Our Own Rhodes Scholar forgets to correct!

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2021

Our Town is drowning in banal: We're so old that we can remember the DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS.

We refer to the highly successful branding scheme Our Own Rhodes Scholar, Rachel Maddow, ran for several years. 

You may recall the performance. The star would appear beneath a large sign which said this:

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

She would proceed to correct some utterly trivial mistake. As she did, she'd be bigly apologetic. Her penitence would be obvious. 

These performances went on for years. They would distract us from the fact that Our Own Rhodes Scholar actually didn't correct her genuine howlers.

Her scam concerning  the gender pay gap was a refusal-to-correct for the ages. But this silly game went on for years. In time, acolytes began turning up in comments sections, pushing her bogus claim for her:

Rachel always corrects her mistakes, these gullible marks would say.

Last Friday night, Rachel repeated a report by the Washington Post which later turned out to be false. That same report was equally false when it appeared in the New York Times, and when it was presented by NBC News.

By now, everyone knows the report was false. But because the (false) report put Rudy in a badly  compromised light, Our Town's various cable stars had thoroughly enjoyed it.

It wasn't the fault of Our Own Rhodes Scholar that the report was false. She didn't know the central claim was false when she kept returning to it.

That said, she cited the false report again and again on Friday's program. The statement was false each time.

Last Friday, our multimillionaire cable stars were pleasuring us that way. The next day, we cited their fatuous conduct:

First, they dreamed of locking Rudy up. After that, they dreamed of locking up Gaetz. This is what these banal beings now think of as "the news."

Over the weekend, the three news orgs we named all corrected their false reports. By now, everyone knows that this pleasing claim was wrong:

MADDOW (4/30/21): The Washington Post reported last night that Mr. Giuliani was warned in advance by the FBI that the people he was in contact with and trying to work with this on were connected to Russian intelligence. He was given a defensive briefing by the FBI in 2019 that he was being used or that he was part of a Russian intelligence operation targeting the U.S. election. After getting that defensive briefing, he went ahead with it anyway.

"After getting that defensive briefing, he went ahead with it anyway?" Maddow kept returning to this pleasing claim during the middle third of her program.

By now, everyone knows that no such briefing ever occurred. The Washington Post got it wrong. So did the New York Times, and so did NBC News.

All three orgs have issued corrections—somewhat crabbed and grudging corrections, but corrections all the same. 

But Our Own Rhodes Scholar did no such thing last night.  Throughout the course of her show, Giuliani wasn't mentioned. That DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS sign was never seen at all. 

Don't get us wrong! Everyone pushed that false claim Friday night, on MSNBC and CNN. The crippled souls who perform the shows on these "cable news" channels keep selling imprisonment of The Others as the soul of Our Town's cable news. 

This is the porridge they've chosen to sell. They speak about little else.

Did anyone state a correction last night? We haven't yet run a full check. We're still trying to imagine how to present the transcript of Don Lemon's opening segment, in which Lemon made the dumbest presentation ever seen on cable news, calling names as he went.

These people aren't especially smart. They aren't always obsessively honest.

These people are amazingly rich. They don't want you to know about that, and they pretty much don't do corrections.

Our Town is sunk in the banal. Banality runs through Our Town's news orgs. 

It's hard to get away from the banal. While noting the craziness found Over There, does the banal define Our Town's soul?


44 comments:

  1. "She would proceed to correct some utterly trivial mistake. As she did, she'd be bigly apologetic. Her penitence would be obvious."

    It would be nice if Somerby (1) read his comments, in which most of his errors are noted, and (2) made corrections. Penitence is optional. Many of his errors are far from trivial. His unwillingness to receive feedback undermines his work and perpetuates the same errors. Maddow at least appears to care about whether she is correct, even on trivialities. Somerby may consider this virtue signaling, but I consider it an actual virtue, one that he does not possess.

    ReplyDelete
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  2. "Her scam concerning the gender pay gap was a refusal-to-correct for the ages."

    Women, including both feminists and prominent women in government, business, and the media, do not consider the pay gap between men and women to be a scam. The figure that Somerby objects to is provided by the Department of Labor itself.

    Somerby last objected to this description of the pay gap when Kamala Harris used it during her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. She wasn't any more wrong than anyone else using that figure, including Rachel Maddow.

    Somerby would like to make the existence of bigotry against women as imaginary as racism. To that end, he obsesses over an incorrect objection that ignores the larger situation that working women find themselves in. Today, he uses it to batter Maddow again. If he read his comments he might not be so persistent in his abuse of statistics in furtherance of his ambivalence toward women. Instead, he continues to make himself look foolish over a losing issue. Discrimination in the workplace is real.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But the main commenter here is a complete psycho. There's nothing to respond to. You just want more attention.

      Delete
  3. "Last Friday night, Rachel repeated a report by the Washington Post which later turned out to be false. That same report was equally false when it appeared in the New York Times, and when it was presented by NBC News."

