S. Knabt’s Overflow

XL satellite is featuring a “POTUS 08” station. I hardly claim to have listened to its full line-up of programming since I tend to listen to it, when I have any time at all, 7 PM-ish. Today I caught some of its afternoon chatter. I’m quite impressed from what I’ve heard. The content tends to lean a wee bit conservative but, overall, it’s very fair and very informative.

This afternoon I caught a couple of conservative Republicans being interviewed like Dick Armey who talked extensively about privatizing Social Security. But the guy who really got my attention was Bill Hobbs, Communication Director for the Tennessee Republican Party. Having just blogged on some right-wing extremism, Mr. Hobbs’ unyielding trashing of Barack Obama fits hand in glove.

Not that I’m some political babe in the woods but Mr. Hobbs’ interview on POTUS 08 made me unconformable. It is an example of right-wing talk radio style puritanism mixing with mainstream political dialog. Without any discernable sense of irony Mr. Hobbs relentlessly beat on Obama for not taking as many pounds of flesh from Louis Farrakkan’s hide as Mr. Hobbs would have liked while not blinking an eye at emphasizing Senator Obama’s middle name, Hussein, al la the infamous Bill Cunningham.

“…supporters of Israel should view a possible Obama administration with extreme caution, as America’s ally is being put in the cross-hairs by the anti-Jewish left.” Bill Hobbs

You can read the rest of Bill Hobbs’ “ANTI-SEMITES FOR OBAMA” Tennessee Republican Party press release for yourself. But reading it can’t begin to prepare you for the sort of pig-headed everything the other side does must be demonized while my other blind eye can’t see any problem with the reflection I see of myself hypocrisy Mr. Hobbs represents. It’s a page straight from right-wing talk radio playbook but this guy’s an official for the Republican Party.

“But if the word ‘reject’ Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word ‘denounce,’ then I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.” Barack Obama, 2/26/08

Squeezed a bit by Hillary Clinton last night at the debate, Obama decided to play the word game she was pursuing desperately hoping to find that chink in his Teflon armor. You’d think that put it to rest. Nope. Mr. Hobbs rabidly attacked Senator Obama all but saying he was anti-Semitic.

This guy being a significant player in the Tennessee Republican Party makes me pause and wonder. Have I been too quick to downplay right-wing talk radio’s influence over the Republican Party? We’ll see but McCain has the right wingers in fits. Though, I’ll give Mr. Hobbs credit, his problems with McCain appear to be fixable:

…I will say this: If John McCain were to assure conservatives that if elected president he would not do anything that looks like amnesty for illegal immigrants before building a border wall, and that he is willing to revisit campaign finance reform and fix the myriad of flaws with the McCain-Feingold law, he’d stand a very good chance of locking up the nomination. - Bill Hobbs, 1/9/08

Not that it matters. I haven’t seen Senator McCain appreciably yield on this and we all know Hobbs et al will be forced to either place a liberal in the White House by sitting on the sidelines or actively backing a moderate Republican. I assume they’ll all swallow their pride to do the latter. In any case, it might be fun to watch.

More hilarity.

Simply hilarious.

Here we go again. Someone perpetuating the stereotype of the blogger in mom’s basement. Leaks during the rainy season have moved me up to the laundry room for now I’ll have you know.

If you didn’t see Fox News’ special “Victory or Retreat: The Surge and Politics” I have a write-up on it here. To sum it up it was largely a nice pro-Bush policy info-mercial with enough small bits of negativity to cover their butts if some were to claim they never said this or that to make at least a dyed-in-the-wool Republican think it was all real.

Enter Anderson Cooper. Without mentioning Fox News or their slick little propaganda piece by name, he ran a segment on 360 that emphasized all the points Fox News missed. If you suspect it’s just a coincidence, they curiously bring up the O’Hanlon and Pollack article “A War We Might Just Win.” The Fox News special put a lot of emphasis on it and O’Hanlon was featured throughout as a pro-surge Democratic war skeptic.

