What we deserve is fairness, truth, respect, and not to have the people with the biggest megaphones working overtime to mislead, corrupt and indoctrinate us.
First, Stephen Colbert.
The media drooling over Colbert taking over for David Letterman has been embarrassing and itself a symptom of anti-conservative bias. Colbert is versatile, smart and funny, but we have many such performers. He is only lovedlovedloved—as opposed to appreciated and admired– because he mocked Republicans and conservatives. and no one else, on his Comedy Central show. (So did Letterman on CBS in his dotage, but Colbert is sunnier and smarter than Dave.) Colbert can be another knee-jerk liberal mouthpiece if he chooses, but its a boring choice and ultimately diminishing: there is ample ammunition for satire and mockery in the conduct of all politicians. Representing otherwise on a big stage every night in an election year will ultimately become an exercise in cultural indoctrination and lazy punditry, like Bill Maher playing to the approving screams of his atheist, drug-loving, progressive audience. Maybe Colbert will get good ratings this way, but it’s not what he suggested would be his course in the run up to yesterday’s premiere on CBS.
I won a bet that I hoped he would lose: I bet that Colbert would mock Trump, and leave Hillary alone. And so he did. Maybe he will make up for this in later shows, but I doubt it very much after his demeanor last night. Trump is an easy mark: Conan has been mocking him for years. But it is Hillary who has provided the best material for a genuine, Equal Opportunity satirist, especially her Manchurian Candidate, robotic “apology” statement from earlier in the day. Talk about creepy…and, if the possibility didn’t exist that this pod person might end up in the White House, comedy gold:
Especially since she didn’t genuinely apologize for anything.
It’s not enough to know that the mainstream news media will be manipulating the narratives to block and tackle for Democratic candidates for the next 14 months; now we have to expect that the entertainment media will be doing the same. Isn’t an even playing field what democracy and the United States deserve? Shouldn’t the standards for covering, criticizing, exploring the character and conduct of all candidates be the same? Is there any chance that the public will wake up to the fact that this is unhealthy for the nation and even dangerous? Isn’t it understood that democracy’s integrity must be upheld by journalism integrity?
If so, I see scant evidence of it.
UPDATE (9/12): Yesterday, Colbert’s third show, he finally did some Hillary jokes—the same ones I would have made, I think, especially the riff on the silly campaign announcement that she would be more spontaneous and funny. Ah, but Colbert contrasted Hillary with honest and authentic Joe Biden, who had a heart to heart with Colbert the previous night. Colbert has obviously chosen Biden as his horse, so Hillary no longer gets a pass. Biden, after all, is honest and authentic.
Now on to the sad spectacle of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
There was a time, in the Nineties, when Matthews was almost an even-handed pundit. That was long ago, however, and before he became a convert, either willingly or for cash, of the race-baiting, conservatives-are-creatures-of Satan, let’s-make-Palin-eat-shit MSNBC culture created by Keith Olberman, Al Sharpton and the rest. Though the old candid and semi-bipartisan Chris sometimes emerges, like those moments in “The Exorcist” when Pazuzu takes a break and Regan can be briefly heard and glimpsed, as when he observed that Obama unwillingness to directly engage with members of Congress was a crippling handicap for a President. (Do you think the words “HELP ME” are visible in raised flesh on Chris’s stomach? I wonder…)
Yesterday, Chris was getting an early start on minimizing one of Joe Biden’s glaring weaknesses (in addition to the fact that he is a dolt), his ugly sexual harassment hobby.
Cook Report editor Amy Walter was contrasting Biden’s “joy” on the campaign trail with Hillary’s discomfort, leading to this exchange (Thanks to Newsbusters, which watches MSNBC so I don’t have to; now if only someone less dishonest than Media Matters would keep an eye on Fox New for me):
AMY WALTER: There’s a joy level in campaigning that you see every day with him. I mean, my mother saw him when she was in South Carolina. He kissed her on the lips. All right? She said, I’ve never had a candidate, I didn’t know him.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: That’s a very Philly thing.
WALTER: It is, but it’s one of those things, where she, I never met him before, but it felt like, okay, well, there we go.
MATTHEWS: My relatives, I know all of them. Nothing wrong with it. It’s just very direct and very loving.
No, Chris, it’s called assault, and there’s a lot wrong with it. As I have mentioned here before, I had to take tough measures to stop the rich, arrogant, horny, Biden age male members of a major lawyers association from molesting my young female staff members at conventions….by kissing them on the lips to be “very loving.” It wasn’t “very loving,” it’ was entitled male power stuff, abusive, demeaning, and offensive. Biden, to be blunt, is a letch. His randy grandpa act would never be tolerated on MSNBC from a Republican. The network would have Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz or Sanda Fluke on with Rachel Maddow in a trice, talking about the “War on Women.”