    Tsk. Yeah, little goebbelses, what else would you expect from them, dear Bob...

    ReplyDelete
  4. "But because the (false) report put Rudy in a badly compromised light, Our Town's various cable stars had thoroughly enjoyed it."

    It isn't so much that the report was false as that it was contradicted by Giuliani and thus had to be retracted. It isn't as though Giuliani always tells the truth, so the actual truth of the original report is unknown.

    Maddow repeated the original report in good faith, not because it was pleasurable (or not). Maddow didn't originate the "false" report, so there is no need for her to issue a retraction. People generally only retract their own mistakes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is a succinct retraction from the NYT of the info in that report. It is not simply a notification that Rudy denies the claim:

      “An earlier version of this article misstated whether Rudolph W. Giuliani received a formal warning from the F.B.I. about Russian disinformation. Mr. Giuliani did not receive such a so-called defensive briefing,”

      That deserves a mention from Maddow to her audience.

      I see a catch in this that makes both Rudy’s denial and the NYT retraction moot, but I’ll wait and let the intrepid moral colossi geniuses of liberaldom find it.

      Delete
    2. This is a succinct retraction from the NYT of the info in that report. It is not simply a notification that Rudy denies the claim:

      “An earlier version of this article misstated whether Rudolph W. Giuliani received a formal warning from the F.B.I. about Russian disinformation. Mr. Giuliani did not receive such a so-called defensive briefing,”

      That deserves a mention from Maddow to her audience.

      I see a catch in this that makes both Rudy’s denial and the NYT retraction moot, but I’ll wait and let the intrepid moral colossi geniuses of liberaldom find it.

      Delete
    3. This is a succinct retraction from the NYT of the info in that report. It is not simply a notification that Rudy denies the claim:

      “An earlier version of this article misstated whether Rudolph W. Giuliani received a formal warning from the F.B.I. about Russian disinformation. Mr. Giuliani did not receive such a so-called defensive briefing,”

      That deserves a mention from Maddow to her audience.

      I see a catch in this that makes both Rudy’s denial and the NYT retraction moot, but I’ll wait and let the intrepid moral colossi geniuses of liberaldom find it.

      Delete
    4. Again, you felt the need to post the same thing three times?

      Delete
    5. Chronic case of the hiccups?

      Delete
  5. "First, they dreamed of locking Rudy up. After that, they dreamed of locking up Gaetz."

    Both Rudy and Matt are probably going to jail for their crimes.

    Somerby engages in mind-reading when he pretends to know what Maddow dreams about. If he is unwilling to speculate about what Trump knows when he lies, he should be equally unwilling to speculate about what Maddow desires when she reports news, good bad or indifferent.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "We're still trying to imagine how to present the transcript of Don Lemon's opening segment, in which Lemon made the dumbest presentation ever seen on cable news, calling names as he went."

    In for a dime, in for a dollar -- having bashed one gay person, Somerby cannot resist bashing another. Here we see how his mind works, running easily from one hated gay person to the next, despite there being no actual connection between them other than Somerby's own spite.

    Then he accuses Our Town of being banal, his choice of negative label for the week, even though he appears to have no idea what the word means. Whatever else Maddow and Lemon may be, they are not commonplace among media and cable news hosts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're the greatest commenter of all time. Your comments today are genius.

      Delete
    2. thank you deadrat, that is big praise coming from you!

      Delete
    3. ?? not deadrat, sorry.

      Delete
    4. Anonymices are invariably tone deaf.

      Delete
  7. “But because the (false) report put Rudy in a badly  compromised light”

    LOL.

    He was already in a badly compromised light of his own making.

    And the newspapers have issued a correction. No big deal.

    Except over at Fox, recently embroiled in a giant defamation lawsuit due to their lies about voting machines. And Fox will keep thrashing this story even after the retractions.

    ReplyDelete
  8. “No big deal”. The story was merely retweeted and expounded upon by journos with over a 100k followers about a a gazillion times.

    BUT, in the future, Fox will do such and such even after they might have to do such and such...

    sheesh.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. No one should ever make mistakes. But if they do, a retraction would seem in order.

      But what explains the deliberate, myriad lies at Fox?

      It isn’t comparable.

      Delete
    2. What explains the things you hear about via a plethora of talking heads and tv time and outrage versus the things that you learn about belatedly and briefly?

      Somerby.

      Somerby.

      Delete
    3. That is...ridiculous. I had heard about this over the weekend. It is Somerby who was belated on this story.

      Delete
    4. And, maybe it’s just me, but what seems like a genuine mistake or poor judgment, owned up to quickly by the journalists, about a specific event surrounding a specific person where lots of confusion abounds, just isn’t in the same league with Fox News’ deliberate extended lying about the election, a fundamental aspect of our democracy that they are helping to undermine by spewing their filth. They are the reason Republicans think the vote was rigged. And they only ceased their lies about Dominion when threatened with a billion dollar lawsuit.

