The Sedition Set
Posted: October 5, 2013 Filed under: The Media SUCKS, The Right Wing, We are so F'd 38 Comments
It’s not difficult to see the workings of the usual internet, cable “news”, and beltway pundits as complementary if not causal to the current state of affairs in congress. Much the way the press wanted to embed themselves into a war so badly that they just goosestepped along with the lies spread by the Bush-Cheney administration, it appears much of the media is going right along with the usual memes for the current shutdown and possible disruption of US debt markets. For one, there is an endless meme that “each party should take its share of the blame. Then there is the idea that let partisan hacks sit on TV and spout vituperous and easily debunked lies as just presenting ‘both’ sides of an opinion. It seems that many folks who are either unwilling or not able to dig into a particular issue just assume an earnest media. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But simplistic, reassuring narratives are more profitable than dispassionate descriptions of complex public policy problems. For a collapsing, digital-age news industry desperate for income, partisanship is an economic lifeline.
That was evident Wednesday night. Flipping between Fox and MSNBC for several hours — something I suggest you try — produced two completely different realities.
On MSNBC, Matthews and his guests called House Republicans “wacko-birds,” “birthers,” and “crazy, angry.” They said opponents of Obamacare were driven by bigotry and selfishness.
“There is very little sense on the Hill that they’re there for something bigger than themselves,” said Susan Milligan, a columnist for U.S. News and World Report.
At 8 p.m. on Fox, Bill O’Reilly upped the rhetorical ante. Two days after its introduction, Obamacare was “not ready for primetime,” according to O’Reilly, riven with so many problems “it was pretty much impossible to list them all,” and likely to spawn delays in medical care and fraud.
Over on MSNBC, Chris Hayes opened his 8 p.m. show with a screen logo declaring far-right opponents of the law “frauds.”
Back on Fox, Sean Hannity called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) a “sick, twisted old man” who engaged in “casualty cruelty.” Hannity also mocked the 18 House Republicans who had said they no longer supported a shutdown as a way to stop Obamacare. According to Hannity, they were willing to “bend down at the altar of Reid and Obama.”
Finally, over on MSNBC, 9 p.m. host Steve Kornacki, substituting for Rachel Maddow, said that Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was following the example of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and using “stunts” to make himself a hero to the Republican base.
“Newt Gingrich, more than anybody else, may be responsible for where we are, what we are now seeing playing out inside the halls of Congress,” Kornacki said. “He wrote the script and Ted Cruz is following it to a t.”
Over the course of the night, Fox made more exaggerated claims and out-of-context statements. But theatrics, demonization, and smugness reigned on both networks.
Polls, meanwhile, show vast public confusion about Obamacare.
Why wouldn’t folks be confused? There is really no place these days to get simple information on anything. Last month, Chuck Todd of NBC said it wasn’t the press’s responsibility to “inform” viewers on misinformation out there on the Affordable Care Act.
On Wednesday morning’s Morning Joe, Todd attracted the attention of liberal critics when, as TPM puts it, he suggested that It’s Not Media’s Job To Correct GOP’s Obamacare Falsehoods. But is that a fair reading of what Chuck said? Not according to him. In response to the criticism, Chuck tweeted“Somebody decided to troll w/mislding headline: point I actually made was folks shouldn’t expect media to do job WH has FAILED to do re: ACA.”
Here’s a slightly longer version of the exchange in question, which begins with Todd challenging theVillager-approved talking point that the President is actually the one who’s threatening to blow up the government. He then talks extensively about the “million disasters” in the political process of health care reform, including some that liberals would quickly agree with.
The key exchange is between Todd and former Governor Ed Rendell (D-PA) in which Rendell talks about the misinformation that has proliferated on the Affordable Care Act. “I think the biggest problem with Obamacare, it’s not a perfect bill by any means, was the messaging,” Rendell says. “If you took ten people from different parts of the country who say they’re against the bill, and sat them down, I’d love to have ten minutes with them and say, ‘Tell me why you are against the bill.’ If they told you anything, it would be stuff that’s incorrect.”
“But more importantly, it would be stuff that Republicans have successfully messaged against it,” Todd says. “They don’t repeat the other stuff because they haven’t even heard the Democratic message. What I always love is people who say, ‘Well, it’s you folks’ fault in the media.’ No, it’s the President of the United States’ fault for not selling it.”
A fair reading of what Chuck said, without endorsing it, is that it’s not the media’s job to promote Democratic messaging. That’s not the same thing as saying they have no duty to correct falsehoods, which is an interpretation by extension. In context, he’s clearly talking about the political process around Obamacare, and not the substance of it.
