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The late great Eric Boehlert used to say that the media was driven by a simple construct "What are Republicans mad about today?" He was right then, and even more right now. The only response to MAGA outrage over Biden's comment should have been to play the dozens of times Trump referred to his opponents as garbage. And moved on to real news.

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His book “Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush” is well worth the read. It shows the mainstream “liberal” media were like this long before Trump.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/05/eric-boehlert-s-book-lapdogs-beats-the-press.html

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They’re scared Republicans won’t talk (lie) to them anymore. They’re never scared Democrats won’t talk to them. That’s why they’re so freaked out about Harris not talking to the NYT.

I know firsthand that the observation “It’s a story because you’re making it a story” draws the contemptuous response “Oh so you think we should keep things quiet?” This piece does an excellent job of pointing out the best response: “I’m saying this is your decision and I’m asking you to explain it.”

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"The correct answer to a reporter’s question about Biden’s statement isn’t “We don’t believe any American is trash,” the correct answer is, “What the hell is wrong with you, Mr. Journalist? You know this whole thing is bullshit. You know Republicans aren’t really angry. The election is less than a week away, and this is what you’re spending your time on? This is what you think is important for voters to hear about? Do you have that much contempt for your audience, and your own profession? Are you really that easily manipulated? For god’s sake, try to find some dignity, you pathetic hack.” "

You know who used to talk to journalists like that, Paul?

Somebody you probably wouldn't like....

Donald Rumsfeld.

They parodied on SNL. Darrell Hammond playing Rumsfeld. Making contemptuous faces at every reporter's question, interrogating the question and making the question and reporter look dumb.. Then he turns around to the room of silent reporters and says, 'that's it, no more questions....' and Rachel Dratch, as a reporter, replies........'too scared.....'.

I swear most of the time I see a political journalist ask a Dem or a progressive a question I think they need that kind of treatment. - "Well first of all you need to ask a good question instead of a crappy one..."

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Or they do it on purpose because they are themselves closet fascists and want the fascist to win. That is the simpler answer. They have done this too many times to believe that they are being taken in or falling for something. This is what they want.

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Paul - I would love to see you engage with Lawguy's point and voice a converging or diverging opinion.

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author

I don't think they're closet fascists, but they do (generally speaking) have a kind of contempt for Democrats, who they see as weak, and a belief that the game is all that matters. They've also gotten very used to responding to whatever fake outrage Republicans are offering. But it's a very complicated subject.

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Nope it's not complicated at all. They are truly fascists, closet fascists, or fascist enablers and they know it and they are happy with it. How do I know this? This has been going on for years if not decades. They cannot be doing the same thing over and over and not know what they are doing. And knowing by the way that the Republicans are simply playing a game that they are also playing.

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This is all a case of mainstream “journalists” and media looking for eyeballs, ears, ratings and whatever will invite the greatest unrest and attention. They are pathetic “prostitutes” to the right wing.

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seems not to be accepting new comments. part of the problem?

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sorry. my comment appeared a few seconds later.

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Hillary got the same kind of unfair, deeply damaging treatment. When she was talking about the need to help coal communities and her plan to do that, the media chose to play gotcha and to took one sentence out of context to make her look like a callous elitist who didn’t care about the problems of working class (Republicans claim to).

“Hillary Clinton’s “coal gaffe” is a microcosm of her twisted treatment by the media

She navigated a hall of mirrors.”

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/15/16306158/hillary-clinton-hall-of-mirrors

Most Americans have no clue that the US has the best economy in the world according to recent reports by both the World Bank and the Economist. There has been far more coverage of Biden’s garbage statement than there has been coverage of this story that profoundly affects voters’ lives.

“ The envy of the world —

The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust. Expect that to continue…”

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2024-10-19

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“What the hell is wrong with you, Mr. Journalist? You know this whole thing is bullshit. You know Republicans aren’t really angry. The election is less than a week away, and this is what you’re spending your time on?..."

Took the words right out of my mouth. ;-)

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You know who used to talk to journalists like that?

Somebody you probably wouldn't like....

Donald Rumsfeld.

They parodied on SNL. Darrell Hammond playing Rumsfeld. Making contemptuous faces at every reporter's question, interrogating the question and making the question and reporter look dumb.. Then he turns around to the room of silent reporters and says, 'that's it, no more questions....' and Rachel Dratch, as a reporter, replies........'too scared.....'.

I swear most of the time I see a political journalist ask a Dem or a progressive a question I think they need that kind of treatment. - "Well first of all you need to ask a good question instead of a crappy one..."

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founding

What, the Republicans can’t take a joke?

