I Don't Like You Either.

In Support of the Kos Boycott

Diarists  at Kos---which I admit I rarely look at---who support Hillary Clinton have decided that enough's enough.  Good for them.  It's about time Clinton supporters start speaking up against the abuse and insults of the Hillary-hating  O-bot contingent of the Obama supporting wing of the Democratic party. 

Here's an excerpt from Allegre's last post, taken from where it's cross-posted at No Quarter----I refuse to link to Kos.

DailyKos is not the site it once was thanks to the abusive nature of certain members of our community. 

I’ve decided to go on "strike" and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution.  I will not be posting at DailyKos effective immediately.  I will not help drive up traffic or page-hits as long as my candidate – a good and fine DEMOCRAT - is attacked in such a horrid and sexist manner not only by other diarists, but by several of those posting to the front page.

The Media & Obama: Good Intentions Paving a Rough Road

by Damozel and D. Cupples  | We've been worried about this for weeks -- a possible backlash from Hillary Clinton's supporters against pro-Obama (anti-Hillary) media outlets and the passive-aggressive bashing of Hillary that appears to be approved by the Obama campaign.

Apparently, the backlash is already gathering hurricane force -- if a recent Pew poll reflects voters' opinions.

Keith Olbermann's Comments on the Clinton Campaign

The title of Larry Johnson's review pretty much sums it up:  Olbermann’s Cheese Slides Off the Plate,.  he recommends that we just boycott MSNBC  Done and done!

We used to be BIG Olbermann fans at Buck Naked Politics, and now we've all pretty much unanimously decided to pull the plug.  It's saddest for D Cupples, for whom Olbermann topped the list of famous people she'd like to have lunch with. 

I just remain amazed that these journalists---or at least, their corporate masters--- don't see the long-term consequences of their blatant lack of objectivity or even-handedness.

Bye, MSNBC.  I won't miss you.   Okay, maybe I'll miss Tweety a little bit---I expected him to bash Hillary, and was kind of used to it, and I love his big blonde bobblehead, his thatchlike hair, and squeaky voice, even when he's saying things that make me want to snatch him bald-headed.  But I suspect him of secretly really fancying Hillary, like the kid in my mother's Depression-era storybooks who dipped the pigtails of the girl he LIKED-liked into the inkwell. 

But Olbermann?  No, there's just no excuse for it.  No excuse, I mean for this (transcript at Crooks and Liars).

I guess MSNBC thinks they have no Hillary supporters in their target audience.  And by now, they're probably right. 

And obviously, Obama's campaign by now has decided he can get elected without the nearly half the party that prefers Hillary. 

The Democratic Campaigns: Too Ugly to Watch Anymore

The Ferraro statement---which she is now trying to defend by accusing the Obama campaign of reverse racism---and the Sinbad nonsense were the final straws for me.  This ridiculous, unseemly, shaming, disgraceful sniping has GOT TO STOP.  With all the surrogates and advocates shooting off their mouths, it's become a spectacle too distasteful for me to comment on.  Read the articles yourselves and marvel at the growing ugliness.  These are Democrats slanging Democrats, mind you. I refuse to watch or read any more of it. 

Yes, Hillary has had a raw deal in the media and particularly on the internet---Kevin Drum is so right. 

The online feeding frenzy against Hillary Clinton is driving me crazy. And that's despite the fact that I support Obama and, all things considered, think Hillary should probably withdraw from the race.

More on that later — maybe — but for now I just want to make one comment: the current attempts to tar Hillary as a racist have gone way, way over the top. They're revolting....

No Quarter Compiles a Little List of Obama's NAFTA-gate Statements

I couldn't love No Quarter any more than I do----first, for providing expert information on intelligence and national security issues without requiring me to believe that torture and acts outside the limit of the executive branch's authority are essential to the job; second, for its work on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

Here's the list, courtesy of the indispensable SusanUnPC:

1. 2/27/08 – ‘No conversations have taken place’ with the Canadian government on NAFTA. “Earlier Thursday, the Obama campaign insisted that no conversations have taken place with any of its senior ranks and representatives of the Canadian government on the NAFTA issue.” [CTV, 2/29/08]

2. 2/27/08 – Obama advisor just said ‘hello.’ “Goolsbee: Canada’s consul general in Chicago contacted him ‘at one point to say ‘hello’ because their office is around the corner.” [ABC, 2/29/08]

Dept of Tempests in Teapots: "Chelsea Clinton Guards Her Words."

