How do you like your blue-eyed boy now!

MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2012

The well-hidden Jack Welch comes out: Last Friday, the unemployment rate ticked down.

Jack Welch threw a fit. In his initial remarks, then in his ludicrous TV interviews, an extremely well-hidden figure found his way into the light.

Who is Jack Welch? We’ll guess he’s the most influential figure in recent political history whose influence has never been discussed.

In effect, he’s a different version of Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch’s influence is discussed all the time. Welch’s role has always been hidden.

Who the heck is Jack Welch? For all we know, he’s the world’s nicest guy. He hails from Salem, in the Boston suburbs, our own part of the world. He grew up within our own cultural zone—the East Coast Irish Catholicism of the middle part of the last century.

(Our family moved to California in 1960. Catholic culture was very different there.)

That said, from 1981 through 2001, Welch was chairman and CEO of General Electric. During that period, GE owned NBC.

That included NBC News. And when it came to NBC News, Welch was not a hands-off owner.

We have discussed the comical, disturbing story of Welch and NBC News many times in the past dozen years. The story starts with Welch’s recruitment of Tim Russert to NBC News. By the end of the Clinton years, the story involves the comical East Coast Irish Catholic mafia Welch had assembled as the face of his news division—and the highly non-comical way they went after Clinton, then Gore, getting rich and famous as they seemed to advance Welch’s political agenda.

Because the press corps doesn't discuss the press corps, this comical, disturbing story has rarely been discussed or reported. If it weren’t for Sallie Brady’s long-lost report in the Washingtonian, we don’t think we ever would have heard about the comical, inbred relations within NBC’s news division.

As far as we know, Brady’s report can’t be read on-line. To us, this was a striking window into an undiscussed world:
BRADY (8/03): Nantucket: Big Money, Exclusive Restaurants, and Power Players in Golf Shoes

"You made it!" shouts a tanned, leggy blonde, her tennis skirt flipping in the breeze, as she hops out of an open-air Jeep that she's pulled up to the arrivals curb at Nantucket Memorial Airport.

Air kiss. Air kiss. "We're in the middle of a game!" she exults, beads of sweat on her back to prove it.

[...]

In summer, Nantucket is a remarkable re-creation of Washington politics, fundraisers, and restaurant life, confined to a 3½-by-14-mile resort island.

Tim Russert remembers the first time he visited. It “was in 1972. I had graduated from college,” Russert recalled in a Nantucket Magazine profile. “About 20 of us drove up, and we all jumped on the [Steamship Authority ferry]...and as soon as I stepped off I said, 'This is something special.’”

Russert is part of the Nantucket NBC crowd, one of the cliques that fuels the isle's social engine. It was Jack Welch, the story goes, the 20-year chairman and CEO of NBC’s parent company, General Electric, who drew network folk to Nantucket.

Russert and his wife, Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth, began summering on Nantucket in 1992. Russert has said he can go days without leaving his house except for a bike ride to get the newspapers. Then he’ll sit in his rocking chair and watch the grass blow in the breeze.

Russert does make it back for Meet the Press, the show that made him and that helped finance the Nantucket hideaway he acquired in 1999. The sprawling gray-shingled house, with rooftop sundeck and cutting garden, lies down an unmarked dirt path through a secluded forest. Hanging over the portico, a wooden sign bearing the cottage’s name says it all: SUNDAY MORNING.

Russert’s boss, NBC CEO Bob Wright, is also on the scene...Although Welch retired in 2001, he’s still a power magnet. He holds court from a massive gray-shingled home festooned with window boxes, near Sankaty Head Golf Club. It was there that Welch once played Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, only to discover that two of the richest men in the world routinely bet only $1 a round.
Welch, Wright and Russert were all part of NBC’s East Coast Irish Catholic mafia. In the summer of 2003, Chris Matthews joined the trio on the island, buying a crib for $4.3 million with the money had had gained from (apparently) doing the political bidding of Welch.

Matthews became very rich under Welch. As he did, he waged a long, bizarre, ranting war, first against President Clinton, then against Candidate Gore.

This is a comical, dangerous story of major corporate inbreeding. It is especially strange because of the aggressive, inexcusable way Jack Welch’s Lost Boys pursued that twenty-month war against Candidate Gore during Campaign 2000. That includes Brian Williams, another charter member of the East Coast Irish Catholic mafia which was assembled, and richly rewarded, during the tenure of Welch.

This is a disturbing story of comical corporate inbreeding. In any other industry, this highly amusing story would have been pursued in the press.

