Morons, You Are the Press

Over Labor Day hanging out with family, after talking about all the Olympics I watched over the two weeks, someone asked what I was doing to fill that void and really the Democratic and Republican Convention in back to back weeks to fill my around the clock coverage fix because politics are like sports to me to the point that on election nights I pick up a twelve pack, park on the couch and watch the results come in.

Of course when I say I watched the convention, I only watch talking heads talk about everything and nothing at all talking over basically anyone who hadn’t previous run for president before. I want to hear Bob Casey instead I am stuck listening to some nut job analyzing Hillary Clinton’s body language. I ended up watching most of the RNC on C-Span just so I could watch it unfiltered.

Maybe it was all the long hours, but there is issue after issue of the press being unprofessional, and there was no one more unprofessional than Keith Olbermann who sounded like Gus Johnson during March Madness after Barack Obama’s speech, even admonishing an Associated Press writer, not for being factorially incorrect, but for not calling the speech a symphony instead calling it bland and just the same speech every Democratic nominee has given.

On the other hand the only thing missing from his commentary the next week was the Debbie Downer soundtrack. After everyone was glowing over Sarah Palin’s speech, all Keith had to say was that Abraham Lincoln didn’t created the Republican Party (cue the Debbie Downer look). Hey moron, you open any high school history book and it will tell you that he was the first Republican, and you are just nick picking with that. Of course there is probably a reason Olbermann was stuck by himself in New York, because while in Denver both Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough publicly mocked Keith on air at different times (which isn’t the first time, Scarborough once said Olbermann was “too stupid to be on TV” live on air).

Then Olbermann had the audacity to rip into the Republicans for showing a tribute to 9/11. This would have been like Bill O’Reilly saying that the Democrats were exploiting Martin Luther King Jr. For showing a tribute to him at the DNC. What’s worse is that this came a week after Keith laughed when Michael Moore said on his show that God must be a Democrat because Gustav was starring down on New Orleans days before their convention. So let me get this straight Keith, honoring the brave men and woman who lost their lives during one of the worst attack in American near its anniversary: tacky, implying that God is going to kill Americans to disrupt the RNC two year after one destroyed the same city: funny.

With that said, it is safe to assume I agree with the McCain campaign that the press has been unfair covering Sarah Palin. Case in point, they spent two days debating whether or not they were in fact bias and unfair. Naturally O’Reilly and Sean Hannity came to the conclusions that they were unfair. Morons, you are the press. But the press isn’t complete in the Obama camp as the McCain campaign would have you believe. I missed the first half of Obama’s speech because of the Brown’s preseason game, but NBC cut into the end of the NFL opening game to carry McCain’s speech. Granted preseason was most like an affiliate decision while the next week was the network’s.

There in lies the problem with modern journalism, there are more concerned with making the press than reporting the press which led to debating if they were or were not unfair. Not to the press, if you are talking about the press, you have failed. And these people are just plain lazy. All these shows do anymore is left some right wing nut job and liberal communist spout their talking points on a subject while us in the middle just sit there scratching are heads wondering what the real truth.

Anyone who is listed as a “Republican or Democratic strategist” should be banned from television. Or at the very least call them out when they do just go down their lists of talking point. Seriously, aren’t these guys tired of hearing Joe Trippi saying McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time five times per appearance. And since when does being 0-5 in presidential campaigns makes you a worthy commentator. Just once I would like some respond to that by asking either, “what time frame does that 90% include” or “name one piece of legislation that he sided with Bush” because lets be real, there are a lot of worthless bills Congress votes on like changing French Fries to Freedom Fries. Of course this is why Bush manages to have an approval rating three times that of Congress.

That is when host even invite, Olbermann, hasn’t had anyone on his tow in over two years that disagrees with him, is the second most partisan on television (Glen Beck would be the first). And when legitimate newsmen like Howard Fineman corrects Keith on his lies, Keith is right back to saying the same things the next segment. Yeah Bill O’Rielly is a humongous tool, but at least he invites people with different opinions than his on the show. Granted think he may just do this for the sole reason he has someone to yell at.

