SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2024
Not built for this line of work: As we awoke this very morning, the youthful analysts were struggling to memorize the lyrics of a major Beatles hit.
"Let It Be," the youngsters were singing. They pointed us toward the new poll reported by the Des Moines Register in a startling news report which appears today beneath this dual headline:
Iowa Poll: Kamala Harris leapfrogs Donald Trump to take lead near Election Day. Here's how
The nationally recognized Iowa Poll shows Kamala Harris picking up support from women to surpass Donald Trump in a ruby-red state he has won twice
In recent elections, this particular poll of Iowa voters has a strong record for accuracy.
Can it possibly be? Has Candidate Harris gone ahead in the Hawkeye State, with abortion rights being offered as a possible explanation?
At this site, we have no idea. It's all over now but the waiting!
As for us, our regular entertainment experience was undermined this morning. For unknown reasons, the regular gang on Fox & Friends Weekend was kicked to the curb today, replaced by the less entertaining gang from the weekday Fox & Friends.
The weekend gang is more Christianist and is therefore more entertaining—and also perhaps more instructive. We really think the time has come to start saying their names:
Fox & Friends Weekend, regular friends
Rachel Campos-Duffy
Pete Hegseth
Will Cain
This morning, those three had been kicked to the curb, replaced by the weekday message dispensers:
Fox & Friends (week days), regular friends
Brian Kilmeade
Steve Doocy
Ainsley Earhardt
Lawrence Jones
Of the seven. the genial Campos-Duffy is the most (Catholic) Christianist, and therefore the most intriguing. She's the most genial person on the face of the earth—until she starts discussing the Communists, Marxists and pagans she can spot under every bed.
With respect to such Others, a different persona prevails. She won't say the actual name of the political party to which such Others belong. Even now, she won't stop mispronouncing the first name of their presidential candidate.
This is the way this genial person reacts in the presence of Others. This reaction is "human all the way down," major experts have routinely now said.
At any rate:
With respect to "all this now too much for us," we make this one suggestion:
It's time for tribunes in Blue America to start saying those names! It's time for those trusted tribunes to stop averting their gaze.
Also, it's time for the rest of us somnolents to stop accepting the self-serving behavior of Blue American news orgs and pundits who keep playing this "Nothing to look at" game.
It's time to start saying their names! It's time to start reporting and discussing what those friends say and do. It's time to stop seeking safety in vastly overpaid careers.
With this comes an obvious warning:
Our tribunes aren't going to stop behaving those ways! It's what these comfortable, overpaid stars are strongly inclined to do.
We offer one last point about this morning's offerings. Below, you see some of the shrieks of concern offered today by Maureen Dowd.
For the record, her headline refers to Tucker Carlson's recent announcement that he was clawed by demons last year, even as his wife and his dogs continued to sleep before the campfire he keeps going in the family cave.
Needless to say, Dowd's newspaper hasn't reported this coming-out announcement by Carlson. As she mentions Carlson's announcement in passing, her column offers a basic description of Candidate Donald J. Trump:
All the Demons Are Here
[...]
Donald Trump’s private life is marked by a cascade of sordid episodes. But so is his public life. Trump simply has no character.
When I asked a scholar what Shakespearean figure Trump most resembles, he replied that Trump is not complex enough to be one. You have to have a character to have a tragic flaw that mars your character.
And that raises the question: How did the America of George Washington never telling a lie, the America of Honest Abe, the America of the Greatest Generation, the America of Gary Cooper facing down a murderous gang alone in “High Noon”—how did this America, our America, become a place where a man with no character has an even chance of being re-elected president?
[...]
Donald Trump is a human algorithm, always ratcheting up antagonism. He’s a personification and exploiter of all the things creating anxiety in people’s lives.
I sat in Madison Square Garden for eight hours last Sunday, working my way through a box of popcorn, a large pretzel and two bags of peanut M&M’s. I was surprised when some commentators reacted with shock at some of the insults slung that day.
For me, it seemed like a pretty typical Trump rally: ugly, dark, crude, denigrating, racist, misogynistic. (Sid Rosenberg, a conservative radio host, helped kick things off by calling Hillary Clinton “a sick son of a bitch.”) Speakers included Elon Musk, R.F.K. Jr. and Tucker Carlson, who thinks a demon clawed him while he was in bed last year.