      But, yeah, the Post shouldn’t have rushed into print with this incorrect story about an otherwise squeaky clean individual. LOL.

      Delete
    5. Get ready for Cecelia to not make a mistake.
      ---
      Cecelia, Dear, who won the United States Presidential election of 2020?

      Delete
    6. Ha ha ha ha ha.
      That's one of the funniest things I've ever read.

      It's hilarious that someone would think a Right-winger would someday make a good faith argument.

      Delete
  9. "We're still trying to imagine how to present the transcript of Don Lemon's opening segment, in which Lemon made the dumbest presentation ever seen on cable news, calling names as he went.

    These people aren't especially smart. They aren't always obsessively honest."

    Don Lemon at least has the heart to recognize the wrongness of Santorum's remarks and complain about them. For Somerby to call Lemon's presentation dumb strikes me as outrageous.

    I wouldn't be surprised if Somerby tried to defend Santorum tomorrow. The dumb people in this exchange begin with Santorum for his ignorance of American history but continue with CNN and Cuomo, who think they can let Santorum insult portions of the audience without consequence, as if their reactions do not matter.

    Don Lemon reacted like a human being. Somerby and Cuomo reacted like white racist pricks. Santorum should be fired for being too dumb to comment on politics.

    ReplyDelete
  10. If anyone here believes that Bob doesn't read your comments I have a bridge to sell you. This bridge takes you from Brooklyn to Manhattan, and back to Brooklyn!

    Many times over several years he has written about commenters at Drum's site. But he never reads comments at his own site? Come on.
    I have commented here many times and in one instance I used the word "mewl". A week or ten days later Bob used the word here to disparage someone he hates. He had never used the word before, and he has not used it since.
    He would Idolize MLK, Gandhi and Mandela. I would remind him here that two of them were murdered and that Mandela was imprisoned for decades. He seemed to admire them because they were killed or imprisoned. And would forgive their killers and torturers.

    Bob has 3 acolytes here that will support him no matter his lying on behalf of his new BFF- Carlson.
    Carlson works for the biggest liar in the history of the world.
    Rupert Murdoch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "If anyone here believes that Bob doesn't read your comments I have a bridge to sell you."

      If Somerby does read his comments but doesn't correct his own errors, that makes him not only as bad as Maddow, but also a hypocrite for criticizing her this way.

      Delete
    2. Iconsider that Bob puts his stuff out there for the world to read if so inclined, but may have a private audience that responds to him privately via group email.

      A Journolist type thing.

      Delete
    3. I've emailed him and he's emailed me back.

      Delete
    4. I'm just saying you should email him to make precise some of your theories about his motives.

      Delete
    5. I would be glad to email him for you. I will ask him if his use of the word "mewl" was influenced by a commenter. I will ask him if he reads his comments. Would you like me to do that? I'm sure you have absolutely no courage to email him yourself.

      Delete
    6. Anonymices not only must police their fellow liberals for the orthodoxy of what they say, they must also demand that their own crap be read and responded to by the bloggers they police.

      If I were Somerby, I wouldn’t answer an email from a reader if someone was holding a gun on me.



      Delete
    7. You are as dumb as a brick.
      Bob writes a daily blog in which he routinely insults people. And takes comments. Why not comment at the blog?
      Your recommend that I email him with my "theories" about his motives.
      I believe that Bob is a bigot.
      He hides his bigotry behind the "beautiful" Black children in Baltimore and MMLK, Gandhi and Mandela who would forgive those who killed and/or tortured them.
      I believe that Bob is promoting his new BFF, Carlson as Trump's successor.
      Carlson works for the biggest liar in the history of the world.
      Rupert Murdoch.

      Jackass.

      Delete
    8. Dude, just email him.

      Because your theories have no basis in fact. It would help shed some light instead of living in the dark with paranoid theories that have no basis.

      Or call him.

      Delete
    9. I would be glad to email him for you and ask him to comment on the deviant racism that is driving his secret campaign to get Tucker Carlson elected.

      It would be more interesting to interview you about that though. To be taken through the sources and basis for that rather extraordinary claim.

      Delete
    10. "deviant racism that is driving his secret campaign to get Tucker Carlson elected."

      Blue anon in full force!!!

      Delete
    11. Different Anonymous, 11:20, but my sources that Bob is a bigot are my eyes, my ears,and my learned experiences.

      Delete
    12. Interesting to see you have no credible source for your claim. Which was obvious. Are you going to be stupid for your whole life?

      Delete
  11. John Oliver said on his last show that fear mongers don't have to convince you that they are right, they just have to convince you that no one is.

    This is Somerby's mission -- to undermine the press to the point that people don't believe anything, making them vulnerable to the disinformation spread by the right. That makes Somerby evil, whether he is banal or not.

    ReplyDelete
  12. What mistake did Lemon make, now?
    Did he call the Republican Party something other than "a criminal enterprise"?

    ReplyDelete
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