MEDIA WATCH MEMORIES 2001, PART 1

http://www.buzzflash.com/mediawatch/2001/12/Roundup_Pt_1.html

What separates this "year in review" from the lists you'll find elsewhere is that it ISN'T a list!! Rather, it's a compendium of excerpts from "real time" reports. It's also an example of how everything is "relative." While tracking the media, the spin was obvious, but it's evident that before 9/11 there was still some dissent; furthermore, the Bush presidency was losing its glow. Contrast the coverage then, as biased as it was, with the state of the media today. It's hard to believe it has sunk even lower-but it has!!

Instead of offering the usual New Year's greeting, I'd like to offer a wish coined by Dale Reynolds who does commentary over at RadioLeft.com. Instead of a "Happy New Year," I'd like to say: "Have a DIFFERENT New Year."

PART I: JANUARY - APRIL 2001

1) January 20, 2001 .....(a pre-MW commentary)

Reflections on the Day of Infamy--Inauguration Day…A lot of the media downplayed the protests as being from various 60's groups rather than ordinary citizens. Larry King, new spokesman from the Bush people, had Ben Bradlee and wife Sally Quinn from the Washington Post on. Bradlee, in typical smug fashion that we will be seeing often now, commented that he wasn't impressed by the demonstrators--they seemed "shabby" and they "just went home right after the events." Well, wouldn't you seem "shabby" if you had sat on a bus for hours and then were freezing your butt off?? Hugh "Snidey" Sidey, the analyst that they resurrected from somewhere, commented that "reporters wouldn't have to be looking at everything," this after Sally said "They're in and it will all be quiet and calm." And this after saying that the presidency will be less about "him"/the president and more about the people." My comment: it was about "him" because the GOP and press made it about "him." Comment 2: It's up to us to make sure it's NOT quiet and calm....

2) February 6 (a pre-MW commentary)

James Carville Explains Florida to Chris Matthews… Chris Matthews showed the extent of his sell-out to the GOP tonight as James Carville confronted him over and over again on the subject of Florida. Matthews had the gall to ask Carville "When are you people going to stop complaining about Florida?" Carville went ballistic--"We're never going to stop until we know the truth. Very soon we'll be finding out a lot things." …He then said that Gore won Florida-"and you know it, and the media know it, and Democrats know it"--and Scalia stopped the vote because he and the GOP knew that Gore won Florida. He then said, several times, as Matthews tried to again say that Democrats should stop talking about Florida, that "You (Matthews) HAVE NO RIGHT to tell people who worked their hearts out that they shouldn't know the TRUTH!" …Then Matthews said, "I thought elections were about governing the country" to which Carville replied, "NO, they're about knowing the truth!"

3) February 15 (pre-MW commentary)

Valentine's Day showed no love to Bill Clinton. O'Reilly was positively vicious. When Ron Brown Jr. finished up his comment with "When will all this investigating end?" O'Reilly shot back "When there's nothing left to investigate and he's in jail." I just got sick to my stomach. Fair and balanced… And the next story? The "booty" the Clinton's took with them....I turned it off.

4) March 3 Edition

When Geraldo came on he recounted the shock of staffers about the pardon, but also said that Lewis Libbey, VP Cheney's Chief of Staff, had just said at the hearings that he did not believe the case against Rich was even a crime!!! Geraldo called it "devastating" to the GOP going after Clinton, a major embarrassment. Ed Rollins disagreed, but John Dean said that in relying on the tax case, Libbey did agree with the Clinton!! Tavis Smiley also felt it was an embarrassment and said he never saw a group overplay its hand like the GOP did. Tavis then mentioned Burton and his holier than thou attitude and his own affairs!! Tavis went on to say that Clinton hasn't done anything different from anyone else. Tavis was absolutely brilliant as he described the piling on by the GOP. Geraldo concluded that this "ain't going anyplace" and then heatedly riffed-- "Clinton gets smeared, then proven innocent in a specific case, and yet on the FOX channel he's still smeared?? IS THIS FAIR??? ... I think the mainstream media--I don't even want to use the verb--is sick!"

5) March 6 Edition

All through this photo op with the Congressional leaders, esp. Sen. Grassley hanging on his every word, Bush sat hunched over with his tie hanging down in front of his crotch. Think back to the cover of Rolling Stone which pictured Bill with his tie hanging in the same general area. Remember the jokes and the comments about the sexual message being sent?? So, why aren't we hearing the same about Shrub's sexual image?? No, I'm not joking....