[...]
It’s no surprise that Trump provided last-minute evidence of the character he lacks. As he said about being the Protector of Women, he will do it “whether they like it or not.” That’s the way it is with Trump and women—whether they like it or not.
I would have been more shocked if Trump had used his big moment at the Garden to offer a sunnier vision...
[...]
But that would have been the human thing to do. And Trump doesn’t care about human niceties. He just wants to be the biggest beast in the jungle, to take whatever he wants, in any way he can get it.
Trump can play it round or square, pro-choice or anti-abortion, pro-TikTok or anti-TikTok, pro-crypto or anti-crypto. He has no philosophy, except: What’s in it for him? The only thread of continuity in his life is self-interest.
[...]
He wakes up obsessing on how to reward himself and his family and friends and how to punish his enemies. He wakes up plotting how to pit people against one another.
Maureen Dowd is a good, decent person. She's also extremely human.
In today's column, she has chosen a certain way to describe Candidate Trump. He is "a man with no character," she says again and again.
He wants to be the biggest beast. He doesn't care about being human!
How did we ever get to the place where some such candidate could be elected again? In some part, the answer lies with the fairly obvious pro-Trump slant which was evident in Dowd's work during the 2016 campaign, the apparent product of her loathing of that year's Candidate Clinton.
Meanwhile, there exist certain medical / psychiatric terms for the type of person Dowd describes in this morning's column. That said, and for better or worse, people like Dowd have reached certain guild-wide agreements:
They've agreed that the names and behaviors of the Fox News friends must never be reported or discussed. Also, they've agreed that that we must never discuss one of the obvious possible explanations for the portrait she draws of the bedeviled Candidate Trump.
We humans! We simply aren't built for this line of work!
The anthropologists Cummings and Brabender have described this problem best—but the self-serving silence of Blue America's "journalistic" elite keeps our nation pinwheeling down on this latest Sunday before we choose.
Could the beast lose the Hawkeye State? We have no idea!
Pepperidge Farm remembers: On the Sunday before the 2000 election, Dowd opened her column with an extended portrait of Candidate Gore. The candidate was portrayed standing before a mirror singing "I Feel Pretty" as he contemplated his bald spot.
If memory serves, that was the seventh (7th!) column Dowd had built around the candidate's troubling Spot. "If I rub in a tad more of this mahogany-colored industrial mousse, the Spot will disappear under my Reagan pompadour," she pictured the giddy candidate saying, right at the start of her column.
So it went in the New York Times on that Sunday before an election! This was part of the endless gong-show Dowd created in subsequent years in which she weirdly kept saying that Democratic Party women were actually men, while Democratic Party men were actually women.
According to experts, those columns about the Spot were human, all too human. Needless to say, none of Blue America's other stars said a single word!
Dearest darlings, use your heads! As the nation spirals down, it simply isn't done!
Awkward:
ReplyDeleteListen To The Jeffrey Epstein Tapes: ‘I Was Donald Trump’s Closest Friend’
https://www.thedailybeast.com/listen-to-the-jeffrey-epstein-tapes-i-was-donald-trumps-closest-friend/
“So it went in the New York Times on that Sunday before an election! This was part of the endless gong-show Dowd created in subsequent years in which she weirdly kept saying that Democratic Party women were actually men, while Democratic Party men were actually women.”
ReplyDeleteThat's intriguing. There is validity in that statement. Liberals have attributed to womanhood the perception of profound and virtuous suffering in order to use this as a means to take advantage of power imbalances among different groups.
With Comma La and Pooh Bear Waltz, Dowd has her archetype.
Cecelia, didn't you get Somerby's point about the childishness of mispronouncing (and presumably misspelling) candidate names? Apparently not, but isn't he your guru?
DeleteAnonymouse 9:35pm, obviously not. Bob is an extremely intelligent, interesting person, but not a guru (or the devil that he is to anonymices).
