New York Times Columnist Line of the Day

Today’s comes from David “Yawny-Pants” Brooks, who in his column today, “The Great Divorce,” writes:

I’ll be shocked if there’s another book this year as important as Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart.” I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes the most important trends in American society.

Yes, that book is actually titled Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. So, to old Yawny-Pants, the most important book of the year, the one that will tell us all about America, is exclusively about white people.

New York Times public editor wants to know if paper should stop printing lies

The New York Times public editor asks:

I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.

….

Is that the prevailing view? And if so, how can The Times do this in a way that is objective and fair? Is it possible to be objective and fair when the reporter is choosing to correct one fact over another?

What’s interesting about the state of news media in this country are two basically paradoxical facts:

1. people expect newspapers to report the facts and dispel the non-facts, and
2. news media outlets are so obsessed with “fair reporting” and not pissing off sources that they hide from accusing anybody of lying.

It’s been a problem for a long time. What’s even worse is that saying something ridiculously false, if you’re a newsworthy personality (ie. running for higher office), gets more your publicity than being reasonable, and nobody is actually going to call you a liar in the news section. Sure, some op-ed columnist will say something to the effect of “this guy is lying,” but people ignore the columnists because they expect them to be partisan.

So, to answer the public editor:

FUCK YES JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU HAVE TO ASK*

*Actually I can.

Conspiracy Theory Rock

Fox News Anchor Megyn Kelly: Pepper spray just a food product

Delicious pepper spray. I spray it all over my turkey on Thanksgiving. Maybe with pizza, we can get it turned into a vegetable and then the police would just be giving students their vegetables.

News media loves Perry, hates Obama

Pew is out today with a new report on the tone of media coverage of all the current candidates. It’s interesting first because it adds data to my assertion that Rick Perry enjoyed a good amount of positive coverage, explaining his sudden rise in the polls early on in his race. Also worth mentioning:

One man running for president has suffered the most unrelentingly negative treatment of all, the study found: Barack Obama. Though covered largely as president rather than a candidate, negative assessments of Obama have outweighed positive by a ratio of almost 4-1. Those assessments of the president have also been substantially more negative than positive every one of the 23 weeks studied. And in no week during these five months was more than 10% of the coverage about the president positive in tone.

Some hot Kool-Aid there in that boat

This has one of the worst mixed metaphors I’ve read in, well, ever?

Gregory Curtis, chairman and founder of Greycourt, a Pittsburgh-based wealth-management firm, said he and his clients never really believed in the recovery story, because it relied on a large liquidity injection by the Federal Reserve, rather than stronger economic fundamentals.

“I’m sure there were some wealthy families who were drinking the Bernanke Kool-aid and got burned,” he said.  “But I don’t know many families in that boat.”

You gone done righted good.

Non-paywalled here.

New York Times Columnist Line of the Day

Eff it, let’s try this again.

Today’s is from Paul “The Little Professor” Krugman, who in his column today “The Lesser Depression,” writes:

If either of the current debt negotiations fails, we could be about to replay 1931, the global banking collapse that made the Great Depression great. But, if the negotiations succeed, we will be set to replay the great mistake of 1937: the premature turn to fiscal contraction that derailed economic recovery and ensured that the Depression would last until World War II finally provided the boost the economy needed.

Yay!

Dick

Mark Halperin was suspended by MSNBC after calling the president a “dick.” James Fallows puts the whole thing in proper perspective:

Of course Mark Halperin should not be fired for saying on MSNBC that President Obama had been “kind of a dick” when sounding angry at Republicans during his press conference yesterday. I say that notwithstanding the certainty that if some other “mainstream” journalist had said the same about George W. Bush on MSNBC or CNN, the outrage would never have been allowed to ebb on Fox and the Limbaugh show.

The real problem is the dickishness of our mainstream political analysis, especially from the “savviest” practitioners. Back during my days as media critic, I argued in Breaking the News and a related Atlantic cover story that the laziest and ultimately most destructive form of political coverage came when journalists seemed to imagine that they were theater critics or figure-skating judges. The what of public affairs didn’t interest them. All they cared about was the how.

