The Fox News Difference

In its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox and its parent company, Dominion Voting System maintains that

In the days and weeks after the 2020 elections, the Fox News Channel repeatedly broadcast false claims that then-President Donald Trump had been cheated of victory.

Off the air, the network's stars, producers and executives expressed contempt for those same conspiracies, calling them "mind-blowingly nuts," "totally off the rails" and "completely bs" - often in far earthier terms.

The network's top primetime stars - Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity - texted contemptuously of the claims in group chats, but also denounced colleagues pointing that out publicly or on television.

Ingraham called Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell "a bit nuts." Carlson, who famously demanded evidence from Powell on the air, privately used a vulgar epithet for women to describe her. A top network programming executive wrote privately that he did not believe the shows of Carlson, Hannity and Jeanine Pirro were credible sources of news.

Even so, top executives strategized about how to make it up to their viewers - among Trump's strongest supporters - after Fox News' election-night team correctly called the pivotal state of Arizona for Democratic nominee Joe Biden before other networks. A sense of desperation pervades the private notes from Fox's top stars, reflecting an obsession with collapsing ratings.

So it was an amazing case of bad timing (or chutzpah/gall) that the very night after this revelation, the host of "Dan Abrams Live" commented

One of the reasons so few trust the mainstream media is that so many refuse to accept and admit their biases. They're just neutral observers focusing on the fact. At least Fox News, their prime time folks admit that they're basically in the tank for the GOP. They speak at conservative events and many outright admit that they support Republicans and they'll bask President Biden at every opportunity.

But most of the left-leaning media and the left wing media insist they just play it straight. They play this game of just trying to pretend that they're not biased, even on a network as left-leaning as MSNBC.

Abrams, who presents himself as opinionated yet balanced, objective, and non-partisan, charged

Transparency is the foundation upon which journalism is built, except when it applies to them. And this lack of transparency or self-awareness about their own beliefs is a big part of the problem why the public's trust in media has eroded so much.

It's a misconception that erasing the line between journalist (or media personality) and partisan political hack constitutes transparency. And if there is any truth to Dominion's argument, prominent Fox News personalities knew Trump had lost but promoted the lie that the presidential election had been stolen. They were "in the tank for the GOP," honesty and transparency be damned.  Until Dan Abrams- or anyone- credibly suggests that MSNBC or CNN engages has allowed its bias even to approach that level of deception, Fox News stands alone among the three major cable news networks in its contempt for truth and accuracy.

So, you'll enjoy this: we put what Fox hosts Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham said, on air, side by side with what they were saying to each other on text, in private, when the cameras stopped rolling.

It's a must-watch and it's pretty shocking:pic.twitter.com/tkrkzpF5tY

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 18, 2023

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Ignoring the Real Culprit(s)

According to CNN, Maggie Haberman's upcoming book will feature the New York Times reporter and CNN contributor writing

that in the immediate aftermath of the November 3 elections, Trump seemed to recognize he had lost to Biden. He asked advisers to tell him what had gone wrong. He comforted one adviser, saying, "We did our best." Trump told junior press aides, "I thought we had it," seemingly almost embarrassed by the outcome, according to Haberman.

But at some point, Trump's mood changed, Haberman writes, and he abruptly informed aides he had no intention of departing the White House in late January 2021 for Biden to move in.

Left Twitter was not amused:

John Pavlovitz- Maggie Haberman is another in a long line of people who were willing to let democracy die on the altar of a book deal.

Keith Olbermann- Trump: "I'm just not going to leave." Oh good, another fact, vital to the safety and continuation of the nation, that @maggieNYT withheld from the public for many months if not a year-and-a-half so she could put it in her fucking book

Michael J. Stern- Maggie Haberman's new book includes Trump being so unhinged, he refused to leave the White House after losing. Journalists who write books have a conflict of interest when they withhold valuable information so they can include it in their book, years in the future. It stinks.

Amie Wexler- Why didn’t Maggie Haberman report on this in real time? Don’t buy her book. Don’t reward this behavior.

And more, virtually all reflecting one or more these sentiments.

It's not clear how the not-quite lame duck period between November 3, 2020 and January 20, 2021 would have been altered had we been informed earlier- even assuming Haberman knew as it occurred- that President Trump was considering staying put. There was an attempted coup on January 6, 2021 even though Bill Maher and a few other individuals had been warning that Trump would not go quietly.

Still, let's stipulate that if a knowing journalist had righteously spilled the beans, the attempted insurrection would have been aborted before the mob arrived to try to take over the Capitol.  

Maggie Haberman earns a very fine salary, very likely somewhere this side of $200,000 annually, as a reporter for The New York Times.  Whatever her faults or prejudices, she has been able to maintain employment for approximately seven years at arguably the greatest newspaper in the world, and that's no mean feat.

