Monday, November 08, 2021

Media: Save us from the know-it-alls

We live in a world of know-it-alls. And how's that working out for the country?

3 JESS

Rachel Maddow has long played a know it all despite knowing nothing. She went from a pro-war radio pundit to AIR AMERICA RADIO where she demonstrated that she didn't know anything including publication dates. She's show up for AAR's UNFILTERED on Monday mornings talking about how "in this morning's WASHINGTON POST," this or that had been reported. Problem?

It wasn't Monday morning's POST. It was from Sunday or Saturday or Friday. But she would repeatedly insist that it was that morning and here she was, the first to break it to you.

That's really disturbing when it happens over and over. It goes to a dishonest core and it goes to the ability to lie about even the smallest thing. Lie? Yes, lie. It happened over and over. Elaine was an UNFILTERED listener and she knew everybody on that chat board -- knew them online. And the regular listeners knew Rachel was lying. How? They pointed it out on the boards during the show, think Rachel had misspoke. She hadn't. And she never self-corrected. It became a hallmark of her AAR radio career. She was lying. And she lied all the time.

When Lizz Winstead was informed that UNFILTERED was being pulled off the schedule in one month and would be replaced by a Jerry Springer show, Lizz walked. Not Rachel. Rachel went on every day and lied to listeners that Lizz was sick. When Elaine and others challenged that on the message board of the show (one of us had passed on to Elaine what had actually happened), they would be dismissed. When Elaine posted on the board what had actually happened, Rachel decided to comment or 'comment.' Lizz would not want anyone talking about this, Rachel insisted, and it was hurtful to talk about it.

Really? Because what would have helped Lizz is if no one would have lied. If AAR listeners had been given a month's notice that UNFILTERED with Lizz, Chuck D and Rachel was being pulled to be replaced with a radio show from trash TV's Jerry Springer, there would have been a huge pushback that would have made it very difficult to remove UNFILTERED.

But Rachel was part of the lies that let the show get removed.

Instead of saving the show, Rachel worried about setting herself up so she'd have a job. To ensure that happened, she lied repeatedly on air and off air? Little girl got her daddy to post to the show's message board. He did it under multiple names and no one was the wiser for a bit. They did wonder where all these new people -- with all the same thoughts -- were suddenly coming from. Then one of the longterm posters informed everyone that these seven or so 'new' posters all had the same IP address and were, in fact, Rachel's father.

After UNFILTERED, Rachel did get two opportunities from AAR; however, she couldn't deliver an audience. Not a real surprise. Her approach was haughty and she didn't come across as warm. Without seeing her Scott Baio mug, she was just an annoying voice. She began appearing on the cesspool that was MSNBC. Yes, it had moved past extreme homophobia but it was still massively sexist. And Rachel spoke with AP about that. Some wrongly thought Rachel wanted to address sexism and make some changes. No, as soon as AP published the interview, MSNBC gave Rachel her own show and that shut her up.

They were very sexist. Hillary Clinton was seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination and you had all these MSNBC men saying vile things about Hillary -- she was "pimping her own daughter." You also had so called reporters for NBC NEWS appearing on MSNBC and bragging on air that they couldn't be objective because they were such huge fans of Barack Obama. When Katie Couric called some of this sexism out -- sexism that continued after Rachel got her own show -- Keith Olbermann -- remember that woman hater -- declared Katie "the worst person of the week." That's how it went back in the 'glory days' of MSNBC.

It's always been a sewer and Rachel quickly ended up the network's very own gutter girl. She wasn't calling out her male peers for their rank sexism -- that continued long after 2008. In fact, Chris Matthews -- whom Rachel spoke against in that AP interview that MSNBC rushed to cover up -- didn't leave the network until 2020 and Rachel was his on-air best pal.

MSNBC made her wear make up -- a lot -- and even that didn't bother her. At times, she appeared like a heavily painted fun house but as long as they were paying her salary, she didn't care. What's self respect to a whore but something that might cause you to lose sleep?

She lied on air over and over repeatedly and began to really 'shine' as a liar who would whip up the crazies (her core audience, by the way). So when Russia-gate came along, it found the perfect mid-wife in Rachel Maddow.

Russia-gate was nonsense and Rachel pimped it endlessly.

Aaron Mate. We wanted to give him a gold star and brag on him. We kept hearing he'd done a great job in the last days by nailing down Rachel's lies about Russia-gate with a brand new column.

 

Yea! We could praise him.

And then we read it.

"Russia-gate has no rock bottom" is the title and right below the title there's a photo of Rachel Maddow.

Good, he's going to get to the point and document and explain her various deceptions, right?

Wrong. Not counting pull quotes (even his own from previous articles) or Tweets, just the new words he typed for this article, he's at 1387 words before he gets to a sentence with Rachel Maddow's name in it.

1387.

By way of comparison, we're not even at 1000 words yet and we've already established Rachel's shady character -- something we've been doing for years

1387. Does Aaron have a point to make about Rachel because we really don't have that kind of time. More to the point, we don't need to make that kind of time.

Russia-gate? We didn't need Aaron Mate to call that nonsense out for ourselves. Both of us knew the late Stephen Cohen and when we had a question regarding claims, he's the one we went to. But, here's the thing, we were already calling out Russia-gate before we had to consult anyone.

We were speaking to various groups and it started popping up. We knew, on its face, it was garbage and called it out from the start.

Aaron Mate? Sorry, we knew him only as one of the liars about Libya from when he was on DEMOCRACY NOW! The show through whatever tiny bits of integrity it had into the waste bin in order to push for war on Libya. They were downright hateful to the late Glen Ford of BLACK AGENDA REPORT. No, we don't forget things like that, sorry.