So saith Beth Fouhy of the AP.

It's one thing for Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign to turn down interview requests for the candidate's daughter, Chelsea. But can't a 9-year-old reporter catch a break?

Sydney Rieckhoff, a Cedar Rapids fourth grader and "kid reporter" for Scholastic News, has posed questions to seven Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls as they've campaigned across Iowa this year. But when she approached the 27-year-old Chelsea after a campaign event Sunday, she got a different response.

"Do you think your dad would be a good 'first man' in the White House?" Sydney asked, but Chelsea brushed her question aside.

"I'm sorry, I don't talk to the press and that applies to you, unfortunately. Even though I think you're cute," Chelsea told the pint-sized journalist. (MyWayNews)

Yeah.  I'm pretty sure, actually, that "the pint-sized journalist" was thrilled to be called "the press" and, ultimately, "a journalist."   In the meantime, there is a mighty ruckus over the fact that her mom said that she "risked her life" on White House trips as first lady. 

Benazir Bhutto: "one of the most slandered politicians of modern time"

Today's not my day to post at BN-Politics, but I wanted to comment both there and here on an exchange I've been having with Charles at Mercury Rising, so will cross-post there tomorrow.   This is just an unsystematic first reaction to what I've learned from Charles, who has called her

I've really been surprised and  distressed by the negativity flowing around Benazir Bhutto.  Normally it takes a few months for the media to "discover" a generally (or so I'd have thought) admired political figure's feet of clay.  What's going on here?

In commenting on the blogger round-up I published at BN-Politics on the Bhutto assassination, Charles pointed to this article, and remarked:

Quote O' the Day 2 for 26 April 2007. Bill Moyers on The Press as Enabler.

I haven't seen it yet, but I have seen the Washington Post article by Tom Shales.   "Moyers and producer Kathleen Hughes use alarming evidence and an array of respected journalists to make the case that, in the rage that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the media abandoned their role as watchdog and became a lapdog instead." 

Gee, you think?  I posted this note---Read all about it!  "Amazing"  "Revelations"- way back in 2005, when the mainstream press suddenly "discovered" all the things about the Bush Administration that the fearless warriors of Salon and the Huffington Post, and a few (a very few) real journalists from the mainstream press had been telling the doubters and skeptics among the population ALL ALONG. 

You know, you get the feeling sometimes that the mainstream press really IS just beginning to work this out.

[quote begins from Shales, The Washington Post, A Media Role in Selling the War?  No Question]
The show asks: Did the Bush administration benefit from having an effective collection of accomplished dupers -- a contingent that Washington Post investigative reporter Walter Pincus calls "the marketing group" -- or did the outrage of 9/11 made the press more vulnerable to being duped?

Pressures subtle and blatant were brought to bear. Phil Donahue's nightly MSNBC talk show was virtually the only program of its type that gave antiwar voices a chance to be heard. Donahue was canceled 22 days before the invasion of Iraq, Moyers says. The reason was supposedly low ratings, but the New York Times intercepted an in-house memo in which a network executive complained: "Donahue represents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time, our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

Dissent was deemed not only unpatriotic, Donahue recalls, but -- perhaps even worse -- "not good for business." Most of Moyers's report involves serious, respected journalists who let themselves be swept up in war fever and who were manipulated by the administration sources who had cozied up to them. Instead of investigating administration claims about al-Qaeda and WMDs and such, cable news offered up hours and hours of talking-head television.

[quote ends]

You know, turning the news into a money-making venture for big corporations really hasn't worked out too well for either journalists or the public.  I wonder if anything now will change.  I'm not sure it has.  There's not any great courage required to attack the president at this point. 

And if you think about it, we really should NOT have been overflowing with gratitude toward people who were "bold" enough to criticize the Administration during Katrina.  Isn't that what they're for?

Commentary from "Eat the Press" at The Huffington Post is here.

Hey, The Man Can do a KICK-ASS impression of Nixon. Some Comments on the White House Correspondents' Dinner and Rich Little's "Way-Back Machine" (plus Illustrative links!).

I remember Rich Little, yes I do.  From way, way back.  He used to impersonate Nixon, annoying my father.  He could make his jowls wobble when he did it, too.  When I was a little girl, the man was cutting-edge.  And this is why the comments on the White House Press Corps Dinner fascinate me.