By contrast, the most successful, by audience share, host on one of the three cable news networks is reputed to take down (by one estimate) in the vicinity of $30 million per year. That's real money. Rachel Maddow appears on air typically once a week and otherwise on election nights and at other, selected, times, in addition to working on special projects. It is not a daunting schedule.

If NBC Universal offered me this sweet deal, I'd take it, as would virtually every other human being, and evidently she's a cash cow for the network.  Nonetheless, it's a tremendous amount of money, which the network wouldn't be offering if it couldn't afford to do so- and didn't have more money where it came from.

Sure, The New York Times, frequently slammed for its imperfections by Soledad O'Brien and other liberal critics, could do more investigative reporting. But the Times, The Washington Post, and the (very) few other newspapers of national scope perform quite well their primary function, presenting the news fully and objectively.

Their reporters strive, usually successfully, to provide explanation and context lacking in cable news.  They work more hours at a more difficult job (typically) being paid less money than the talking heads at Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.

It is not Rachel Maddow's fault that she has become extremely wealthy without laboring in the vineyards with the likes of Maggie Haberman. The blame should not attach primarily to Maddow and her colleagues but to NBC Universal, CNN Global (and ultimately Warner Brothers Discovery), and Fox News Media. Each has available to it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to offer its viewers actual in-depth information.

None will do it. None will do it because broadcast news has no incentive other than to present the most charismatic and most entertaining hosts for the pleasure of their viewers, most of whom are more interested in having their own views echoed by their personal favorites than in becoming more informed on any subject. It is past time for the left, on Twitter and elsewhere, to affix blame for corporate irresponsibility where it belongs, and it's not on the print media.

Maggie Haberman or major newspapers are often blasted for revealing information later than they should. Meanwhile, individuals such as Sean Hannity, Jake Tapper, and Rachel Maddow rarely reveal or uncover anything we didn't already know, are paid eight figure salaries, and are treated like rock stars. It's enough to make the angels weep.

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Racial Prejudice In Its Ranks

In a different context, on Sunday night John Oliver (here at 1:15) quoted his wise, albeit probably mythical, barber as remarking  "we can't change history, we can only prevent it from happening again."

Unfortunately, MSNBC will heed the first point and ignore the second. Breitbart reports that on Saturday morning

“Bill Maher, you do not get to tell people of color what they should or should not be offended by. Stay in your lane, slim,” (Tiffany) Cross stated. “Maybe instead of trying to invoke sympathy for Sharon Osbourne or making sure Tomi Lahren has a space to souse her BS, you should have more diverse panels of people who can explain colorism to you and systemic racism and how these things still devastate people’s lives and livelihoods today. Try that instead of standing on your alabaster perch every week to crap on other people’s lived experience while providing a safe haven for well-established white supremacists because I’ve got to tell you — this old angry white man act is so played.”

“The country, like it or not, is changing in real-time. And sadly, ‘Fake Time with Bill Maher’ is not,” she added.

(Below, these "well-established white racists" the evening before the commentary above.)

Give Tiffany Cross, host of "Cross Connection" on MSNBC, a point for the clever renaming of "Real Time with Bill Maher." Take ten away from her for racial bias, and not of the subtle variety.

Maher certainly could book African-Americans on his  show, albeit not immediately because it is on hiatus for five weeks.  It might blunt the invective from Cross and cronies if it were black faces explaining why she is plainly wrong. He could, for example, interview Adolph Reed or John McWhorter. (Oh wait, he has.)

It's unlikely, though, that they'll even know what "colorism" is. It sounds like the individual is validated by the color of her skin, but it probably means whatever Cross wants it to mean at whatever time. Bigots are like that.

Similarly, the reference to "a safe haven for well-established white supremacists" is odd- nay, ignorant- because Real Time is consistently bereft of white supremacists. Maher clearly prefers the company of moderates and liberals, all the more so to emphasize that there are people on the left dedicated to democratic values and opposed to bigotry of the right or left.

It shouldn't be necessary to tell anyone not on the far right that credibility should not be measured by color of the skin heredity has assigned. Alas, "stay in your lane" Cross needs to be told. 

Cross intends some issues to be off-limits to whites. By the same principle, comment on others could be reserved for whites. This would include the stock market, given that whites are more invested in the stock market than are blacks. This framework would be bad for open debate and democracy itself but would create a  bear market for apartheid. It's unlikely that would deter cross.

Perhaps one of Cross' colleagues on MSNBC can remind her that viewers include individuals who are white, old, and male. Stereotyping such a person as an "old, angry, white male" strikes a discordant note on the airwaves of a cable news network continually asserting its commitment to diversity. Nevertheless, this probably is of no concern to MSNBC, which clearly is trending toward women, blacks and Latinos, and gays.   