6) March 9 Edition

At least I did get some laughs when James Traficant (D?-Ohio) showed up with Paula "The Hyena" Zahn. This guy loves the Bush tax cut and says the Democrats have "abandoned the American worker." Let's see, this week we've had a limitation placed on state worker disability claims, a rollback of the ergonomics rule, a suspension of the rules which require firms bidding for government contracts to follow environmental laws, affirmative action, etc., all at the hands of the GOP. So, tell me, James--is that extra topknot of hair sitting on the top of your head weighing on your brain just a smidge too heavily???? Apparently, Bill Press was thinking the same thing--when I caught Traficant later on The Spin Room, Bill interrupted Traficant's ravings about Democrats, taxes, and his probable indictment to query, "May I ask you a personal question? Is your wife a hairdresser?"

7) March 16 Edition

Paula "The Hyena" Zahn opened with the question "Is GOP Infighting Putting President's Bush's Agenda At Risk??" citing moderate Republicans being ticked off at Bush catering to conservatives. Al D'Amato doesn't think it's fatal, but Sen. Jeffords (R) calls it a "chink in the armor." Peter Fenn, Democratic strategist, called it a "bad start," sucking up to oil and coal interests with more bad environmental stuff coming, and leaving Christie Todd Whitman twisting in the wind. Zahn said she had had Christie on only last Friday when she said the C02 ban would be going forward. Cliff May, GOP strategist, said "What we see here is LEADERSHIP!" He did the scare tactic line on increasing energy prices and said we breathe out C02 and there is no good reason to regulate it because it is not a terrible gas! Whew, Cliff!! So much stupidity in one breath!! Zahn played an ad attacking Olympia Snowe for her opposition to the tax cut without a trigger, which Fenn thought was really stupid, as did Al D'Amato. I mean, let's turn off the moderates...

8) March 20 Edition

The Capitol Gang lived up to their name this week by FINALLY ganging up on the Bushies!! Guest Sen. Jennifer Dunn, R-WA looked downright wan as she confronted the "talking down the economy" issue by calling Bush "realistic and candid." But Margaret Carlson said that Bush talked about being worried about "portfolios," a term not often heard at the Legion Hall…

When asked about the Dems blaming Dubya for talking down the economy with "gloom and doom," Dunn sounded like she was at a revival meeting when she responded unconvincingly that "The President had GOOD NEWS, and it's his tax cut program." …The normally effervescent Mark Shields suddenly got snappy, snarling at Dunn "You know last fall they (the Bushies) were saying the economy was in trouble--it was a CALCULATED, POLITICAL MOVE!"

Dunn retorted that "The economy started going downhill a year ago when the antitrust attack on Microsoft began!" Shields sneered, "And that's why Gore lost Oregon and Washington??" In the face of the newly sarcastic Shields, Dunn went back to Jimmy Carter, saying that "MALAISE is also undermining the economy now!!" (Author's Note": I didn't realize "malaise" had that long a shelf life!) Well, neither did Shields-- he went ballistic, exclaiming "Let's blame Roosevelt!! and as they cut to commercial, you could hear him chortling, "Were you at Yalta???"

After the break, Shields introduced the clip from 9/29/00 showing Bush making his C02 pledge and then one of Whitman repeating it 5 months later! Carlson said it was a ploy to appeal to moderates and independents to get their votes and now it looks like he's not keeping his promise. Margaret went on to say that "you can say Clinton pardoned Rich because of money that Denise Rich gave, but then Bush Buddy Lay, the Chairman of Enron, gave $1 million dollars and the coal industry gave $3 million. So they win--it's just rolling over for the industry!"

9) March 27 Edition

Later, Tim (Russert) and Doris (Kearns Goodwin) reminisced about Ford's pardon of Nixon which, on looking back, now seems to be OK. Doris mused "What would have been accomplished by destroying him (Nixon)? Why not use some of the energy of the man? He became a foreign policy expert and wrote all those books!!" Hey Tim and Doris--how about the destruction of Bill Clinton?? How about all the good Bill could do for the country if you weren't destroying him RIGHT NOW??

Doris and Tim then discussed how Bush's style is so much different than Bill's style. It all came down to Doris saying that sometimes working to midnight doesn't always result in good work being done at all, so the implication was that even though Bush acts like he doesn't work hard, he is probably doing just as much if not more than what Bill ever did!!! See how it works? Take a Bush negative, compare it to a Clinton positive by making the Clinton positive into a negative and VOILA, you have a Bush POSITIVE!! Phew, now that's what I call "historical revisionism," courtesy Doris Kearns Goodwin, with an assist from Tim!

