Buh Bye Billy

Celebrity suck-up Billy Bush was terminated from the NBC/Universal company after a week of negotiations between his lawyers and NBC. Bush was caught on tape with sociopath misogynist Donald "Rump" Trump on the "Access Hollywood" bus in 2005 where the two were talking in obscene language about women. Rump actually bragged about being able to sexually assault women due to his stardom, and has been confronted by several women who have come forward to claim that he sexually assaulted them.

Coincidentally, Rump's wife, Melania "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" Trump, appeared yesterday with Anderson Cooper, defending her husband and claiming that Bush was egging her husband on to say "dirty" things. Riiiight!  It looks like the denial begins at home.

If the tape proves to be Rump's undoing in this election, it will be a priceless irony that a member of the Bush clan (Dumbya and Billy are first cousins) finally succeeded in bringing down their family's greatest nemesis, albeit by career suicide.

(photo: Bush + Rump + mic = you're fired!)

"Buying the War"

Update on yesterday's post: here's the link to the Bill Moyers Journal "Buying the War," broadcast last night on PBS. Wow! This should be required viewing for every journalism 101 class in America (and as a refresher/reminder for every MSM "journalist" of what their profession is supposed to be).

The Independent David Broder

We've seen how luminaries in the MSM world have been so very eager to play ball with the Rethug apparatus. As noted in the previous posting, tonight Bill Moyers will shed light on this phenomenon as relates to the lead up to the war. Another example of the coziness that has compromised independent journalism is the David Broder/Karl Rove association. This was Broder, "dean" of the Washington press "corpse", in 2003:

"I like Karl Rove. In the days when he was operating from Austin, we had many long and rewarding conversations. I have eaten quail at his table and admired the splendid Hill Country landscape from the porch of the historic cabin Karl and his wife Darby found miles away and had carted to its present site on their land." (5/18/03)

How nice. Broder needs to push himself away from "Karl's table" and check out what this Mayberry Machiavelli has been doing to undermine freedom and political discourse in this country (U.S. attorney firings, Hatch Act violations, etc.). Not that he really cares. For a good dressing down of the "dean", read Scott Horton's piece in Harper's. (photo: Broder strumming on friend Karl's porch)

Bill Moyers Is Back

Tonight, PBS is broadcasting the first of Bill Moyers' new series, "Bill Moyers' Journal." According to the preview, this report will deal extensively with the Bush Assministration's selling of the war with Iraq, and the MSM's role in cheerleading that disastrous enterprise. Some of the intrepid pundits who pushed the invasion from the start refused to be interviewed by Moyers, among them Chuck Kraphammer, Judith Miller, and Wee Willie Kristol. But Moyers gets a good knee in the groin, for example, with Kristol, who "led the march to Baghdad behind a battery of Washington microphones. . .[and] has not responded to any of our requests for an interview, but he still shows up on TV as an expert, most often on Fox News."

Watch it and weep.

Drifting Right

It's becoming increasingly clear that the Right has made significant inroads into what they used to decry as the "liberal media." Thankfully, Media Matters and other watchdog groups keep a close eye on the continuing evolution (devolution?) of American media to the right. One has only to look at a few examples, such as the formerly progressive Washington Post (now one of three right-leaning newspapers in Washington, DC), and media conglomerates that resemble nothing more than "Fox Lite." Take ABC/Disney, for instance, who infamously tried to smear Bill Clinton in their pre-election wingnut fantasy made-for-tv crapudrama about the lead-up to 9-11; their hiring of troubled CNN wingnut Glenn Beck for Good Morning America drop-ins; and their running Pat "Preacher to the Fascists" Robertson's 700 Club on the ABC Family cable network.

With well-funded "think" tanks like AEI, Heritage, Hudson Institute, etc., providing a bottomless barrel of Stepford monkeys to chatter off of RNC talking points, it's easy to see why the Right is looking like it's turning the media tide decisively in it's direction. In fact, other than the invaluable Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, it's hard to identify any regularly broadcast voice of the progressive viewpoint. (Even on Olbermann's network, look at the primetime lineup: Tweety, *ucker, Keith, Scarborough. Balanced? We think not.) In fact, the national conversation has drifted so far to the right since the Reagan years that what used to be called extremist or reactionary is now largely tolerated, if not accepted as legitimate, revealed truth.

Now that Democrats control Congress, it's time for the Fairness Doctrine (scuttled by Reagan's FCC) to be revisited. Otherwise, before they realize what's happened, progressives will have lost the media war to the insufferable, arrogant Rebunglecans.

A Good Time Was Had By All - - Sadly

Last night's dinner hosted by the Radio and Television Correspondents featured the annual yuk-up suck-up between the Preznit and his crowd and many of the Washington Press Corpse elites. While advertised as an occasion for socializing between Administration and media elites, it's a perfect example of the corrupt and incestuous relationship that has evolved between those in power and those purporting to be a check on power. Turd Blossom Rove, for example, was featured in a silly rap song while the assembled media bright lights guffawed. Much mutual gonad rubbing ensued. Little wonder that they are reluctant to pursue hard stories against the Bushies, unless and until they are beaten to the punch and shamed by the "alternative" media in the blogosphere. Chris Lehmann's article in the NY Observer is a good summary of this noxious situation.