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Just a thought…maybe the MSM is mostly irrelevant at this point. The real action is on the ground getting people out to vote and - in some cases - overcoming the barriers to voting put up by the GOP in various states. Non traditional media seems to be playing a larger role as well. Saying all that, the MSM has been doing a rotten job for a long time, well before the bottom fell out of the business end of it.

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The super-rich and GOP are grabbing for the brass ring of Total Fascist Power. They see Trump as their very last chance.

They don't care about law or deaths or poverty or suffering, they only care about power.

They know they will be swept from office in November, so they are destroying our chances of voting as fast as they can.

And when Kamala wins, THEN COMES THE NEVER-ENDING GOP MAGA COUP D'ETAT.

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Waldman

I have to say I agree with you entirely. In fact I agreed with you before I read your essay, and before I read the other comments here (three so far) which I agree with entirely.

Problem is that it's almost possible that it's true..it's true that Republicans are making a big deal out of the lie they built around it...which is what they always do. So the reporters have some excuse for writing about it. What they have no excuse is for writing about "Biden's gaffe" instead of writing about the Republican lie about it. But there is nothing new about this, as you know. But that means that this is the world we live in. It seems we don't have elections with the democracy we would like to have, we have to go to elections with the democracy we do have. Which makes me very sad.

I get hated on when I try to tell people that calling for "pure" democracy (end the electoral college) is calling for the mob rule the Framers were trying to avoid. But then....well, that's how it goes.

By the way...Social Security does NOT contribute to the deficit, it is paid for entirely by the workers who will get the benefits. Because those workers will be living longer than their parents, they need to pay a little more...that is, save a little more. About a dollar per week more each year while their wages are going up about ten dollars per week eacn year. Try to get a reporter to report that, or a politician from either party to say that. Conspiracy, any one? or just stupidity.

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well, i paid more attention to "the media" reporting this morning. I could not say that it was consistently biased. this does not disagree with Walman's analysis here. it is true that the media always go for the sensational and stupid and provide no or bad analysis. but they maintain at least a superficial illusion of fairness. an exception would be Fox News reporting that the White House altered the transcript of Biden's "garbage" remarks. They did not say that the "altered" was to insert an apostrophe where it should always have been. It is likely the person who wrote the original transcript could not hear the apostrophe and did not understand the obvious sense of Biden's words. Fox did not even hint at this possibility but rather implied that Biden was cheating. As far as I could tell this is the way all "the media" reported the "altering."

in my comment yesterday i tried to point out an example of media bias in the reporting on Social Security. we are always told that Social Security is a big driver of the Deficit. It is not. It has nothing to do with the Budget or the Deficit. It is paid for entirely by the workers who will get the benefits. And we are always told that it needs to be fixed by cutting benefits, raising the retirement age, or "taxing the rich." None of these things will fix Social Security. What will fix Social Security is that we continue to pay for it ourselve just like our parents and grandparents did. The tax increase is needed to pay for our own needs because we wil be living longer than our parents. The amount of increase needed would be about one dollar per week per year while our real incomes are going up abut ten dollars per week prt year. I am sorry if this is "hijacking." I meant it as an example of what we CAN do, as opposed to just airing out opinions on a blog.

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apparently "The Hill" is making a big deal out of it. I'll stand by my :"fixing a stenograper's error" who, of course, can't hear the apostrophe in what was said, and is too dumb to understand the meaning that Biden intended. I did not finish watching The Hill's report, so maybe they may eventually reach that possibility, but meanwhile they are taking advanage of the "scandal" to call into question Biden's moral integrity on a number of other fixes to the record to clarify what he was trying to say. I don't think that this rises to a level of importance compared to any of the things Trump is lying about, so maybe we need to settle what is more important to put into the permanent record: what the President said, or what he was trying to say..perhaps allow an "annotation" so we don't end up presenting the stenographer's ear to history as "the truth." I heard the audio recording of what Biden said, and I heard the apostrophe.

In other words, Waldman is exactly right.

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I couldn’t agree more. I find political reporters and White House correspondents to be the worst offenders in this quadrant of bad journalism. The use of the passive voice to mask that it’s only the journalist and (and his or her editor) are the ones who made this particularity a Big News Story. Part of it is about fear of losing access. Part of it is an editor who can’t be talked out of a story no matter how intelligently you make the case that this is NOT news. The editor has sat in a meeting with other editors, and no reporters in the room. One of the editors says, “Why don’t we have this story about Biden calling Trump supporters garbage?” Everyone in the meeting pounces on it in unthinking agreement so they can maintain their friendships in the room. The other part of it is what Jeff Bezos identified in his column defending not endorsement a president two weeks before the election. I.E. The public despises journalists. We must remain neutral. But what he doesn’t understand is that we are not meant to be popular with the public. The truth is never popular.

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