But pathetic is all Panhandle Media is these days.
Remember when
We were fresh in love
Your eyes were pale like the moon
We'd sit on the porch in summer
Listen for the breezes
Spinning melodies up from the river
I dressed you up like a god
-- "Make Me Feel Something," words and lyrics by Carly Simon
Yeah, we used to dress up Panhandle Media like a god. We used to praise them. We bought their little con job and thought they practiced the ethics they preached. But if campaign 2008 (which Panhandle Media began covering before the 2006 mid-term elections) taught us anything it was how lacking in ethics Panhandle Media was.
Those days are gone and the sheen was knocked off by Panhandle Media itself.
It certainly didn't help, in 2007, when Jess replied to an organization that e-mailed C.I. at The Common Ills only to find that private e-mail (nothing embarrassing it for Jess) passed on to another outlet. Not really that surprising, as C.I. noted when learning of the passed on nature, the same organization had passed on a journalists private e-mail to C.I. (Unrequested by C.I., for the record.)
It didn't help that the illegal war fell off Panhandle Media's radar repeatedly. (We'll get to some of the things that replace it in a bit.) It didn't help that Amy Goodman, who used to ridicule Judith Miller (because Queen Bees love to target women) while letting males off, turned her supposedly 'independent' show over to schilling for Barack Obama. Ava and C.I. first documented that in "TV: Democracy Sometimes?" -- and they've continued to document it in feature articles. Goodman is a sorry excuse for a journalist but, then, she's not really a journalist. Her business is grant money.
"Movement" and "community" talk of Obama is a laugh. He has none. It was created for him and campus forums and meet-ups were used to do that. Radicals (Communist and otherwise) wanted to control the Democratic Party. Or as Katty-van-van once said, "Take Back America!" and the easiest way to do that, since the Communist Party in the United States is in utter disarray, was to attempt a hijacking of the Democratic Party.
To be clear, we are not and have never suggested that Barack Obama is a Communist -- closeted or otherwise. He is a corporatist Democrat and he is a user who will grab any break from anyone (see Tony Rezko). He did not glom on them, they glommed on him. The reason was very simple, he lacks experience, he lacks a record, he's completely unelectable.
If they could turn a toothy grin into the Democratic Party's presidential nominee and, hope & pray!, the next president of the United States, he would owe them! (They missed the part of the public record where Obama never pays back political debts.) Owing them, they would be in the driver's seat and, by golly, the country would be their country to steer!
They flirted with John Edwards for a brief period but John Edwards is nobody's dupe. So they went from rah-rah John in 2005 to cutting him out of the coverage and then whining, as he got close to dropping out and after he dropped out of the race, that Big Media ignored him. They did the exact same thing.
Joe Biden is too much of a Democrat for their tastes. Dennis Kucinich was the Democrat that came closest to their way of thinking but they'd seen the 2004 results and termed him a "loser" (which is why the bulk of them refused to cover him, John Nichols infamously ridiculed Kucinich in the pages of The Progressive). Chris Dodd? Too "stalwart." (Again, we're quoting.) Bill Richardson? They didn't trust him and he was associated with the evil woman.
The evil woman? Hillary Clinton. Hillary is the nemesis of the radicals. They've carried a grudge against her for years. (Surprisingly, it's never improved their body tone.) Hillary is their nightmare because she is a Democrat and she's one who can connect with people.
She doesn't need them. She doesn't need their help and would never be indebted to them.
They try to pretend like it's her record or Bill Clinton's record but that's not reality. The bulk of things they whine about today they didn't waste a moment on in real time unless it was to help sale those polices. (There's a reason they only open up some of their archives.)
They like to play, "Look what the Clintons did to Lani Guinier!" Guinier is a law professor who was nominated by Bill Clinton to be the Assistant Attorney General of the United States. She withdrew her nomination and Panhandle Media wants to tell you that, as a result, Bill Clinton stabbed Guinier in the back.
(Guinier is on The Nation's editorial board along with other curious folks.)
Guinier was the victim of a great deal of racist press during her nomination (and since) but equally true is that she supported (and still does) an election system that goes against the principle of one person one vote. That alone would have been controversial. The racist press coverage included calling her "a quota queen" (racist because it traded both on Ronald Reagan's "welfare queens" and because the "quota" -- which she did favor -- was not, as often implied in the press, based on race). But she did favor quotas (for all minority groupings -- not just racial minorities) and she felt that a new system of voting would bring more fairness to the country.
