You Mean The Press was Fooled?

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Heard about the Sentate shutdown, turned on CNN, saw Blitzer asking Rockefeller, "Did Bush lie or did he manipulate the facts?" To which Jay Rockefeller replied, in effect, "I am not sure there is much of a difference, Wolf."

I was struck by how wooden Wolf was. When did he first know we were lied to? What kept him silent until this flagrant news-driving stunt? The full investigation would take us inside the newsrooms to see how the powers that be shaped the story and to what purpose. It takes many people to keep a scam going at the national level. The liars knew they could count on CNN and they were not mistaken. The Democrats have done a brave and noble thing, called the bully a liar to his face. How Wolf can act dumber than Bush is amazing. No outrage that he was duped. Or course not; he never was. Wolf, I would say, was mildly miffed. Put out that he had to report the story that calls implicity his own professional bona fides or competence into question. Shame on them all!

Comments

[Dandy]

Somewhere along the line, possibly in junior high school, Wolf realized that acting deliberately obtuse and intentionally misrepresenting things people said to him right back at them were tactics that would make him a success in the little power games. Shamelessness is a winning technique!

No one has the time, let alone the inclination, to carefully debunk and deconstruct conversational gambits consisting wholly of weasel words, button pushing probes and phrases leaden and laden with saccharine emotions. Wolf's schtick is to blitz with all of them. He can get away with it. The only real way to handle someone so chickenshit is to smack them one, preferably upside the head. In our prissy, spastically anal corporate conversational culture, that's a losing move. And Wolf knows it. He counts on it. It's the cunning of the stupid.

[No Blood for Hubris]

Hear, hear.

[Tutor]

A dandy comment, Mr. Dandy.

[Gerry]

It's amazing how fast the main line official story congeals. After Libby, there isn't much more, my haven't the repubs had a bad month, now what was that breaking story ...

Shamelessness is a winning technique! Maybe sometimes, and no you can't take on the barrage directly or bit by bit. Takes more of a rhetorical smack in the head, or thrust of the sword. Done right, it is not the losing move that a real one would be.

[rollo]

Even though Blitzer and that pack of kenneled chihuahuas he shares airspace with all licked and groomed Bush on his way up and in - they'll just as thoroughly munch his bones when told.
Keyword: told.
It isn't Bush and it isn't Blitzer, though they both have done their best work for the same outfit.
The strings that connect Blitzer to his masters are uncut still, though Bush dangles on an emptying stage.
Bush is as expendable as one of the two thousand.
Et cetera.

[Dr. Trotsky]

"How Reporters Helped Lead Us to War":The First Amendment protection is not a license for mischief on the part of journalists eager to do the government's bidding. To the contrary, it was conceived by the founders to prevent government from subverting the free press in an effort to misinform the public. Unfortunately, that is precisely what occurred here.

[Dandy]

Even though Blitzer and that pack of kenneled chihuahuas he shares airspace with all licked and groomed Bush on his way up and in - they'll just as thoroughly munch his bones when told.
Keyword: told.

Exactly. I maintain that the best way to look at our oligarchical process is as a variation on the long con. The con is run by people who have the ease of long familiarity. Blitzer doesn't need things spelled out in big bold letters. He got where he is by figuring out the hints, body language and code words of his higher ups. The grooming and munching is seldom explicitly ordered unless the yapper is exceptionally stupid; Ollie North and G. Gordon Liddy stupid.

If any of you have ever worked on sales team you'll have had a taste of the con artists' collegial sense of what to do and when to do it. Only the newbs have to be drilled in the routines.

[a.mole]

Bukowski once described an aspiring writer going off at the mouth, thus: profoundly sloppy. What he was saying, what he was doing, not incoherent, just profoundly sloppy. Repellent.Applies to our government, our press, our culture, across the board, imo. "Sickening", as T. mentioned in another thread.

[Tutor]

Ratings up? Ratings down? Ad revenue up? Ad revenue down? Media stock and options up? Or down? And the news is a business affected with the public trust. News is a disposable consumer good.

[klaus]

The gloom on the screen of the tube-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of midden to objects below,
When, what to astimagtic eyes should appear,
But a media slut, and eight tiny newsdeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be Old Nick.
More rapid than pundits his coursers they came,
And he needled, and weaseled, and called them by name:
"Now, Guzzler! now, Boozer! Carouser and Spritzer!
O'Reilly! O Limbaugh! O Miller and Blitzer!
your thumbs in the dyke 'gainst truth in the crawl!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

[Mall Rat]

Yay! A Klausmas present from the Sourpuss Mall! Don't forget, WB validates parking 'til the last lump of coal leaves the shelves! Shop early, shop often, you sullen twisted elves!!

[Phil Anthropoid]

The Christmas doggerel is coming earlier and earlier each year! Thanks, Klaus, for a much needed laugh.
I foget the last time I watched a newscast without yelling at the screen. (Or making fun of the anchorperson's hair. Have you noticed that a lot of anchorwomen wear a 'do that looks like the air intake for a scramjet? Where does that look come from?)

[flipper]

Midden. Midden, he said. Did anybody already know what this word means? What a ballgame. What a crowd!Where does that look come from?And where do it go to??

[a.mole]

more slop at the top?

[Gerry]

I often have to look up words to understand WB comments, but in this case I already had the reference.

[flipper]

p.s. I meant: "where do it go to", like, "where to is one transported", if one strays, too close, sucked, while peering in, to the vacuum, of the intake, of the scramjet, hair, do...

[Phil Anthropoid]

I saw Blitzer interview Jimmy Carter yesterday. Carter had just published a book criticizing the Doctrine of Preemptive Attack (or whatever it’s called), the current administration’s countenancing of torture, and other weighty matters. I was surprised at how transparent Blitzer was about giving Carter a free ride. On the other hand, many journalists make the mistake of underestimating Carter’s intelligence. Maybe Blitzer had been burned before.
Network news is such a strange world. I wonder how well outsiders can ever come to understand it?

[Tutor]

I mostly get my news from the BBC articles on the net.