Keith Olberman the NEW Edward R. Murrow

[papaspot]

NO PERSONAL ATTACKS! THIS THREAD IS LOCKED!



hehe GOTCHA!!


Well...maybe not. We'll see, eh?

[snopes]

From Swake:

"My point is that you are not arguing the accuracy of his report"

Swake, that's an honest post so I'll try and respond. Since it's such a long article, I'll point out just a couple of things that stick out.

BTW. Just because I don't agree with his article in whole, doesn't mean that there aren't grains of truth in there somewhere. I just don't believe this guy is a true journalist and certainly not "the new Edward R. Murrow" as is inferred by the title of this thread.

Olberman: "It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back."

My Response: He starts off the article calling Mathews "A monkey posing as a newscaster." Hows that for good, hard, unbiased journalism? He also claims that Wallace "bullied and sandbagged" Clinton. I think any rational person watching that interview could tell who was the bully and who was the bully-er. As far as sandbagging, there were agreed upon rules prior to the interview; 5 questions about the Clinton Initiative, and 5 questions about whatever Wallace wanted to bring up. If anyone thinks Clinton is so dumb as to not think he would be asked about 9/11, then I've got some oceanfront property for them, just outside of Tulsa.

From the start, he wants to write off Bill Clinton's red-faced retort and focus on the "oh-so-difficult, biased, and unjustifiable" questions that Chris Wallace asked Mr. Clinton when in reality all Mr. Clinton was presented with was a question that could have been answered reasonably and without poking, prodding, and getting right up into the interviewer's face.

Olberman: He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.


My Response. If you'll read the article that I posted further back in this thread, it points out the inaccuracies in Mr. Clinton's version of things. Here's a link:

http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/DickMorris/092606.html

Oh, but yes, this article is from a biased political hack that doesn nothing but rail against the Clinton administration. The difference is that Dick Morris once worked for the President and helped to get him into office. If one prefers to use Keith Olberman as the voice of reason than I see nothing wrong with using Dick Morris' views as a counterpoint.

My point is that this guy is a very biased person and not a credible journalist. He exposes himself as such in the opening statement of his article. In my opinion, this guys is as much a hack for the Democrat party as Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannidy (sp?) are for the Republican party.

[iplaw]

Here is an article from Ornery written by Orson Scott Card about Bill Clinton in 2000 after the Cole, since we don't have a problem posting articles from political hacks and passing them off as authoritative.

The Blood on Bill Clinton's Hands
October 25, 2000

I watched the memorial service for those who died on the USS Cole, and my heart went out to the families left behind, the hopes and dreams forever dashed, the faith tested, the yearning for the lost loved ones.

It's the price of war.

We are at war, by the way. That's the thing that everybody seems to miss. This was not a terrorist attack. Those who planned the attack might also have planned terrorist attacks like the bombing of the U.S. embassies in East Africa, but this attack, at least, followed the rules of war.

They attacked a military target. They attacked soldiers in uniform. They achieved surprise, at the cost of their own soldiers dying in performing the mission. But if this had been an operation by, say, Navy SEALs against an enemy power, we would regard it as a successful and legitimate military operation meant to unsettle and demoralize the enemy.

So when our news media persist in calling the attackers "terrorists," that leads us to a dangerous mindset. It makes us complacent -- this is a matter for police, we think, because we're dealing with brutal criminals, and our goal should be to arrest them and bring them to justice.

But in war, your goal is not to arrest the enemy. Your goal is to destroy the enemy's will and capability to fight.

In war, you don't have a trial. You find the enemy, you bring superior force to bear, and you win however you can. That's what they're doing. It's insane that we're not taking them seriously.

Sending an unescorted ship to refuel in a port where any rational person would recognize dire and immediate threat -- that's like the Israeli military sending their tanks to gas stations in Syria for a fill-up.

But the fact that our soldiers were given their orders by stupid commanders is neither unusual nor relevant at a funeral for those who died from enemy action.

Lots of soldiers die because they are following stupid orders. You still grieve at their funerals and honor their sacrifice.

Then Bill Clinton stood up and spoke. Every word sounded false coming from the liar's mouth, but we've had that for eight years, during which time he was reelected once and missed being thrown out of office by the Senate, so apparently most Americans are content having slime all over everything. Somebody gave Bill his script, and he put his oil on it and let it slide past his lips. He's the guy who gets to wear the suit while we're waiting to find a real President, so we let him do his bit even on our sacred occasions.

