CBS scores a rare critical hit with The Good Wife which kicks off season four September 30th. The cookie cutter nature of so much of the line up leaves the network with little to boast of but, thanks to this one hour each week, CBS can pretend it's still The Tiffany Network. They can point to the show's two Emmys, a Peabody, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Golden Globe and tell themselves that they're airing quality television. And not only has Julianna Marguiles and Archie Panjabi already won two Emmys (Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series), both were nominated again and, this year, acting nods also went to Martha Plimpton, Dylan Baker, Michael J. Fox and Crhistine Baranski with Mark Saks receiving a nomination for Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series.
It's amazing the power one hit can provide, just look at Pacifica Radio. For much of the '00s, the faux anti-establishment radio network pointed with pride to its own version of The Good Wife. 'Anti-establishment' in Pacifica terms isn't really anti-establishment. It's basically the mealy mouthed teenager griping about consumerism and globalization up until they learn Maroon 5 or Jay Z is pulling into town and then they need Mommy and/or Daddy's money.
In fact, we believe that basically describes Pacifica's fundraising motto. But we're not hear to talk Pacifica money, leave that for a Grand Jury. No we're here to talk about the rise and fall of a momentary craze. The '00s were a time of excess as the US practiced one Cult of Personality after another -- be it Bully Boy Bush or the Butcher of Waziristan Barack or that menace to truth herself Amy Goodman.
Like most members of the ISO, Amy has been a whore for the Democratic Party and for the Corporatist War Hawk Barack Obama. Despite public humiliation at every turn (and rumors of strange infections), when Barack Goes To War, Amy sounds the horns and beats the drums, salutes him on the kills he's done. And throughout, she tries to pull whatever's left of her fan base along with her in support of War and Murder. She is The Good Whore.
And playing the role has really destroyed her laughable pose as Last Journalist Standing. Whether it was her 2008 non-stop attacks on Hillary Clinton or her televised koffee klatch with a former CIA whore (if you were assigned by the CIA in the sixties to f**k foreign men in foreign countries you are a whore) or chatting up the CIA's Juan Cole, it's been a string of non-stop embarrassments for The Good Whore.
Last week, Ian Wilder called out Democracy Now! and suggested that the show's name be changed (offering "Democracy Not," "Corporatocracy Now!" and "The War and War Report" as well as asking for other suggestions). And last week saw Marcia call out a website that offered praise for Amy Goodman that only revealed gross ignorance. You can't call out CDS (Clinton Derangement Syndrome) and praise Amy Goodman. As explained in "2008: The Year of Living Hormonally:"
December 10, 2003 found Five Cents [John Nichols] and Goody doing their Gossip Girl chat. Five Cents was insisting that Wesley Clark was only running for the 2004 presidential nomination so that Bully Boy (GW Bush) would win and Hillary could run in 2008 (that's what "placeholder" means in that context, as Five Cents knows) and Goody was bat-s**t-nuts raving that what would happen was, in the summer of 2004, at the DNC convention, Hillary would be declared the nominee!
Before Corrente next praises Amy Goodman, they might try familiarizing themselves with her actual record. Fortunately, people leaving comments later got that Amy was no one to be praised. However, "jest" introduces a false element into the equation. Pacifica Radio has nothing to do with Amy's content. Amy owns 100% of Democracy Now! She makes millions. All Pacifica does is broadcast the show. People who are unfamiliar with that are also often unfamiliar with just how rich Goodman's gotten off Pacifica Radio and how she subverted the public radio model to enrich herself.
And as she's gotten richer, her product has gotten worse. Last Monday, she wanted to talk declining American fortunes with reporters James Steele and Donald Barlett. While KPFA may broadcast PoorNewsNetwork, Amy Goodman apparently can't be bothered with thought or word.
She and the reporters discuss the mythical 'middle class.' They never once discovered poverty or the poor. For public radio that was hugely disappointing. As was Amy Goodman's solution for people to send a message to Apple (which sends its manufacturing overseas): Stop buying Apple.
Does Amy Goodman think everyone has a Mac and iPhone and iPad? Does she even know any poor people anymore? (The joke at WBAI is that Amy moved the Democracy Now! studios because she got tired of turning down requests from the homeless for change.)
The two reporters were her only guests. She devoted the full show (minus headlines) to the topic. And no one could say "poverty" or "poor." How sad for all three of them.
Tuesday found her critiquing the Olympics in some form and back on the topic of Mitt Romney (she couldn't mention the poor on Monday but had plenty of time to tear apart Mitt Romney, good little whores know to dance for the political masters). She was offended, Tuesday, that Mitt Romney takes campaign donations from 'unsavory' people.
That's interesting. Penny Pritzker donated to and was highly involved in Barack Obama's first presidential run. The Good Whore ignored Penny until after the 2008 election when she finally noted (while Penny was briefly mentioned as a possible Commerce Secretary), "Pritzker is a longtime friend of Obama's and served as his national finance chair. Pritzker was involved in running and overseeing the Illinois-based Superior Bank, which collapsed in 2001. The bank has been described as being at the forefront of turning subprime loans into securities, the risky practice at the heart of the financial crisis." That was in the November 20th headlines. She'd mention Penny in a single sentence in the next day's headlines (that she wouldn't be Commerce Secretary). That's been in it for Penny.