DeleteHe may have once been intelligent but he isn't these days. Something is wrong with him, compared to the old Somerby. He is not a devil but a sad old man who watches too much Fox, because it is easier than thinking and they have comedians instead of experts. That would be fine for him, if he weren't writing a blog and pretending to follow politics. He hasn't actually done that in a long time now.
DeleteCecelia and the other trolls are here taking advantage of Somerby's incompetence.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:09am, no, we’re the commenters who take advantage of Anonymouse incompetence.
DeleteThe idea that women, who were at one time legally dependent on men and severely discriminated against, wanting to do what they want with their lives is simply rectifying a “power imbalance”, rather than, you know, doing what they want, turns them into “men”, and that men not standing in their way or even encouraging them makes them “women” plays into a ridiculous notion about what it means to be a “man” or “woman”, apart from simple biological differences. It’s ridiculous.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:16am, women doing what they want does rectify a power imbalance. Although no one can do “anything” they want.
DeleteYou will never acknowledge the power that women from eight to eighty have always had and you’ll never be comfortable with anyone else acknowledging it or progress in general. You don’t gain power from success, you garner it from division.
Whatever you want to call it, it’s absurd to say that this turns women into men and vice versa. That’s just a dumb schoolyard taunt, that men become “effeminate” or women become “butch”. That sort of silliness is an attempt at rigidly defining gender roles.
DeleteHow masculine is a man who feigns fellatio in public?
DeleteAnonymouse 10:46am, it doesn’t turn women into men. It turns men into something that’s not quite a man. It turns them into Walz.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:08am, if Somerby has lost some steam with the years, so what? If you don’t find him intelligent anymore why bother? You wouldn’t bother. Why you do so is something you can never honestly say.
DeleteHow masculine is a man who feigns fellatio in public?
DeleteAnonymouse 12:52pm, I define him as a figment of the imagination of Democrats grasping for every fever dream that they can.
DeleteThe feigned fellatio wasn't a figment. So your answer falls under the category of nonsense.
DeleteSomerby is not a “man”, he is a nearly 80yo incel with a sock puppet to vent his “rage”.
DeleteI've read Somerby for 20+ years and have never seen him express rage. You don't read him very well.
DeleteHow about potty mouth? Does a real, masculine man have a potty mouth?
DeleteIt must be the orange makeup. It must be that real, masculine men wear orange makeup. And spend a lot of time fussin' with their hair.
DeleteYeah, Tim Walz has a lot to learn from Donald Trump about being a real, masculine man.
Delete@2:02 - more a festering resentment.
DeleteBut hold on. It could be the bone spurs. Maybe real men get funny little bone spur problems instead of being in the National Guard for 25 years.
DeleteIs that it?
Got it! It's the two divorces. Real men get divorced. Okay, done.
DeleteHow could I have missed it? Real men are always whining about how unfairly they're treated.
DeleteReal, masculine men are whiners. Problem solved.
Anonymices, real men don’t have to be coached on being a man.
DeleteReal men lead insurrections to destroy Democracy.
DeleteReal men are convicts.
DeleteReal men cheat. If they don't get what they want fair and square, they cheat to get it.
DeleteYou have a point but it's not the cheating. It's the lying. That's what separates your real, masculine man from a mere pretender. You have to be a liar.
DeleteBut don't you see, you're both right? The most real, the most masculine man is the one who lies about something, oh I don't know, say an election they lost. Then they try to cheat their way to winning it.
DeleteThat's the real, Gary Cooper kind of man that all Americans look up to.
Real men and women discuss asymmetry rather than defending their candidate.
DeleteReal men and women worry about a blogger with four active supporters.
Real men and women imply that their critics are gay.
Real men and women are anonymous.
Lyin' and cheatin's all well and good but aren't you leavin' out the demonizing? If, for example, you lose an election, you need scapegoats to blame it on.
DeleteSo you pick out a couple of lowly election workers and blame them for cheating when it's the very thing you're in the process of doing yourself and you turn their lives into a living hell.
Yes, for my money it's demonizing that is the defining characteristic of a traditional, manly man.
No, you're all shooting wide of the mark. You've set your sights too low. A real man has great ambitions.
