Category Archives: Media

One Twisted Brother

Barack Obama, Critique, Elections, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media

Dana Bash, a CNN reporter who is never bashful about covering the president favorably, cringed when forced to deliver John Boehner’s rapid response to Barack Obama’s “enemies” quip. Recall that “during an interview last Monday on the Spanish-language radio station,” Mr. Obama tried to galvanize Latinos by referring to his opposition as “our enemies” who need punishing.

Posted only much later in the day on CNN (@8:01 PM ET), and only after the Obambi-issued mea culpa had already gone up on the network’s website, here is the House Minority Leader’s rather good response to that twisted brother:

“Mr. President, there’s a word for people who have the audacity to speak up in defense of freedom, the Constitution and the values of limited government that made our country great,” Mr. Boehner is set to tell an audience in Cincinnati tonight. “We don’t call them ‘enemies.’ We call them patriots. … “We have a president in the White House who referred to Americans who disagree with him as ‘our enemies,’” Mr. Boehner’s speech says. “Think about that. He actually used that word. When Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush used the word ‘enemy,’ they reserved it for global terrorists and foreign dictators – enemies of the United States.”

Sadly, we have [a] president who used the word ‘enemy’ for fellow Americans…fellow citizens,” the speech continues. “He uses it for people who disagree with his agenda for bigger government…people speaking out for a smaller, more accountable government.

UPDATED: Propaganda Central

Elections, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Politics, Propaganda

This time the CNN gig went not to Soledad O’Brien, the Agony Aunt of the “Black In America,” “Latino In the Same Place,” and plain “Boring in America” propaganda series, but to a like-minded brother (talk about lack of intellectual diversity!)

The gig: conveying to CNN’s dwindling audience how dangerous the tea party truly is.

The end product: “Boiling Point: Inside the Tea Party,” an amateurish production featuring a badly written script, a sinister sound track, and a lot of edgy adjectives in the service of a not-so-subliminal message: RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.

From comedian Jon Stewart to the MSNBC desperadoes, to CNN’s race hucksters—the liberal media is adamant to do all they can to ward off the inevitable Republican victory (however futile that may be, as “there is no returning America to a place of financial safety”).

UPDATE (Nov. 1): I missed the left-liberal’s slur hereunder, in the Comments Section. I thought his spelling was remiss. But I had to cut out all the sexual insults he levied at my appearance to come to the gist of the one valid argument he came up with. Shows you how committed I am to argument here on BAB. Of course, humanity’s detritus considers it their right to post their bile on private property, which is what BAB is. Indeed, BAB Posting Policy does demand a valid email address. honestperson@aol.com: Is this not a valid addressed? As I said, I’m so committed to argument, that this kind of dreck can get the better of me.

UPDATED: The Comedy Central Campaign (The Monochromatic Face Of Morons)

Elections, Glenn Beck, Hollywood, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Political Correctness, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist

The media meme is providing wall-to-wall coverage of the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert comic relief. The consensus is that the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” held by the two smarmy entertainers was all good. In contrast, naturally, to Glenn Beck’s middle America rally.

TIME magazine found statist clown Stewart “earnest and eloquent” as he preached from his perch of sinecure: “we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.”

And what do you know? The very same parrot press that was unable to gauge how many people attended Glenn’s rally; never contested the turnout at the Stewart event.

The magazine’s adoring description of the fun attendees conjured Pat Buchanan’s astute observation not so long ago about Americans: a silly people living in serious times.

“Attendees came decked out for the season, sporting zombie face-paint, Waldo costumes and Richard Nixon masks; a coven of Christine O’Donnells strolled by as Darth Vader snapped a picture with a conservationist toting a massive replica of an Arctic tern. To catch a glimpse of the proceedings, crowd members staked out space atop port-a-potties or climbed trees. Others hoisted Shepard Fairey-style Team Sanity placards and meta-ironic signs advertising their views on abortion, taxes, beards, Lost, Lyndon LaRouche and lunar prisons. ‘God Hates Rallies,’ declared one missive. ‘God Hates Snuggies,’ went another. Still a third: ‘I am pretty sure God Hates Us All Equally.’ There was a yellow Gadsden flag — the ubiquitous Tea Party emblem — but instead of ‘Don’t Tread on Me,’ it read, ‘OMG, Snakes!'”

Whereas tea party protesters have been described invariably as angry, ugly, racist, and not diverse; these equally monochromatic morons were “the stars of the show.”

To help you understand why American kids will become a drag on the country’s economy for years to come, meet rally attendee “Marsha Eck, a 54-year-old teacher from South Bend, Ind.,” who “expressed hope that the gathering could provide ‘a model for a new kind of conversation.'”

Or the “trio of teenagers from Downington, Pa., who came with their high-school civics class and wore matching lime-green t-shirts so that their teacher could spot them,” and who “explained that the rally was important because ‘everybody is yelling but nobody listens to each other.'”

