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Banned
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You might discern that I have trouble accepting the L. Brent Bozell III/Ruppert Murdoch led, "noise machine" that manipulates less wary and curious voters into voting against their own best interests, time after time:
Quote:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0211/27/cf.00.html
CNN CROSSFIRE
Are Conservative Groups Setting the Agenda for Everyone's News?; The Future of Boxing
Aired November 27, 2002 - 19:00 ET
.......BEGALA: <b>Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. Al Gore says the right-wing media is nothing more than a bunch of shills that dutifully follow the Republican Party line.</b> The GOP spokesman promptly attacked Mr. Gore. And just to prove Gore right, the entire right-wing foam at the mouth, knuckle-dragging media pounced on Gore after taking the GOP's cue.
In the CROSSFIRE to discuss the latest dust-up, from San Francisco, KGO radio talk show host Bernie Ward, and in Seattle, radio talk show host and terrific film critic, Michael Medved. Guys, thank you very much for joining us.
CARLSON: Bernie Ward, I have a list of all the people in groups Al Gore has blamed for his defeat. Unfortunately, I left it in my office. But right off the top of my head...
BERNIE WARD, KGO RADIOTALK SHOW HOST: You and Joe McCarthy.
CARLSON: That's right, I have a list right in my hands. But my list...
WARD: Well I expect that from you, Tucker.
CARLSON: Well, thank you, Bernie. Here are a couple. The Supreme Court, his own staff, the right wing Republicans and now the press. It's kind of pathetic, you've got to admit.
WARD: Well, it's not pathetic if you actually read people like Danny Milbank, who said on Howie Kurtz' show on your network that they didn't like Gore, they thought he was preaching to them. They took great delight in knocking him down every chance they got. And Milbank talked for the entire media in the way they approached Gore throughout the entire election. So unless he was lying, Tucker, then, in fact, Gore was getting a raw deal while Bush, as long as he didn't drool and could tie his shoe, it was considered to be a great success.
CARLSON: Let me clarify this. Dana Millbank is a straight news reporter, White House correspondent for "The Washington Post." Let's be honest here. Nobody likes Al Gore. You know that and I know that.
WARD: Wait a minute. You can't it both ways, Tucker. You can't have it both ways.
CARLSON: No that's just (UNINTELLIGIBLE). No one likes him, Bernie.
WARD: The media portrayal did not give him a fair shake and you just agreed that he was absolutely correct.
BEGALA: Michael Medved, let me dare to bring Al Gore's own words into this. He said something I think so painfully obvious. Earlier in the show I likened it to observing there are a lot of tall guys in the NBA. Here's what Gore actually said.
"The media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major institutional voices that are truthfully speaking part and parcel of the Republican Party. Fox News Network, "The Washington Times," Rush Limbaugh. There's a bunch of them, and they're financed by wealthy, ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican administrations and the rest of the media."
I mean that's just stating a fact. You don't have a problem with that you, do you?
MICHAEL MEDVED, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I have a terrific problem with that, because he says these institutions are financed by wealthy, ultra-conservative billionaires, as opposed to only poor (ph) ultra- conservative billionaires.
BEGALA: Rupert Murdoch? MEDVED: Rupert Murdoch doesn't finance Fox News in the sense of operating at a loss. It's a very profitable operation. Rush Limbaugh is one of the most profitable operations in media history. They saw a market niche that wasn't being served and they went to fill it.
Now the proof that there's no agenda here is Rupert Murdoch also sponsors or created the Fox Network generally, and Fox Motion Pictures, which I can assure you, reviewing all that material, have no visible or discernable conservative or, for that matter, particularly liberal agenda at all. Unless you want to talk about "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Ally McBeal" as particularly liberal.
BEGALA: Let me get to this point that Bernie raised as well, which is how -- and Gore made this point in the interview, which was in the "New York Observer" that came out today -- how then this right wing critique, starting in places like Limbaugh and at the lard butt sort of end of things with Limbaugh, then kind of seeps its way into the mainstream? And let me show you the proof. This is the point that Bernie was making.
We had our -- my assistant, Josh Cowan (ph), who is a brilliant young man, look up on Lexus Nexus, comparing the mainstream media's coverage of Bush and Gore on a variety of issues. <b>Let me give you a few statistics.
There were exactly 704 stories in the campaign about this flap of Gore inventing the Internet. There were only 13 stories about Bush failing to show up for his National Guard duty for a year. There were well over 1,000 stories -- Nexus stopped at 1,000 -- about Gore and the Buddhist temple. Only 12 about Bush being accused of insider trading at Harken Energy. There were 347 about Al Gore wearing earth tones</b>, but only 10 about the fact that Dick Cheney did business with Iran and Iraq and Libya.
That's (UNINTELLIGIBLE), Michael, isn't it?