But I should applaud Chris Matthews for calling someone out on the crap. Rachel Maddow tried to repeat one of the many lies about Sarah Palin live on air when Matthews actually called her out on it asking her what her source was which she didn’t want to give up until Matthews pressed her four or five time when she finally got her information off the internet. Seriously, the internet was her source. If you get caught referencing the internet for a high school English class you get an automatic “F” on your paper. Yet if you use the internet as a reference on television, apparently you get your own show on MSNBC. But really, how entertaining is the MSNBC company picnic is every year. What does it say that Pat Buchanan gets along with the most people over there.

One thing I did not hear at all about the last two week from either the Democrats, the Republicans, or the press was our national debt which currently sits at 9.7 trillion dollar. $9.7 trillion and not a word about it. To put that in perspective if we paid it off today each American would have to pay $31,000. If you include the implicit debt (which is everything we own plus money we have already pledged to spend) that would come up to $53 trillion. And all these economic problems can be tracked back to the debt, it has destroyed the dollar leading high gas prices, that leads to high prices of consumer goods which leads to foreclosure and failing small businesses that ups the unemployment rate.

Sorry Keith, but this is why the Obama speech failed. His only way to bring in money was to tax the top five percent (which would put the death nail in all the small businesses), but unless that tax rate is 90%, it won’t put a dent into the deficit. And let us not forget, not only does he have no plan to bring in more money, he want to add to the debt by paying college tuition, health care, and other spending that could increase the deficit to the point we might as well be annexed by China we will owe them so much. And he want to give us a rebate, you know, because that worked so well when George Bush did that. (Obama: more Bush failed policies, see I can be a cable news commentator)

And about that free college, what ever happened to “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”? Obama is twisting that and is straight up bribing people to get off their butts to make the world a better. What kind of warped world do we live in when it was the Republican that actually channeled John F. Kennedy by imploring anyone who finds faults with the country to make it better by becoming a teacher, join the armed services, feed a hungry child, defend the rights of the oppressed and if you do so the country will be better and you will be happier.

Not that McCain gets off the hook on the deficit either. He didn’t propose any programs that would increase the budget ten fold like Obama, but he doesn’t have a plan that will put much of a dent into debt. Yeah his energy play should spur the economy if implemented properly and we need to put an end to needless earmarks, but even those are only increasing the debt by only a couple tens a millions a year. You know something wrong when someone says something like “only tens of millions.”

At the current debt I realistically cannot expect either candidate to get the debt erased by the second term let alone their first, but I would at least like to see a plausible pln to get the debt halved by the time they leave office. We are eighteen days away from the first presidential debate but it isn’t until the third that will be focusing on domestic and economic policy and hopefully the moderator Bob Schieffer peppers the candidates on the national debt. But I have learned not to expect much from the press.

In conclusion, I would like to say Go Brown!


Scooter Update 9/8: Apparently someone over at MSNBC read my diatribe because it was announced today that Keith Olbermamm has been yanked from anchor chair on further presidential events replaced by David Gregory. In a story by the New York Times they say, "Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams have told friends and colleagues that they are finding it tougher and tougher to defend the cable arm of the news division" with Brokaw saying Matthews and Olbermann have, "gone too far." (see: MSNBC Takes Incendiary Hosts From Anchor Seat). While on MSNBC.com's on website said, "Olbermann began to have difficulty keeping his opinions in check, or simply stopped trying." Oh, snap. Bt my favorite part is when they quoted John Stewart brought up MSNBC in an interview with Brian Williams:

"Is there no control?" Stewart asked him. "‘Is it ‘Lord of the Flies?’"

A sheepish Williams said that every family has a dynamic of its own.

"But does MSNBC have to be the Lohans?" Stewart said.

(see: New Roles for Olbermann, Matthews) Now I really want invited to the next MSNBC picnic.