Given the increasing polarization of politics on the basis of ethnicity (and education), this is probably wise marketing. Still, a legitimate cable news network should not be unaware of bigotry in its own ranks.  

A consistent application of cancel culture would prompt the firing of Cross. However, that is a toxic culture, one with which the host appears to be too comfortable.  Nonetheless, a network appalled by racial bias on the left must not (though it will) let this moment pass unnoticed. Consistent with the values it claims to espouse, MSNBC could issue a statement with a reference, merely vague if necessary, to the comment of Saturday morning and add

We decry bigotry in all its forms, especially in a month in which our organization has celebrated the diversity represented by individuals given the opportunity to love and marry anyone of their choice.  We welcome their voices and voices of all Americans, and those who have come to our shores seeking to be Americans, whatever their religion, gender, or national origin.

That would the values of MSNBC claims, or once claimed, for itself.  The network's silence will indicate that the second part of the recommended statement is no longer operable.

 

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That Problem

Governor Jim Justice is is from West Virginia and rarely if ever is mentioned as a possible national candidate. Thus, he thus has nothing to fear from this:

🧹🧹Ruhle doing a lil spring cleaning, mopping the floor with Governor Justice.. #TransRightsAreHumanRights https://t.co/hQpwpPWgfn

— Emily Brandwin (@CIAspygirl) April 30, 2021

 

In the video (below) of the full transaction between Justice and Ruhle, the latter notes  "West Virginia ranks 47th in health care, 48th in the economy, and 50th in infrastructure." Why, Ruhle asks, "would he make this a priority?" Instead, she might ask "why am I making this a priority?"

"Stephanie, I didn't make it a priority," Justice succinctly responded. Not being a national politician nor one from a diverse state, Justice then defensively added "it wasn't my bill." "It wasn't my bill" would have sounded better as "It wasn't my bill but in all matters, I'm with the people of West Virginia and their values."

Were that not the case, the GOP-controlled state legislature wouldn't have enacted a law which personally offends liberals and progressives and much of the mainstream media, and which might incur a Georgia-style corporate backlash.  By contrast, it's unlikely that Americans generally welcome transgender girls participating in girls sports in schools. Two months ago, The Washington Post noted

Conservatives make little secret of their view that highlighting women’s sports is an advantageous way for them to frame the discussion, rather than debating the right of transgender people to be treated like everyone else.

Terry Schilling, executive director of the American Principles Project, has long been trying to shape a message on transgender policy for Republican political candidates. The group’s polling last year, he said, suggests that many voters — including Biden supporters and those who otherwise back LGBTQ rights — oppose letting athletes who were assigned male at birth compete in women’s sports.

“We found that the women’s sports issue was not only exceptionally powerful, but it also had the benefit of not being exclusive,” Schilling said. “It was something that our organization could convince politicians to champion.”

James Carville identifies "faculty lounge politics" as a practice undermining Democrats with rural voters. Determined not to be self-destructive, he does not directly address gender and race but instead the "wokeness" seemingly characterized by the Democratic Party's obsession with those two topics. While West Virginia has serious problems with poverty and other aspects of quality of life, Stephanie Ruhle spends nearly three minutes arguing with the state's governor about- of all things- transgender athletes, and the the cultural left crows because it believes he's being owned. The appropriate response:

 

 

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Pictures Talk; Words Walk. I Didn't Make The Rules.

MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle revealed Monday morning that she and her family have contracted Covid-19. Striking the right tone, in a piece on the network's website she acknowledges they have been "extremely lucky" and

I was privileged enough to be able to manage those fears, with doctors answering my frantic phone calls and messages. And I work for a company that let me put my life on hold and focus on my health....

We didn't get super sick. We had access to testing, eventually got some results and had the space and the financial stability to isolate safely. We have supportive paying jobs and schools that can offer virtual learning. If I didn't have all of that, maybe it would have been a lot harder to follow the guidelines.

Others are not so fortunate, she notes, because

Across the country, Americans have raised the alarm for months about our haphazard testing and muddled guidelines. And the guidelines have shifted since the pandemic started. Is it any wonder that this spread continues? We're all confused. I still don't know where we got Covid-19.

And forget about contact tracing calls; making them was insanely difficult. So many of the people I might have exposed didn't want to hear it. The people I came in contact with and the big-box stores I spent time in seemed to have no interest in when I might have exposed them. None of the stores took my temperature, but even if they had done so, it wouldn't have made a difference — I had no fever.

On her MSNBC program, Ruhle also struck the right note and addressed the vital issues.  She spoke and wrote eloquently with humility rare in cable news (insufficiently common elsewhere), eschewing any phony reference to "being humbled." There was no false emotion or pathos as she addressed the failure of both government and some individuals to take the pandemic seriously.

