Editorial: They enlisted, they embedded

If Bob Marley were alive today, would he be singing, "I called out the Republican but I did not call out the Democrat?" We have to wonder that because so many in our so-called 'independent' media have enlisted in the Cult of Barack.

In fact, Rosa Brooks gave up bad writing to service Barack and she joins so many other 'reporters' who've rushed to work for the White House. For the Barack Obama White House mind you.

As Aretha once sang, "It's a different world than where you come from." Apparently.

Which explains why failed actress and failed stand-up comic Janeane Garofalo embarrassed herself and MSNBC -- and who thought the latter was possible? Bob Somerby covered the MSNBC nightmare here.

We've never called out Janeane before this year but knew the day would come. (And Ava and C.I. have always said, "She's f**ked over Drew [Barrymore] in her 'jokes' for six years now. When the time comes, we'll take part in the take down.") So here it is.

Janeane, you're a short, fat woman. You know that. You know that as sure as you know that your facial type is round and your body shape is pear. You've chosen to work in a visual field and you've chosen to be a really bad actor. You're giving the exact same performance on 24 that you give in everything. We saw it in Reality Bites, we saw it in The Truth About Cats & Dogs (the closet to a hit that Janeane ever had, so naturally she trashes the film), we saw it in Clay Pigeons, we would have seen it in The West Wing if we could've ignored the never ending chatter and watched that awful show. It's always the same thing with Janeane. In fact, we're not really sure why they give her characters different names? She's a very limited actress who has refused to stretch and whose nastiness has only increased over the years. She's currently taking her tired shtick to 24, the torture show. She says it's okay because she's not playing Janeane, she's playing a character.

That may be the funniest thing she's said in years.

She's never played a character, she doesn't have the talent but considering the way she has repeatedly ripped apart other women in the last six years, other actresses for their choices, and now the failure wants to show up on 24 and act like that's not appalling? Who does she think she's kidding?

If you don't agree with Janeane, she does the 'smart' thing: She calls you a racist.

We know it's the 'smart' thing to do because we heard Janeane explaining it recently, "Lois, anyone who couldn't pretend their son is dying to get Gumbel 2 Gumbel back on the air is a racist. There, I said it." Oh wait, that wasn't Janeane. That was Peter on Family Guy. Well, that's the level of intelligence Janeane now exhibits, the same as Peter.

But it was always there. She always rushed to certain (weak) judgments and regularly made a fool out of herself. For example, while her radio partner was launching his war on The New York Times and Adam Nagourney, Janeane was being 'productive.' She didn't want to just tell you not to waste your money on NYT, she wanted to give you something you could purchase.

So for a week, a whole week, three hours every night, Monday through Friday, on The Majority Report, Janeane recommended people drop The New York Times and start reading The International Herald. Unlike the rag NYT, IHT really knew what was what.

It takes a special kind of stupid to switch from one paper to another and encounter the same bylines repeatedly and never wonder about that. But Janeane managed that feat. She excelled at it.

The New York Times owns IHT. You will find much of the same content in both papers. Janeane didn't know that. When it was finally pointed out to her, she asked, "Really?" And then she repeated "Really?" in a voice so high and whiny, it threatened to send the entire studio back into puberty. Yes, Janeane, really.

All she does today is peddle hate and not at the big targets, not at the powerful, she peddles hate at average Americans. Everyone's talking about it and, yes, gossiping about it and as one comic who now avoids her (and has a successful acting career) said, "She just needs to f**k Carmine already and get over it." Carmine is her right-wing father and she's become an embarrassment as she can't stop being Daddy's Little Girl. Letting your father dictate your life, even if you live it as a photo negative of his own, is really disgusting, completely unempowering, and not at all feminist or 'strong.' It's pathetic.

And her hate speech and little tantrums are nothing but her sick desire to get Daddy's attention.
Your forty-four years-old, it's time to grow up.

And in functioning society, Bob Somerby wouldn't be the only one on the left calling her out. In a functioning society, Democratic Underground (no link to trash) wouldn't post lies that Bob's going after everyone who didn't support Hillary in the Democratic Party primary.