But we were happy to have a reason to praise Aaron. Or happy to think we would praise him.

Again, we made the mistake of reading him.

1387 words?

Who does he think is going to read the piece? The new 'hook' for him is to call out Rachel and her refusal to correct the record. That could get some new eye balls on the topic. But not if they're waiting 1387 words before he can get to the point.

A lot of people bought into the lies of Russia-gate. They did so because the media sold these lies. So calling out a media figure who sold the lies is a good idea. Expecting people read over 1387 words before you even mention the name of a media personality is more than a bit much.

If you're boasting on your Twitter feed that you're taking on Rachel Maddow and your article begins with a photo of her, you really should mention her not later than the last sentence in your first paragraph.

On the issue of Donald Trump and his scandals and his 'scandals' -- the latter being media nonsense and lies -- we had this little trick we used. We were there to talk about the wars and we were not speaking for people to hijack our discussion with the 'hot Trump topic' of the day. So what we would say is, "So they said this is happening any minute now? Then let's wait for that (arrest/removal from office/whatever). Let's give it 24 hours and if it doesn't happen and then you've been the victim of media malpractice yet again.

Preaching that practice to others saved us a lot of time and a lot of distraction. Following it ourselves did the same.

We're not know-it-alls. We don't pretend to know everything. There are many things we do not know. And we long ago followed Ellen Goodman's very wise advice regarding the Sunday Chat and Chews and how the same group of people showed up week after week to weigh in as experts when no one could be an expert on everything. As Ellen noted, it's just not possible. Of course that common sense would have to come from a woman -- far too many male blowhards think that they are an expert on every topic in the world.

Know-it-alls, sadly, usually don't know much at all. That's been the message of season three of HBO's TITANS though, strangely, we feel it's a message that the writers of the program missed. In other words, they sent message unknowingly

The know-it-all in season three is Dick Grayson -- the superhero without any powers and, sadly, without any brains. How many people was he trying to get killed accidentally this season? He was responsible for a lot of carnage. He only thought he killed Jason (Red Hood). He was responsible for the death of Hank (Hawk). And poor Barbara Gordon who had enough to put up with made the mistake of trusting him because he 'just knew' what was going to happen only to end up, yes, wrong.

Over and over, he was the know-it-all who knew nothing. So we were really confused when season three finally ending and he was still calling the shots on the team.

In terms of a trained leader of a group of fighters, we think it's really just Donna Troy (Wonder Girl). There's Kory Anders (Starfire) who is a trained fighter and was being groomed on her home planet to be the queen.

But, honestly, after the year Dick just racked up, even Krypto (Superboy's dog) could do a better job leading the Titans.

What's especially sad is that as inept as the character is? The performance Brenton Thwaites is delivering is just as bad.

Why did they, for example, kill off Hank?

Alan Ritchson delivered a wonderful performance and created a unique character. Mike was not the only one upset by Hank's death.

 

And Hank provided a different type of male character for the show. Strong performances are being delivered by so many -- Anna Diop and Damaris Lewis are amazing as sisters Kory and Komand'r (Starfire and Blackfire). Ryan Potter (Gar), Leslie Conor (Donna), Joshua Orpin (Conner), Savannah Welch (Barbara Gordon) and Karen Robinson (Vee) are wonderful. And then we get stuck with yet another scene where we're supposed to be impressed with Brenton Thwaites where we're supposed to be impressed with his acting and the character of Dick Grayson and the whole illusion just falls apart.

Which brings us to one of TV's supreme know-it-alls: Samantha Bee.

She was never that funny on THE DAILY SHOW and her personality has not transferred well to her own show on TBS. FULL FRONTAL WITH SAMANTA BEE was never a ratings hit. But it wasn't the ratings nightmare it's become since she returned last January. Long gone are the days of two million viewers. Gone also are the days of nearly two million and the days of 1/5 million and the days of one million and the days of . . .

This season, she's gotten her worst ratings ever. .45 was the most recent.

No one cares. In part, that's because her personality is grating and annoying. But what probably did her in even more this season was her announcement, last April, that she was and would be pulling her punches after Dan Rather asked her if that was happening on his podcast.

"I can't deny that that has happened. I mean, I think that's probably true across the board. You're like, OK, well we could be making jokes about, we could be making jokes about the infrastructure plan, but in general, I'm like, 'Wow, this is great. Why would I purposefully undermine something that is, seems to be a great idea, pretty much across the board?'"

Uh, because you're a comedian and you're supposed to traffic in jokes, not propaganda.

"Like I don't need to make jokes just to make jokes," she said, forgetting her occupation. "I like to make really targeted jokes. There are more worthy targets right now."

So the point everyone made from the start is true: She's one-sided and she's a propagandist for the Democratic Party. Don't mistake her whoring as something she's doing for the left. She's a whore for the Democratic Party.

How fitting that disgraced comedian Bee would confess to disgraced journalist Rather just how pathetic she was.

Know-it-alls like Samantha Bee always find the man to rub up against. Does it matter that Dan has a history of inappropriate interactions with women employed by CBS NEWS? Not to 'feminist' Sammy. Does it matter that he used sexism to try to destroy Connie Chung? Or Katie Couric? Or Diane Sawyer? Or Jane Wallace? Or . . .

Of course that doesn't matter to Samantha Bee -- just like it doesn't matter to her that Joe Biden probably assaulted Tara Reade.

Heaven save each one of us from the know-it-alls.