Matthew Dowd

Welcome To Masterpieces Of Bad Analogy Theater…Today’s Featured Performer: Matthew Dowd! [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Matthew Dowd is one of an elite group of pundit grifters who pretend to be conservatives or Republicans so progressive propaganda news networks can put them on panels for “balance,” deceiving viewers into believing that their consistent agreement with the Left’s talking points arises from fair and objective analysis. It’s a small but growing group encompassing the cynical members of the Lincoln Project as well as the shamelessly Trump-deranged Jennifer Rubin, the pathetically intellect-challenged ex-RNC chair Michael Steele, and Ana Navarro, who demonstrates her uselessness by not walking off the set of “The View” muttering, “Life’s too short to waste hanging around idiots like Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin.” Dowd is smarter and more credentialed than any of them (faint praise, I know), which makes his act even more unethical than theirs are.

On one of many—with many more to come I’m sure—MSNBC “do something!’ panels on gun control in the aftermath of the most recent Texas shooting, Dowd offered this brilliant analysis:

“Three children died from lawn darts. They banned lawn darts after three children died from lawn darts. Texans will record 4,000 gun deaths or more this year as we move forward in this. And so, yes, it’s frustrating, it’s incredibly disappointing, but we have get to a place where it gets to anger and then anger motivates us to action.”

Anyone who compares laws darts with guns is either a fool or a liar. I’ve listened to Dowd for many years; he’s no fool. He knows damn well that this is a stupid and misleading analogy, but he is trying to convince people whom he knows are gullible and easy to mislead. Lawn darts were toys, a game. They were marketed to parents for their children, and were absurdly dangerous. Toys are never supposed to kill anyone, and three deaths from a lawn game was two too many. Ever hear of someone being killed playing croquet? Badminton?

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From The “O What A Tangled Web We Weave When First We Practise To Deceive” Files: Matthew Dowd, Double Agent

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Dowd gotcha

Mainstream media has long relished the unethical tactic of employing alleged Republicans and conservatives as “balance” on their biased panels, when the individuals are really integrity-free chameleons, ready to change colors for a buck. It’s a particularly odious trick: the audience is led to believe that because the particular talking head is criticizing his or her own “side,” the typical majority of partisan Democrats and progressive shills in the discussion must be “right.” CNN’s dim-bulb anti-Trump hack Ana Navarro is one of these double agents (but she’s Hispanic and female, so her obvious deficits don’t matter); Jennifer Rubin, the Washington Post columnist who is now MSNBC’s go-to guest when character assassination of a GOP leader is required, is another. Kellyanne Conway’s husband George also is on the list.

Matthew Dowd is in a special category. He was a ruthless Bush political operative who found a lucrative new gig by playing the “Once Evil Republican Who Has Seen The Light,” usually on ABC. Recognizing the power of the cognitive dissonance scale as W’s popularity declined, Dowd became the alleged conservative voice on TV policy panels that somehow always agreed—anti-Bush, pro-Obama, anti-Trump.

Now he’s announced himself as a candidate for lieutenant governor of Texas…what’s this? As a Democrat? But…but… all these years we’ve been told that Dowd was a Republican! That’s how we knew his criticism of other Republicans was sincere! What’s going on here?

Dowd expected a friendly softball interview when he went on CNN’s “New Day” yesterday to discuss his candidacy. After all, he’s a Democrat. To his shock and awe, co-host Brianna Keilar used the opportunity to out the opportunist. It had been reported that Dowd, no fool he, had deleted 270 thousand messages on Twitter before announcing his party flip-flop and quest for office. Gee, why would he do that? It’s a mystery! So Keilar decided to press him on it…

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Late-Starting Week Ethics Warm-Up, 9/3/2019: Why We Have Fake News

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

A post-Labor Day mess in San Francisco…

Good morning!

1. Why we have fake news, Part A: “Journalists just make stuff up.” From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

A survey of American Jews showed continued disapproval of President Donald Trump, with anti-Semitism high and Israel low on the priority list for Jewish voters. The survey, conducted for a liberal-leaning Jewish organization, the Jewish Electorate Institute, by Greenberg Research, which does polling for Democratic candidates, showed 71 percent of likely Jewish-American voters disapprove of Trump and 29 percent approve, commensurate with polling since Trump’s election…The survey released Wednesday of 1,000 Jewish voters nationally was taken between May 6 and 12, and is consistent with past polling of a constituency that leans strongly Democratic…The poll showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s favorable/unfavorable score as 45/38. Netanyahu used to score high approval among American Jews, but his sustained clashes with Obama on Palestinian and Iran policy, and his closeness to Trump appear to have eroded American Jewish support.