Our society functions about as well as Janeane Garofalo does. And our press functions even worse.

Which is how we get the embeds.

You do grasp that, right?

That the same beggar media that spent the last eight years calling out various members of the press for embedding with the White House is doing the exact same thing now that a Democrat's in office.

It really crossed a line when Amy Goodman was raising money for her show by offering Barack inauguration tickets for donations of over a thousand dollars. You want to pretend that didn't effect the coverage? When she's got all of those tickets to sell and the money goes to her show, do you really think you're going to get criticism of him before the inauguration?

These people have lectured Howard Kurtz and everyone else in Real Media about ethics and look at 'em now. They're worse than Janeane in the midst of a 12 day bender.

Not only do they repeatedly fawn over Barack and ignore news that wouldn't paint him in such a wonderful light, they also repeatedly ask, "How can we help Barack?"

That's not a question they asked under Bush.

Under Bush, they grasped that the press wasn't an arm of the government. They grasped that the powerful needed to be called out, that the powerful must be called out.

They made fun and mocked Dan Rather for his remarks to David Letterman about doing what 'his president' needed him to do. Yet here they are doing the exact same thing the right-wing did.

Partisan hack Norman Solomon wanted to write about . . . partisan hacks last week. Poor Normy, he really thinks he still has an image to protect. Normy was the real-life Obama Girl throughout 2008, going so far as to become a pledged delegate for Barry. Every few months, when something really vile threatened to upset Mr. Pretty Speeches' smooth lies, Norman would show up to insist that Barack's feet would be held to the fire.

All we ever saw them held to was Norman's lips. But Norman showed up last week whining that we needed to hold Congress -- yeah, Congress -- to the fires. We needed to force them to act. Gee, Norman, why does your busy-work strike us as both a waste of time and an effort to dilute very real anger that should be aimed at the corporatist War Hawk in the White House?

Norman wanted to talk about the war, you understand. Just not the Iraq War.

The Iraq War has not ended. Four US service members were announced dead last week. Over 150 Iraqis died on Thursday and Friday.

The illegal war is not over. Not only is not over, the 'surge' continues as well. Are most Americans aware of that?

Last Wednesday, Army's General Peter W. Chiarelli told the US Senate's Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, "The surge for the United States Army is not over. We don't get our last combat brigade off of a 15 month deployment until June of this year and I won't get my last combat service support or combat support unit back off a 15 month deployment until September."

Do people get that?

Once upon a time people like Norman Solomon and Janeane Garofalo pretended they cared about ending the Iraq War. They got a lot of attention out of it, they even made some money out of it.

But last week, Normy wanted to bore us all with 675 words on the topic of what 'we' must do and about war but he never even mentioned the Iraq War.

We opposed the war on Afghanistan. We've always opposed it. We do understand some of the alarm that it might become Barack's 'Vietnam.' We're also aware that the number of US troops that will be in Afghanistan this year will not even make up one-fourth of the number of US troops in Iraq. So when we hear all the hand wringing over Afghanistan and all the silence over Iraq, we tend to laugh at all the Whores practicing in the main revival tent of the Cult of St. Barack.

Normy thinks he can distract, Janeane thinks she can bluster, filibuster and scream "racists!" for the next four years. She supposedly hopes eight years.

But if she really thought Barack would get two terms, would she be as bitter and hateful as she's being on MSNBC. She spews her hate speech which isn't funny and isn't even delivered in a funny way. She's like the 44-year-old woman who gripes about something in a loud voice. When she was fresh faced and 20, it was seen as cute. Oh, look at her! But now it just makes Janeane come off like a cranky old woman.

And she's got Democrats controlling both houses. And she's got her Lord and Savior Barack in the White House. What, pray tell, causes all the anger and all of the attacks?

Maybe her former friend is right, maybe it will take her hopping into bed with Carmine to get the closure she needs. Once upon a time we would have scoffed at the notion but these days she's so erratic there's no telling what she wouldn't do.