I gave quite a few dollars to Merkley, which turned out to be the best money I’ve ever spent (except at the furrier) in a long time.  The former speaker of the Oregon House wasn’t nearly as well-known statewide as Smith’s previous opponent, former Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, but his working-class roots and idealism somehow made him look like a good bet, and that paid off far more richly than money tossed away on Hope and Change.  (Full disclosure: I would have voted for my crazy grandmother, Etta, to get rid of Smith, even though she wasn’t, well, alive.  As she liked to put it, “Etta is Betta.”  Better than Gordon Smith, anyway.)

But Merkley?  Let’s just say I’m chagrined he’s already married, but I’m awfully glad he’s my Senator, anyway.  When you vote for a Democrat, sometimes it’s nice to actually get one, and in Jeff Merkley, we did.  How about, say, 51 more of them?

Reagan took this a step further when he did away with the Fairness Doctrine, all but eliminated the public service requirements of broadcasters, and jovially needled major outlets for their imagined “liberal bias,” which at the time was a pretty laughable notion, given the reverence with which the media treated the Great Communicator, but is even funnier now, since they still do.  Before long, the AM Radio dial was (and remains) 99% conservative, even in Democrat-dominated markets, and a whole new consciousness emerged, untethered from reality.  Bill Clinton greatly exacerbated the problem with his Telecommunications Act of 1996, which is incidentally the same year Rupert Murdoch spent a half billion dollars launching Fox News, and further consolidation quickly followed.

All this time, newspapers, the last bastion of in-depth news and community service in the industry, continued to cannibalize once-revered names in journalism; clobbered by the ever-increasing demands of Wall Street for the kind of profits that would make Nike blush, formerly independent papers like the LA Times, Washington Post, and yes, the New York Times cut staff and content, raised prices, and thereby steadily drove readers to cable and the internet.  Politicians now proudly ignore the media entirely and benefit from it;  Rick Perry was elected governor in Texas without a single newspaper endorsement.  CNN’s John Avlon was moved to write about this sorry state of affairs, at some length, while ignoring the, well, elephant in the room:

Keith Olbermann’s suspension for making political contributions to three Democratic candidates is just the latest example of the problems that come with the rise of partisan media.

In the fallout, other MSNBC personalities were also found to have given to Democratic candidates, while Media Matters uncovered the fact that more than 30 Fox News hosts and contributors had donated to conservative candidates.

No such Democratic contributions have come to light, of course, but Joe Scarborough, Pat Buchanan, and other MSNBC contributors did contribute to Republicans.  Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, I say.

Whole news networks are being transformed into little more than on-air advocates for political parties. The idea of objectivity is now increasingly dismissed as a myth rather than honored as an ideal toward which the news industry should strive.

Uh, only one network is such an advocate, and that’d be FOX.  MSNBC has four liberal hosts, along with the Bush-worshipper Chris Matthews and, of course Joe Scarborough.  MSNBC has sponsored no rallies, made no large corporate contributions, and, by the way, does manage to do its advocacy without flat-out lying, unlike at Fox.

Americans are self-segregating themselves into separate political realities — responding to the proliferation of information by consuming news that confirms their political prejudices. Loyal viewers see opinion-anchors like Olbermann or Glenn Beck as the only “truth-tellers” in town, while dismissing the rest of the media as cowardly or biased. We are devolving back to the era when newspapers were owned and operated by political parties.

See, Glenn Beck is JUST LIKE Keith Olbermann, even though Olbermann doesn’t, say, compare any President to Hitler or tell people, nightly, to stockpile guns, gold, and canned goods for the imminent apocalypse.  But, as Murdoch himself said, Fox beats CNN in the ratings, and I’m beginning to see why.

The result: Partisan warfare is on the rise, and trust in media is on the decline. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has documented the trend and concluded that “virtually every news organization or program has seen its credibility marks decline” over the past decade.