Gallup:

….Our aggregate from January through August of this year shows a 29% Trump job approval rating among Jews, with 69% disapproval….

Now here’s ABC News Chief Political Analyst Matthew Dowd on Twitter:

Dowd is just citing statistic pulled out of the air, apparently. How can anyone trust these people? Continue reading →

The Trump Administration Is Treating The Mainstream Media As “The Opposition Party”? Good: That Is Exactly How It Has Been Behaving.

/ Jack Marshall / 75 Comments

post-biasPresident Trump refused to give  MSNBC’s reporter a question  during yesterday’s press session with Benjamin Netanyahu,  so MSNBC’s Peter Alexander complained on the air later that the conservative journalists the President did call on didn’t ask “real questions” like he would have.  Of course, if anyone can find a single instance of Obama-bootlick MSNBC ever asking critical questions of President Obama, please pass it along.  MSNBC’s coverage of Trump’s presidency  began with dead-eyed Rachel Maddow intoning to her Angry Left audience that no, the election returns weren’t a nightmare, they were real. On  Inauguration Day, Maddow compared Trump’s election to “Hitler’s rise.”  Chris Matthews called the new President’s inaugural address  “Hitlerian,” and compared his family to the Romanovs. Nice.

The tone hasn’t softened. Yesterday, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” announced that Kellyanne Conway was banned from the show. Conway is an embarrassing and untrustworthy shill, but similar conduct did not provoke any news organization from banning,say, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose penchant for Jumbos in defense of the Obama administration should have guraranteed employment with Ringling Bros.

CNN reporters were similarly indignant. “In the last three news conferences, Wolf, all of the questions to the American news media have been handled by conservative press, and I think, Wolf, there’s no other way to describe it but the fix is in,” said Jim Accosta. What he means is the  mainstream media’s fix is being foiled, but never mind, Jim, stick to the battle plan. His network  ran a report about a pure rumor that the President had used the services of a prostitutes during a trip to Moscow. Actions have consequences.

Over at ABC,  Matthew Dowd  made the legally incompetent argument that by not calling on the news organizations that have declared war on his Presidency, embraced fake news and Big Lies, Trump is “shutting down” the First Amendment. ABC permitting outright false and misleading claims like that from its pundits is reason enough to stick it in the “junk journalism” pile. ABC, CNN, MSNBC and the rest are as free as birds to continue broadcasting their slanted coverage designed to bolster the Left’s efforts to frighten and anger the public and undermine the elected President. But no Bill of Rights provision requires the government to support the myth that biased journalists are trustworthy.

The media’s coverage of the Flynn resignation  was a disgrace for the mainstream media, a true orgy of bias and Trump paranoia.  MSNBC’s Hardball guests Tim Weiner and Malcolm Nance equated the speculated ties between the Trump administration/campaign and Russia to “the most politically charged counterintelligence investigation since the Soviets stole the secret of the atomic bomb.”Nance opined,

“I think that this scandal is unique in all of American history. This would be the equivalent of the British, you know, running Abraham Lincoln or actually funding Jefferson Davis to take over the United States. This is — there has never been anything like this!” 

Chris Matthews just nodded along. Even though this was an opinion (from guests he recruited to give it), a responsible host has an obligation to say, “I’m sorry, but that is a ridiculous and unfair comparison.” Matthews, back when he infuriated Democrats by occasionally being non-partisan, used to throw guests off his show for such fact-free slander. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Week: Matthew Dowd, ABC Political Analyst On “This Week”

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Ginger Rogers + Swing Time

“[Hillary] is judged — she is judged a little bit, I have to say, all of the controversy surrounding her and they’re both — Donald Trump and her, she’s judged a little bit on a Ginger Rogers standard, which is, is that the bar is so low for him. I mean, Ginger Rogers, the famous like she did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in heels.”

–—Matthew Dowd, ABC News political analyst, during today’s “roundtable” discussion on ABC’s “This Week” regarding the various scandals and controversies keeping Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers within striking distance of Donald Trump.

1. See, what did I tell you? It’s starting already. As with Obama, the news media, taking the lead from Democrats and feminists, will shamelessly use accusations of bias to argue away any and all legitimate criticism of Hillary Clinton as a manifestation of sexism. Boy, am I sick of that; everyone should be. It is a cheap, destructive tactic, designed to suppress opposition. And to have the gall to do this in the wake of the FBI notes showing a Presidential candidate either lying her head off or confessing utter incompetence, ignorance and stupidity…how insulting to viewers. Continue reading →

“House of Cards” Ethics: Why Should We Believe TV Journalists and Pundits Have Any Integrity When They Don’t Value It Themselves?