Some of the holes Fox News neglected to fill in get patched up. The fact that the US troop build-up isn’t the only ingredient to a drop in violence there is breached. If you trimmed out some of the Pentagon’s viewpoint which dominated about half the special and replaced it with this clip perhaps Fox News viewers would have a clearer picture of the complexities in Iraq. But, of course, that’s exactly what Fox News’ viewers don’t want and Fox News is more than happy to distill it all down to something they will like.

Okay, there are endlessly bad puns to headline the story of a Wailuku, Maui television station assigned the call letters KUNT and I had to dream up the worst of the bunch!

“I can’t tell you how long he [Bae’s attorney] laughed at me when he learned of my gaffe,” Kevin Bae reveals to us. Yep, that about sums this fluff ball story up.

Ask a conservative what’s the problem with CNN and you’ll get a diatribe about mainstream liberal media bias. However, Saturday Night Live seems to have it right. Real news is boring.

Top-ranked cable news channel Fox sexes it all up with excessive amounts of tabloid trash and right-wing political theater. Years back, CNN humiliated itself by visiting Republican Congressmen to see how it could repackage its news to woo conservatives. Part of the answer was the addition of right-wing pundit Glenn Beck to Headlline News. Popular populist Lou Dobbs returned with his rather conservative America-first anti-globalism message. International coverage continues to suffer though no network has debased international coverage to the level of “America’s channel,” Fox News. If they can’t spin it in heavy political tones, international news is stuffed into Shep’s 80 seconds around the world compilation of entertaining fluff.

Is it coincidental CNN is going through a purge? Out is Paula Zahn who admits she can’t spin politics like Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann who dominated her time slot. Out is old-timer Bob Franken. Long-time coorespondent Andrea Koppel who joined CNN 14 years ago gets the boot as well.

Some argue that CNN replacing Zahn with Campbell Brown indicates CNN is sticking to hard news. A credible argument if Paula Zahn hadn’t been dumped for poor ratings opposite two political shills famous for their faux political passion readings from teleprompters. It’s doubtful adding a third slot filled with another pundit pitching political theater will succeed in the 8 pm time slot but it’s even more doubtful Campbell Brown will succeed if she devotes her efforts to nothing but serious news. Celebrity interviewer Larry King is the only personality CNN owns who competes head-to-head with Fox News if you want to put it all into perspective.

I find serious news very interesting but far more people prefer the Fox News (Murdoch) approach of sexing it up a lot. Sadly, as I’ve been discussing here and elsewhere for quite a while, CNN and MSNBC are slowly sacrificing quality journalism in the name of ratings. We’ll see where this purge leads us but I have my doubts.

While I think this is just a blip and won’t amount to much, it’s nice to see some news personalities rebelling against coverage of the Paris Hilton story, a mind-numbing waste of air time considering all the important domestic and international news competing for attention. Witness CNN’s Jack Cafferty:

But when you witness the popularity of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, for example, its success is largely attributed to pushing tabloid trash journalism. As I’ve covered quite a bit, Fox News Channel’s success is as much a story of lowest common denominator tabloid journalism as it is tapping the right-wing talk radio crowd with it’s hard right political spin. Not that they’re alone. I’ve witnessed of late MSNBC featuring an awful lot of true crime style documentaries. Why devote an hour special to covering a college rape?

At least for the moment I can take some small comfort in folks like Jack and Mika Brzezinski at MSNBC, who pulled a similar stunt, are fighting back.

I try not to hawk wares on my blog, however the George Bush celebrity butt plug may be right down your alley. Okay. That’s a very bad pun.

The official sales pitch goes like this:

“The George Dubya Tush buttplug fills the void in for the political loved one’s on your holiday shopping list!”

I definitely recommend the “assquake” edition. It brings new meaning to “shock and awe” if you catch my drift.

If you’ve ever had a conservative give you one of those Clinton watches Rush Limbaugh liked to shill for they’re good for a laugh but not particularly useful. Return the favor and irritate a conservative with the Bush butt plug. Not only may you give a neo-con a cheap laugh but you may find them smiling quite a bit until Bush’s ears - “flared for the ultimate amusement” - wear out. It’s both fun and practical.