What I find problematic about this exchange is the pivot that Todd uses to get to the politics. When Rendell says people are being misinformed, Chuck says “But more importantly, it would be stuff that Republicans have successfully messaged against it.”
Perhaps he meant more important in terms of the outcome, but it should matter more, to the news media, if the messaging, Democratic or Republican, is true. In fits and starts, the media has provided context for the policy, but almost always within the horse race frame of who is “winning” the messaging war.
Why does it always come back to a “messaging war”? This brings me to an excellent piece by Charles Pierce on “ratfucking”. Remember when the press actually didn’t get too snookered by the ratfucking let alone perpetuated it?
We are seeing this aspect of ratfucking playing out now. We saw it when Representative Randy Neugebauer bullied a Park Ranger. We saw it when Rep Todd Rokita told CNN anchor Carol Costello, essentially, to sit there and look pretty while he unspooled whatever the line of the day was. We saw it when Rep. Darrell Issa flipped out at a reporter a few days before that. And we are seeing it in the cynicism of the the now-daily Republican gimmick of finding a government service that polls well and then pretending to care about funding it, as though the whole party hasn’t been running against “government” since before Don Segretti was cheating the student body at USC. We will open the National Parks, and all the other good stuff, and we can do it without really paying for it. The last victory of pure Reaganomics is on display.
But, we also see pure ratfucking being displayed, encouraged, and accompanied by “news” outlets.
At 7 p.m. Wednesday night, Fox News reporter Jim Angle, citing conservative experts, reported that Obamacare would force young people to pay vastly higher premiums, face large deductibles and leave 30 million Americans uninsured.
On MSNBC, Chris Matthews called Republican opponents of the program “political lightweights” and “puppatoons.” Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said House Republicans were “sickening.”
A night of debate on the first federal government shutdown in 17 years and the country’s largest new government program in a generation had begun. On balance, Fox was worse than MSNBC. But both broadcasts were emblems of America’s failing news industry.
The triumph of opinion-driven cable TV and the collapse of newspapers has created an American news media that does an increasingly poor job of informing the public. And an excellent job of dividing it.
The result is that huge numbers of people just tune in, Google and bookmark, and listen to stuff that just feeds their own prejudices and beliefs. For-profit media is happy to serve up whatever it takes to beef up numbers that attracts advertisers. Whatever happened to the idea that news was a public service and not a profit center to promote goosestepping? It’s difficult these days to find outlets where advocacy and demagoguery isn’t the main dish. It’s no wonder our government is dysfunctional. An informed electorate whose knowledge is enhanced by an informing fourth estate is essential to democracy. No wonder the Koch Brothers have crept into Public TV and Public Radio. Any where information, reason, and research is freely available to the public must be stomped out until every one is part of the Foxed Nation.
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
The ACA is the law of the land, not a “Democratic message”. Journalists should be informing the public about it in an impartial way. They are not doing the job the American people deserve from the Fourth Estate.
Journalists are way too concerned with being TV personalities and being in with the in crowd within the Beltway. They want to protect their access and their incomes.
Not to mention their endless supply of Georgetown cocktail wieners.
I got message on the Obamacare website to “suck his big black dick”………………….I was helping family, and thanking the people for helping me so quickly……………….you wouldn’t believe those following him with the same likeness. Then, I see a young couple, two children under three, and he is furloughed, and wonder how they are gonna get on with their lives.
More and more it is getting me depressed.
What?!
Wtf?
I’m really upset hearing this 😦
Fannie, did you get that reply on-site or somehow inexplicably through e-mail? Was this an ACA enrollment site..or? That sounds more like one of those ACA scam sites. If the ACA sites are going to have comment sections open to the public, they really need to moderate and monitor the comments. That’s just awful. Ugh.
Yes, that sounds like something from an ACA scam site. That’s another thing the media should be informing the public about – how to tell a real ACA site from a scam.
The Obamawebsite deleted all of the “messagers” and kicked them out…………….. let me know that they were aware of the attacks, thanked me, etc. …………I’ve been to the coveredca site since June,and the site that just went up for ACA enrollment. What’s going on is the “ratfuckers” are out in large numbers. I can only think what the workers are experiencing………….They are horrible people, out to attack anyone supporting Obama, they have no respect, not one drop.
Mona, I can just see what’s going to happen when Hillary runs………….if it’s bad now wait till she’s involved. What to do, cause it is horrible.
Extremely glad to hear that about them contacting you and pruning the dead weight on-site, Fannie.