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Safer interviews "President Frank Underwood." Morley, Morely, Morely...

Safer interviews “President Frank Underwood.” Morley, Morely, Morely…

The third season of “House of Cards,” a Netflix series about the corruption in Washington, continues to corrupt real Washington journalists and talking heads. On the third season  episode I just watched, “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” was drawn into this alternate universe (or Hell) and George, along with regular panel members Donna Brazile and Matthew Dowd, rendered trenchant if predictable opinions about fictional President Frank Underwood with exactly as much passion and certitude as they do when they aren’t just playing themselves, but being professional analysts whose job it is to objectively enlighten the TV news audience. With that, they joined CNN’s John King ,Candy Crowley,and Carol Costello, Soledad O’Brien, now with Al Jazeera America, NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Fox’ Sean Hannity, CBS’s Morley Safer of “60 Minutes,”  and Matt Bai as “House of Cards” journalist/actors. I’m sure I missed a few. The mystery is why none of these journalists (and whatever Sean Hannity and Brazile are) don’t hear ethics alarms ringing when invited to sully their already dubious credibility (they are in the news media, after all), by showing themselves reporting and commenting on fiction exactly the way they are seen reporting on reality. Brian Rooney, a media critic who writes “The Rooney Report,” states succinctly what’s the matter with this:

“The trouble with journalists appearing as themselves in entertainment is that the public already has difficulty discerning fact from fiction in the news. Reporters and news organizations survive on truth and trust. Readers and viewers need to believe what they are told so they can make informed decisions. When real reporters allow themselves to be part of fiction, the trust is shattered. They do it with a wink, like they are in on the joke, but it costs them their credibility.”

Well, it would cost them credibility, if they had any. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day on “Comment of the Day on ‘The Perils Of Over-Regulating The Police: A Case Study'”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Robocop

Stephen Mark Pilling contributes the second consecutive Comment of the Day providing perspective on the issue of police militarization, in response to the first. Here is his Comment of the Day to the post (by dragin_dragon, which you should read first if you haven’t yet), Comment of the Day on “The Perils Of Over-Regulating The Police: A Case Study”

When critics speak of the “militarization” of the police, not all are looking at it from the same viewpoint. Some are, of course, sociopathic or are conspiracy theorists. Some have swallowed the loudly flaunted concept that policemen are evil racists, corrupt ward healers in uniform or just about anything heinous, as they represent law as an absolute, not a relative.

There is a rational based distrust, however. Many of us grew up in a time where the police still walked a beat or patrolled his neighborhood in a squad car, armed with nothing more than a revolver. We’re also the product of an old tradition of law enforcement that stems from the British mold. Unlike the continental European system of paramilitary gendarmes, we adapted a system of localized lawmen, run by an elected county sheriff. The metropolitan police department is still a relatively new phenomenon, started in late 19th Century London.

To many citizens, police who are unaccountable to a directly elected chief and who sport automatic weapons strike a sour note. But recently, people have been seeing them acquiring armored vehicles, military assault training and a tendency to wearing black uniforms. They’ve also noted an increased likelihood of these tactics and weapons being utilized and the increased incidence of “no knock entries”. Likewise, citizens have been imaging police making arrogant idiots out of themselves and caused other cops to become ever more touchy about cell phones, whether they’re right or wrong.

These and other factors have been serving to create a gap between the citizens and the police. That’s never a good thing, of course, because that trust is vital in a free society. Citizen distrust only deepens when they perceive policemen in whom this sense of civil mastery is full blown. As a former military cop, as a private citizen and as a friend or relative of a lot of civilian cops, I’ve seen all this from different angles. I’ve also seen the divide deepen in recent days.

One small note. The funding of police units on all levels directly from federal sources coincides with the worry by many that state and local police units may be more or less within the pocket of federal departments. The actual militarization of once innocuous federal police units and the memory of Obama’s projected National Civilian Defense Force has resulted in fear that this is an intentional part of a program to create an instrument of oppression. For myself, I highly doubt that any street cops would lend themselves to some “martial law” based takeover of the homeland of America. What I’m not sure of, though, is how many in higher authority have not conceived of the notion and would execute it if they could.