In this case, the “what” of Obama’s press conference — the unbelievable recklessness of mainly House Republicans in inviting the largest self-inflicted economic wound in American history — deserves every bit of frustration Obama showed, and lots more. In the long run we’ll have some sense of whether Obama’s typical surreal unflappability, whatever its origins (I have my theories, but for another time), was the wisest long-term response to today’s Republican party — and whether this unusual flash of emotion worked in directing public attention to a looming and entirely unnecessary blow to America’s wellbeing.

But the real news of the press conference, of course, was the economic, financial, political, and Constitutional showdown Obama was discussing. Not to understand that, and to act as if this was a free-skate program where a contestant should be judged on poise, costume, and sticking the landings, is just dickish.

And, I guess if there’s one lesson to be drawn from this, it’s that none of us at V+V will ever be invited to join the MSNBC crack political news team, and if by some unlikely event we were, we’d be canned within the first hour.

Did you hear Al Gore hates Obama? And, why we (should) hate the news media

James Fallows looks to updating his 15-year-old Atlantic cover story “Why Americans Hate the Media,” first by looking at the Jon Stewart/Chris Wallace exchange. But, then he sees a good reason in today’s Hot Story, that, OMG, Al Gore Hates President Obama:

UPDATE: If someone were starting on a mid-2011 update, an item from today’s news could be a case study. Al Gore’s new essay in Rolling Stone, about impending climate disasters, is mainly about the failure of the media to direct adequate attention to the issue, and to call out paid propagandists and discredited phony scientists. That’s where the essay starts, and what it covers in its first 5,000 words. The second part, less than half as long, and much more hedged in its judgment, is about the Obama Administration’s faltering approach on climate change. But of course the immediate press presentation on the essays has been all “OMG Gore attacks Obama!” For instance at Slate,* TPM, NY Mag, the AP, and the Atlantic’s own Wire site.

….

The reaction to Gore’s essay illustrates the pattern: from his point of view, it’s one more (earnest) attempt to say “Hey, listen up about this problem!” As conveyed by the press, it’s one more skirmish on the “liberals don’t like Obama” front, and one more illustration of the eyes-glazing-over trivia and details about melting icebergs and scientific disputes.

When I caught the item this morning, it was on CNN and titled “Gore: ‘Obama has Failed.’” Of course, I thought ‘Really?,’ then discovered they cut the “On Climate Change” from the quotation. Then, after looking at the essay in question, I’m astounded that this was the takeaway.

It’s almost hilarious: An essay that criticizes the news media for ignoring climate change is covered in a way that obviously and purposefully ignores climate change.

Jon Stewart v. Chris Wallace

Unlike that time a few years back when Jon Stewart eviscerated Tucker Carlson on his own show, Stewart’s latest parry on Fox at least involved some give and take.  I mean, Stewart still made Fox “News” look completely ridiculous, and he gave the lie to most of Wallace’s presumptions and assertions.  But in addition to the schadenfraude fun of watching Fox look dumb on Fox, there were also some great thought-provoking inquiries into the current status of mainstream media (which Stewart says he and Wallace both deride, but for very different reasons).

The question of where Stewart himself lies on the spectrum between comedian and pundit is an interesting one, too.  I think he can be somewhat disingenuous when he downplays his political influence.   But at the same time, it’s funny to watch Wallace twist himself into knots trying to say that a) Stewart is more of an ideological force than he’ll admit while at the same time b) Comedy Central is a silly channel and somehow that means Fox can’t be silly too, or can’t be criticized by Stewart, or… actually, I don’t know what he was trying to prove with the South Park-is-so-vulgar bit.

Okay, see for yourself.  Here’s part one of the two-part interview, go to YouTube to watch part two.

(PS– When Jon Stewart gets all thoughtful and incisive like this, I get a total intellectual lady boner for him.  Just can’t help it).

Okay, Just One More Post Regarding Weiner and Then I’m Done

Clearly, there are some lessons to be learned from the Weiner debacle.  First and foremost, if we can’t just scour Congress of all the creeps (and I’m pretty sure we can’t), let’s at least make sure they work on their media presence.  In an interview shortly before his accidental tweet, then-Rep Weiner said he didn’t have anyone on staff looking over his tweets/Facebook posts before they went out, and he acknowledged that this had the potential for trouble. Um, yeah it did.