10) March 27 Edition

On The Edge, Sen. Fred Thompson was on. He's been all over the tube the last couple of weeks, notably as a substitute host on Hardball. Zahn said she might have him on as guest host sometime--great! Why don't CNBC and FOX simply set up shop in the Republican Senate Caucus room?? Because by Thursday (3/29), Hardball had been hosted by Former Sen. Alan Simpson (2X), Thompson (2X), and Gergen (2X) with an extra Gergen appearance on Friday (Hardball had been pre-empted one day by a stock market report). So out of 8 shows, 7 were hosted by Republicans!! How's that for fairness in the media????

11) April 2 Edition

On Saturday, 3/31, FOX showed "O'Reilly vs. Carville: Mano a Mano in Monterey" hosted by the slimy Shepard Smith. The whole thing looked like a tea party. Leon Panetta was the moderator, throwing out questions for O'Reilly and Carville to answer. Panetta was jolly and laughed a lot, probably because he's been out of Washington for awhile. I switched channels back and forth but picked up a few good Carville comments. When asked if he was embarrassed by Gore losing his home state: "About as half as much as by Bush not carrying the whole country." How is Bush doing? Carville said it depended on how you viewed the issues and "Back to my main point: it matters! We're gearing up--people are going to find out he's not what they voted for--some will think he's doing better, some will think he's doing worse." Another comment: "In the end, being President is about judgment."

12) April 17 Edition

I stopped by the Spin Room where in celebration of salmonella, arsenic and other Bush atrocities against the consuming public, the guest was Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation" who informed the audience that the burger of today "is a very different burger than 25 years ago." As Bill Press scarfed down a MacDonalds, Schlosser reported that the meat suppliers now mix together thousands of cattle and if there's one infected steer, it contaminates everything. Oh, and there's manure in the mix, too. Why? Deregulation and lack of oversight! The Federal government is apparently not empowered to actually recall meat--they can recall a stuffed animal, but not a real cow.

This sounds like exactly the sort of thing the Bush Administration will continue to embrace--this along with the "natural flavor" found in the fries. This "flavor" is actually made by petrochemical outfits, who are surely "friends of George." And let's NOT turn our attention to the meat plant workers, who, according to Schlosser, work in dangerous conditions, in far away rural areas away from the media, for low pay and who are getting injured everyday…

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…Don Hewitt of 60 Minutes then came on (The Edge) to push his book "Tell Me a Story" and pooh-poohed the idea that the public doesn't trust the media. He said newspapers are now copying cable news, which is just a business and doesn't owe anybody anything. He figures there will be one network broadcast someday as a result of 24 hour cable news and that some big market will drop network news entirely since local stations have all the feeds and can do it themselves.

So, it looks like news coverage will continue to slide downhill, folks. THEY DON'T OWE US ANYTHING! Something to look forward to.

13) April 27 Edition

(Spin Room)…Then the talk turned to the mess in Texas as reported by the NY Times. Bill Press ran down the list of how the GOP and Dems were taking steps to clean up the mess by raising taxes, passing tougher environmental laws, changing Medicaid laws to allow more poor kids qualify, and putting more money into schools. Press ended by commenting "If we had known what a bad governor George W. Bush was, we would never have elected him...of course, we DIDN'T elect him..."

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I then checked 15 minutes into the CNN chat with John King, and found that Bush looked embalmed and that his nose seems to have grown, a la Pinocchio. By the way, wasn't John King the guy who was supposed to be so incensed about CNN's election coverage that he was going to leave? What happened? Did they add a few zeros to his paycheck??

I did catch one especially illuminating Bush interlude. King asked what Bush liked about the job and Bush said, "You have to be decisive. You have to make decisions." Really! Bush continued with "I like to be in the White House and I like to go to the Oval Office." That's about as eloquent as it's going to get, folks...

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Later, I checked the comedy beat to break the monotony. The Daily Show continues to be one of the few places where you get any relief from Bush Worship. Jon Stewart reported that "Americans have given Bush his highest poll numbers yet, showing that people answering the pollsters suffer from mild retardation!" They did a great bit on all the things Bush hasn't accomplished. At the end of the show, the recap was "100 Days--That's almost as many as the number of Dalmatians on the tape he (Bush) likes to watch..."

Meanwhile, Bill Maher was on with Jay Leno. Leno kept on trying to get Maher to agree that Bush's handling of the China incident was boffo. I as surpised at Leno for saying that getting the flight crew back was he most important thing! Maher acerbically repeated his line that these people are in the military are supposed to be in dangerous situations and staying at the actual Hainan Hilton and sharing a razor isn't exactly like John McCain being held in Viet Nam for 5 years at the "Hanoi Hilton." Maher was in a very grumpy mood right from the start when Leno asked him about Bush's first 100 Days--"I think he should quit," said Maher.

Tomorrow: Part II: May - September 2001

Copyright 2001, Gloria R. Lalumia

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