You can agree with her or disagree with her but, leaving racism aside, an assistant AG who doesn't believe in the current voting system is always going to be a hard sale.
Panhandle Media loves to invoke her name (and so does Melissa Harris-Lacewell, although she appears to belive Guinier was a man named "Lonnie"). How dare Bill Clinton turn on Lani! They leave out the part that Democratic senators were saying they wouldn't vote her and that she should withdraw her nomination (those senators include their hero Ted Kennedy). Were they racists to suggest that?
No, they were realists. They grapsed that the Republicans in Congress were determined to undermine every proposal and nomination Clinton made. They wanted to portray him as unfit to rule to the American people. And Guinier comes along at a bad time for nominations. Most will recall Janet Reno was the Attorney General of the United States. Some may recall that she wasn't Bill Clinton's first nominee. Some may be able to reach back far enough in the mind to remember Kimba Wood. Wood was not the first nominee. Before her came Zoe Baird who had employment issue involving a nanny. Wood's only problem with her nanny was that the woman was an undocumented worker (whom Wood paid the payroll taxes on). If anyone was treated unfairly, it was Wood who was forced to withdraw not for any opinion she held or action she took but because her situation could recall the Zoe Baird controversy.
The Clinton White House had to propose three women for Attorney General before they found the one (Janet Reno) who could be confirmed. They were supposed to make an issue out of supporting Guinier? Guinier likes to say, since the nomination, that she wasn't allowed to defend herself publicly. The reality is that it was her private conversations with senators that led to Democrats saying they wouldn't vote to confirm her. This was when the Democrats controlled the Senate (George Mitchell was Majority Leader) and if the Democrats weren't going back to Guinier, she wasn't going to be confirmed.
There's no foul in that. It hurts The Nation's feelings but it's how things go. There were many battles to be fought and digging on an Assistant AG while still trying to find an AG wasn't a smart battle. Somehow that's been turned into Lament of Lani.
Another little con job they love to promote is that Hillary couldn't get through healthcare. Who refused to let healthcare proposal go through? That would be the Senate. Attack ads were run, Minority Leader Bob Dole was insisting that there was no crisis (echoed by Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan) and Democrats were squeamish or else offering alternative plans at the last minute. Where was the left outlets during this? Since we've got a full blown healthcare crisis, they might need to fess up. (They were tearing apart the Clinton proposal.)
What you basically have is those who couldn't work within the Democratic Party system (either due to their own personalities or their politics) creating an echo chamber for the weakest candidate in order to prove their 'power.' All they proved was how easy they lie.
While the joke would be on them were Barack to become president (he's not qualified and he's not their lackey), laughs would be tempered by the destruction his inept skills would do to the country.
So it's really past time they were called out. They're useless malcontents. They've either destroyed their own party or refused to work within the system. The latter would be fine if they didn't now attempt to hijack the system via trickery and deceit.
Why does Bambi have a youth cult? Because they worked campuses -- either as visiting speakers or as professors. And they worked it with lies and deceit. There are a huge number of Bambi followers who believe (a) that he voted against the 2002 Iraq resolution and (b) that he voted against the 2007 Iran resolution.
Barack voted against neither. He wasn't in the Senate in 2002. (And the audio of his 'famous' speech was a recreation because it wasn't important enough in 2002 to record.) He wasn't running for the US Senate in 2002, despite lying two debates ago that he was. He was in the Senate in 2007 and it takes a lot of lying on the part of Panhandle Media to convince people he voted against the Iran resolution. The reality is that Barack elected to skip that vote (he was informed of the vote). He and his press cronies want to crow that he was against it. If you're against it, you vote against it. It's that simple.
So liars like Tom-Tom, Professor Patti Williams and Loony Stephen Zunes have to work double time to keep the truth from getting out.
Tom-Tom. Is there a more pathetic person in recent history. Remember when Tom-Tom endorsed Bambi before Super Tuesday? Remember how, after Super Tuesday, he declared that people should hold candidates feet to the fire (which would require not endorsing them)? He's back to Barack Lovin all over again. It's as pathetic as his dreams to get into the US Senate and his hopes to follow that with the presidency. It was his efforts to achieve those outlandish dreams that destroyed his meal ticket marriage but Tom-Tom never tells-tells that story.
In 2006, Panhandle Media began setting their sites on destroying Hillary. At first, it appeared that they were merely establishing a standard by which they'd judge all candidates but they never used that standard. It's been open season on Hillary for two years now and nothing but fawning over and lying for Barack.