In fact, so compelling were these lessons that the Obama 2012 campaign has taken them into account!  Let’s see what they have to say:

Starting today, you’ll notice something new about President Obama’s Facebook page and his Twitter account,@BarackObama.

Obama for America staff will now be managing both accounts, posting daily updates from the campaign trail, from Washington, and everywhere in between. You’ll be hearing from President Obama regularly, too; on Twitter, tweets from the President will be signed “-BO.”

I’m sure that “BO”‘s tweets will be heavily screened before they make it into the twitterverse, but the timing just seems a bit amusing.

*And while we’re back on the subject of Weiner (sorry), remember when I said I hoped his wife Huma Abedin would run for office herself?  Ann Friedman took it one step further, suggesting that Abedin should run for the NY Congressional seat that Weiner is vacating.  Not sure how hubby would feel about that, but definitely sure I don’t care.  There’d be some poetic justice to that.  And it’s not like she isn’t smart, savvy, and politically experienced.

Headline suggestions for the NY Daily News on Weiner’s resignation

“Weiner finally goes off.”

“Weiner Finally Finished”

“Weiner Pulls Out”

“Weiner leaves unfulfilled.”

“Weiner’s Plan of Finishing Job Flops”

“Democratic Party’s Weiner Quits on Them”
‘This is the first time this has happened,’ says Congressman

“Weiner leaves big shoes to fill.”

“Deflated Weiner Gives Up”

“After three grueling weeks, Weiner is finally spent”

“Weiner is Whacked”

“Loud Weiner goes quietly.”

“NY Weiner to Relish in Retirement, Ketchup on Private Matters.”

Add yours in the comments.

Stephen Colbert interviews Werner Herzog

I expected last night’s Daily Show to be the interesting thing to see, what with #OMGWEINERGATE being all the rage yesterday, and, well, Jon Stewart’s now-awkward relationship to the story. But, really, the most mind-blowing part of last night’s Comedy Central “news” block was Stephen Colbert’s “interview” with Werner Herzog (which, I guess, if I had realized beforehand was going to happen, I might have figured would be more interesting, him being Herzog and all). Stephen barely says anything and lets Herzog blow the pants out of your mind.

You’ll definitely want to stick around to the end to hear how radioactive albino crocodiles ended up in his documentary about cave paintings.

Is Elmo making our children liberal?

Some guy trotted out by Fox News thinks so. Also, Sesame Street makes boys want to be prom queens.

Miss America 2008, though, makes sure to note that she watched Sesame Street as a child and turned out a good conservative.

Selected comments from Fox News story “White House Releases Obama’s Long-Form Birth Certificate”

So, the White House today released President Obama’s long-form birth certificate, and, being a pretty lame but I guess Important News Item, Fox News had to—I assume reluctantly—report it.

I went into the danger zone: yes, the Fox News comments. Below are some choice samples.

4arkie notes:

Is it real? After delaying two years it is possible it could be a forgery, our Government can produce some pretty good “copies” of anything they choose. How do you think our spies get their “papers”? I am not saying it is a forgery but it makes one wonder why it took so long. The more important question is , “How do we make SURE Obama is NOT re-elected to another term”. America cannot survive another four years of the current policies whether foreign or domestic!

beetle_baily says:

That’s it play the race card again when there is no race issue. McCain was asked to produce a birth certificate during the election, as was Obama. One APPEARED to have something to hide, and it wasn’t his skin color. And another thing. Why do you think Fox News is racist? Do you think they were the only ones reporting on this issue? Think again.

howard521 has some questions:

1. It took two years, pressure from Trump, and from the public, for Obama to finally produce a
birth certificate, which Obama should have presented when he first ran for the Presidency.

2. The timing is very suspicious. How do we know this document is even authentic?

3. Not long ago, stories were circulating that at the time of Obama’s birth, Hawaii wasn’t even issuing
long form birth certificates.

4. How come his religion isn’t listed ?

5. Regardless of his birth certificate, Obama is destroying America, our economy is in shambles, and
Obama wants to squander Trillions more !

6. If Obama is doing so well, why does he need to spend a Billion dollars to get reelected ???

More beyond the pale.

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