Look, I know that in America, people who do stupid, venal, or ill-conceived things will generally suffer no setbacks. But, for my money, Jon Stewart’s stuttering attempt at politicking are mistaken. He had managed to keep his comedic hat on until now. This strength he has now forfeited.

UPDATED: The Monochromatic Face Of Morons. Monochromatic of mind, that is. Larry Auster has it:

UPDATE IV: A National Reviewnik Thinks He’s "Contrarian"

Debt, Inflation, Journalism, Media, Neoconservatism, Paleoconservatism, Pseudo-intellectualism, Republicans

He’s trillions of dollars and a decade too late, but Kevin D. Williamson of National Review can assure himself he’s “contrarian” for advocating an about face in the Federal Reserve Bank’s fiddling.

Williamson may be reading Austrian economics. By that I mean the reality based thinking of Ludwig von Mises (taught at the Mises Institute); preached by Ron Paul (whom the neoconery mocked during the Bush years), practiced by financier Peter Schiff, written about by Tom Woods in Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse; as well as by Vox Day, and in this writer’s columns and blogs over the past decade.

Being of the establishment, however, Williamson can just put his hands over his ears and tell himself over and over again “I’m contrarian,” and this will be so.

“So here’s a contrarian take,” Williamson assures himself: “The Fed should stop trying to drive down interest rates. It should instead work to raise them. Why? Our economy needs savings and investment. …”

As I said, trillions of dollars and a decades too later … (“PUNDITS, HEAL THYSELVES!”)

Your host, writing in “Those Invisible Jobs,” did not anoint herself a “contrarian” for advocating that Fed supremo Ben Bernanke raise interest rates.” Not then, and not in 2000 (“The Central Bank’s Game is the Same, Whoever’s the Name”), and on all those occasions in-between.

Why? Because in the Austrian community, represented by some very prominent people, this is common wisdom.

Bloody annoying…

UPDATE I: I’ll be honest: it’s hard to know from Mr. Williamson’s wishy-washy articles exactly where he stands on matters of political philosophy (or if he is a neoconservative or not). However, this post’s point was pretty clear. It expressed annoyance that someone can call himself contrarian for proposing less quantitative easing. Granted, it’s a prickly post, but Mr. Williamson can understand, surely, why writers like myself get a tad testy? We’ve been marginalized for being right on foreign policy and fiscal matters our entire careers, such as they are. Then, when the rest catch up with us, a decade down the line, they pretend that truth began with them.

If I’ve learned anything about the American Mind it is this: Truth doesn’t exist until someone in the establishment pronounces it, usually a decade or so after it has been in circulation. I guess, better late than never, but why not acknowledge those who went before?

I saw Mr. Williamson go up against one or the other left-liberals on TV, and I remember thinking: much better than Rich. Still, I do not believe there is a sufficient amount of information to conclude that “better than Rich” is a meaningful statement.

Mr. Williamson is young (and presentable). He has plenty of time to correct any mistaken impressions I might have formed, not least of which is his sharing that horrible habit common among the Republican establishment of never admitting to being Johnny-come-latelies on Iraq, Bush, economy, QE, etc.

UPDATE II: Mr. Glisson, first, why don’t you provide hyperlinks and particular quotes in substantiation of your position that Mr. Williamson is never a neoconservative? Second, why misconstrue the point of this writer’s post, encapsulated again in the last two sentences of “UPDATE I”? Moreover, from a parenthetic statement about the neoconservatives’ attitude toward Ron Paul, Mr. Williamson concluded that I had called him a neoconservative. You do the same, for some reason.

Again, Mr. Williamson is better than Rich; way better. I am still unsure as to what kind of badge of honor this really is; or if Mr. Williamson is or is not a neoconservative. Isn’t that a condition of employment at National Review? John Derbyshire is NRO’s only paleoconservative (sort of). I’d love to see John thrust into the spotlight, but they keep him in the basement, so to speak.

UPDATE III (Oct. 17): We thank Kevin D. Williamson for responding to the intrigue he has generated on Barely A Blog. He remains a man of mystery, and that is not half bad. In the age of too much information (and letting it all hang loose), mystery is a good thing. We agree that Mr. Williamson ain’t Rich. Has Rich employed a non-neoconservative in the hope of generating some oscillation in the static National Review? Or because the readership has little patience with that old guard? Who knows? We also understand that a man has to make a living. To do so, he must often walk an ideological tightrope.

Nevertheless, those who went before—and remain permanently frozen out of mainstream—deserve mention. It gets terribly cold out here. Mr. Glisson seems to think I’m some kind of intellectual missionary, spreading the good word, pleased to turn the other cheek just so long as the new guard can adopt the gospel, even if they falsely pretend to be pioneers.

Rubbish. Nonsense on stilts. I’m all about justice. Intellectual justice included.

UPDATE IV (3/5/2016):

“NRO Writer’s ‘UnFollow’ Leads To Musing About The Manners-Morals Connection.”