“‘This could literally put us out of business,’ said Paul Stankavich, president and general manager of the Alaska Public Radio Network, an alliance of 26 stations in the state that create and share news programming.” Well, that’s the idea. The House GOP moves to kill off the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, getting rid of liberal Bill Moyers and that lesbian-loving rabbit in one fell swoop. “‘Americans overwhelmingly see public broadcasting as an unbiased information source,’ Rep. David Obey (Wis.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said in a statement. ‘Perhaps that’s what the GOP finds so offensive about it. Republican leaders are trying to bring every facet of the federal government under their control…Now they are trying to put their ideological stamp on public broadcasting.’“
Month: June 2005
The Vanishings.
“A damsel must be white. This requirement is nonnegotiable. It helps if her frame is of dimensions that breathless cable television reporters can credibly describe as ‘petite,’ and it also helps if she’s the kind of woman who wouldn’t really mind being called ‘petite,’ a woman with a good deal of princess in her personality…Put all this together, and you get 24-7 coverage.” The Post‘s Eugene Robinson deconstructs the “Damsel in Distress” genre so beloved by today’s newsmedia. Obviously, if a friend or family member disappeared under strange circumstances, I might want some degree of media coverage in order to help find her. But, the amount of round-the-clock national attention devoted to these sad stories (and rubbernecking drek like the Michael Jackson trial) is patently ridiculous. Hey, don’t look now, but our nation is at war right now.
Lame Duck Dubya.
“When is it time to start referring to Bush as an unpopular president? When his approval ratings are solidly below 50 percent for at least three months? Check. When his approval ratings on his signature issues are in the red? Check. When a clear majority of Americans say he is ignoring the public’s concerns and instead has become distracted by issues that most people say they care little about? Check.” Dubya’s numbers continue to plunge. Want some unsolicited advice, Mr. President? Let’s hear more about Third World debt relief, and fewer blanket endorsements of the Patriot Act. Update: In not-unrelated news, faith in the newsmedia also hits a low.
Nose-cutting, Face-Spiting Dems.
Ambitious Dems Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. and Governor Mark Warner try to establish their presidential bona fides by joining in on the anti-Dean pileup. I wouldn’t have used Deans’s “white christian” line — We shouldn’t be in the business of reinforcing the GOP’s hold on white Christian voters, particularly when so much of the Republicans’ bellicose, intolerant, and avarice-fueled agenda is flagrantly anti-Christian in any real sense. Today’s GOP may talk the talk of Jesus, but their leaders continually prostrate themselves before the altar of Mammon. As any good Christian knows, you can’t serve them both.
All that being said, it’s highly dismaying to watch the Dems eat their own like this. Obviously, our lazy, cowed excuse for a national newsmedia is going to leap at every possible note of intemperance to emanate from Dr. Dean, because it’s an easy story that won’t tick off the White House and doesn’t involve much in the way of reporting. So every two-bit Democratic official that wants to start generating some media buzz and moderate cred for a 2008 bid is currently mouthing off to reporters about the former Governor of Vermont.
Do Republicans do this? Not hardly. I don’t remember GOP officials rushing to lambast Bill Frist for his “against people of faith” photo-op, or Tom DeLay for all the garbage that routinely comes out of his mouth, to say nothing of all the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Coulters, etc. But one Dem uses stronger rhetoric than usual to characterize the opposition and we fall over each other to condemn him in the name of electable statesmanship. It’s pathetic. Word to the wise, Dems: Let Dean be Dean — we didn’t pick him for his social nicety — and concentrate your rhetorical firepower on the opposing trench.
Oil Slick.
Here’s Dubya’s head-in-the-sand environmental policy in a nutshell: The NYT discovers the White House has Philip Cooney, a former oil industry hack, rewriting climate reports to cast doubt on global warming. “Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the ‘climate team leader’ and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor’s degree in economics, he has no scientific training.”
Buyer’s Remorse.
“Frist called her “a superb judge” who applies the law ‘without bias, without favor, with an even hand.’ Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), one of the 14 negotiators, called Brown “an extremely talented and qualified judge” who will ‘advance the cause of conservative judicial philosophy.'” As Janice Rogers Brown moves through the Senate, some Dems and left-leaning groups start rethinking the benefits of last month’s nuclear compromise.
Broken Watch / Darth Empathy.
As feared, Paramount axes the Watchmen movie. My reaction is very similar to Megg‘s concerning Ratner on X3…Fortunately, the Dark Lord of the Sith can empathize.
Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson.
Questionable Talkback.
If you’ve tried to post a comment here in the past two days or so and were denied for “questionable content,” sorry about that. I inadvertently added “http://” to my MT-Blacklist, causing basically all comments to bounce. The problem is fixed now.
Opp-Ed.
“As a chapter in the continuing history of opposition to dissent, Oppenheimer‘s fate is especially worth re-exploring now. Whether in the closed halls of the intelligence services or in the open sessions of Congress, we need the hard impact of contestation; we need recalcitrant voices ready to challenge the established terms of discussion…Oppenheimer always thought that argued dissent was an inseparable part of patriotism. He was right.” In his review of the recent biography American Prometheus, Harvard’s Peter Galison lauds J. Robert Oppenheimer’s patriotic vision of reflective dissent.