Context, ladies

POSTED BY JHW22

OK, I've had a couple of days now where I accidentally watched Andrea Mitchell and only just saved my TV by putting heavy objects away before throwing them at her.

Today's "WHY THE FUCK AM I WATCHING THIS?!?!" moment was when Andrea and two other female journalists (I think Ruth Marcus and another gal whose name escapes me) were going ON AND ON about the Obama ad with Sarah Jessica Parker. You'd think the campaign broke some advertising 101 rule or something. You'd think the Obama campaign just ran an ad worse than the Daisy ad or the sheep with glowing eyes ad or the "I'm not a witch" ad (side note: that "I'm not a witch" ad STILL makes me think of "I'm not a witch, I'm your wife"). Anywho, Andrea and crew acted as if going the celebrity route was the horror of campaign ad horrors.

But just now, while watching Lawrence O'Donnell, I learned that the SJP ad was aired during... THE MTV MOVIE AWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As someone who worked in advertising, let me just say that the ad was great, for starters, because it encourages people to A) Donate B) Register at the Obama site and C) Stars a WOMAN that many WOMEN based years of their lives' schedules around. Genius. Now to learn it was aired to target the YOUTH VOTE, I want to find every object in my house and throw them at my TV posthumously for Andrea and ladies being so CLUELESS.

It was a GENIUS ad. A GENIUS ad buy. The only people who didn't "get" that? Three old white ladies who didn't watch MTV even when it HAD music.

Rick Santorum's Billionaire Backer

This is Foster Friess. Foster Freiss is not really a billionaire. Foster Friess is a multi-multi-multi-millionaire. Foster Friess is pouring millions into backing Rick Santorum's run for the Republican nomination for President. Foster Friess thinks all the hoopla over the contraception issue is much ado about nothing because it's "so inexpensive nowadays."

“You know, back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.”

That only scratched the surface. If you didn't see the whole interview (I didn't, but do I really need to subject myself to that?), read the highlights at the Politico link.

If Santorum doesn't distance himself from those comments for being crude in the least, and he won't because he need's Freiss' money, you can witness his downfall in the polls within a couple of weeks.

New Talking Point Hot Button Phrase: Show Trial

The Republican party has been in a frothy lather since the torture memos were released and President Obama left the door open for AG Eric Holder to possibly investigate those who authored the memos.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the GOP is now attempting to make torture a liberal/consevative issue instead of the moral and illegal issue that it is, and their new tactic is to use the term "show trials" in an effort to belittle the the process should hearings and investigations occur.

Here's GOP ass kisser Bill O'Reilly justifying torture and repeating the phrase "show trial" to which Ellis Henican vehimently challenged. And I just caught Sen. Kit Bond (R-Doucheburgh) using the same term in his latest interview with Andrea Mitchell.

SHOW TRIAL! Watch for it!

Steve Pearlstein on Krugman Analysis: Flat. Out. Wrong.

Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein vehemently disagreed with Paul Krugman's analysis of President Obama's plan on MSNBC today.

Andrea Mitchell: Let me ask you about Paul Krugman in the New York Times today, because he, really even before the details were announced, he wrote, "The plan to use taxpayer funds to drive the prices of bad assets up to 'fair' levels... but the Geithner scheme would offer a one way bet; if asset values go up, the investors profit, but if they go down, the investors can walk away from their debt. So this isn't really about letting markets work. It's just an indirect, disguised way to subsidize purchases of bad assets."

Steve Pearlstein: Andrea? Flat. Out. Wrong. There is risk to the equity investors here. Obviously he either didn't understand the plan or didn't read it very carefully. Now do we limit their risk? Yes we do. Under the plan, yes we would and the reason for that is because if that wasn't necessary, then these markets would be working already. Clearly they're not working so we need to do something. You might call it a subsidy or you might call it providing some insurance, so yes we're doing that to jump-start these markets. And the hope is, that once these markets start to operate, the government can begin to withdraw, but right now you need something to prime the pump because there's no water coming out.

The Obama Economic Surge?

The Dow Jones has rebounded 623 points in the last three days, a 9.5% gain. I'm waiting with bated breath for all the "Obama Recession" bastards to give him credit for having the foresight to throw money at the problem and stem the tide.

The Obama economic "surge" worked! Why can't they admit that? Say it. SAY IT!

ADDING... Of course, I'm kidding. My point is that one has nothing to do with the other. It's all speculation based on insider news and confidence.

It's just very interesting and obvious that while the markets are doing poorly, President Obama's face is plastered all over the DJIA ticker, but when the markets are rallying, rags like Andrea Mitchell are trying to say the White House is taking credit for it while the MSM remains mum. Oh, they'll tell you the Dow is up, but the very next line isn't, "Is President Obama doing too much?" That's only reserved when the numbers are in the red. And please show me a quote where the White House taking credit that isn't intended as a joke, Andrea. And while you're at it kick your husband, Alan Greenspan in the scrotum. That scumbag was part of the problem.