So I was relatively calm until he actually dared to accuse those who carried out the successful military operation that killed our soldiers -- to accuse them of not valuing human life.

Bill Clinton? Accusing someone else of not valuing life? Of not having moral sensitivities?

I think it's time that we remembered Bill Clinton's track record on valuing human life.

Let's start with his utter disregard for the weeks and months of slaughter in Rwanda. A sovereign nation. An internal matter. The U.S. couldn't intervene. Might lose a U.S. soldier, and after all, it was just a bunch of tribesmen killing each other with machetes. We can't police the world, right?

Bosnia. Uh-oh. This time it was Serbia backing their co-"Christians" in the territory of a breakaway nation. We watched as they herded thousands of Bosnian Muslim men into a stadium. We knew they were going to murder them all. But once again, Bill Clinton did nothing. Not the policeman of the world, yadda yadda.

Rwanda and Bosnia showed the world that we have learned nothing at all since the Holocaust. It not only can happen again, it has happened, and we stood and watched.

Dying for Monica

But then something remarkable happened to Bill Clinton. Suddenly one day he wakes up and decides that intervening in foreign countries is a good idea. The embassy bombings in East Africa had made the U.S. look impotent and showed just how useless our intelligence agencies can be against a determined enemy that can strike anywhere. It was suddenly in our vital interests to retaliate. You know, the way Reagan bombed Libya to retaliate for terrorist acts that Khaddafi had sponsored.   FOOTNOTE

And there's suddenly a deadline for taking action. Clinton can't wait around for our intelligence services to determine who the bombers actually were. Because there's a matter of vital national interest that requires immediate action:

Monica's dress.

Got to have something on the front pages when the lab reports on the presidential sperm count. And those embassy bombings in East Africa are the perfect excuse. We've got to have the name of the perpetrators and we've got to take a big, splashy action against them.

So the missiles fly, the bombs drop, things blow up, and there's Bill Clinton, oiling his way through the explanation: It was this Osama bin Laden guy, and they were planning yet another imminent action and our bombs have definitely thwarted him.

Only there's one tiny problem. We didn't know where Bin Laden was, nor did we know anything about his plans.

Furthermore, our missiles and bombs were utterly useless and we knew it when they were fired. He's a guerrilla fighter, like Castro in the mountains of Cuba. We can't touch him with missiles.

So we bombed a medicine factory in Khartoum, with only the most ludicrous "evidence" that it was involved in chemical weapons production.

And we bombed "terrorist camps" in Afghanistan. Our intelligence was so bad that two of them turned out to be Pakistani-operated bases -- our allies -- and as for the ones that might have been associated with our enemies ... well, Mr. Bill tipped our hand by withdrawing nonessential U.S. personal from the area before sending the missiles. They had plenty of time to get out of the way.

So we achieved no surprise. If our missiles killed any terrorists or damaged any of their equipment, it was a lucky accident.

Of course, Mr. Bill and his apologists could claim complete success because, after all, there was an "imminent terrorist attack" and, after we fired all those missiles, the attack didn't happen!

That's like the old joke about the guy who walks along banging two pans together. "Why are you doing that?" "To scare the elephants away." "There aren't any elephants around here." "See? It's working."

There was no imminent terrorist attack. We did not know who set off those bombs in East Africa, and even if we had known, hitting those targets did not punish them in any way, did not prevent anything.

And here's what really sticks in my craw. People died from those bombs. Bill Clinton killed people in the name of the United States of America, for his own political gain.

Moreover, he grossly violated international law. He bombed the territory of two nations with which we are not at war. One is ruled by a hostile regime, and Afghanistan is barely governed at all. They may have provided shelter for those who attack us, but that doesn't change the fact that we have declined to declare war on them and do not have the right to simply bomb them whenever our president feels like it.

But for Bill Clinton, all that matters is that Sudan and Afghanistan are poor countries without the power to retaliate in kind. He could bomb them and kill people within their borders and blow up a plant that made medicine for half a continent, and nobody could do anything about it.

Only they can do something about it, can't they?

Killing Serbians

A few months later, the House was about to vote on impeachment. And guess what happens? Bill Clinton discovers that there is an emergency in Serbia which requires the bombers to fly yet again.