Again; it’s vital that the bonds of trust be strengthened between the police departments and those law abiding citizens whom they “serve and protect”. They must never- ever- be heard to make disparaging remarks about “civilians”, as that only deepens the gulf. In the Army Military Police Corps, the official motto is “Of the troops and for the troops”. It’s a good motto. It should also carry over to every local police or sheriff’s department in America. “Of the citizens and for the citizens”. Policemen who embrace that attitude will seldom go wrong. Both they and the communities they serve will benefit.

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Comment of the Day on “The Perils Of Over-Regulating The Police: A Case Study”

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

militarization

ABC News Political Analyst and former Bush advisor Matthew Dowd said on ABC’s This Week  that the recent cases of police violence involving unarmed African Americans were as much due to the militarization of police forces as race.

“We basically dress up officers as if they’re machines,” Dowd said. “And then we expect them to act like human beings. So what happens is, they confuse power with force. Most of the officers in this country do a great job. But when we militarize our police force and dress them up like machines, they act like machines.”

Technically, he was right: there is no evidence that those tragedies were caused by race or militarization. He had exactly no evidence or documentation that the “militarization of police” caused these deaths, or that alleged militarization has caused any deaths. This appears to be emerging conventional wisdom, just one of those things someone says and everyone nods in agreement with no real thought. Why is the so-called “militarization” of police forces such a threat or cause to distrust police? If police are not trustworthy, that’s a reason not to give them fire-power, but having more fire-power doesn’t make them less trustworthy. It simply makes it more important than ever that police be well trained and responsible.

I was preparing a post about this emerging theme as an example of bias, in this case, pre-existing anti-police bias, being translated into false and discourse-warping assumptions by activists and the police when stalwart commenter dragin_dragon delivered this, the Comment of the Day, on the post The Perils of Over-Regulating the Police: A Case Study:

Police departments have been quasi-military for many years, and it has not seemed to hurt their ability to enforce the law. As early as 1974, Austin, Texas P.D. referred to it’s officers on patrol as “the troops”. S.W.A.T. units have traditionally used what they thought of as “Military” weapons, tactics and mode of dress; never mind that a properly trained infantry squad could and would wipe them out in minutes. Note, also, that most states and/or cities ban the mounting of weapons on the surplus (obsolete) armored and tracked vehicles or helicopters. They do NOT ban a man carrying a weapon being mounted on those vehicles. I also point out that many police officers are ex-military so are bringing to the job an environment with which they are already familiar. Rank structures are similar, and the police in the United States, at least, carry weapons, perhaps as a holdover from the Old West, perhaps not.

Given the rise in crime rates (see Chicago, Detroit), many of these escalations of Police equipment and training are needed. This became evident a number of years ago when a Los Angeles bank robbery went south and the robbers began shooting at the converging police with automatic (not the semi-automatic versions described as automatic, but rock-and-roll full automatic) assault weapons. The out-gunned police (9 MM pistols and shotguns) did the best they could and, like Israel, vowed “Never again”. Strangely enough, many in the National Media agreed, at the time. So, what we are referring to as the “Militarization” of the Police is being undertaken for 2 reasons: 1) to provide a higher likelihood that the officers will get to, at the end of the day, go home to family, and 2) so that the public, which they are sworn to protect and defend, will also, at the end of the day, get to go home and family.

Does this increase the likelihood that a perpetrator may not make it to trial? Quite likely. Do I care? Not so much. As I am sure will be pointed out repeatedly, death tends to be relatively final, with no appeal. And, after all, the most dangerous criminal has the right to due process. Unfortunately, crime, violent crime, is not something one does accidentally. It requires a conscious decision, often along with a misplaced almost arrogant sense of invincibility. Getting shot, and probably killed is the most natural consequence in the world of that attitude. Ask Michael Brown. Like it or not he jeopardized the well-being of an armed police officer, apparently arrogantly disregarding the consequences of his behavior and, quite probably putting the officer’s life at risk. I am assuming that Wilson, like many police officers these days, was wearing a very militaristic bullet-proof vest under his shirt, but, since Ferguson is a fairly poor community (and rapidly becoming poorer) possibly not, so he might have been better off if Brown had shot him, first. At least he would still have a job.

All this is by way of saying that militarization of departments is not necessarily a bad thing. The use to which the training and equipment is put may be a bad thing, but I have not seen, in any report, any attempt to oppress or exert Nazi-like control over the citizenry. So, am I in favor of the “Militarization”? You bet. I am in favor of anything that makes it more likely that they will be able to survive the work day. And make no mistake, that is always a question for a police officer, just like it is for the combat soldier. Am I also in favor of more and better training? Also, you bet. Need I repeat? And the management, or “command” element of the police need to be taught How and When to use the equipment and training.

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