Well, the abysmal performance of the media during the Bush years, with the glaringly ironic exception of Keith Olbermann, may have had something to do with this sad state of affairs, but since Avlon works for Glenn Beck’s old employer, he’s paid not to see this.

Even C-Span, which offers unedited coverage of public events without commentary, has experienced a steep — and absurd — decline in believability. In this hyperpartisan environment, people literally don’t trust what they see with their own eyes. Polarizing for profit might be good for ratings in the short run, but its bad for the country.

And who has the highest ratings?  Who is the most polarizing?  And finally, whose audience believes the most false things?  If you guessed Fox, you’re considerably smarter than Avlon.

Olbermann’s on-air protégé Rachael Maddow described the difference between MSNBC and Fox as this: “They run as a political operation, we are not.” She added, “The point has been made and Keith should be back hosting ‘Countdown’” — less than 24 hours after his suspension.

Avlon naturally sidesteps the plain factuality of Maddow’s statement…

It’s natural for Maddow to defend Olbermann — they are close colleagues, talented broadcasters cut from the same ideological cloth. What was more surprising was the number of conservative commentators who rushed to Olbermann’s defense. They embrace the idea of hyperpartisanship in all things news and opinion.

No, stupid, they embrace their own hyperpartisanship, and as expected are clinging to the coattails of a legitimate news organization to justify their own behavior.

Fox News — which rarely loses an opportunity to attack the left — gave comparatively little coverage to Olbermann’s suspension. Here’s the reason for their reaction: Conservative media warriors welcome outright liberal advocates, because they justify the right’s own ideological approach.

No, because they lie 24/7, they like to foster the idea that everyone else lies, too.  Fact checking would help here, but isn’t forthcoming.

Olbermann symbolizes a fight for public opinion that the right believes it can win. After all, at any given time roughly 50 percent more Americans self-identify as conservative rather than liberal. A 2009 Pew poll found that 15 percent of Americans call themselves conservative Republicans while just 11 percent describe themselves as liberal Democrats.

The reason the right believes it can win is because “neutral” outlets like CNN routinely give lies and truth equal billing, and as always, the lies overwhelmingly come from just one side of the political spectrum.  Further, the polls he so grandly cites are just the usual lazy and pointless ones about labels rather than policy; when people are polled about actual policies, liberal policies (regarding taxation, war, social spending, and on and on) reliably win hands-down over conservative ones.

If right-wingers give Americans false choices between the two, they know they can win. But this approach ignores the plurality of Americans who are in the center — and the fact that independent voters are the largest and fastest growing segment of the electorate. That is a huge unmet market looking for a strong advocate.

That’s what CNN thinks it’s doing, and look how that turned out.  Never mind the idiocy of anyone needing a “strong advocate” for the “center,” which has steadily marched further and further right than ever before in American history, thanks in part to muddle-minded gasbags like Avlon, who never tire of seeing Republican shit and telling America it’s really Shinola.

In the current hyperpartisan media environment, it’s easy to forget that it hasn’t always been this way. Broadcast icon Edward R. Murrow was not a registered Democrat or Republican — he was an independent. Before courageously taking on Sen. Joe McCarthy, he was considered an anti-communist, supporting, for example, the execution of the Rosenbergs as spies for the Soviet Union. He wouldn’t have dreamed of giving donations to political candidates.

Murrow was anti-crazy.  CNN, on the other hand, thinks crazy people are worthy of a fair, non-fact-checked airing, balanced by someone relatively sane.  Olbermann is sick of that false dichotomy, and gave a few bucks to keep crazies out of Washington.

Murrow’s colleague Charles Collingwood said, “His politics were based on old-fashioned notions of morality and honor, not ideology.” If this sounds simply old-fashioned, it should not. This idea is at the enduring heart of both good government and good journalism.

Sounds like Keith to me, but unfortunately, not like CNN.