You need to examine the charges against Hillary. If you do, you'll find out that a great deal of it is the lies the right-wing circulated, the same lies the left was calling out prior to 2006. You also need to examine the liars smearing Hillary and endorsing Barack Obama. Take nut job Dave Lindorff who feels Barack should be president because "he risked jail by doing drugs."
That would be the same Lindorff who, in September of last year, was launching his "Quit The Democratic Party." Well, Dave, what happened? If you quit, as you wrote you did, and did so over the failure to impeach the Bully Boy, what are you doing endorsing Barack Obama now?
Nut jobs are having a harder time these days. That's because people are catching on. (It's why Amy Goodman now has to include disclosures on her guets . . . sometimes.) They're grasping that when the left outlets all sing from the same hymnal, something's screwed up in River City. They're also grasping that these "Democrats" publicly endorsing Barack . . . aren't Democrats. The lies are getting a little harder to sell. And the liars are freaking out.
Common Dreams has run off readers with their non-stop attacks on Hillary. So it's especially amusing to read what happened in the comments when Dave Lindorff posted another worthless piece of crap. He got called out. It obviously bothered him because he began commenting in the comments and, honestly, sounded like he needed to check the dosage on his meds:
I believe if Clinton gets the White House, we will go to war with Iraq as surely--maybe more surely--than if McCain wins, since she, unlike McCain, will feel the need to prove she’s tough.
She's also a crook and a greedhead.
Gee, Lindorff, we don't want a war with Iraq. Better vote for Obama! Oh, wait. The US declared war on Iraq in March of 2003. "She's alos a crook and a greedhead." Considering your ratty hair, you're the last one to talk about anyone's head but we'll note that these inflamatory remarks didn't appear in the column, they only popped up after Lindorff was unhinged over being challenged.
He then pulls the echo-chamber effect. He references another in the tank and thinks that demonstrates 'free will.' Or sound judgement?
The most brazen liar this year has probably been Melissa Harris-Lacewell whom Ava and C.I. have documented appears on programs as an "objective professor" when, as she herself bragged in her attempted smackdown of Gloria Steinem, she's actually part of the campaign. As Ava and C.I. explain in "TV: Goodman and Rose 'honoring' bad TV past," Harris-Lacewell pulled off quite a stunt on The Charlie Rose Show the night of the Texas and Ohio primaries. First up, it was a panel of journalists but somehow Obama campaign worker, who is not a journalist, got herself invited on and neither she nor Rose informed viewers she was part of the Obama campaign. But her biggest moment of lying was when she referred to Tavis Smiley and noted that he was under attack without ever noting that she took part in the attacks and was one of the ones who launched the attacks. Possibly she tells so many lies that she couldn't be expected, in March, to remember her February 15th piece entitled "Who Died and Made Tavis King?"
David Corn's become such an embarrassment that, as we note this edition, not only did he refuse to do his own work (he went with what the Obama campaign fed him, a false lie) but when forced to correct the lie he (a) calls it a clarification and (b) blames the media. Hilarious when he's already bragged online about getting the information from the Obama campaign.
They lie. Then they lie some more.
And they're thugs. All of them. Lindorff, Goodman, Nichols, Katty-van-van, etc. They shut out the voices they applauded and sought if those voices now support Hillary. It's why Joe Wilson, Paul Krugman and Larry Johnson (among others) vanished. You can't have a disagreeing note in an echo chamber.
They are 90s Republicans. If they were honest, they'd admit that. We're not talking in terms of their politics, we're talking in terms of the game they're playing. It's not really a surprise if you think back to the creation of the current echo chamber. They weren't interested in fighting with information, they were interested (as Laura Flanders bragged to the now defunct Clamor) in creating their own echo chamber.
They have certainly done that and facts don't matter in an echo chamber, only talking points.
The problem they never saw coming is that Democrats, real ones, know exactly how an echo chamber works. They discovered it during the Clinton years as a right-wing echo chamber tore Bill and Hillary apart.
They recognize it today coming from the left and 'left.' They recognize it at The Progressive where Matthew Rothschild (non-Democrat) can't shut up about the primaries and joins Ruth Conniff in piling on Hillary with attacks.
Panhandle Media is destroying itself. And people watching are aware of that. They're aware of it because they paid attention when Panhandle Media was lecturing Real Media on ethics. They heard the criticisms, they instilled them. Now they can grasp how out of bounds Panhandle Media is and has conducted itself.