What was this emergency? Remember, this is the same president who thought that the murder of tens of thousands of Bosnian civilians was not worth so much as a single bullet. And now it isn't a fight between two nations. It's Serbia trying to deal with a revolution by an Albanian ethnic majority in the province of Kosovo. The Kosovar separatists have been assassinating Serbs and Kosovars whom they accuse of being collaborators. So far, however, the Serbs have been very restrained in their response (restrained, that is, for Serbs) -- only about fifty people are known to have died in the Serbian counter-revolutionary campaign up to that point.

And there was nothing happening that week that was different from the week before. No pressing emergency.

But there was that impeachment vote in the House ...

So our bombers flew. But they had to fly very, very high, because if Bill Clinton is anything, he's an absolute political coward -- he couldn't bear to face the possibility of even one U.S. pilot getting shot down. So our bombs fell from such a "safe" altitude that we were bound to kill civilians willy-nilly.

The Serbs took exception to this. They'd been trying to behave themselves (for Serbs), and hardly killed anybody in Kosovo, and now the U.S. was bombing them. Heck, nobody bombed them for killing tens of thousands in Bosnia! So if they were going to get punished like this anyway, they might as well go ahead and do the ethnic cleansing thing. Drive out all those Albanians and pretty soon, no Kosovo problem. Right?

Maybe the Serbs would have eventually gotten around to killing Albanian Kosovars or driving them out of Serbia. We'll never know. What we do know is, not only did the bombs Bill Clinton ordered kill Serbian civilians, they also provided the direct provocation or excuse for Milosevic to turn his boys loose on the Kosovar people. We know the results. The body count. The refugees. The destruction.

Months and months later, Serbia capitulated to our illegal bombing and allowed foreign "peacekeepers" to occupy their sovereign territory so that American bombers would stop killing people and wrecking their economy. I think the main lesson to be learned by other nations is:

When an American president is in political trouble, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Because the American President is the kind of man who kills foreigners in order to shore up his popularity with the American people. And as long as it's a liberal President who supports the right of women to kill their baby at any point before the head emerges from the womb, the American press will take his specious and obviously false excuses at face value and question nothing.

Those "terrorists" who bombed the USS Cole killed seventeen soldiers in uniform, and they gave their own lives to accomplish it.

They are our enemies, and we have a right to protect ourselves from them, and to honor and mourn for our soldiers who died at their hands.

But what Bill Clinton does not have the right to do is accuse them of having no regard for human life.

Clinton ordered bombings that killed hundreds of innocent civilians, and not in some noble cause, but solely to save his own political skin.

Add to those direct killings, done at his order, the deaths of thousands of others that he might have saved in Rwanda and Bosnia. But because he wasn't in danger of impeachment or political embarrassment at that time, he did nothing. Even if you don't find any of the blood of slaughtered Tutsis and Muslims on Clinton's hands, you have to admit that his inaction when they were dying utterly disproves any claim that he was intervening to save lives in Kosovo. He doesn't care about lives in Kosovo or anywhere else. He is what he accused them of being.

And Americans, when polled, say he's doing a "good job."

Indicting the Co-Conspirators

If America had a free press, of course, Clinton would have been politically destroyed after the bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan, months before he started killing people wholesale in Serbia. But we don't have a free press -- the American press is utterly controlled by, and mostly consists of, the ruling elite that gave us Bill Clinton in the first place.

You know, these are the people who give credence even to the most stupid and scurrilous rumors about George W. Bush, on no evidence at all, but who demand impossible levels of proof before they'll heed any accusation against Clinton.

Remember how they sniped at George Bush Sr. for the invasion of Panama?

Clinton killed a lot more people in Serbia, and achieved far less and took a lot longer doing it, but where was the sniping from the people who had loved peace so much only one president before?

Remember how radicals used to call Nixon a war criminal? I guess those guys are all too busy making money in Mr. Bill's boomtown to notice when we have a real war criminal in the White House.

Comparing Clinton and George Bush Sr.

When George Bush, our last real President, committed the U.S. to a foreign intervention, he:

1. Chose plans of action that protected civilians lives as the highest priority, and only afterward tried to protect American soldiers' lives.

2. Committed ground troops, because air attacks alone are incapable of achieving military objectives.

3. Risked his own political future completely with each intervention, because he regarded the interests of the United States as being more important than his own political survival.

