America
Failing
Day 295
What’s going on at ABCNews? Are they starting to take the rose colored glasses off when they look at Obama and his administration?
We were very surprised – and pleasantly so – when Bill O’Reilly had on his show Brian Ross of ABCNews – advancing the story that the terrorist Hasan who massacred 13 and injured many more at Fort Hood last week – was not merely a guy with a screw loose.
Can we not stipulate that anyone who murders has a screw loose? Therefore, the question of motivation comes into play. And ABCNews was out in front, acknowledged by O’Reilly of a competing news organization, in saying that Hasan had the indicators of a terrorist.
We have begun seeing stories that are a bit more centrist coming out of ABCNews. Did someone in upper management go on vacation so that the staff can now do what they know how to do? Report the news straight up? Or did someone in upper management get some business sense and say, “You know – we can’t cede the sane sector of society to FoxNews. We need to be in that arena competing head on.” Or do we have some rogue reporters who are soon to be leaving ABCNews (e.g., Tapper and Ross), going the way of Stossel?
Whatever the answer, we are going to begin watching ABCNews a little more closely to determine whether what we’re seeing is real or just a flash in the pan.
In our last post we wrote this: “We have not forgotten the wonderful thing they did in standing with FoxNews when the Putz-in-Chief tried to grant interviews with the pay czar while explicitly excluding FoxNews. That was amazing. Beautiful. A wonder to behold. And these venues should really think about this long and hard.”
We’d like to address this post to the Editors in Chief at the CBSABCNBCCNN news organization. You see, we see you as a single entity, appearing as several companies, but really having one point of view: Obama is good.
We’d like you to think about the fact that huge numbers of Americans – huge numbers – look at how you stood with FoxNews last Thursday as a major achievement! Imagine that: news organizations actually supporting the 1st Amendment and protecting speech that those in power don’t like.
How can it be that this is perceived as a major achievement? Shouldn’t be a “Well – of course we stood with FoxNews! We are the Free Press mentioned in the 1st Amendment!”
You need to understand, dear Editors in Chief, that you are largely perceived as being purveyors of political correctness and the nanny state. You are perceived by millions of Americans as people who have ZERO allegiance to truth and facts and will take distortions fed to you without fact checking, without any incisive follow-up questions. In short, we perceive you, fairly or not, as sycophants for Obama. We see the quintessential display of your viewpoint in Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times when he asked that incredibly hard-hitting question: “During these first 100 days, what has surprised you the most about this office? Enchanted you the most from serving in this office? Humbled you the most? And troubled you the most?”
Imagine that – could there ever be a bigger brown-nosing question than that in a Presidential news conference, where your Messiah allows 13 questions so that he can wax-on professorial and all and 1/13th of the available questions are wasted with this one?
And then we have another sycophant at CNN saying that this was a good question.
It is because of the sycophantic, symbiotic relationship you have with Obama and his minions that we were genuinely surprised when you stood with FoxNews. While this ought to seem like a run-of-the-mill achievement for organizations steeped in the 1st Amendment – where it should seem like a small hill in a mountain range where altitude represents achievement, it instead seems like Mount Everest planted smack dab in Kansas.
You really should think long and hard about this, dear Editors in Chief. What do you stand for? What does the 1st Amendment and a free press really mean to you? Does it mean that you should be happy when Obama pats you on the head like a nice little collie and says, “Good girl! Good girl.” Or should Obama be terrified that you’ll go after the jugular with the ferociousness of a doberman?
What kind of news organizations are you?
- Off-the-cliff.com
We are very disappointed with FoxNews. We normally, and still, consider that venue to be a worthy source of news. But this is one of those times where “fair and balanced” is clearly not shining through.
We told you back on November 18th that we were taking a new look at Al Franken, given the hearing he had regarding Jamie Leigh Jones’ effort to have her day in court. The crimes committed against her make anything Carrie Prejean had to deal with look trivial by comparison. They make anything the 13 year old girl raped by Polanski, bad as that was, pale by comparison.
FoxNews makes a big deal of these two – and rightly so.
They are AWOL when it comes to the plight of Jamie Leigh Jones. We found this article at the Spokane Examiner, and we can’t agree more. (We believe those commenting below the article are largely misguided, and they should read our our November 18th post.) We want to see conservatives and anyone who plays fair get behind Ms. Jones and others similarly situated. The idea that a United States citizen can, while under a government contractor’s employ be raped, gang raped, and disfigured by that contractor’s employees and not have recourse to Federal courts is an outrage.
Come on FoxNews. Get your heads out of your collective buttocks and come to this woman’s aid. Or is your dislike of Al Franken more important than the possibility that Ms. Jones will finally find the justice she seeks and deserves? Are you fair and balanced, or are you something disappointingly less than that?
- Off-the-cliff.com
America
Failing
Day 273
We were thinking about what Rahm Emanuelle told John King at CNN: “… that President Obama does not want “the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox.” Before we get to our evaluation of this, it is interesting to note that as of this writing, the quote is clearly heard in the CNN video, but is not quoted in the text of the story. Yet it is the most incendiary thing that Emanuelle said!
To get the quote in print, where it can be easily cited, copied and pasted (per fair usage rights, etc.), you actually have to go to FoxNews! They don’t have the video, but they have the quote.
So even when CNN scoops FoxNews, FoxNews gets the significance of the story right while, fairly or unfairly, we see CNN calculating the value of being in the role of Obama’s nice little newspuppy.
For some reason, we are reminded of the Star Trek episode Bread and Circuses, where Kirk and his crew come upon a civilization where the Roman Empire never fell. Six years earlier, one of the Federation’s captains, Captain Merrick, fell before the might of this empire’s sadistic leader, Claudius Marcus, and he serves as Marcus’ stooge, trying to persuade Kirk to give up his ship and to surrender, as well – for the sake of his ship and crew. Kirk stubbornly refuses. (Sounds like a town hall attendee to us.) At one point Marcus invites Kirk to have wine as part of his last meal, and tells Merrick to leave for this is to be a discussion between men, clearly impugning Merrick’s masculinity.
CNN, you little newspuppy, we hope you love the crumbs that Obama feeds you from his “manly estate.” It’s really all you seem to want and/or deserve.
- Off-the-cliff.com
There’s a move afoot to try to “save” rags like the New York Times.
And what is any good communist up for? Taxing productive people who don’t want to read the newspapers (which is why they’re failing), so that the newspapers don’t have to earn a profit. Look – if the NYT dies on the vine, most people won’t care. Most of us may even be thrilled to see this leftist shadow of greatness fall.
We believe that there are enough venues for news available – far more than ever before – to be worried about “saving” some museum piece venues (with our tax dollars or charity dollars (that could be used to fight homelessness, hunger, or toenail cancer)).
The horse and buggy went away. It’s time for many newspapers to follow suit. Especially since so many of them are no longer watchdogs; no longer truly the 4th Estate.
- Off-the-cliff.com