That's the real problem for Panhandle Media.
It's thrown away it's power to enlist in a primary campaign.
People are realizing how toxic it all is. Panhandle Media does not offer a Democratic critique. It offers a radical critique. But only sometimes. Had it held Barack to any standard (it didn't), they could continue doing their radical critique and no one would bat an eye. They would continue consuming it.
But when they demonstrated that they only held some people to standards (the tip off was long ago when they refused to hold their peers accountable), it became obvious how toxic and hateful Panhandle Media is.
Holding all candidates to the same standard? That's a radical critique. Holding one candidate? That's toxic and practicing hatred. And you see it flare up when they get really upset about Barack's inept campaign. They lash out and bring up faux Clinton scandals or they create new ones. Like the idiot Barbara Ehrenreich and Mother Jones insisting that Hillary's doing 'weird' religious things while failing to tell you that Barack is active in the same group.
They're out of touch with the working class. That's the audience they allegedly want to reach, allegedly want to help but they've scorned the group, called them racists and stupid. In doing so, they've demonstrated repeatedly what they really think about the working class and how much they loathe them.
The problem for Panhandle Media is the next political prisoner or 'political prisoner' they want to champion they'll be doing so to a smaller audience. They've betrayed the trust the people placed in them. And they've betrayed the people they claim to serve.
When begging for money on all Pacifica stations, Amy Goodman likes to indict Real Media with statements, you'll note, she never makes on her program or in her columns or books. She's a lot more specific during pledge drives when she doesn't expect it to register with anyone but the faithful and counts on the fact that no transcript will turn up. "Only with you, not without you," is one of her catch phrases as she begs you to dig deep in your pockets for money. Amy Goodman, why don't you release your tax statement? You were quite vocal on Hillary's tax statements and you found what they recorded to be news, so why don't you release your own and allow everyone to see exactly how inauthentic you are?
But she begs for money and the lie is that, by donating, you are supporting real media, you are supporting unbaised and honest media. Then along comes Larry Bensky hosting the two hour broadcast on KPFA after the Texas debate and never identifying who his guests have endorsed. They had all endorsed *Barack Obama*. No surprise that not one guest could find a nice word to say about Hillary. A debate was 'analyzed' for two hours on 'free speech radio' and it was done via a chorus of Barack supporters never identified as such. It was non-stop lying, non-stop spinning and 100% biased. It was disgraceful and KPFA and Pacifica better hope no one files a complaint because they could be in serious trouble for the little stunt they pulled.
But they don't care and that's how independent media destroyed itself after Vietnam drew to a close. They saw themselves not as news outlets but as king makers and, as their consumers grasped that they didn't practice the same standards they applied to others, the audiences left.
Remember that because in a decade or so, they'll have begun to rebuild their audiences and they'll again start lying.
In the meantime, they're going to have a really hard time amplifying their radical causes because they're audience has decreased and their facts will now be challenged. So when they drop Iraq to rush off like the Red Cross to another area of the world, no one's really going to give a damn. When they have yet another story of injustice (domestic would generally be an African-American lead, non-domestic would generally be a Palestinian), they don't have the audience they once had to rally. Hope losing their audience and their credibility was worth it to them when they're trying to rally for a prisoner release or stopping an execution.
They've never offered a Democratic critique. That wasn't a problem until they attempted to endorse in a Democratic Party. Their pet issues and causes are out of the mainstream and, in part, that's due to the silence on those issues but, it's also true, some of their causes and pet issues would be out of the mainstream regardless. Either way, their ability to rally is going, going, gone. They brought it on themselves.
They're in Panhandle Media for a reason: No one would hire them in the real world. It's a fact they want you to forget just as you're supposed to not catch on that the bulk are not Democrats and have no business endorsing in a Democratic Party.
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4-27-07 "*Barack Obama*" indicates a change. Thanks to community member Janine who caught that. Grant references and references to actions on college are confusing to some community members e-mailing. That's due to pulling three paragraphs on the Roosevelt Institution. A board member spoke to us on the record with the agreement that they would be anonymous. In reading over the section, I (C.I.) asked Jim to call ____ because it seemed it would be obvious (from the words) to everyone who it was. ____ listened and asked if we didn't mind pulling the comments which we didn't. We'll use ___'s points at a later date and paraphrase them.