4. Built consensus and assembled allies before taking military action. In Kuwait, he accomplished the incredible feat of getting European nations to commit troops and getting Islamic nations to cooperate with us in liberating a conquered Islamic nation. In Panama he had the cooperation of at least somewhat legitimate national leaders in getting rid of the tinhorn dictator who was running Panama like a personal fief.

5. Told us the truth about what we were doing and why we were doing it.

And remember Jimmy Carter? When he brought Israeli and Arab leaders together, his personal honor was part of the foundation on which a courageous man like Sadat could rely as he risked his life to build peace.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a president again?

The Longterm Cost

The trouble is, electing a real president to replace Mr. Bill won't undo the damage he's already done:

Legacy # 1. We now know that our absolutely partisan press will twist the news to preserve their own people in power, no matter what the cost. If a Republican president had done everything Clinton has done, the press would have hounded him out of office.

The double standard is firmly in place and continues today: Gore's lies are called "innocuous" or "irrelevant," while George W. Bush, who hasn't taken a drink in years, is ridiculed as a drinking, drug-using party boy. Bush, who has governed a difficult and divided state with remarkable effectiveness, is called "dumb," while Gore, who hasn't governed anything and changes personality with the polls, is considered "smart."

Only the Washington Times and Fox News ran with the story of Gore's secret deal with Russia to sell arms illegally to Iran and keep it a secret from Congress. Where is the liberal media? When they finally mention the story, I'll bet they spin it as an attack on the Republican Congress for "partisanship" -- even though Gore's signature on such a memo is prima facie evidence of a crime against the constitution, an offense that cries out for impeachment, except in the funhouse mirrors at the New York Times and the Washington Post.

No matter whom we elect, we still have the elitist press spinning everything with utter contempt for truth. Clinton was their boy; Gore is their kind of "leader"; they jeer at honorable men. And as long as all our journalists have to be passed through the filter of American journalism schools, I don't see how we're going to get a press that tells us the truth even when they don't like it.

Legacy # 2. Americans may pretend they don't know why Mr. Bill went a-bombing, but nobody in the rest of the world was fooled.

The Russian people had good feelings toward America, until we bombed Serbia illegally, killing their Slavic brothers for the crime of trying to keep control of their own territory ... and we did it to help Bill distract us from his well-deserved impeachment for the crime of oathbreaking.

And in Afghanistan, there were many who remembered how America helped them win their independence from the Soviet Union's attempt to rule them. But they saw that America was willing to violate their sovereignty and bomb their land ... for Monica's dress.

Hey, Mr. Bill! Thanks for the enemies!

Legacy # 3. Those in the Islamic world who already hated us now have far more support in their war against America. What Muslim now, however he might wish for peace, can seriously suggest that America is any kind of friend to any Muslim country? Clinton did not create our enemies -- he merely cut off our friends at the knees. Remember: When President Bush left office, our friends in the Islamic world knew we would stand by our allies. But America now chooses leaders whose word is worthless.

Which of our Muslim friends will dare to bet their future on American friendship now?

Legacy # 4. Mr. Bill made a hero out of Osama bin Laden. Monica's dress was the best thing that ever happened to him. Mr. Bill's most terrible legacy may be this: He has raised out of obscurity the charismatic leader who may be able to do what no other has been able to accomplish: unite Islam in holy war against us. When Muslims look at bin Laden, the man who can blow up American ships and laugh at American missiles, and at Bill Clinton, the man who kills foreigners and breaks oaths and plays sex games in the White House ... no wonder so many of them believe that God is on their side.

Legacy # 5. Our enemies everywhere have seen us revealed as cowards and bullies.

President Bush showed them that America would do whatever it took to roll back illegal aggression, and that America had the courage to put the lives of American soldiers at risk in order to do it.

But Clinton has shown them that Americans, after throwing out a strong president, will elect and reelect and continue to support an abject coward who will only do "safe" things like bombings from high altitude, and then only when it suits his political purposes. In 1991 we were viewed with respect even by our enemies. Now we are viewed with contempt even by our friends.

And when your enemies and your friends have contempt for you, the world is an infinitely more dangerous place. They now will dare what they would never have dared before, because they have seen how soft and selfish and scared we are.

Sound reminsicent of the crap being floated around about Bush now doesn't it?  Amazing how crazy it sounds when it comes from the "other" side about your guy.

