You can tell that the media is liberal by looking at the Sunday morning political talk show lineups. On Face the Nation, Lindsey Graham is balanced by Evan Bayh. On Meet the Press, Orrin Hatch is balanced by Harold Ford. On This Week, Mitch McConnell is balanced by no one. On Fox News Sunday, Mitt Romney is balanced by no one. On State of the Union, Tom DeLay is balanced out by Chris Van Hollen and Brian Baird. Obviously, that means there are no progressives and, aside from Van Hollen, no mainstream Democrats. It’s extreme right-wingers matched up against the most ‘centrist’ Democrats in the business. The only person on any of these shows other than Van Hollen who will wholeheartedly defend the president’s health care plan is Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. That’s how they game the system against us.
The Republicans think that the media is liberal because the reporters believe in things like global warming and the value of the United Nations and the theories of evolution and plate tectonics. But, just because the media is educated and cares about world opinion doesn’t mean that they are helpful to liberal causes like avoiding senseless wars or extending health care accessibility to 30 million Americans. They’re not helpful. If they were, they’d have invited Raul Grijalva and Sheldon Whitehouse on their shows instead of Harold Ford and Evan Bayh.
Good News! President John McCain will NOT be on a show this weekend.
But a few progressives get on occasionally. Weiner, Grayson, Whitehouse. But rarely when the subject really challenges the status quo. Then only serious people are allowed.
has Grayson been on meet the press or face the nation? Has Weiner? And, in any case, they pick the shrillest, angriest progressives because they are self-marginalizing. Senators like Sherrod Brown and Tom Harkin get some play on cable, but rarely on Sunday morning. As for Franken, he’s deliberately trying to avoid being a media hound, as he is already well known as an entertainer and he wants to build cred as a serious pol.
Have they even invited Franken? I’d wager they haven’t. Especially since he’s against GE selling the NBC networks to Comcast.
Are those shows invitation only? Do progressive Dems even try to get on those shows? It seems to me that Republicans and centrists love running for the camera, while progressives don’t view it as part of their job description.
I’m curious why Al Franken doesn’t become a regular, surely he has the name power they like.
Amen. I’m more interested in the precise mechanism whereby elite consensus is enforced, but let’s never forget that these bootlickers were willing accomplices (if not co-conspirators) to the illegal war on Iraq and all it’s attendant war crimes.
Ask yourself, do you think cable producers were totally unaware of the epic, flagrant collusion between the pentagon and the media’s chosen uniformed “experts,” most if not all of them hip-deep in defense contracting firms? Of course not. They knew perfectly well, and if they cared they didn’t say a damn thing because their career was more important than defrauding the public.
Hence my mirth when HClinton called Iran a burgeoning “military dictatorship”. If they were smart the persian officers would do well to study america’s imperial masters.
As Woody Allen would say:
“it’s a travesty. It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.”
The good news is my Sunday mornings have been freed up for more than a year now.
you really nailed it with this one BooMan, thanks!
I hate to quibble but the Republicans know the media is not liberal, they own the media!
Outside of DC, I don’t know that these shows are relevant anymore. Most of the folks I used to talk to about the discussions on these shows don’t watch them anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if the audience was made up of progressives looking for the next outrage, Congressional staffs, party “strategists”, and businessmen (and I do mean men here) whose golf game got canceled.
OT, you might check out Plutonium Page’s front pager on dKos about the leader of an “Army of God” group called Repent Amarillo. The leader is a guard at a major nuclear weapons facility.
Not sure how the local Congressman feels about this homegrown terrorist being in a security guard position at this nuclear plant. The Congressman for the district is a Republican named Thornberry, and state Democrats could not find a challenger for him.
Domestic terrorism is a growing threat. Doubt the bobbleheads will talk about it.
ABC’S This Week has guest anchor Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney ’04 presidential campaign.
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Doud did a better job than I expected, especially considering the things that he says when he is not the moderator. I don’t watch Fox, CNN or Face the Nation. (Canceled cable to save $70 a month and never watch regular FOX, except last night for the President’s appearance on America’s Most Wanted)
The one that really irritates is Gregory. He challenges Dems and seldom challenges Repubs, and in an accusatory and disrespectful and demanding tone. His tone is totally unacceptable. Maybe he would rather be dancing with Rove?
If ABC actually hires Christiane Amanpour for This Week, it might even be a worthwhile program!
This appeared in my In Box this morning:
Yep, no problem finding something in there that “speaks to my beliefs”. Other than the Hoffer book, which I have read and is simply a scholarly work with no agenda, I don’t see much there but extreme right wing screeds.