DeleteSo he tears down his country by underminin' the belief you can even ever have a fair election, tearin' away at the very fabric of the democratic process, as it were.
That's a man of vision, a man of accomplishment, dstroyin' a country. Dare I say, a real man.
I've got to jump in the water here. You're all overthinking it. It's like that feller @ 12:52 said. A real man feigns fellatio in public.
DeleteIt's as simple as that.
Anonymouse 4:00pm, we’re already clear on the fact that real men and women tried to put people in jail for years for just peacefully wandering into the Capitol building.
DeleteUntil wimpy SCOTUS got in the way.
You've nailed it, 4:03. It calls to mind the famous scene in High Noon when the cowardly townspeople have deserted Gary Cooper so he has to face the band of bad guys alone.
DeleteSo what does he do? Why, drops to his knees and pretends he's satisfying one of them, that's what. The bad guys scatter. They don't make 'em like that anymore.
Anonymouse 4:16pm, that last sentence depends upon your gender.
Delete"Anonymices, real men don’t have to be coached on being a man." But they need to have their balls tanned by Tucker Carlson and have Josh "Chickenshit Insurrectionist" Hawley write them books on how to behave.
Delete"As for us, our regular entertainment experience was undermined this morning."
ReplyDeleteMost liberals I know find Fox irritating and depressing. How can Somerby consider it entertainment?
There is also a disconnect with Cecelia considering Dowd accurate while most liberals find her appalling. Can you diagnose a person's political views from their appreciation of various media? If so, what does Somerby's choice of morning viewing say about his politics? Nothing that makes any sense to me.
Anonymouse 9:52pm, you may find Dowd as appalling as Bob does. I don’t like her either. However, when anyone manages to be right, they’re right.
DeleteSomerby’s choice of viewing is consistent with watching the media and certainly consistent as to giving his anonymouse audience what they claimed to want. “Now do Fox News” was the anonymouse anthem. But of course… until he actually did..
His original complaint, when gore was running, was that the mainstream media was repeating right wing talking point. Now, his complaint is that the mainstream media isn’t airing and debunking/condemning (I guess) right wing talking points.
DeleteCecelia, if you watch Fox 24/7, as Somerby claims to do, there is no time to be following any other media and that is a considerable handicap for a media "critic".
DeleteBack when Somerby was only criticizing the mainstream media (especially Rachel Maddow and MSNBC), someone may have asked why he never said anything about Fox, but no one here was begging Somerby to "do Fox news" as his main focus, as he has been doing recently.
This idea that we liberals have finally gotten what we wanted, because Somerby repeats Gutfeld's jokes and says mean things about him (like that he is 59 years old and short), is as silly and stupid as anything else you have said here. I don't understand why you comment on a political blog given that you have so little actual interest in politics. But I could say the same about Somerby these days. Are you senile too? Somerby still thinks Biden is not functioning well as president. It is a mercy that he is saying nothing substantive about anything any more. But what is your excuse?
Anonymices, yes, anonymices did say that Bob was covering the wrong part of the media. Endlessly. You often put it in the context of covering jay walking, when down the street there was a murder.
DeleteThere’s not a soul here who doesn’t understand that if Bob says “up”, you’re going to shout “down”. It’s invariably true and that is a tell because reasonable and sincere people would have some areas of agreement/praise along with disagreement. And too there’s nothing more cringingly disingenuous than to argue that critiquing a media organization over bias and disinformation is subterfuge for airing their false claims.
I never complained about Somerby not covering Fox. I discussed the issues Somerby raised about Maddow and MSNBC (and occasionally CNN where Somerby singled out Anderson Cooper). When Somerby says "up" there is usually a conservative talking point being pushed. That's why some of us disagree. It is also why some of us consider Somerby right wing, not liberal. He absolutely never advances any talking point of the left. For example, he has said nothing good about Harris except that he likes her smile (which is a sexist thing to do) and that she is now campaigning spectacularly well except that she doesn't talk about the issues in enough details and avoids press interviews (right wing talking points).
DeleteWhat does Gutfeld have to do with politics? Nothing at all. There has been no reason for repeating his lame jokes about Biden's poopy pants over and over and over, except to disparage Biden and the Democrats. Somerby hasn't been fooling anyone here except you, except you guys are more likely part of the same team and you are running interference for him while he advances Trump's agenda. And that makes you both scum.