But this story took place within the heart of the mainstream press corps, an industry which isn't discussed by the mainstream press corps. (Murdoch’s role was on the right, and it was directed from Britain, so it could be pursued.)

Jack Welch came into the light last week. His role has been hidden all along. You aren’t encouraged or allowed to think about his peculiar history with NBC News. But if you didn’t care for the reign of George Bush, you ought to be demanding answers from your favorite liberal stars:

Why wasn’t this story pursued? And what explains the crackpot political war which was pursued, for years, by manifest hustlers like Matthews?

You should be demanding those answers. But alas! What happens on Nantucket very much seems to stay there.

NBC News was crazed under Welch. The children have agreed not to tell.

Visit our incomparable archives: For fuller treatments of this matter, see our incomparable archives, especially at the original version of this site.

“Nantucket” and “Welch” would be useful search terms. What happens there stays there, of course.

22 comments:

  1. lowercaseguy will be in his element today!

    But will it be grammatical?

    Syntactical?

    Will it be rational??

    We ask too much!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. “How do you like your blue-eyed boy now!” - lord robert de hyperbole

      >>> this is supposedly a liberal blog, so who is this question aimed at? and more generally, i dont remember seeing welch defended on liberal blogs. personally ive only defended him from from bigotry-based attacks which exaggerate his relative importance in the media. hes on the right and im on the left.


      “Last Friday, the unemployment rate ticked down.
      Jack Welch threw a fit. “ lord robert de hyperbole

      >>> if youre referring to his interview on msnbc, i saw the clip and he was very well composed. On the substance of his charge, i highly doubt a conspiracy but ive read business experts who believe that due to possible systemic sampling error, theres a signifigant chance that the rate will bounce back up to 7.9 or 8.0% next month*


      “In his initial remarks, then in his ludicrous TV interviews, an extremely well-hidden figure found his way into the light.
      Who is Jack Welch? We’ll guess he’s the most influential figure in recent political history whose influence has never been discussed.” - lord robert de hyperbole

      >>> hes been retired for 11 years and yet hes still being interviewed on tv, in print and in books. you could not be more wrong even on an absolute basis. but compared to the other former and current ceos of big media companies, youre off the charts ludicrous. most people dont even know who those other media company bigwigs are or were.


      “In effect, he’s a different version of Rupert Murdoch.” - lord robert de hyperbole

      >>> again extreme exaggeration. at its worst, msnbc or nbc was never close to the joke fox nonnews was and is.


      “ East Coast Irish Catholicism” - lord robert de hyperbole

      >>> there is only one (roman) catholicism. unlike protestantism with its numerous sects, r. catholicism has a centralized authority structure.


      “(Our family moved to California in 1960. Catholic culture was very different there.) - lord robert de hyperbole.

      >>> catholicism is a religion, not a culture. the various sociological, economic and assorted other factors determine a regions culture. the catholic religion is a constant.

      [continued]


      Delete
    2. “That said, from 1981 through 2001, Welch was chairman and CEO of General Electric” - lord robert de hyperbole

      >>> after 11 years being retired, id think his lordship could find another media ceo with the same ethnic background to take the blame for the medias mangement failings . . . unless perhaps they just arent around, and so welch is still needed as a scapegoat.


      “...comical East Coast Irish Catholic mafia...”
      “This is a comical, dangerous story of major corporate inbreeding.” a truly disgusting person (but a good american patriot to be fair)

      >>> any time three or more americans of irish ancestry -- whose forefathers may have fought and died in the civil war and even in the revolutionary war – are hired by the same organization, its implied they will be up to no good. 'no irish need apply' should be the the daily howlers mission statement at the top of the page. disgusting, not comical.
      ----------

      note: since you seem to think russert, who was on an hour a week, was so important because of his ancestry, ill note that he was of both german and irish ancestry.**


      Conclusion -

      somerby is engaged in an ongoing public relations propaganda campaign to save the mainstream media top management from blame for the election of george bush junior. (aside from those with irish-catholic heritage, i.e. welch, the only ceo type he ever seems to mention). welch is thrown under the bus to make less absolute the charge that somerby just goes after the front people (journalists).

      also welchs irish-catholic heritage plays into his ridiculous underlying narrative that there was an americans-with-irish-catholic-heritage conspiracy against gore, in order to deflect away from what was really probably an overall corporate conspiracy, using the corporate media as one of their tools to help carry it out.