[Conan71]

Orson Scott Card IS THE new Edward R. Murrow. [}:)]

/absurdity off

[rwarn17588]

You know, folks, you're assailing Olbermann for being "biased" when there's a prominent tag on the corner of the screen that says "Special Comment."

He also prefaces the speech by calling it a "special comment."

If you're doing commentary, that's when you show your biases and opinions. That's what a commentary is. OF COURSE it's biased.

I remember when a reader wrote Roger Ebert and asked him to leave his opinions out of his movie reviews. Ebert wrote back and said: "I will when you leave your opinions out of your letters."

Olbermann's a lot more transparent in what is news and what is commentary than Limbaugh, Hannity and other right-wingers you cite, who don't bother to make the distinction.

[aoxamaxoa]

IPLAW....garbage. Clinton admitted he failed. Dubyah never could do that. And Dubyahs' failures are much more damaging to our world's future than Clinton's errors.

This is a political forum. Do not take things personally here. That is just the nature of the forum.

rwarn, good post.

[iplaw]

quote:
Clinton admitted he failed.

So that makes it okay?  That makes him somehow LESS culpable.  NONSENSE.

What you two geniuses fail to COMPREHEND is that the OP was trying to compare Olbermann to Murrow.  You can't compare a political hack to a respected JOURNALIST.

quote:
Do not take things personally here.

I don't but the moderators here seem to.  If I had my way I would say much more than I do here especially to you aox...I hold back about 60% of what I have to say.

quote:
Olbermann's a lot more transparent in what is news and what is commentary than Limbaugh, Hannity and other right-wingers you cite, who don't bother to make the distinction.

Neither one of those individuals purports to be a journalist, ever. Apparently someone should clue Olbermann into the fact that he is NEVER one even part time.

No one is denying him the right to spout his childish, half-witted smear.  What I deny is that his views support REALITY as opposed to JUST his opinions.  Anyone who thinks 100% of what he said is true is a KoolAid drinking liberal stooge.

[iplaw]

quote:
And Dubyahs' failures are much more damaging to our world's future than Clinton's errors.

Really...not according to James Woolsey who was the director of the CIA under Clinton.

Bin Laden GATE

...bureaucratic feud and President Clinton's indifference kept America blind and deaf as bin Laden plotted.

Intel Failures

Face it.  The sword cuts both ways.  Both were responsible and merely saying "I failed" doesn't protect one from scrutiny.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

You know, folks, you're assailing Olbermann for being "biased" when there's a prominent tag on the corner of the screen that says "Special Comment."

He also prefaces the speech by calling it a "special comment."

If you're doing commentary, that's when you show your biases and opinions. That's what a commentary is. OF COURSE it's biased.

I remember when a reader wrote Roger Ebert and asked him to leave his opinions out of his movie reviews. Ebert wrote back and said: "I will when you leave your opinions out of your letters."

Olbermann's a lot more transparent in what is news and what is commentary than Limbaugh, Hannity and other right-wingers you cite, who don't bother to make the distinction.

Murrow came from the old school of un-biased journalism.  Comparing Olbermann, (or Limbaugh, or Hannity, or Franken) to Murrow is like comparing Mussolini to Mother Theresa.

[aoxamaxoa]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

You know, folks, you're assailing Olbermann for being "biased" when there's a prominent tag on the corner of the screen that says "Special Comment."

He also prefaces the speech by calling it a "special comment."

If you're doing commentary, that's when you show your biases and opinions. That's what a commentary is. OF COURSE it's biased.

I remember when a reader wrote Roger Ebert and asked him to leave his opinions out of his movie reviews. Ebert wrote back and said: "I will when you leave your opinions out of your letters."

Olbermann's a lot more transparent in what is news and what is commentary than Limbaugh, Hannity and other right-wingers you cite, who don't bother to make the distinction.

Murrow came from the old school of un-biased journalism.  Comparing Olbermann, (or Limbaugh, or Hannity, or Franken) to Murrow is like comparing Mussolini to Mother Theresa.

Here....I will pass this on....
Peggy Noonan normally makes mw want to slap her, but in this one... she concedes some nice points. A kinder gentler Peggy Noonan. Is she ill?

Media Anarchy Has Its Downside
We got freedom but lost standards.

Friday, September 29, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

We are talking past each other, the left and right in America. I suppose we always did, but I'm noticing it more. We have different intellectual styles (rather too emotive, arguably too linear), start with different assumptions, and recognize different data. We could be speaking different languages. Which is odd, since all half the country does is talk. (The other half puts roofs on houses.) You'd think they'd find a way to break through.

