Tag Archives: MSNBC

Quote of the Day

“Ronan Farrow Daily debuted Monday on MSNBC, and while the host bravely projected enthusiasm right through to the end, it was clear from the start that something was really wrong. It was like seeing the neighbor’s cute kid pushed into a talent recital for which he was not quite prepared. A lot of people are clapping, but the audience support makes the spectacle onstage even worse.”

Tom McCarthy, The Guardian

Dear Mr. Bezos…

When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post last August, the former ombudsman for the paper, Patrick Pexton, did an open letter to the new owner about what he considered “the good, the bad, and the ugly” at the paper.  The ugly was reserved for WaPo’s conservative political blogger, Jennifer Rubin.  Some excerpts:

“Have Fred Hiatt, your editorial page editor…fire opinion blogger Jennifer Rubin.  Not because she’s conservative, but because she’s just plain bad.  She doesn’t travel within a hundred miles of Post standards.  She parrots and peddles every silly right-wing theory to come down the pike in transparent attempts to get Web hits. …

“Rubin was the No. 1 source of complaint about any single Post staffer while I was ombudsman, and I’m leaving out the organized email campaigns against her by leftie groups like Media Matters.  Thinking conservatives didn’t like her, thinking moderates didn’t like her, government workers who knew her arguments to be unfair didn’t like her.  Dump her like a dull tome on the Amazon Bargain Books page.”

I too can’t stand the woman. During the 2012 campaign, Rubin was basically a Romney campaign staffer embedded at a major media outlet, writing gushing schoolgirl love letters to him.  She also focuses so much on Israel that she seems to think she works at the Jerusalem Post.

I’m citing the letter today because she has a post up at WaPo called “The scandal is MSNBC,” in which she says Chris Christie’s problems are all MSNBC’s fault.  She criticizes their allowing Hoboken’s mayor, Dawn Zimmer, to claim that her city was denied Sandy aid because she wasn’t playing ball on redevelopment for property belonging to Port Authority chairman David Samson’s law firm’s clients. 

The thing is, everyone is trying to figure out Chris Christie’s motivation for acts that seem punitive and retaliatory, like the Fort Lee lane closures.  That’s because the Governor himself isn’t offering an explanation beyond “mistakes were made.”  If he had wanted to come on the air before, during, or after Dawn Zimmer, or send a spokesman, MSNBC would have been delighted to have him.  Until he ‘splains in full, the non-Fox media are going to be searching for reasons.

In Rubin’s cock-eyed world, Watergate was the fault of her newspaper, not the Nixon administration.

Does “Hudson Lights” Shine Light on Christie Scandal?

 

The key to the Chris Christie lane closure scandal may revolve around — surprise, surprise — money, not votes.

A billion-dollar commercial and residential project called Harbor Lights is supposed to be built on land near the George Washington Bridge, with quick and easy access to New York via those three lanes from Fort Lee.  Of course, if access is cut back, the project loses it appeal and becomes much less valuable.  At the time when the lane closures were ordered last August, the designs and zoning had been done for the project.  You know what hadn’t been done? The financing.  So anything that scared off investors — like three lanes down to one and people sitting in hours of traffic — would threaten whether Harbor Lights would actually see the light of day.

Talking Points Memo is doing some excellent reporting on this, including a piece by Brian Murphy (who used to work for fired Port Authority guy David Wildstein), expanding on what Murphy said on Steve Kornacki’s show on MSNBC.   Kornacki also once worked for Wildstein.  Both men know Jersey politics intimately. From Murphy’s story:

“We now know that a major redevelopment project, one that depends on Port Authority assets and relationships, was put in jeopardy at a vulnerable financial moment, and in a way that put the viability of the entire project at risk.

“But we still don’t know why. This batch of subpoenaed documents isn’t going to tell us, and the people who know – who really know – either aren’t talking or haven’t yet been questioned.”

There’s so much more to come out, we’re just at the beginning of this story.  I think it will expose who was going to get what out of the project — and who thought they weren’t getting enough.  Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich has been trying to keep things quiet and make the story go away.  His strange response has made me suspicious of him from the get-go, as if he was not just a victim of Christie’s hardball tactics, but a player with stuff to hide.  He seems desperate not to upset the apple cart.

The real scandal here is probably a bi-partisan one about bribes and kickbacks and payoffs that will take down both Republicans and Dems in the end.  It doesn’t seem to be a partisan GOP plot to punish a Dem who wouldn’t endorse Christie. It’s hard to imagine a billion-dollar project getting done in Jersey without some serious skimming.

A Gentle Reminder That Perversion Is Bipartisan

Whatever happens to Keith Olbermann (and I think we all know his upcoming stint on ESPN will end badly), I will always remember fondly that when Sen. David Vitter (R-SC) was caught up in his prostitution scandal back in 2007, Olbermann would quickly and quietly mutter “diaper” when referring to the Palmetto Perv.