Anonymouse 10:56pm, Gutfeld! Is entirely about politics and it now garners a big audience among the 25-56 age group.
DeleteIt’s YOU who has a problem, not Bob, and the fact that your coven can’t find Gutfeld!’s stats significant says it all. Instead you resort to whiny crap that essentially brooks no dissent or any real analysis other than saluting the Blue. You don’t want bloggers, you want political operatives, and when Dems aren’t your operatives you then decide that they work for the other side. They have to be the Fox News of leftist bloggers or commenters in order for you to be happy.
Go ahead and keep crying your eyes out and kvetching. No one is fooled by your militant brainless self.
It’s unlikely that you are here Cecelia because you care about “the discourse” or to examine your own failures, but to get off on liberal bashing.
DeleteAnonymouse 2:04pm, no, I’m here to read the blogger. That he comes with a cadre of screeching ninnies is entertaining, but when he leaves, I’ll leave.
DeleteThere’s no one more of a screeching ninny than Tucker Carlson.
DeleteI mean, c’mon man, he’s gay, right?
He’s so trad “feminine”, with his limp wrists and giggling and fawning over toxic masculinity.
The latent homosexuality among Republicans is so palpable, it’d be amusing if it didn’t cause so much harm.
Anonymouse 2:47pm, you’re not using the word “fag”, but that’s the spirit behind what you’re calling Carlson and Republican men. Ain’t a soul on earth who’s surprised.
DeleteI’m calling out the pernicious treatment of gays like myself by the Republican Party, and further noting how their behavior often masks latent homosexuality.
DeleteYour misguided perception of the “spirit behind” belies your own homophobia.
Anonymouse 3:12pm, sure you are. You’re just one more anonymouse flying monkey calling someone a “fag” in order to own the MAGATS.
DeleteThat’s how anonymices roll.
"They've agreed that the names and behaviors of the Fox News friends must never be reported or discussed. Also, they've agreed that that we must never discuss one of the obvious possible explanations for the portrait she draws of the bedeviled Candidate Trump."
ReplyDeleteDowd is paid to write opinion pieces. Why would she or should she waste her column discussing Fox & Friends (just because Somerby likes them)? There are much more important things to write about, just as there are more important things to write about for Somerby, although he ignores them.
It doesn't matter why Trump is unfit for office. It is not Dowd's job or ours either to diagnose Trump. That is for his family to do, aided by appropriate doctors. Our job is to make the best choice in the election. That is not Trump. There is no planet where Trump can be the best choice. I get it that various people have reasons for voting for Trump, but I doubt that most of them consider Trump sane, fit, or the best choice for the job. They are perhaps giving a big middle finger to America. Or maybe they, themselves are not quite rational. That isn't our concern either -- that is for their relatives to deal with.
For Somerby to dismiss all of the weirdness on the right as being human is ignorant, wrong, a lazy excuse for not discussing whatever is wrong with voters these days. Whatever it is, it isn't a dose of being human. It is something else, and that deserves to be discussed, not dismissed and not sane-washed and normalized, as Somerby does yet again today, by calling Dowd human (when she has gotten it right, for once in her life).
Cummings and Brabender are not anthropologists and neither is Somerby. No one cares whether Gore was excessively concerned about his bald spot. What matters this week is voting for the only responsible choice for president -- Kamala Harris.
Your reaction misses the point of Somerby’s critique: his frustration with the way mainstream media, including Dowd, selectively glosses over certain topics—particularly the ideological leanings of media figures who shape public opinion.
DeleteMy view of this Somerby post is that he is criticizing Dowd for savaging Hillary Clinton, which helped pave the way for Trump, but now she attacks Trump as a man without character. It is of course possible for someone to hold both views.
DeleteAs people have said here endlessly, the purpose of the mainstream news is not musing on the media. It is to report current events and give a platform to opinion writers and editorials, which are about the actual news. Covering the media is the function of publications like The Columbia Journalism Review or Media Matters. It is not what a cable news show or the print press or internet newspapers exist to do.