Sen. Patrick Daniel Moynihan famously said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.” But the current polarized political environment results in Americans engaging in civic debates armed with only their own exaggerated partisan “facts” — for example, the latest overheated myth that President Obama’s trip to India was going to cost $200 million a day and be accompanied by 34 warships — and cynicism becomes justified with the knowledge that news anchors are shilling for political parties. This is ultimately dangerous for a democracy.

See?  Republicans lie, every day, so that means liberals should just let them, for fear of being “partisan.”

The current spin cycle might be hitting such a sickening extent that there is a demand for something different — that’s the impulse that I believe was behind the success of Jon Stewart’s Rally for Sanity last weekend. After all, 44 percent of Americans born after 1977 identify themselves as independent, according to the Pew Center. The American people want something more than the predictable parroting of partisan talking points.

Independent on-air journalists don’t have to be without opinion to be nonpartisan — they just have to be honest brokers, punching left and right as their conscience and common sense dictates. We need to play offense from the center and create a strong alternative.

The ideal of independence is being degraded by the proliferation of partisan media. The fact that undisclosed donations by opinion anchors like Olbermann are being defended is evidence of how far off course we’ve gotten. The lines between political and media figures are blurring; we are getting used to journalists functioning as party apologists while elected officials sound increasingly like radio talk show hosts.

But the search for the truth doesn’t conform to a partisan prism. Reasserting reasonable standards of independence can help restore trust in the news media and help stop the political Balkanization of the United States.

Oh, for Pete’s sake.  It’s telling that a dozen years of Fox News’ systematic, flagrant and consequential journalistic malpractice didn’t ever spur Avlon to write this astonishingly inept and clueless piece, back when such a thing might have helped stop an idiot like George Bush from being elected, and/or stopped a disastrous war or two.  He finally got off his lazy ass yesterday to pompously and long-windedly whine about Keith fucking Olbermann’s (disclosed) contributions to a few pretty unimportant Democratic candidates.

I guess at CNN, that’s enterprise reporting.

The urgency and grave tone that he adopted when he recounted the latest nutty, boring, and utterly false rantings of despised former Vice President Dick Cheney to current VP Biden was either ham acting, or Gregory is the stupidest human being on the face of the earth, besides Sarah Palin.  I’m not sure which is more disturbing.  Gregory almost seemed surprised at how easily Biden swatted away such malevolent nonsense, but clearly realizing that he now looked like a bigger ass than Dick by this point, Gregory tried to turn the whole thing into a Mean Girls gossipfest about appropriate behavior for former VP’s.  Biden wasn’t having that, either, saying that being outspoken was fine, but lying wasn’t.  Good luck with that Joe; you’re talking to Karl Rove’s dance partner, after all.

But as though that interview weren’t both vacuous and cringe-inducing enough, along comes the panel:  David Brooks, whose head wobbles and arms swing independently of his body as he prattles, sort of like a bestacled Barney Rubble with Tourette’s, (his eyebrows don’t match his hair either, am I seeing a pattern here?), Harold Ford, Rachel Maddow, and this well-scrubbed 14 year old wingnut from Illinois named Aaron Schock.

Fireworks begin when Rachel points out the absurd hypocrisy of Shock’s attending an event celebrating stimulus dollars in his district, when he voted against the bill and repeatedly railed against such irresponsible “spending.”  The panel format gave Rachel a lot of opportunity to work her false eyelashes demurely in side shots as she repeatedly made her trademark “concerned” look.  (That’s how inherently bonkers TV News is…  the butch lesbian is the one in false eyelashes.)   Of course, the 14 year old didn’t appreciate such impertinence, and while he mentally read his hand, he said, “With all due respect,” and not much else.  He finally thought of something a little later, though, and opened with another sneering, “With all due respect,” which I think was intended to mean, “you nasty ol’ smartypants bull dyke with the false eyelashes,” and  explained that his constituents needed to be told that they were getting their “fair share” of this wasteful spending for which our grandchildren will surely turn on us later and become hookers and meth-heads.  Like all Republicans, the 14 year old has apparently not been told that his party is a tiny and disgraced minority, and has been deservedly told by the voters to give it a rest for a while.  Both he and Gregory openly high-fived the prospect of “another 1994,” which would put all this nonsense about Republicans not running everything to rest once and for all.  I can understand such stupidity about 1994 from someone who wasn’t born yet, but luckily Gregory is born again each day, so the fact that before 1994, Democrats had controlled congress for 50 years or so, often overwhelmingly, was never mentioned.  Both have so many imaginary friends that they think Republicans are much more popular and abundant than they actually are, and all the king’s horses could never convince them otherwise.