      * http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2012/1005/Unemployment-rate-tampering-Why-conspiracy-theorists-went-wild

      ** http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/the-ultimate-paper-trail_b2816

      Delete
    3. Edit:

      “...comical East Coast Irish Catholic mafia...”
      “This is a comical, dangerous story of major corporate inbreeding.” a truly disgusting person (but a good american patriot to be fair)

      >>> to be fair and accurate, somerby didnt call welch disgusting...im calling somerby disgusting...i forgot to put in the dash before his lordships name at the end.

      Delete
    4. Too incoherent; did not read.

      Delete
    5. ABL, yup.

      But isn't this at least worthy of note in evaluating the honesty and value of lowercaseguy's contributions:

      "since you [Somerby] seem to think russert, who was on an hour a week, was so important because of his ancestry"

      Well, Somerby has of course never argued that Russert's importantance was owing to his ancestry.

      And the rest of the (sane) world realizes that Russert's actual influence was far greater than any count of his hours of air time would suggest.

      So, two things: First it's you, lowercase guy, and no one else, who is obsessed with ancestry as being of transcendent importance. Second, you pull a fast one on nobody pretending you think that Tim Russert had little clout and influence.

      Get back on your meds, Twitchy.

      Delete
    6. ABLOctober 8, 2012 4:50 PM
      Too incoherent; did not read.

      >>> bet that happens a lot to you.

      Delete
    7. "Well, Somerby has of course never argued that Russert's importantance was owing to his ancestry."

      Surely you jest. Sommerby can't write "Russert, Matthews and Dowd" without mentioning their East Coast, Irish-Catholic background.

      Delete
    8. And in this very post in which 6:13 flatly states that Somerby never said Russert's ancestry was any factor in Somerby's criticism comes this line:

      "Welch, Wright and Russert were all part of NBC’s East Coast Irish Catholic mafia."

      Good. Grief. Man. Hero worship is one thing, but when you have to lie to defend your hero, you might want to rethink what you read and who you believe at face value.

      Delete
    9. God you Somerby-haters are thick-headed.

      That statement identifies Russert as part of a group, linked by similarities of background.

      But it definitely doesn't say that Russert was important "because" of his ancestry.

      Learn reading comprehension. And take your meds.

      Delete
  2. For fun, we should compare the disinterest in this story to the vapid and intense focus on Journolist.

    ReplyDelete
  3. No mention of Welch's appearance on Hardball last Friday, in which Matthews quite effectively took apart his long time friend and benefactor.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What difference would it make to mention it? It certainly doesn't contradict anything in this post.

      Matthews is no longer on Welch's payroll and the damage has already been done by Welch from his perch as power broker all those years. Bob has repeatedly said that Matthews has been "re-purposed".

      Delete
    2. Because if you are going to continue to characterize Matthews as one of Welch's boys, you might also want to take a look at the here and now as well as the there and then.

      But then, Somerby has always been pretty selective about what he presents, lest his tribe get too upset and start thinking for themselves.

      Delete
    3. Look, I am no fan of Chris Matthews, but at least for those few shining moments Friday, he did with Welch exactly what Somerby has been demanding for 13 years of all the press.

      Delete
    4. With Jack creeping towards dodderage perhaps Chris feels a bit less concerned these days about losing his marina priveledges. Did you catch Chris kiss his ass in gratitude for "the money"?

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    5. Yes, I did, and I took it as a kind of an icebreaking comment, nothing more.

      Then I saw Matthews get the old fart to admit that he had absolutely no evidence at all to back up his very serious charge of corruption at both the BLS and within the Obama Administration.

      And I saw Matthews give the goat several opportunities to walk it back, and he just kept digging the hole deeper.

      Delete
  4. "Well, Somerby has of course never argued that Russert's importantance was owing to his ancestry."

    >>> google search: site:dailyhowler.com russert irish catholic

    note: you have to open some of the search results and look around. youre welcome.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep, we've read them ALL. Been here for years.

      Why don't you just post the ones that say Russert's importance was because of his being Irish Catholic?

      But it doesn't work, because one's got to have the same brain dysfunction as you do to interpret them that way.

      Delete
  5. If anyone knows about cooking the books, it's Neutron Jack.
    ~

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  6. mr somerbys
    defunct
    who used to write a prettygood-sometimes
    column
    and break onetwothreefourfive opinions justlikethat
    Jesus
    he was prettty good
    but what should be said is this
    what happened to this blueeyed boy? this Somerby?



    Off the rails.

    ReplyDelete