DeleteSomerby does not cover the "ideological leanings" of anyone. He nitpicks minor errors and complains that press doesn't ask the same questions he would have asked. He mostly picks on female journalists, those with an ivy league education, and black or gay media figures. There is no cogent analysis whatsoever of any media performance, and he often gets things wrong when he launches a criticism against one of his favorite targets.
Dowd is not "selectively glossing" Trump today.
Anonymouse 10:26am, so Bob is arguing that both Fox and Dowd are remiss to his thinking. He gives examples of why he says this and you in turn argue that his example aren’t the examples that he should use and that he mostly goes after women ( which isn’t true). However when Bob goes after the highest rated late night show on tv for their sexism and sheer prurience, you accuse him of wasting his time AND of trying to amplify Gutfeld!. You’re disingenuous to the core and you’re hired to be that way.
Delete@10:55 - I'll need more Thousand Island for this word salad.
DeleteBob, the guy who doesn’t like women, is going after a highly popular tv show that makes jokes about fellatio in reference to VP-and-candidate-for-president Comma La Harris. Figure it out from there.
DeleteEarth to right wing morons, broccoli is vastly more popular than liver, but neither are particularly popular in the broader scope of things.
DeleteIt is interesting how right wingers struggle with asymmetry, almost as if their disingenuousness is baked in.
Anonymouse 2:54pm, oh, let’s not forget the one guy who isn’t putting his foot up his own butt by referencing “asymmetry” when a tv show is calling his candidate a whore.
Delete"According to experts, those columns about the Spot were human, all too human. Needless to say, none of Blue America's other stars said a single word! "
ReplyDeleteIt is perhaps best for Gore that the other "stars" didn't say a word about his bald spot.
Dowd savaged everybody and lots of writers at the time said plenty about it, especially in the left blogosphere.
Bandy Lee's assessment of Trump got plenty of press exposure. There has been plenty of discussion of Trump's cognitive issues this election too. Why does Somerby keep pretending it is being ignored when it isn't?
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, crickets from Somerby about Trump's stunt yesterday where he pretended fellatio with his microphone. Perhaps he doesn't know about it, since they won't be discussing it on Fox.
Fox viewers are told that Trump is the family values candidate.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:15am, I remember when Bob was discussing something very significant and anonymices were rending their garments and crying that he was wrong and traitorous right up until Schumer and Pelosi dropped a bomb on the Biden family and anonymices.
DeleteCool story.
DeleteAnonymouse 2:57pm, you should have been there. Anonymices were doing outraged odes to Biden’s mental health right up until their leadership pulled the plug.
DeleteThere is still an imbalance in the Trump v Harris coverage at the New York Times. Here are the stories:
ReplyDeleteTrump:
1. What's at Stake: Trump's Criminal Trials
2. Where do Nikki Haley Voters Turn?
3. A Second Trump Term: Three conservatives unpack What Could Happen
4. Why 61 Focus Groups Make Me Think Trump has a Good Chance of Winning
5. Trump's Wild Claims... redefine Presidential Boundaries
6. Fact-checking Trump's Closing Arguments
7. There will Always be a Trump
8. But he digresses...Trump's strangest Detours
Harris:
1. Harris Joins SNL
2. Harris appeals to Latino Pride
3. Fact-checking Harris' closing arguments
4. Women are Dying in Post-Roe America (not exactly about Harris)
Both:
1. Harris & Trump Battle to the Wire
2. Some surprises in Polls...still deadlocked
3. There's something very different about Harris v Trump
4. Harris goes to Detroit, Trump to PA
So, there is still a 2-1 advantage for Trump and a huge dominance for Trump among the opinion pieces.
If Somerby were a media critic, he might have discussed this even once prior to the election. This is what it has been like every day.
Some might argue that some of the Trump articles are negative, but pointing out that getting elected is Trump's main way of staying out of jail because his criminal trials will go away, seems to help Trump not hurt him. Most of the editorials today are written by conservatives and favor Trump. There is nothing remotely similar for Harris, except Ezra Klein (behind a paywall) and he seems to be bothsidesing the election by talking about differences between the two candidates, judging by the headline.
