WaPo’s Manufactured “Landslide”
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
When a distinguished professor of journalism calls out the Washington Post on its bullshit, you’d hope WaPo would take note and make a correction in its direction:
One Democratic senator who is noted for being to the right end of the Democrats’ political spectrum apparently constitutes a landslide in Democratic Party opinion.
If Democrats stood on Sen. Michael Bennet’s side of the boat we’d be Republican Lite sinking the boat.
What’s truly disgusting about WaPo’s skewed priorities is that another event of far more import than Bennet’s lone opinion took place last evening and hasn’t received the scrutiny it should have.
Nicole Sandler wrote a thread summarizing Donald Trump’s campaign rally. I’m not going to post the entire thread, just posts 2 and 3 from a 10-post thread:
The entire thread begins at this link.
This synopsis spares you Trump’s droning whine as he reels out over an hour of white Christian nationalist/supremacist grievance using an absurd number of lies.
I listened to this nauseating dreck this morning and it’s awful. If this man is elected and allowed to act on his hatred relying on the Roberts’ court’s presidential immunity, no one who is a person of color or LGBTQ+ will be safe let alone other marginalized groups.
The rotting cherry on the top of this ugliness: this was a campaign rally held at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami.
In other words, Trump laundered campaign funds which paid for this event, transferring it to his Trump org-owned golf course and eventually into his own pocket.
The Secret Service was surely charged by the course for what resources it used to protect him at the course — this money went directly to the course and into Trump’s pocket.
GOP presumptive presidential nominee Trump was grifting right under the noses of his supporters and what little media was present, while airing so much hateful screed as a campaign speech.
But a “landslide” of one Democratic senator was more important and featured on WaPo’s front page.
Heads up, community members: please, PLEASE double check your entries in Name/Email/Website fields.
Simple typos are causing an unusual amount of moderation work. Not all of you have received moderator’s notes advising you about typos; many have simply been fixed to save time and free your comments from moderation.
Many comments have gone into moderation because an n instead of m was typed in .com, or an i was omitted in gmail, or a letter was transposed in username/email. A little more time checking Name/Email/Website fields would reduce the chance your comment will go into moderation.
Thanks.
*facepalm* George Clooney added his name and star power to the “expel Biden” landslide.
It seems Stephen Colbert did too. My husband won’t let us watch the show because he’s so depressed and angry.
Colbert, much more than Clooney, prides himself on his humility. If he did make this move, it reveals the paradoxical hubris at the heart of such self-belief. I’m sure, having visited the White House a time or two, these guys feel like they know Biden. Like they are insiders. But they don’t know the byzantine complexities that would be involved in fulfilling their requests. The person who does is Joe Biden, and as the actual nominee it is his judgment (and judgment call) that controls.
Watched Colbert last night, he was barely funny. The audience didn’t laugh at all sometimes, which is unusual.
Meant to say watched his opening monologue. Dropped it midway, kinda awkward.
Even Colbert knows he went too far and lost his audience.
Trump was an hour late, keeping both his fans in dangerous heat. Nobody at that rally thinks being indicted, “is a lot of fun.” Especially when you’re convicted on 34 felony counts.
A “no holds barred” debate is not a debate. As you say, it would be a shouting match that would favor the guy who lies for a living. Donald is projecting when he says “Biden” doesn’t know what a synagogue is, notwithstanding how many were attacked by Trump’s Fascist zealots. Donald’s obsession with electricity – and windmills that produce it – should be covered as part of his dementia. And why would he hold a rally in heat-stroke alley Florida, the world’s leader for shark attacks?
He also had Barron go on stage before him; my gut says he’s going to try to use his son as a media shield. Apparently he saw the press react to shots at Barron when he was President.
Unlike certain other presidential offspring.
Joe Biden should say he doesn’t play golf with guys who cheat on every hole and every wife. He wouldn’t desecrate a wife’s burial ground by hitting a ball a few feet in front of her buried coffin. Or enable Trump’s grift by holding a golf outing at one of Trump’s own clubs.
How droll for a multimillionaire to lament, while speaking at his own golf club, at an event paid for by the others, including indirectly the USG, that America is becoming a Communist country.
As for Donny not being old or demented, he “read his teleprompter cue to speak quickly out loud,” as if it were part of his speech. To add another rotten cherry onto the signs of his dementia, he claimed that he would rather take money from small dollar donors than the wealthy. It’s either one of his more obvious lies or his decision not to accept help from Marco Rubio’s $37 billion dollar donor.
Trump yesterday: “I don’t want to take money from millionaires.”
Trump a month ago: “MILLIONAIRES, I NEED MONEY! If you give it to me, I’ll give you whatever you want as President!”
To oil industry CEOs, every one of them a multimillionaire, in effect, “Give me a billion dollars for my campaign [and, sotto voce, my legal bills], and as president, I’ll give you whatever policies you want.”
Donny doesn’t sound hesitant to take money from millionaires – or anybody else. In fact, he’s been doing it his whole life.
Excellent piece, thank you.
Re: “I listened to this nauseating dreck this morning and it’s awful.”
I wish you ‘mind buds’, a conceptual equivalent to ear buds.
Listening to this stuff, not unlike moderating, can take its toll.
I’m sorry to do this to everyone, but if there’s a single statement that shows how far GONE Donald Trump is a this point, it’s this one:
“He said someone told him that he looks “great in a bathing suit.” Barf.”
Beauty—and veracity—are in the eye of the beholder, but I’d probably go with “like an uncooked turducken.”
Well, that “Depends” on what else he may or may not (ewww!) be wearing.
When Donald Trump uses “someone said,” he means Donald Trump said. As for how he looks in a bathing suit, even one from 1910, Trump didn’t say when “someone” said that. Fifty years ago, it might have been true.
They asked Pelosi about Biden, and she told them she was backing him, and it was *his decision”.
https://mas.to/@[email protected]/112763065552784836
link to image: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GSIhlWjXUAA5XP7?format=jpg&name=small
Yep, and the NYT is already using this as “proof” the Dem leadership is trying to force Joe out. Proof?
“Nancy said they’re talking about it!”
A full misquote of what she actually said, but based on the last week, it appears misquotes and lies aren’t a problem fo the Times anymore. And Pelosi’s already ripping them on social media for it.
Also observed by Prof. Jeff Jarvis.
The folks who teach journalism are regularly noting these gross abuses by media and yet the media refuses to change their practice. Is the entire profession under attack by its members at NYT and WaPo?
Both Jeff Bezos and the Sulzberger Family, owners of the WAPO and NYTimes, respectively, have turned their respective newspapers into replicas of the National Enquirer.
I’m surprised David Pecker doesn’t yet have an ownership interest in both papers; then again, maybe he has an ownership agreement that is not in writing.
And the writers at both papers, especially writers like Sanger and Dowd at the NYTimes, have become political prostitutes looking for one last hurrah before retiring. And when they retire, I’m betting each will spend most of their retired time outside the US.
As for Senator Michael Bennett, he’s coveted being president for a while now. Unfortunately, his latest comments are premature, ham-handed and amateurish.
And George Clooney, I hope he had the courage and integrity to speak to Biden privately about his decision to publicly state Biden should abandon his campaign. If he didn’t, shame on him.