Creeping Chavezismo in the MSM in regard to President Obama. From Drudge:
On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care — a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm! Highlights on the agenda:
ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.
The network plans a primetime special — ‘Prescription for America’ — originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.
Imagine if ABC news delivered a report on religion from the Vatican and excluded non-Catholics. What message would that send? This is an amazing level of sycophancy toward a president by a major media outlet, even a Democratic president.Let us hear no more whining about bias on FOX or talk radio, this stunt by ABC amounts to unpaid advertisng and a de facto government TV program. Why is this happening? Simple Obama-worship at ABC? Unlikely.
John Podesta, is the lead strategist of the effort to coordinate the media with Liberal-Left Democratic political needs, published his think tank’s strategy in regard to censoring talk radio. We can only imagine what advice Podesta gives to Obama administration officials in private, but the report was a strong signal to all broadcasters to toe the political line or face increasingly onerous FCC regulation, escalating fees, fines and denial of licenses over the next four years.
Republicans and conservatives need to wake up that the Obama administration is not playing the traditional “issues” game beloved of partisan interest groups bent on fighting over microscopic technical changes in abortion laws or .5 % of the capital gains tax rate. They could care less about that minutia for now, seeing it as distracting crap; the aim of the Obama administration is creating long-term, strategic advantages for Democrats and progressive leftists by changing the rules of the game for the long haul. So the Obamaites are focusing on controlling the media discourse, turning the Census Bureau into a political tool of the Democratic Party, redrawing the congressional map and raising the barriers to entry to participate in the political process for independent or conservative demographic groups.
Either the GOP gets it together in the next two election cycles or it is finished for a generation.
just to keep my favorite blog from turning in to too much of an amen corner (as opposed to a “keep your faith in the lord but keep your powder dry” corner) … isn’t this a tempest in a teapot … and to ask the loaded question … how does this differ (from the POTUS perspective/strategy … dare i say it, Machiavellian angle) of Karl Rove’s “permanent majority” strategy … just asking. More seriously, after assuming all Donks were wimps and manipulators, why are we surprised that the winner plays hardball … even if he learned hardball in donk controlled Chicago … a bit too much of the end of Casablanca … “shocked, I am shocked that the most liberal of the liberal democrats would encourage a biased media to behave this way … round up the usual suspects”
Carl Ortona,
The amazing thing to me — and perhaps to Zenpundit, if I read him correctly — is not that ABC and the Dems should want to collude in creating a de facto state-run television news outlet, but rather:
A) That they think they can get away with it, in full view of the entire country, and
B) That they probably can.
For every business in the country, the key question which increasingly determines your success or failure is “how much do the dominant politicians like you?” Those businesses which are in highly-regulated industries are most vulnerable, but the circle of control is rapidly increasing in size.
Carl Ortona,
… how does this differ (from the POTUS perspective/strategy … dare i say it, Machiavellian angle) of Karl Rove’s “permanent majority” strategy
Because Rove didn’t envision using the direct power of the state to force people to support democrats. Rove didn’t envision bullying broadcasters, corrupting the census etc.
Obama’s political views were not shaped by mainstream American political culture. His political beliefs are those of a Marxist influenced European. In the European model, all political power vest in this or that group of elites. The only real political debate is which group of elites holds power. Obama has no ethical problem creating a state mechanism of elitist control because, like leftist Europeans, he believes that elitist control is inevitable and that capitalist elites already control the country. In his view, he is merely swapping an evil elite for a virtuous one.
Sebit is correct. The surprise here for me is that ABC was willing to drop the fig leaf of a claim to nominal objectivity and openly shill without any regard for their journalistic dignity for the Obama administration.
We expect media partisanship for liberal pols out of ideological sympathy – this event also has the air of intimidation behind it. ABC is going overboard partly because they feel compelled to curry favor with the government.
This will have a positive effect in that it makes explicit what we all knew was going on under the covers. I wonder if this is ABC doing penance for the quite fair and somewhat embarrassing questions asked of candidate Obama by Charlie Gibson and Stephanopolis. Gibson’s question about capital gains taxes made Obama’s Marxist beliefs obvious to anyone who wasn’t blinded by the delusion that electing a black man president would lead to salvation.
Didn’t the Hollywood communist writers have to do something like this after the Nazi invasion of Russia? I seem to recall that Lillian Hellman and others who had favorably reviewed her play, “Watch on the Rhine,” had to do two quick reversals complete with apologies and incantations; once when Stalin signed the pact with Hitler, whereupon Hellman’s anti-Nazi play was inconvenient, and another when Hitler invaded, whereupon her play was resuscitated.
Henry Kissinger once said that the communists all identified themselves by those two neck snapping reversals. Maybe something like that is going on with ABC.
By all meaningful measures, network news has been overcome by cable news in a continuing slide that has rolled unabated since the inception of CNN. Within the networks, ABC is being hammered by CBS.
Losing share in a shrinking market — this is no time for ethics and journalistic integrity. They need all hands bailing out the sinking ship with whatever tool they can find.
Shillin’ for Bamo is better than nothin’
I took it as more of a sign that ABC was grasping at straws because of their poor ratings share (somewhat like David Foster wrote); any presidency will take advantage of the media/medium given — my initial reaction still somewhat stands — conservatives will always have a problem winning over entrenched “east coast liberal media types” — that seems to have existed since the dawn of modern communications; what seems/seemed risible, and therefore encourageable, and which might actually be a healthy sign (to the extent that all indicators point towards decline and/or death)is that i was waiting for the other shoe to drop … is there a betting line on the over/under … what will happen first 1) ABC starts a scroll line under their anchors “and the first 100,000 callers receive a 2-for-1 hip replacement/angioplasty voucher … call now; supplies are limited; operators are standing by” or 2) which anchor and/or newsreader makes the mistake of referring to Obama as “our beloved, dear leader” … From the POTUS perspective, cultivate core groups while you can … Rove was up against it even in the halycon days … from the media perspective, well … who is sinking fastest and is desperately reaching out for a gimmick … GM they ain’t … ABC doesn’t have a big enough union to merit bailing out if they go belly up.
“ABC doesn’t have a big enough union to merit bailing out if they go belly up.”
Carl, I don’t agree. I think Big Media is going to get bailed out by the Gov, and be even more in the Gov’s pocket than ever. I also think the Gov is going to go after the new media and try to shut it down.
But, otherwise, yeah, this is pathetic.
But, worst than that, it will probably work.