The least relevant guest, and that’s saying something, was former Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee, who’s gotten so rich after leaving congress that he thinks he ought to be a senator from Wall Street, without being bothered by the messy politics of it all, kind of like Rudy.  Gregory’s gossipy questions about his taxes and position at Merrill Lynch didn’t  dent Ford’s vaulting overconfidence one iota, but did reveal Ford to be an excellent circumlocutor and fervent disciple of Reaganomics, despite being about 1/64th black and 1/99th Democrat.  I’m sure Gregory wanted to dance with him after that little performance; he’s way cuter than Karl Rove, too.

As usual, a whole hour of television was utterly wasted on trivia, speculation, and politics as theatre, the enormously important implications of the issues being discussed mattering not a whit to either the moderator or the guests, only how all of this will play in Peoria.  I have news.  Just as many Peorians as other Americans would sooner gouge out their eyeballs than watch “Meet the Press.”    People can accept high unemployment, but not when David Gregory still has a job.

Since David Gregory took over MTP his ratings have gone down to the point that two weeks ago the unheard of happened and ABC’s This Week won the ratings battle. So MTP is searching for ways to win the week to week battle which they won last week. In their promo for this morning’s show they put on their website:

A Special Edition: As anger reaches a boiling point at town halls across the country, health care reform takes center stage. We’ll take an in-depth look at the debate with some leading voices: Fmr. House Majority Leader Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), now the head of FreedomWorks, an organizer of protesters at town hall meetings; Sen. Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), Member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Fmr. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), an informal adviser to the White House and author of “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis”; & Rachel Maddow, Host of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show. Plus we’ll get perspectives from around the country with Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY); Bruce Josten, Executive Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce; and Gov. Bill Ritter

Because of Maddow’s excellent research and reporting, Armey was forced to resign from his association with the the global law firm of DLA Piper. An Open Salon writer Michael Rodgers provided excellent background on the Maddow-Armey appearance if you are not familiar with it. He wrote, “Apparently DLA Piper didn’t like being associated with Armey’s FreedomWorks astroturfing campaign designed to misinform and encourage people to disrupt town hall meetings being held across the Country for the purpose of clarifying issues about health care reform.” The post also has a video clip from when Armey made an ass out of himself in a debate on Hardball between Salon’s Joan Walsh and Dick Armey where Armey tells Joan he’s glad she could never be his wife,

Armey tried to soften his firing by DLA Piper explaining to Politico’s David Mark, “The firm is busy with its business, and shouldn’t be asked to take time out from their work, to defend themselves of spurious allegations,” Armey said. “No client of this firm is going to be free to mind its own business without harassment as long as I’m associated with it.”

If MTP really wanted to inform the public as CBS Morning Show did one hour earlier, they would not have let Dick Armey obfuscate, confuse and waste valuable time just to have a shootout with Rachel. The absence of facts and truth is what is missing most from the debates and M$M coverage. Armey’s successful fight to kill Hillary health reform and his kill efforts now are disgusting in the extreme because of the suffering and huge economic problems created. Half of all personal bankruptcies and mortgage foreclosures are due to lost or inadequate health insurance coverage.

So NBC in its infinite wisdom, gives this scumbag and completely failed former congress critter their platform to continue to wreak damage just so their ratings will compete with ABC. They finally allow their best journalist to appear on MTP so Rachel can participate in a fight that was already over when Armey was fired. Where was NBC News when Rachel did her research behind the Town Hells and Armey’s Army marched and yelled so that the insurance and health industry can continue to screw this dupe Army and millions of senior citizens?