As for both 2014 (Wendy #48) and 2016 (Hillary #45) I’m ready as I can be, and just trying to just work on growing that rhinoceros skin that Eleanor and Hillary have talked about having…. I’ve learned enough about the racist capitalist patriarchy that forms the outerbelly of the GOP and the underbelly of the Democratic Party establishment and “the left” (such that it even exists today). As Maggie said in 2008, “We will not be distracted.”
I have to go feed Lilo who has taken to crying mews to herself by the food dishes since her mom won’t get off her phone and stop blogging.
To borrow and adapt from Ellen DeGeneres’ Dory from Finding Nemo…
Just keep swimming, sisters.
Finding Dory comes out in 2015 (or 14?) incidentally. Good timing for that sequel. Time to realign things that got left unfinished last decade.
Be back in a bit.
I wonder how many of the ratf***ers are being paid by the Koch Bros. and their ilk to try to destroy the ACA?
Yes, Fannie, it will get worse when Hillary runs. We need to be prepared.
I’d say it’s a safe bet that anything TEA (Taxed Enough Already, as Cine always used to point out so astutely) party related can be followed by the money trail to the Norquist “I will drown Granny in the bathtub” money train. They’ll spend endless money making sure the rest of us don’t have enough power and/or social upward mobility to threaten their way of life, but they are loathe to spend a cent on people’s healthcare or economic security. This is the biggest threat to our national “security”…as FDR noted in his Second Bill of Rights.
Sorry you had to go through that, Fannie. Kudos for helping to kick the attackers out.
The dichotomy between messaging and the actual policy that progs/ Obama surrogates kept pushing in the beginning was just the wrong approach all around, IMHO. “Healthcare is a right, not a privilege. The American people voted on this twice.” That should be the only messaging that the public remembers from this current political showdown.
Ok, let me amend that real quickly. That and “Don’t touch our Social Security” should be the loudest and most enduring of the ‘messages’ that get through to both the public… and the Electeds even moreso, actually. As I recall, that used to be a TEA party cry too, though it was always to focused on ‘me’ and ‘my’ Medicare, social security, etc.
Seems as if our government is dysfunctional largely because large swaths of our voters are dysfunctional. Media is to blame for most of it.
Those Teahadist congressmen who kicked off the shutdown probably still think the entire American population is cheering them on. Just like they were surprised when Romney lost, they’re gonna be shocked when, and if, they learn otherwise.
Problem is they now sit in gerrymandered districts and fear primaries from even whackier whackos.
How is Tammy Duckworth calling House Republicans “sickening” considered “ratfucking?” Or even the stuff Chris Matthews said?
Ratfucking is political dirty tricks, not just calling names.
I was trying to say that.
Oh, sorry. I’m not too with it today.
Tons of ratfuckers and/or dos attacks could well be responsible for a lot of the Obamacare glitches we’ve all read about. Predict a problem, cause it, then publicize it – now that’s also ratfucking.
I would think the easiest explanation–enrollment traffic–explains the majority of the glitches. That’s a good sign for anyone who wants to see healthcare expansion in this country, and I thought completely anticipated by that side as well. Don’t give the ratfuckers credit for this. They really, really don’t deserve it.
People don’t get credit for being assholes in my universe.
Ahh. Haven’t gone through Kat’s post up top properly yet but just saw Chuck Todd’s name… He sure was big on fact-checking Hillary’s holdouts in 2008… Figures he doesn’t see the media responsibile for fact checking right-wing canards.
Idjit.
We live in the dumbest most selfish country in the world.
How Do You Fight This Kind of Stupid?
Yea until his kids need to go to the emergency room.
He has 10 kids, wishes they weren’t on Medicaid, and is uninsured? And, he wants to talk about personal responsibility? Yeah, the train already left the station, Einstein.
exactly …
dumbest most selfish country in the world
Mr HatesGuvmit from Idaho probably thinks the gov’t shouldn’t be involved in roads, but he drives on state and federal highways anyway. He’s nothing but a hypocrite and a liar.
In our spare time …
NYT: U.S. Raids in Libya and Somalia Strike Terror Targets
Conservatives Made It Up: Harry Reid Didn’t Dismiss Funding Treatment For Children With Cancer http://mm4a.org/19m9yX4
Fox Falls For Fake Story About Obama Personally Funding Muslim Museum During Shutdown
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/05/fox-falls-for-fake-story-about-obama-personally/196304
They are completely shameless!
Wacky!
True DAT! They have plenty if warts but at least they are in the ballpark .
Once again, Barney says it right!
That tweet sums it up perfectly. Love Barney!