MSNBC, that ultra-feminist, Black Lives Matter progressive noise machine, won’t even call out a Democrat when he’s engaged in blatant sexual harassment and disrespect for women. As Hillary’s deficits as a candidate become increasingly clear, the news media is already trying to deceive the public about her most viable competition, even if it means telling men that smooching women without their consent is cool–“loving.”
This is no way to run an election, a democracy or a culture.
Ethics Alarms 
One of the things I’ve been happy to learn is that our current sexual harassment laws actually work quite well. It seems to me that our workplaces have excellent protections in place against lecherous behavior.
How sad, then, to learn that these protections don’t seem to cover the halls of power.
Please explain the danger.
The importance of a vigorous and independent press was emphasized by the founders as core to a functioning democracy. A press that is in the control of one party, which is what the left-leaning media of the 1960s is rapidly deteriorating to, threatens to turn a real democracy into a sham one. The last election, I would say, is the bird dying in the mine, an example of that threat being realized and a warning, with the deterioration of racial relations and law enforcement, as well as the loomimg Iran deal showing the consequences when real, yes, dangerous leadership deficits are masked and withheld from public comprehension by a complicit press to ensure an undeserved election. Obama’s administration’s corruption and incompetence was denied honest coverage, while the news media worked to misrepresent Romney’s record and character.
Short version: Ask police widows.Iraq, Syrian refugees and Israel what’s dangerous about it.Ask someone whose life was hacked thanks to the GSA’s ineptitude under a political hack.
The Syrian refugees are about to get a big, heaping dollop of coverage as the latest oppressed people that we in the west have an obligation to help, even open our homes to. No one in the press gave a damn about Syria while there was an honest-to-goodness civil war going on, except perhaps to point up how smartly Obama handled it by drawing a meaningless red line, but now that there is a new wave of non-Western people seeking that we in the west share our good fortune to help them, suddenly it’s a very big deal, especially after that picture of the dead kid on the beach, which was pure journalistic gold.
What is the press’s agenda?
Attack the Republicans and conservatives or make them look like idiots, support and when necessary whitewash the democrats and liberals, and play up or bury whatever is necessary to achieve those 2 goals.
In a word, Steve, power. The media’s agenda is to get and keep far-left liberals in power, because the humanity and compassion of the far left is far better that the emphasis on self-responsibility preached by conservatives.
Yeah, I think the American public is probably getting exactly what it deserves. It’s certainly getting what it supports.
So the fact that he DIDN’T mock Hillary on his first night speaks volumes to you? He has a million shows to do — I assure you he will mock Hillary.
How many times do you lambaste people here who criticize you for not covering certain ethical hot topics? What’s good for the goose …
He had Jeb Bush on the show his first night — and it was a super friendly interview. The message he was clearly sending is that he is shredding his old persona — which was an acting gig in the first place. Sheesh.
Hillary and her “troubles” are huge news and ripe for comedy right now. Not mentioning it is the equivalent of not mentioning Sarah Palin in the last months of 2008.
Any other politician who had lied to the level Hillary has would have long ago been cut to ribbons. But because Hillary is the chosen one of the media (though at least part of the industry is having second thoughts as Uncle Joe warms up in the bullpen), all references to her MUST be profoundly serious.
Nah. It’s old news and she’s boring — not ripe for comedy at all. She’s ripe for critique, and rightly so, but comedy? Yawn.
Yup, starting with “Her Thighness” and her increasingly ugly and haggard appearance, plus her stumbling all over herself during the 2014 campaigns. We Cold War vets could easily compare her to the mausoleum of Lenin in Red Square, where the corpse got better and better looking.
That kind of comedy isn’t funny IMO. Similarly, I detest the Krispy Kreme jokes thrown at Gov. Christie.
Oh please. That ranks right up there with “some of my best friends are…[choose your disliked group.]” Frankly it isn’t comedy, it’s attack couched in humor, and satire, invective, parody, etc., are all useful methods of attack. Now, that said, going after someone based on their appearance is neither pleasant nor polite, but it CAN be effective if it takes away from their credibility, if it creates an image that pops into people’s heads when they hear the person’s name.
I will also admit that it is something of a lazy approach to substantive issues. By that, I mean that Hilary’s age, health, and mental acuity are all legitimate issues for discussion, as they should be for any candidate. However, those who support her want to prevent such a discussion, and those who oppose her know they can’t really have a substantive discussion when they are opposed by cries of “sexist” at every turn, BUT, throw out a meme or a slogan that portrays Hillary as a dried-up old hag, and maybe they plant enough suspicion in a few minds to turn off a few more voters to her.