The M$M blames Obama for losing his message on a program he didn’t create because even though he has thoroughly debunked all the myths and lies during his Town Halls they claim he hasn’t because of those Town Hells and the insurance paid ads and thugs that they give maximum coverage instead of ensuring they provide the truth and debate on issues that are justifiably contentious.

Even when ads opposing reform are prepared, deceit is the prime method. The Right Wing Health Care Group who created the anti-socialist medicine ads tricked British women into appearing in the ads.

The number one distortion that continues unabated is the simple fact that there is no such thing as Obamacare. The president chose, wisely or not, to let congress develop the reform plan. There are five bills, three in the House and two in the Senate that are a long ways from being completed into a final bill. Yet, the Repugs blame everything on Obama as if their part, which should be a major part, plays no role in the objections Americans have on all sides of the political spectrum.

During the MTP show this morning both Coburn and Armey claimed eureka the solution is to let anyone use any plan in any state. So in good ole capitalistic fashion, the states with the best insurance will cause all the others to improve. They totally ignore the fact as has been pointed out by Obama in his recent Town Halls, that those state programs who would have outsiders from around the country descend on them, would be overwhelmed and that mayhem and state economic disaster would result. This is typical Repug thinking that there is always a simple answer for the most complex problems and since it sells well, why care about the true consequences.

Those of us who want single payer want it done at the federal level so that each state can’t have a totally different version and moving to another state creates great difficulties. Obama said from the start of his presidential campaign that single payer is out. Some states have decided to go single payer on their own. Obama has pledged that any public option will not eventually lead to nationwide single payer. We are left with the public option as our only hope to rein in the insurance/health monopolies that rake in trillions that could be spent on actual health care. Now even that option is fading away.

The president said many times in his Town Halls that any public option would be self-sustaining and would not be able to use public funds if it got into financial trouble. It would have no government competitive advantage. The Repugs refuse to recognize that fact including the head of the American Chamber of Commerce on MTP this morning and make the false claim that a public option will ruin the insurance industry because of an unfair competitive advantage. The Repugs love the fact that Fedex and UPS have more than successfully competed with the US Postal Service, yet when Obama makes that point when defending his version of a public option, it is totally ignored.

This morning HuffPo reported that the Public Option is not the essential element according to Obama’s health secretary Sebelius who indicated to get Repug support that Sen. Conrad’s Co-Op idea may be necessary to get health reform passed. Many on the left shout that the Dems should get some balls and just use reconciliation and stop trying to woo the PON Repugs and the need for 60 votes in the Senate. Conrad has pointed out correctly that there are requirements to make reconciliation work such as paying for everything in the bill in six years that make this approach an unrealistic option.

I’m glad that all this grandstanding nonsense and distortion are happening now so these tactics will be old when more honest discussion can take place in the fall. I doubt that they have forced Obama to retreat because I suspect he already had that in his process thinking knowing that it would be very hard to get a true public option into a final bill. This distraction from the real debate has obscured many reforms that will get into the final bill and create a much better system than now exists.

That doesn’t mean I am at all happy for just getting any kind of bill passed or that I am backing down from the fact that by far the best solution is single payer. However, what Obama has pointed out and can’t be ignored, to crash our insurance based system too quickly would create economic crisis that would make the bank bailout puny in comparison. Any serious system changes will take considerable time and agony to implement.

For reform opponents to ignore Obama’s plea that to do nothing would be disastrous, is the utmost in hypocrisy and lunacy. It takes a lot to top Repug hypocrisy, but somehow they keep doing it. As their OWE, I suspect their tactics will backfire by the fall and many more Americans will see them for the hypocrites they are as happened in the last presidential election.

PS. As of this posting, I can’t find a link that would provide the video of this mornings’ MTP. When one is available, I will provide it.

Segments from this show were released at 1PM.

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