A year after its launch, it reaches 100 million households worldwide. Its focus is on ‘reporting from the political south to the political north,’ as Nigel Parsons, its managing director, put it. The world it presents, more from the impact than the launch point of U.S. missiles, is one that must be understood.

Yet, the network has been sidelined in the United States. Representative Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, told me: ‘There’s definitely an attitude here that these guys are the enemy. But in the Mideast, Asia and Europe they have a credibility the U.S. desperately needs.’
Moran met recently with Al Jazeera English executives seeking to extend the service’s Lilliputian reach here. Right now, you can watch it in Toledo, Ohio, through Buckeye Cablesystem, which reaches 147,000 homes.

Or, if you’re in Burlington, Vt., a municipal cable service offers the network to about 1,000 homes. Washington Cable, in the capital, reaches half that. Better options are YouTube or GlobeCast satellite distribution.

These are slim pickings. Al Jazeera English is far more accessible in Israel. Allan Block, the chairman of Block Communications, which owns Buckeye, told me: ‘It’s a good channel. Sir David Frost and David Marash are not terrorists. The attempt to blackball it is neo-McCarthyism.’

Block, like other cable providers, got protest letters from Accuracy in Media, a conservative watchdog. Cliff Kincaid, its editor, cites the case of Tayseer Allouni, a former Afghanistan correspondent jailed in Spain for Al Qaeda links. This is evidence, he suggests, that ‘cable providers shouldn’t give them access.’

Most cable companies have bowed to the pressure while denying politics influenced their decisions. ‘It just comes down to channel capacity and other programming options,’ Jenni Moyer, a Comcast spokeswoman, told me.
Nonsense, says Representative Moran, blaming ‘political winds plus a risk-averse corporate structure.’

These political winds hurt America. Counterinsurgency has been called armed social science. To win, you must understand the world you’re in.

Comparative courses in how Al Jazeera, CNN, the BBC and U.S. networks portray the Iraq war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be taught in all U.S. high schools and colleges. Al Jazeera English should be widely available.”

Updated: Ron Paul Raises Over $5 Million

Elections 2008, Journalism, libertarianism, Media

A miserable Norah O’Donnell of MSNBC just broke the splendid news that Ron Paul has raised over $5 million. She repeatedly tagged him an “isolationist,” which we know is a pejorative intended to discredit individuals who do not support recreational, unprovoked wars. Yet more nonsense on stilts from the malpractitioners in mainstream media; Paul is no isolationist; an advocate of free, unfettered trade is never an isolationist.

O’Donnell had Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter on to confirm that, having surpassed the mummified McCain, Paul was now officially a player. You don’t say, toots.

Update: on his show, Tucker Carlson mentioned Ron Paul’s high-water mark fund raising. The ubiquitous empty dress, A.B. Stoddard of The Hill, called Paul a “spoiler.” That kind of comment, meant to indicate Paul was taking votes from a bigger ticket, is the standard shallow, smart-alecky quip one has come to expect from the commentariat. Meaningless fluff.

Bill Press, to his great credit, put her in her place perfectly. Press said Paul was the real deal; that he was raising money because he had a message people craved. It took Press, a left-liberal, to galvanize the smart but smarmy Tucker (a conservative), who then vaporized a bit about how he liked Paul, but how Paul hadn’t a chance, “Given we are all socialists now, believing government should do most things for us.” Then he muttered incongruently how he still liked Paul.

Once again, if Tucker wants to see freedom prevail and socialism defeated, why not muster some courage and stand by the man who promulgates this? That is, if you really like what you hear. Why keep up this, “I’m so witty and cynical” façade—one moment mocking the man and his chances, the next, conceding Paul’s principles are the better ones.

I can’t respect such dissembling. These commentators have no yen for freedom. I guess, feeding so close to the trough as they do, they are free. Being part of what I call the Military-Media-Industrial-Congressional-Complex, they are free. It’s you and I who lack freedom, not the connected punditocracy. They benefit from power; we don’t.