Richardson Withdraws Commerce Sec Nomination

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, tapped in December by President-elect Barack Obama to serve as secretary of Commerce, has withdrawn his name for the position, citing a pending investigation into a company that has done business with his state.

"Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact," he said Sunday in a report by NBC News' Andrea Mitchell. "But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process."

My guess is that this is much ado about nothing. I can't believe that Bill Richardson was involved in a possible play for pay scandal, but it does show the type of person he is by withdrawing his name with the prospect of the investigation taking months.

Scarborough Disciple Chuck Todd

After President-Elect Obama announced his National Security team this morning, Chuck Todd congratulated Andrea Mitchell for getting a Secretary of State "that would make news daily." He's obviously been taking his News Hackery 101 class from the Dean of the News Hackery Department, Joe Scarborough.


ADDING... More hackery.

David Shuster: Jim, during the campaign, Gates was publicly vocal in criticizing Obama's call for getting combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months. What did we learn to day about how those tensions will play out in the weeks and months to come?

Jim Miklaszewski: Well quite frankly David, I don't think there are any tensions. When Secretary Gates took over here at the Pentagon, two of his major objectives were to, one, start drawing down the number of American forces in Iraq and he has begun that with the commanders on the ground and also to bring down the level of violence, and to hand over a viable Iraq to the incoming administration in January.

And even Obama himself was careful to point out that he wasn't talking about the withdrawal of ALL the troops in 16 months... I don't think there's much difference between Obama and Gates on that... or on Guantanamo.... [Obama] said, "I want to close the damn thing."

Fiorina Implants Foot In Cakehole

Is there no job that Carly Fiorina can hold on to? After stating earlier in the day that she didn't think Sarah Palin could be the CEO of a major corporation, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell gave the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and current McCain economic advisor a chance to get her foot out of her mouth. Who knew Carly was such a professional deep throater to actually get the rest of her leg jammed into her mouth?

Asked about that remark on MSNBC, she made the same unprompted assessment of the GOP presidential nominee. "I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation."

Of course she tried to qualify it by adding Obama and Biden in her description of the four politicians aspiring to the highest office in the land but not capable of running a corporation, but the damage was done.

And it looks like the McCain campaign is also in favor of rendition as an anonymous top campaign advisor has said Carly will disappear.

"Carly will now disappear," this source said. "Senator McCain was furious." Asked to define "disappear," this source said, adding that she would be off TV for a while – but remain at the Republican National Committee and keep her role as head of the party’s joint fundraising committee with the McCain campaign.

Looks like you can add Fiorina to the ranks of the unemployed.

The McCain-Obama Faith Faceoff

[Updated below.]

Barack Obama and John McCain met in Saddleback last Saturday evening at the behest of Dr. Rick Warren, an evangelical pastor of Saddleback Church in California to discuss faith. I really didn't give this forum too much thought. Why should I? Separation of church and state and all that. Besides the fact that Obama was sitting in front of a religious, conservative crowd (not his base, shall we say) and McCain was the odds on favorite to do well (or at least it would be perceived that way regardless) I wasn't really interested in this forum. In my mind, religion is religion and politics are politics and never the twain shall meet.

But now that the "reviews" are out and giving McCain the "victory" in the forum, many have reported that there were anomalies in the situation. For example, the McCain campaign is up in arms over the allegation that they had overheard the questions being asked of Obama which would put McCain at an advantage. That allegation was brought up by Andrea Mitchell, who accurately reported that McCain "may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama." And as the McCain campaign itself admits, McCain wasn't even in the holding location for the first segment of the forum while Obama was answering questions.

Whether that crap is true or not is completely irrelevant, in my opinion. What was important however, were the questions that were asked and how they were framed. As John Perr reports:

...there is no dispute. Despite CNN’s assurances to the contrary, Rick Warren simply asked Barack Obama and John McCain different questions.
From the very first question, Warren treated McCain with biblical kid gloves, editing out scriptural references that might have proven uncomfortable for the religiously reticent Republican:

QUESTION TO OBAMA: These first set of questions deal with your personal life as a leader and I’m not going to do this with any other segment, but as pastor I’ve got some verses that have to do with leadership. The first issue is the area of listening. There is a verse in Proverbs that says fools think they need no advice but the wise listen to other people. Who are the wisest three people you know in your life and who are you going to rely on heavily in your administration?

QUESTION TO MCCAIN: This first question deals with leadership and the personal life of leadership. First question, who were the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration?

...Given the very different framing of the question Warren posed, it’s no surprise that Barack Obama and John McCain produced strikingly different responses in both substance and style. Obama took Warren’s personal question personally, and cited his wife and grandmother as both “wise and honest” before moving on to a litany of political figures on both sides of the aisle... For his part, McCain responded to Warren’s political question and pointed to General David Petraeus, Obama supporter Congressman John Lewis and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

...And so it went all night. Thanks in no small part to Pastor Warren’s biblical guidance, Barack Obama spoke in a personal, conversational style, making a point throughout to refer to the principles of his Christian faith in the misguided attempt to please an audience indifferent to him at best, downright hostile at worst. So while Barack Obama talked of “trying to do God’s work,” John McCain did the work of his campaign advisers. Despite Warren’s feeble requests not to do so, McCain just repackaged his stump speech and made purely political appeals. In so doing, John McCain probably had the best night of the campaign.