And so I come to Bill Clinton and Fox News Channel. A week after it aired, the interview still dominates the dinner party. Did he rouse his base? I think so. Did he remind everyone else of what they find objectionable in him? I know so.

But in Manhattan this week at gatherings of hungry liberals--they are feeling frisky, they can smell victory coming, though this is not necessarily indicative of anything, as Manhattan liberals are traditionally the last to know, and occasionally and endearingly concede they are the last--the conversation wasn't really about Clinton, but Fox News.

One can't exaggerate how large Fox looms in the liberal imagination. They see it as huge and mighty and credit it with almost mythical powers. It is a propaganda channel whose mission it is to destroy the Democratic Party. That's part of why Clintons' performance had such salience. Finally he was standing up to an evil empire.

It is odd that they are so spooked. In October America is set to become a nation of 300 million. What a big country. Fox News's average evening prime-time viewership is less than two million. Its average daytime is less than a million. And if my mail is an indication, they're already Republicans. Fox's power is that it is an alternative to the mainstream media. It did not take its shape by deeply inhaling liberalism and slowly breathing it out.

The left sees Fox as a symptom and promoter of anarchy. The old unity, the old essential unity one used to experience when one turned on the TV in 1950 or 1980, has been fractured, broken up. We are becoming balkanized. Fox, blogs, talk radio, the Internet, citizen reporters--it's all producing cacophony, and heralds a future of No Compromise. No one trusts the information they're given anymore, as they trusted Uncle Walter. This is bad for the country.

It is an odd thing about modern liberals that they're made anxious by the unsanctioned. A conservative is more likely to see what's happening as freedom. It isn't that honest and impartial news lost its place of respect, it's that establishment liberalism lost its journalistic monopoly. And it was a monopoly.

Not everyone believed Uncle Walter. Uncle Walter, and Chet and David, were all there was. But while they reigned, Americans were buying "Conscience of a Conservative" by Barry Goldwater, and Reagan was quietly rising way out in California, and Spiro Agnew and Bill Safire were issuing mainstream hits like "effete snobs" and "nattering nabobs." In the time liberals think of as the last great unified era, Americans were rising up.

The new media did not divide us. The new media gave voice to our divisions. The result: more points of view, more subjects discussed, more data presented. This, in a great republic, a great democracy, a leader of the world in a dangerous time, is not bad but good.

But nothing comes free. All big changes have unexpected benefits and unanticipated drawbacks. Here is a loss: the man on the train.

Forty and 50 years ago, mainstream liberal media executives--middle-aged men who fought in Tarawa or Chosin, went to Cornell, and sat next to the man in the gray flannel suit on the train to the city, who hoisted a few in the bar car, and got off at Greenwich or Cos Cob, Conn.--those great old liberals had some great things in them.

One was a high-minded interest in imposing certain standards of culture on the American people. They actually took it as part of their mission to elevate the country. And from this came..."Omnibus."

When I was a child of 8 or so I looked up at the TV one day and saw a man cry, "My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse!" He was on a field of battle, surrounded by mud and loss. I was riveted. Later a man came on the screen and said, "Thank you for watching Shakespeare's 'Richard III.' " And I thought, as a little American child: That was something, I gotta find out what a Shakespeare is.

I got that from "Omnibus."

Those old men on the train--they were strangers, but in the age of media a stranger can change your life.

And because the men on the train had one boss, who shared their vision--he didn't want to be embarrassed that his legacy was "My Mother the Car"--and because the networks had limited competition, the pressure to live or die by ratings was not so intense as today. The competition for ad dollars wasn't so killer. They could afford an indulgence. The result was a real public service.

Now the man on the train is a relic, and no one is saying, "As the lucky holders of a broadcast license we have a responsibility to pass on the jewels of our culture to the young." In a competitive environment that would be a ticket to corporate oblivion at every network, including Fox.

TV is still great, in some ways better than ever. Freedom works.

And yet. When we deposed the old guy on the train, it wasn't all gain. No longer would the old liberals get to impose their vision. But what took its place was programming for the lowest common denominator. Things that don't make you reach. Things you don't want to teach. Eating worms on air-crash island with "Jackass."

