This is the way it’s done: Sam and Cokie were finally done after a very long, fatuous run.
Today, a new class of TV Kool Kidz is being assembled and sold. This is one of the ways its members con you into the deal:
WALSH (12/13/12): There’s no real mystery about why House Speaker John Boehner and his allies keep screaming about wanting spending cuts, but never propose any: The kinds of cuts they are known to want, like raising the eligibility age and/or means testing Social Security and Medicare, are wildly unpopular. So on Thursday Boehner held a ranting press conference where he railed about “spending” but didn’t propose one single cut.At least she didn’t refer to “the great Luke Russert.”
On MSNBC’s “Now With Alex” (guest-hosted by the great Joy-Ann Reid), congressional correspondent Luke Russert told the unvarnished truth about why the party that’s for cuts won’t lay any out...
If you possess an ounce of self-respect, you should be insulted by that highlighted chunk—and this isn't a criticism of Reid.
The children, including the older children, routinely refer to each other as “the great [name here].” It’s their way of saying they think that you are easily conned.
The theory:
If they call each other “great,” you will swallow it whole. Your're so dumb you’ll believe it.
“Guest-hosted by the great Joy-Ann Reid?” Kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss! Joan Walsh has become truly sad.
Why talk numbers when words work so well?
ReplyDeleteThis from MMFA:
http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/12/13/report-tv-news-coverage-of-budget-negotiations/191828
All tribes appear equal.
Granted, many citizens tune out when economists start talking, but they aren't even given an opportunity to hear them at all.
“Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations.
This is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of, else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated men are in this condition, even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but it might be false for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them, and considered what such persons may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves profess.” - John Stuart Mill
Do our GREAT inner-beltway news solons actually look anything up?
DeleteAsk Jay Carney:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/12/1169301/-The-White-House-Shows-its-Hand-and-the-Republicans-Fold
When a BMW mechanic called the engineer's hotline to ask if there was a fix for a particular problem, the most scathing reply was, "There's a bulletin on it" meaning the issue had already been addressed and a fix had been published.
We were embarrassed when this happened. Reporters, not so much.
ӏt's nearly impossible to find experienced people about this subject, however, you sound like you know what you're talking about!
ReplyDeleteThanκs
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Chris Matthews has taken up this "the great" preface for his guests, too, routinely telling them what "great work" they do. Brian Williams loves to come out of his last news item with "what a great story," which is, in essence, him reminding his viewers of his own editorial astuteness. Our media has become a cult, and we suffer as a nation as a result. Just as I don't want to have a president that I'd like to have a beer with, I don't want reporters or pundits who choose being adorable over being honest and prepared.
ReplyDeleteBefore we hang Tony the Tiger in effigy, let us not that "great" has long been one the most abused words in modern hyperbole, years ahead of "genius" "awesome" or perhaps even "masterpiece." The MSNBC's gang's use of "the great" seems to me a wink wink, tongue in cheekism as in "we know it's silly but come on they really are so kind of GREAT, dude!" It's also meant to make the audience part of the kool gang, INSIDE and in the know on who needs no real introduction.
ReplyDeleteWhat's embarrassing here to Walsh is the strained praise for Russart, something of a laughingstock and treated as such by SALON! We can assume some of these people are handled by the same Agency.