UPDATE (9:55pm): The Rude Pundit has more on the subject - Riding Rick Warren's Saddleback

And an e-mailer sent this to Bob Cesca regarding McCain's answer to the "greatest moral failing" question:

How is it that McCain gets to answer the good pastor Warren as to his greatest moral failing with "the failure of his first marriage"? Marriages sometimes fail, and for a variety of reasons, but the failure of a marriage is, in and of itself, NOT a moral failing, let alone a personal one inasmuch as there were two people in the marriage.

This answer is just a shuck and jive of his real moral failure, which was his disloyalty and infidelity WITHIN that marriage, purportedly while his first wife was particularly vulnerable and in need of support of various stripes, none of which included perfidy or ostensible turpitude, nor by implication including her in the moral failure because she was his wife and that marriage failed!

He obviously is incapable of taking ANY responsibility with this answer. ...This guy McCain is a mess, war hero or not.

Straight Talk Goes Out The Window

Andrea Mitchell started to vindicate herself yesterday when taking on the GOP surrogates for McThuselah and stating the obvious - that McCain's new ad criticizing Obama for not visiting the troops because he couldn't bring cameras, or that he couldn't find time to visit them but found time to go to the gym is "literally not true", a kinder way of saying that the Maverick is a fucking liar.

I ripped Mitchell in the past for dumb remarks she's made towards Barack Obama, so I must give her kudos for acting like a journalist in this case. I suppose that even she can't let some of the McCain gaffes and specious lies go without calling them out for what they are - a betrayal of "straight talk" and "respectful campaigning," my friends.



Later in the day, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow took a look at McCain's record of how he supposedly supports the troops.



Hopefully as we get closer to the election, the reporting of John McCain will stray away from the St. Barbecue style that it has been to this point and will concentrate more on the gaffes, hypocrisy and inanity of some of his statements.

(H/T Jason Linkins, HuffPo)

UPDATE (7/30/08 10:45pm): More Andrea Mitchell -

MITCHELL: Did he make a bad call deciding not to go to Ramstein? He had every right to go to Ramstein, to visit the troops in Landstuhl. He had already been to visit the troops in Iraq. Without cameras, without an entourage. And he got-his people, rather-got so backed off by warnings from the Pentagon. Now please be careful, don’t bring your military aide, because he’s now a political aide. The Pentagon was way too aggressive probably in that. And they got so nervous: oh this is going to look political. And they were damned if they did or damned if they didn’t. Let me just finish what I was saying…just this one point…there was never any intention-let me be absolutely clear about this-the entourage was never going to go. There was never an intention to make this political. But by tacking it on to the tail end of a political-the political leg of the trip, they opened themselves up they feared to the criticism, and if they’d gone, they’d be criticized and not going, they were criticized and the McCain commercial on this subject is completely wrong! Factually wrong.

Andrea Mitchell and the "Fake News"

What's going on with Andrea Mitchell? I used to think she was a pretty credible journalist (even though she is married to Alan Greenspan) but now I'm starting to have my doubts. For the most part she can pretty much play it down the middle, but on occasion she blurts out some not-so-objective statements like she did yesterday on Hardball when covering Obama and his trip to visit troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mitchell: "Let me say something about his message management. He didn’t have reporters with him. He didn’t have a press pool. He didn’t do a press conference while he was on the ground either on Afghanistan or Iraq. What you’re seeing is not reporters brought in, you’re seeing selected pictures taken by the military, questioned by the military and what some would call fake interviews because they’re not interviews with a journalist so there’s a real press issue here. Politically it’s smart as can be, but we’ve not seen a Presidential candidate do this in my recollection ever before."

And the phrase "what some would call" is just doublespeak for "what I would call." But as far as her recollection of a presidential candidate ever doing this before? John Amato at Crooks & Liars might refresh her memory.

AMATO: I understand the need to get footage of Obama is her job, but to say they were phony was like saying his trip was like those fake news reports the administration sold to local networks that were presented as real new stories. I wondered if John McCain handled any of his overseas trips in the same way and guess what?

(via email) From an AP article during McCain’s March trip:

McCain’s visit was not announced and he was believed to have been in the country for several hours before reporters were able to confirm his arrival. It was unclear who he met with and no media opportunities or news conferences were planned.

So I think the GOP and wingnuts should stop whining about the supposed love-in the media is having with Obama on his trip, given the fact that they probably would have gone with McCain as well had he given them a heads up.

More Morning Joe Acumen

Andrea Mitchell, during the "News You Can't Use" segment on the Obama Family interview and finding out that Barack Obama doesn't like sweets:

"How can you trust a man that doesn't eat sweets?"

Awesome intellectual prowess on her part, don't you think?