Where is the coverage of Harris and her issues? Gone down the same sinkhole as Hillary's issues coverage, apparently. This lopsided coverage may be why Somerby thinks Harris doesn't have good answers about the issues (as he keeps saying). There was also no coverage of Trump fellating the microphone either.
Anonymouse 10:49am, it’s not that Bob doesn’t discuss the difference between how Harris has conducted her campaign from past candidates, it’s that you can’t tolerate it. Actually, you’re not here to tolerate anything Bob writes, but in this case the fact is that you and the people who hired you truly can’t tolerate it. That he does say things that aren’t eternally glowing of Harris or the left in general is the beef.
DeleteWell, vice versa Cecelia. You can’t tolerate any criticism of Somerby.
DeleteAnd who is paying you and DiC and all the anti-Harris trolls who comment here?
DeleteZxecvh, your mama.
Delete10:49: What exactly do you mean by “imbalance”? Is your claim that there should be an equal number of articles? More articles about Trump doesn’t necessarily imply bias. The two candidates are not exactly the same. For example, Trump is a felon. His legal issues are more likely to generate articles. In general, if Trump stories have more news value, he may have a larger number of articles about him but it doesn't prove intent on the part of the New York Times to favor Trump.
DeleteYou haven't thought this through thoroughly, if at all.
Zxecvh, I just agreed with Maureen Dowd rather than Somerby.
DeleteAnd yet that was one of the things Somerby got right.
DeleteZxcvb, and yet… you still mischaracterized me.
DeleteIndeed, let’s characterize “Cecelia” properly.
DeleteThe artist formerly known as Cecelia, is a man pretending to be woman.
“Cecelia” amuses himself with this childish ploy, and it aids in hiding the circumstance that they can not generate a coherent sentence, much less a coherent argument.
To be fair, rather obviously, English is not his first language.
“Cecelia” is a troubled man, a wounded lost soul, wearing his unresolved trauma on his sleeve, in a cry for help. Via mere comments, we can not be of much aid to him, he needs professionals with an inpatient setting; we can try to nudge him towards a better path, but his condition appears to be recalcitrant, so likely the best way we can help him is to ignore him, even when he is desperately trying to goad you into paying him some attention.
Anonymouse 2:36pm, it’s clear by now that I don’t arouse pity in you, your fantasy of me being a man makes you tingle.
DeleteLook who’s triggered now!
DeleteIf you go thru any more t -word sensations you may terminate.
DeleteDeath threats now!
DeleteAnonymices self-immolate. No one need get near them.
Delete“'Cecelia' is a troubled man, a wounded lost soul, wearing his unresolved trauma on his sleeve."
DeleteThis is from one of those who defends "truth" but becomes frightened by the tone of "intimidation" they find ("Death threats now!") when they encounter any pushback at all to their vulgar nonsense.
Let's be frank: This mouse who keeps calling CC a man is a weirdo.
DeleteAs a stone-cold feminist, I think such gender-based insults are out of line.
DeleteSomerby seems to view the populace as plankton drifting in a sea swayed by the flow dynamics of corporate media.
ReplyDeleteThere’s no evidence for this, and Somerby does not bother to offer anything to substantiate his claims.
In reality, independent media dwarfs corporate media, Gutfeld, for example, can only garner a tiny slice of the audience independent media gets via platforms like YouTube. Broadcast and cable tv is rapidly dying off, but Somerby ignores the memo, like the Bush admin ignored the memos indicating a terrorist attacking before 9/11.
In reality, “liberals” do not read Dowd, or other such right wing nonsense, but Dowd in the referenced column does come close to touching on an accurate point: right wingers have no ideology, it’s an emergent personality trait centered on an obsession with hierarchy and dominance. Take note Somerby, in doing so, you’d lessen your confused notions about human behavior.
In reality, Gore won the 2000 election, it was not Dowd and corporate media that lost Gore the election, it was the dirty tricks of the Republican Party and the Supreme Court that disenfranchised voters to hand the election to Bush.
What happened in 2000 was shocking, yet Somerby rarely discusses the pertinent aspect, instead he wants to distract us with superfluous nonsense.