Jack has to have a name for the rationalization you just spouted.
It’s just Tit for Tat (“They had it coming”) as well as the oldest ethical fallacy: “The ends justify the means.”
The orange pantsuit lying presser? The fact that reporters have only a small window of time and questions that they must march in lockstep and only ask certain things? The wipe with a cloth idiocy? The grandma tweeting out inane “cool” references to appeal to college kids? Huma’s 33 thousand dollar windfall from the State Department, enabled by Hillary, that her Weiner “husband” didn’t tell her about because Huma and Hillary are such empowered feminists they rely on their husbands to keep their finances straight? And these are just off the top of my head.
That’s before we even resurrect the stuff from ol’ Bill’s time in the White House, since her time would be in a lot of ways a repeat. “Swallow the leader,” “presidential staff,” and so on, anyone?
No Hillary jokes yesterday, either. But Trump with the KKK got all the ink.
I’ll give him credit for telling Bush that he’ll never vote for him; at least that’s transparency.
Surely you don’t think Colbert will abandon his anti-Republican/conservative perspective when it 1) was his persona for so long and 2) when it got him this job? The progressive audience, perceived to be younger, was what CBS was looking for, and that’s what they are sure to get.
A premiere is important; it sets the tone and makes promises. What Colbert promised was that he won’t be challenging Democrats. All the Bush interview demonstrated was that he would not duplicate the faux-Colbert routine of making conservative guests look like idiots. (or, if they are idiots, expose them as such.) It was a good way to do that, also low risk. A friendly interview with someone who possessed the rhetorical gifts to parry Colbert would have also sent a message, one I could respect.
If Colbert wanted to signal that he would be a bipartisan critic, hitting Obama, Hillary (or even Bernie) would have been the way to do it. (The fact that he didn’t have the guts to make an Obama joke is even more telling, really.) He didn’t, it was intentional, and it was disappointing, if not surprising.
Maybe when he feels like he’s established in that slot, he’ll broaden his field of vision and perspective.
I just saw this: Joe Concha (and Laura Ingraham) making essentially the same observations I did about Colbert’s premiere. They legitimately noticed that something taht should have been there wasn’t. Yeah, they were primed to, because they don’t trust Colbert. Democrats weren’t bothered that Hillary didn’t get the slamming she has earned (and the laughs) because they don’t want her to be attacked. You’re the one exhibiting confirmation bias here, not me: I predicted she would be left alone, and she was left alone. I didn’t imagine it, and I’m not imagining that it’s significant.
If this scandal broke last week, he would have covered it. But the email problem has been ongoing for many, many months. He wants to appear to be timely.
BTW — I personally have strongly criticized HC for the email fiasco here AND I’m not even a fan of Stephen Colbert. So no confirmation bias here.
We shall see.
Hillary’s insipid apology was in the news the same day. That’s not mock worthy? He (and others) still gets huge laughs for Bush, Cheeny, Sarah Palin references. That’s timely? I’ll bet we see references to any of the above before we see any Hillary mocking.
Well, even Trump. Trump on that day was news? he had done nothing newsworthy, just the usual. Hillary went on TV sounding like she had overdosed on Zanax. (My wife thinks she was drugged.)
How much do they dare drug her? She needs to be able to carefully follow the scripted plan so she doesn’t say something that wildly contradicts previous lies otherwise she won’t know what is is.
To your point about Biden, it’s a Democratic pastime to play the favorite child with people of sufficient standing. We don’t get to pretend otherwise anymore, Biden might be the master of the inappropriate touch, but by feminist definitions, Bill Clinton raped women, and so long as he championed policies that were good for women, you won’t hear a peep from the militant feminists who would otherwise crucify a man for what he did. It’s almost theatre: You’re a sexual predator in office? Well… Support VOWA, say three Hail Marys and we’ll call it a day.
Yup.
Bullseye.
Yup.
So he did mock Hillary last night… but it was only a softball joke about her chameleon-like flip-flopping, not her scandals.
I just added this to the post…
UPDATE (9/12): Yesterday, Colbert’s third show, he finally did some Hillary jokes—the same ones I would have made, I think, especially the riff on the silly campaign announcement that she would be more spontaneous and funny. Ah, but Colbert contrasted Hillary with honest and authentic Joe Biden, who had a heart to heart with Colbert the previous night. Colbert has obviously chosen Biden as his horse, so Hillary no longer gets a pass. Biden, after all, is honest and authentic.