As all the world knows, last years' dinner was a debacle because Stephen Colbert was very, very rude to the entire assembled press and to the President, offending everyone.  So this year, nobody was taking any chances, I guess.  Hey---as my dad used to say---you pays your money and you takes your choice.   Which kind of sums up what happened here:  a completely different kind of debacle.

Here's a pre-dinner note by Jim Rutenberg.

[quote begins from Jim Rutenberg, The New York Times, No Offense Intended With This Year’s Choice of Entertainer, but Still an Outcry.

In hiring an impersonator practiced in an old-school approach to comedy, meant to entertain but not offend, the White House Correspondents’ Association has, however, provoked left-leaning political activists, who see his assignment as a retreat from last year’s dinner. Then, the television satirist Stephen Colbert delivered a stinging roast of President Bush and, to a lesser extent, the White House press corps.

Mr. Little has said he would deliver no such performance this year. And his selection has become something of a symbol in the liberal blogosphere for what its members consider the proclivity of Washington reporters to give Mr. Bush and his administration a pass.

“It represents that the White House press corps is more interested in playing friendly and cozying up to the Bush administration than it is in providing the sort of oversight that a free press should provide in a democracy,” said Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the Daily Kos. “They shouldn’t be yukking it up together as if they’re pals and friends, and that’s why we’ve had so much terrible coverage.”

[quote ends; links in original

Here's a post-dinner assessment by David Carr.

[ quote begins from Carr, New York Times, Carson-Era  Humor, Post-Colbert]

In Other News, Rich People Have More Money than Poor Ones.

Even Robin Hood had to get his funds from somewhere, people. 

This Washington Post article notes that many candidates----and perhaps especially Edwards----have had their campaigns enriched by hedge fund donors. 

What is a "hedge fund," you ask?

[The Washington Post, Hedge Fund Ties Help Edwards campaign by John Solomon and Alex McGillis]
Two years ago, former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, gearing up for his second run at the Democratic presidential nomination, gave a speech decrying the "two different economies in this country: one for wealthy insiders and then one for everybody else."

Four months later, he began working for the kind of firm that to many Wall Street critics embodies the economy of wealthy insiders -- a hedge fund.

Edwards became a consultant for Fortress Investment Group, a New York-based firm known mainly for its hedge funds, just as the funds were gaining prominence in the financial world -- and in the public consciousness, where awe over their outsize returns has mixed with misgivings about a rarefied industry that is, on the whole, run by and for extremely wealthy people and operates largely in secrecy.

[quote ends; links in original]

I'm not sure how I'm meant to take this.  The article subsequently discusses the growing importance of hedge funds in political campaigns, and particularly to Clinton, Guiliani, Dodd, and Obama.  And? 

I feel that there's more I'm meant to be deriving from this----e.g., Edwards might have done a deal with the devil to get money for his campaign----but, you know, it was going to HAVE to come from somewhere.  People in the constituency Edwards wishes to champion don't have any.  Unless they show me it was illegally procured or procured in exchange for specific promises, I don't think I'm going to get too worked up about it. 

At least some of the filthy rich bastards (as I suppose I'm meant to think of them)  are giving some money to the champion of the poor is what I said to myself.  Put another way:  even Christ himself needed Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and the Bethany family.  It may be easier for a camel rope to get through the needle's eye than to, etc., but the money's got to come from somewhere.   It's not going to come from the poor.

Joe Klein at Swampland ("Gilt by Association") speaks for me

[quote begins from  Swampland]

Turns out Democratic politicians like to make money, just as Republicans do. They should not be held to a higher standard unless--

      1. they do something illegal
      2. the things they do directly contradict the values they espouse.

No evidence of that .... Maybe I'm naive, but my guess is there won't be.

[quote]

I'm quite sure I'm naive and I'm not going to guess, but I'm assuming that all the candidates have to get money from the wealthy side of the great divide.

I feel the same about this  Barack Obama story.   Tell me something specifically sketchy about Obama's involvement and then we'll talk.  Till then, all I'm going to say is:  So....?

But if you want to read about why this might matter down the line, check out this note by Karen Tumulty at Swampland, The Ties That Blind?  (contains realistic concerns about paybacks to rich donors).