But Penny is in the news. As Trina noted last week in "Boycott Hyatt and other labor issues," Penny and her family own the Hyatt hotel chain which is implementing a new strategy. No longer does Hyatt hire workers for their hotels. Hiring workers means they have to give them vacation time and discounts at other hotels and the chance of paying into an insurance program and maybe investing in a 401K. It's much better (cheaper), Penny Pincher Penny believes, to instead now fill those jobs via temp agencies. The workers won't really be temporary but going through a temp agency means they're paid less (with no raises -- temps don't get raises), don't earn vacation time, don't get any benefits.
And Amy Goodman doesn't have time for Penny in 2012 just like she didn't in 2008. Interfaith Worker Justice has called for a boycott of Hyatt over this policy -- though you'd never know it from Amy's bad show. (Black Agenda Radio has covered the boycott.)
Wednesday's broadcast was a huge scattershot waste of time as she attempted to cover various topics and didn't give time to any -- unless the point was to stress that Dennis Kucinich was a really groovy guy -- even if he'd no longer be in Congress. Amy managed to whore in such a way that it appeared Dennis had lost his seat to a Republican -- even though the general election is in November. He was redistricted (as happened in most states following the census) and found himself in the same district as Marcy Kaptur (Democrat) who he ran against and who beat him.
The main takeaway from Dennis segments (he appeared for two stories) was that, once he's out of Congress in January, he's going to be as active as a private citizen as he was as a politician. We'll take that to mean, he'll continue to make big speeches while doing very little.
Thursday? Barack Obama and his administration helped kill a United Nations arms treaty (The Arms Trade Treaty). So it was time to spin like crazy. The Good Whore spent forever blaming the NRA -- we're not joking. She and her guest Bill Hartung had blame for everyone but Barack. As the segment was ending, they wanted to stress that Barack wasn't close to Lockheed Martin and Boeing -- at least "not at the level of the Bush administration." And besides it's "the Congress which gets millions of dollars from the industry." Yes, yes, it's never Sweet Barack's fault. Poor Barack, The Accident President becomes The Toothless One as well.
Friday may have been the worst. Amy wanted to tug on her War On for Syria. She's done that repeatedly as she'd previously done with Libya.
As John Walsh (Dissident Voice) observed in February:
After repeatedly hosting the CIA consultant Juan Cole to cheer the cruel war on Libya, Goodman now seems to be going down the same path with Syria. It is a sad spectacle and one more indication of how little the “progressives” in the West understand the nature of Humanitarian Imperialism which uses human rights to sell war. It looks like it’s time to abandon Goodman and switch to Alyona.
And Friday found Amy and tired and sexist Charles Glass (there's a reason no network will snap him up) agreeing the violence was the answer in Syria -- meaning Western intervention -- now that Kofi Annan had withdrawn as UN peace envoy.
They had no concerns and they didn't ask questions. They didn't wrestle with a thing. It was time for war, in their minds.
Strangely, two days prior, Wednesday, we had attended a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing and heard much more questioning and exploration than we did from the Queen of so-called independent media. Senator John Kerry is the Chair of the Committee and he pointed out of the 'rebels,' "We also know that al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are seeking to capitalize on the instability [in Syria]. And as we've learned from previous experiences in Lebanon and Iraq, unwinding cycles of sectarian and terrorist violence could take years."
This year the Foreign Relations had four classified briefings on Syria -- the latest had been Tuesday night -- but this was a public hearing, as Ranking Member Richard Lugar noted, "I felt, as did the Chairman, it was very important that we have an open hearing that we could hear the witnesses, so could the public, so could the press and help likewise our understanding as we have a dialogue with our constituents and others about this very important topic."
Richard Lugar, a Republican, was more interested in informing the American people than was The Good Whore.
Here's an excerpt from the hearing, where Chair Kerry was questioning the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Andrew Tabler.
Chair John Kerry: Well there's been as you know in the meeting in Paris and other meetings, Istanbul and elsewhere, very significant efforts to flush out who is the opposition? I mean, do you know exactly who you would provide weapons too?
Andrew Tabler: Absolutely not. But --
Chair John Kerry: Don't you think we need to know that?
Andrew Tabler: Absolutely.
" Don't you think we need to know that?" asked John Kerry.
Amy Goodman didn't. Amy Goodman didn't think journalism required her to explore it.
The Good Whore has been allowed to cross far too many lines, to take far too many shortcuts, to get away with falsehoods and conflicts of interests. The refusal to hold her accountable is the reason she is what she is today: The Good Whore for Barack Obama.
In the end, Goody appears to be emulating someone but it's not Julianna Marguiles. No, Goody seems obsessed with Pearl, the character Farrah Fawcett played in The Substitue Wife. Watching last week, you kept expecting her to wind down the show with Pearl's signature line, "I ain't just a whore, I'm a good whore. A damn good whore." And on that claim, Goodman might find universal agreement.