"There’s no evidence for this, and Somerby does not bother to offer anything to substantiate his claims"
DeleteThis above all.
4:00 says, "underminin' the belief you can even ever have a fair election, tears away at the very fabric of the democratic process, as it were." There are two ways to protect against such underminin':
ReplyDelete1. Prevent people from saying disparaging things about the election process
2. Make election procedures so transparently protected against fraud or error fair that anyone can that the election was fair
We have not achieved #2.
Why are we supposed to think #2 hasn't already been achieved?
Delete#3 - Knowingly push the lie on TV to suckers like DiC and get fined $780M for your service to the loser.
Delete#4 - Knowingly push dozens of false election theft stories and lose your license like Ghouliani, or Chesebro.
#5 - Defame election workers and lose your house. (Hardy har har.)
#6 - Meet to conspire a half dozen steal the election from Biden plots and lose your law license like Easton.
#7 - Hire MAGA loons like the Ninjas in AZ looking for Chinese bamboo fibers and at the end of the day find 13 votes for Biden.
#8 - Start lying about election fraud early and often to raise integrity fears starting with a primary loss to Ted Cruz in IA. Seed Tuesday's loss with election integrity bullshit since I am tired of you.
#9 - Watch tonight's 60 Minutes to see the awful consequences of these viscous and harmful lies.
Trump's momentum appears to be multiplying. He's likely to get the electorate he needs. Harris needs to attract the Republican right and they simply are not biting. Prepare for impact.
DeleteWhat's the point of a post like this?
DeleteTrump is winning on the top issues. Harris is intent on keeping everything the same but people want change. However, Trump is Trump and vulgar and unlikeable to many. The NYT is saying late deciders are breaking for Harris. If I was a Harris supporter, I would be very scared.
DeleteOkay, thanks for your expertise.
DeleteWe will see on Tuesday. So many of my friends and coworkers think white liberal women are ruining America.
DeleteHector can you describe the procedures for printing and distributing and counting ballots? Do you know enough to be certain that these procedures prevent fraud in the real world? Do you know how absentee ballots are protected against fraud? Do you know how the introduction of forged ballots is prevented?
DeleteWhen you and I can answer “Yes” to all these questions, (2) will be achieved.
10:47 And depending on who wins you will either cry like a baby that the election was rigged or do cartwheels that your candidate won a fair election.
DeleteIf the modern world required DIC to understand its workings we would still be using flint to make fire.
Delete"So many of my friends and coworkers think white liberal women are ruining America" Why, because they are educated and have jobs?
DeleteDavid,
DeleteAlways glad to bolster your somewhat fact-free media diet.
Elections are run by the states so there are 50 different ways of doing them.
One obstacle to your desire for complete transparency is the secret ballot. That's why totals are published at the precinct level.
This site describes the most commonly used voter integrity procedures:
https://vote.gov/your-vote-is-safe.
A quote from that site:
"Over 98% of voters nationwide cast a ballot with a paper record."
These paper records can then be compared to the computer-generated results to ensure accuracy.
Given the level of scrutiny applied in 2020, as Trump's lies cascaded across the land, and the utter failure to come up with any significant mechanical or computational errors IN THE FOUR YEARS since the election,, your concern with election integrity seems a little paranoid.
10:02,
Deleteyou seem to conflate who you would like to win with who will win. Separate questions.
I am a Harris supporter.
Delete“ Maureen Dowd is a good, decent person.”
ReplyDeleteHow in the world would he know this? I suspect it could possibly not be true.
Just saw a movie about Trump. Called "Being There."
ReplyDeleteOnly the Peter Sellers character was harmless.
Delete"We will build a missile defense shield," Trump said. "We’ll put Herschel Walker in charge of that little sucker."
ReplyDeleteGod help us all.
Less dangerous than Kennedy running the CDC. That nutcase is capable of killing more people than Trump did during Covid, if he puts his worm addled mind to it.
DeleteDowd is the political obsessive old spinster aunt many of us will have to endure at Thanksgiving, careful not to trigger her bitter trembling tirades of misery and paranoia. It doesn't help that the nephews enjoy poking the bear.
ReplyDelete