Vitter was named in the DC Madame scandal, but then it emerged that just as members of Congress have homes both in DC and their states, Vitter had ho’s both in DC and back home.  And he managed to stand out among his brothel’s clientele in New Orleans because he liked to let his good times roll while wearing a diaper.  Yes, he managed to shock NOLA prostitutes in how he preferred to be “Pampered.”

And if you think things couldn’t get weirder, let me add that when Vitter was running for Senate, one of his ads showed him changing one of his kids’ diapers.

I bring this up because last night MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry was talking about Vitter’s bill banning a federal bailout for Detroit (no one is proposing such a bailout, but that never stops the party from the alternate universe), and she referenced his “unlawful and, shall we say, infantile infidelity.”

More subtle than Keith, but much appreciated anyway.

So make your Weiner jokes, GOP, but don’t forget that members of both parties can be equally bizarre and creepy when it comes to their members.

“Odds of This Happening to a White Kid Are Just Very Slim”

I haven’t followed the Zimmerman trial closely, but I’m a big fan of Josh Marshall, and I wanted to share this.

From “Trayvon’s Dead Body,” Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo:

“I didn’t know this until just now. But yesterday MSNBC momentarily aired a courtroom image of Trayvon Martin’s dead body at the crime scene. It was seemingly accidental and they quickly panned away. Our video team saw it but didn’t run it, which was totally the right decision by every standard we’ve always followed. I didn’t see it myself or even know about it until a few moments ago when Gawker ran the image.

“I’m sure it makes me sound a bit naive saying this but I was shocked when I saw it. Of course, I’ve seen dead bodies before. And I’ve seen countless crime scene photos of dead bodies. In terms of who’s guilty and who’s innocent, it is well worth noting just for the record that seeing a dead body is inherently inflammatory and disquieting. It’s not probative at all in terms of determining guilt, which is why there’s usually a lot of jousting in a courtroom about what jurors get exposed to.

“But I wanted to share a personal reaction when I saw it. I felt guilty journalistically that it hasn’t been seen. Not guilty as us, TPM, but guilty in terms of journalism in general. We’re not going to run it because we’ve always had a pretty conservative editorial standard about running images that show gratuitous violence or death, dead bodies, etc. Whatever the merits of that standard, it’s probably not the right decision to depart from it now in this one case at the end of a trial we have not covered closely. And in any case, it’s already published if you want to see it. Before I link to it, seriously, think it over before you click. It’s upsetting. Here it is.

“But back to the image itself. Seeing it, for all the tabloid coverage and endless CNN cable news coverage of the case, a big part of me feels like the real story here has been glossed over. Whatever the ins and outs of the legalities here, the odds of this happening to a white kid are just very slim. I knew that an hour ago. But I’m confronting it in a different way now.”

Media Squabble Alert

If you like this sort of thing, Salon and MSNBC are having a tiff.

Alex Seitz-Ward wrote a story yesterday calling out the media for falling for the IRS scandal.  I quoted from the story on this blog.

Last night, Lawrence O’Donnell did a long “Rewrite” on his MSNBC show, faulting Seitz-Ward for not crediting O’Donnell with recognizing the phoniness of the scandal early on and in 24 (O’Donnell kept emphasizing that 24) segments on his show.

Now Alex Pareene has a post up at Salon slamming O’Donnell  — “Lawrence O’Donnell outraged to read story that isn’t about him.”

I’m sure we’ll be hearing from O’Donnell this evening.

I Love Melissa Harris Perry

Perry responds to the faux outrage about her MSNBC ad, which basically says everybody should want good schools in their communities and be willing to pay for them:

“My inbox began filling with hateful, personal attacks on Monday, apparently as a result of conservative reactions to a recent “Lean Forward” advertisement now airing on MSNBC, which you can view above. What I thought was an uncontroversial comment on my desire for Americans to see children as everyone’s responsibility has created a bit of a tempest in the right’s teapot. Allow me to double down. 

“One thing is for sure: I have no intention of apologizing for saying that our children, all of our children, are part of more than our households, they are part of our communities and deserve to have the care, attention, resources, respect and opportunities of those communities. 

“I believe wholeheartedly, and without apology, that we have a collective responsibility to the children of our communities even if we did not conceive and bear them. Of course, parents can and should raise their children with their own values. But they should be able to do so in a community that provides safe places to play, quality food to eat, terrific schools to attend, and economic opportunities to support them. No individual household can do that alone. We have to build that world together. 

“So those of you who were alarmed by the ad can relax. I have no designs on taking your children. Please keep your kids! But I understand the fear. 

“We do live in a nation where slaveholders took the infants from the arms of my foremothers and sold them for their own profit. We do live in a nation where the government snatched American Indian children from their families and “re-educated” them by forbidding them to speak their language and practice their traditions. 

“But that is not what I was talking about, and you know it.”   Emphasis added.

Too often, we respond to the crazies by backing down, when we need to double down.  And I just love that “you know it” at the end — calling them out on their crude calculation, which should never be mistaken for confused concern.

Perry wants to live in an America where no one is ignorant.  Her attackers want to keep the ignorant constantly outraged over nothing.