MEDVED: Paul, it is not at all, because you're comparing apples and oranges. All those stories that you're describing are stories that Al Gore perpetrated during the campaign. It's things that he did in the public eye. Bush didn't have any TV cameras on him when he was in his National Guard training. You're talking about people digging in the distant past as opposed to things people do when you're vice president of the United States.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: It's called journalism. Don't you think we have a right to know if our president committed insider training, was AWOL from his National Guard duty? Or if the vice president wants to go to war with Iraq? He used to be doing business in Iraq. Isn't that more important than Gore's earth tones?
MEDVED: I kind of have noticed that you and your colleagues didn't have a problem particularly getting those questions out in general. It's part of the give and take of politics. The truth of the matter is, I think something that was said before is absolutely true. Yes, people in the media dislike Al Gore, but they've got a lot of company. Al Gore is a spontaneously, sincerely dislikable individual.
WARD: Jeez, an awful lot of people voted for him.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: More people voted for him than Mr. Bush........
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It's a lot like Nascar..... the folks who are sucked into the propaganda message.....<b>"347 [news stories ]about Al Gore wearing earth tones"</b>, actually pay for the broadcasts of foxnews and Rush Limbaugh, and the "research" on "liberal media bias" from MRC.org , via the advertising revenue that their "attentiveness" and "ditto-head" loyalty to these "media outlets", garner for the corporate owners.
Nascar is the only sport where the fans buy hats and outfits "festooned" with the corporate logos of the race car team sponsors, ingenuously transforming unwitting "fans" into walking sandwich sign-like, mini billboards for the sponsors, and the fans pay to do it!
Quote:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...6/ai_n14714919
......In addition to the millions of viewers who watch NASCAR races on television, the thousands of fans at the track are advertising targets. Sirius, and other sponsors, Rust explains, bring tractor-trailer product displays to show off their wares to the fans. <b>The clothing each driver's fans wear prominently displays sponsors' logos.</b> There are 43 drivers in each Nextel Cup race........
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Quote:
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:...s&ct=clnk&cd=2
April 24, 2005
NASCAR = Republican, but why?
— Brian Patton @ 8:32 pm
That is the question I have been asking myself a lot lately. Why do the thousands of NASCAR fans continue to support Republican candidates? The kneejerk, stereotypical answer is that “they are good ‘ole boys just like the Republicans” (I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a comment or two like that here). However, with NASCAR’s growth and expansion across the nation, it’s hard to imagine this answer still being correct, certainly not the whole story.
It is understandable, perhaps, that the NASCAR owners, drivers, and teams who make millions of dollars would be supportive of Republicans who promise to lower their taxes. However, the average NASCAR fan who makes considerably less than that is probably not interested primarily in a capital gains tax cut or the estate tax. Rather, it appears that the average NASCAR fan votes Republican based on just a few, non-economic issues.
From speaking with my NASCAR friends, it seems to me that most of them who support Republican candidates do so based on two main issues: abortion and gay rights. In other words, they are interested in candidates who are generally anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage. Additionally, a couple of those people also care a great deal about gun rights, the death penalty, and affirmative action, and would consider voting Republican on these issues.
During these discussions one of my friends brought up a good point, that most people who follow NASCAR have heard of the “fan loyalty” concept. This is the reason hundreds of sponsors are happy to pour millions of dollars into NASCAR: fans are phenomenally loyal to their favorite driver’s sponsor. .......
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I suspect that one difference between Karl Rove and I is that I am preoccupied with the question of how and why peopl "know what they think that they know", especially when it comes to examining and supporting my own opinions.....whereas Rove simply and masterfully exploits the fact that many people don't question their own opinions, to the point that Rove can simply build on their existing misconceptions.
Fascinating and tragic, as far as the effect of the "unquestioning", steadfast in their misconceived "convictions", complicated by the added influence on some, of religious doctrine.......voting "with Rove", and the implications that has on the direction of our country.
An indication is the apparent lack of perception, on the part of all who disagree with me, on any subject that I post about, that it is a good idea to test and validate opinions, by defending them.
The defense doesn't have to be to the degree that I do it, but some links and excerpts from non-partisan, corporate media news sources, such as from ABC, CBS, NBC, Rueters, AP, LA Trib, Chicago Trib., NY Times, the Wapo, or from Time or Newsweek, just to point the rest of us to what supports your politcal opinions, will enhance your credibility. We seem to be headed in the opposite direction....some posters have stopped posted any links to the article excerpts that they post at TFP.
If some of us receive most of our information from traditional news sources, and the rest of us choose to shun those sources, in favor of "alternative" news sources, can we even speak the same language, much less agree on any issue? I lay out almost all of my opinion influencing sources....yet, ironically, the responses that I receive, heavily question my credibility. The questioning generally comes from folks who don't disclose the sources that shape their opinions, or when they do, the sources are always from "alternative" sites that almost always display a mesage that labels the MSM as guilty of consistant "liberal media bias", and are mostly, unusually republican oriented. What is up with that? |