I spoke with a network producer a few weeks ago, an old warhorse who was trying to explain his frustration at the current ratings race. He wrestled around the subject, and I cut with rude words to what I thought he was saying. "You mean it's gone from the dictatorship of a liberal elite to the dictatorship of the retarded."

Yes, he said. And it's not progress.

When liberals miss something in the media, that's what they should be missing. Not a unity that never existed but standards that were high. When conservatives say there's nothing to miss, they're wrong. We lost some bias, but we lost some standards, too.

[rwarn17588]

I disagree, iplaw. Murrow had his own opinions about freedom and the Constitution, and he stated them during the McCarthy era. He saw what he thought was a demagogue, and he wasn't afraid to say so.

To call him unbiased simply isn't true. I certainly agree with Murrow and his assessment, but I'd never call him unbiased.

Bias comes from our life experience, logic and education. It's just that some have more experience, logic and education, and thus, more credibility, with this bias than others.

[aoxamaxoa]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

quote:
And Dubyahs' failures are much more damaging to our world's future than Clinton's errors.

Really...not according to James Woolsey who was the director of the CIA under Clinton.

Bin Laden GATE

...bureaucratic feud and President Clinton's indifference kept America blind and deaf as bin Laden plotted.

Intel Failures

Face it.  The sword cuts both ways.  Both were responsible and merely saying "I failed" doesn't protect one from scrutiny.

"James Woolsey, who served as a CIA director under Clinton, has also become an advocate of the view that Iraq was behind the first World Trade Center bombing." Oh bull. If Woolsey were any good at this espionage stuff he'd still be there committed to service instead of running around portraying the truth for money.

You see, what Clinton did was respect foreign rule. His was an attempt to contain world  disturbances. And Bush has seemed to be quite the opposite and the magnitude of his mistakes far exceeds transgressions and indiscretions by Clinton.

Watch Keith Olberman on MSNBC 50 at 7 and replayed at 11....more entertaining and honest (balanced?) than any other news of the day....

[iplaw]

quote:
"James Woolsey, who served as a CIA director under Clinton, has also become an advocate of the view that Iraq was behind the first World Trade Center bombing." Oh bull. If Woolsey were any good at this espionage stuff he'd still be there committed to service instead of running around portraying the truth for money.

Let me see if I can translate this from Bull$hit to English:

I can't ever accept the fact that Clinton screwed up so I have to ignore any legitimate criticism from people who worked with him that directly contradict Bubba's absurd assertions.  But he apologized for being a wimp and screwing up so that makes him A-Okay in my book.

quote:
You see, what Clinton did was respect foreign rule. His was an attempt to contain world disturbances.

His was a presidency that disgraced by actions like Somalia.  Why did he not respect that foreign rule?  We had no right to disturb that autonomous soverign state, and when we did we left with our tail between our legs to which Bin Laden laughed as Clinton showed his true character...weakness.

[aoxamaxoa]

Sums it up by a nutshell. "His was a presidency that disgraced by actions like Somalia. Why did he not respect that foreign rule? We had no right to disturb that autonomous soverign state, and when we did we left with our tail between our legs to which Bin Laden laughed as Clinton showed his true character...weakness."

Boy, talk about a rewrite of history. And do you really think that in 20 years we will reflect on that mishap more than this debacle of "strength" in Iraq.

Remember to watch Keith Olberman tonight at 7 and replay at 11.....50 on Cox.

[iplaw]

quote:
Boy, talk about a rewrite of history.

Please point out the flaws in my reasoning.  What part of autonomous soverign nation do you not understand?  I thought only Bush attacked soverign nations?  What part of the "cut and run" that we did in Somalia don't you understand?  Did you not know that Osama discussed Somalia directly or was that another news story that passed you by?

Hmmm...I can't imagine why I would say we looked WEAK...thanks Bubba:

BIN LADEN: We experienced the Americans through our brothers who went into combat against them in Somalia, for example. We found they had no power worthy of mention. There was a huge aura over America -- the United States -- that terrified people even before they entered combat. Our brothers who were here in Afghanistan tested them, and together with some of the mujahedeen in Somalia, God granted them victory. America exited dragging its tails in failure, defeat, and ruin, caring for nothing.

America left faster than anyone expected. It forgot all that tremendous media fanfare about the new world order, that it is the master of that order, and that it does whatever it wants. It forgot all of these propositions, gathered up its army, and withdrew in defeat, thanks be to God.