However,  she can be seen and heard explaining

As I mentioned at the top of the show, I am now back at work broadcasting safely from home after spending the better part of the last two weeks isolating and recovering from Covid-19.

Given the backdrop, if Ruhle had not mentioned that she was broadcasting from home, viewers would have assumed it was from a well-lit and reasonably appealing studio.  It did not appear that she was sitting in the family's New Jersey house, as she evidently was. or in their Manhattan apartment

This contrasted starkly with the CNN broadcasts in spring from the basement (albeit a well-appointed one) of Chris Cuomo's house on Long Island, NY.  Moreover, in those appearances Cuomo then appeared somewhat gaunt, clearly unhealthy. As she usually does, Ruhle looked healthy and not unattractive.

The latter was right on target with the words and the message, more clearly and modestly than was Cuomo. However, CNN sent the right image visually, accurately reflecting the enormous threat to human health characterizing Covid-19. MSNBC would have better served the public if it had broadcast from somewhere less inviting than the studio, delayed their host's return, or if possible had her appear on camera when she was still in throe of symptoms.

Images count, a lot more than they should, and dangerously so. Ask Lesley Stahl.

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The Not-So-Secret Secret

It was discouraging, albeit unsurprising, when Kristen Welker at the Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta asked (beginning at 19:05 of the video below)

Senator Warren, you are running on Medicare for all. Democrats have been winning elections even in red states with a very different message on health care: protecting Obamacare. Democrats are divided on this issue. What do you say to voters who are worried that your position on Medicare for all could cost you critical votes in the general election?

It was discouraging, albeit unsurprising, when after Warren's reponse Welker asked

I want to ask you the question this way, Senator Sanders. You described your campaign, including your plans for Medicare for all, as a political revolution... President Obama explicitly said the country is, quote, "less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement. The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it," end quote. Is President Obama wrong?

Sanders began his answer with "no, he's right" because the answer to every "is President Obama wrong" question during the primary campaign must be "no, he's right." And of course Warren answered the loaded question posed to her by explaining her program rather than responding to the "why are you advocating a policy people are against?"

Sanders did add "now is the time" to "take on the pharmaceutical industry." That, sans detail, is as much as we can expect from any candidate now that, according to Slate's Jordan Weissman

Recent polling by other organizations has shown even lower levels of support for a single-payer system. An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey last month found just 41 percent said they backed one, with 56 percent against, while a Fox News poll found 46 percent in favor and 48 percent against. But polling results on health care can be extremely sensitive to how the question is phrased. What makes the Kaiser Family Foundation survey interesting is that it’s been asking the public the same version of its question for more than two years now—“Do you favor or oppose having a national health plan, sometimes called Medicare-for-all, in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan?”—giving us a picture of how public opinion has evolved. And it suggests that as single payer has become a more contentious political topic during the presidential campaign, it has lost a bit of its shine....

None of this is especially surprising. The phrase “Medicare for All” tended to poll well early on, but its popularity tended to drop once respondents were told it would require them to give up their private insurance. That specific issue has been front and center during the Democratic debates and may have eroded some enthusiasm for the concept. Pure partisanship has probably kicked in a bit as well; as the primary campaign has worn on, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents may have come to associate the idea with Democratic candidates, leading them to reject it.

This was written 5-6 weeks ago and I suspect that recognition of the need to eliminate private health insurance has not grown since then. As their remarks would indicate, both Sanders (though evidently not his ardent supporters) and Warren well recognize this phenomenon.

Joe Biden's approval numbers remain high among Democrats, especially in crucial South Carolina. Pete Buttigieg reportedly has surged to the top of the pack in Iowa and Amy Klobuchar has become at least a little viable. We can only hope that the hostility to single-payer among their these candidates has not contributed to their strength among Democratic primary voters.

Even if it has not, however, the framing of the questions posed to the two progressives, the Vermont and Massachusetts senators, suggests that the notion of procuring health care without a private company as intermediary has lost popularity. Kristen Welker, as network correspondent a straight-news reporter, framed the two questions to reflect conventional opinion and not only her view of reform, assuming that is what it is.

The acceptance of even Democratic, presumably left-liberal, voters of the continued dominance of the insurance industry in health care is one of the 6,000 pound elephants in the room. (A bigger elephant is the decision of President Obama not to endorse former Vice-President Biden for the nomination.)

Either Sanders or Warren, or both, must find a way to slay that elephant (though in such a way PETA won't object, which probably would be determinative in a Democratic primary). Alternatively, they can continue to skirt around the issue, hoping that this phobia declines or doesn't impede their road to the nomination. However, if one chooses the latter path and somehow manages to be nominated and elected, it does not bode well for implementation of comprehensive reform in the President's first term.

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As Usual

In Tuesday's crossover from The Rachel Maddow Show to The Last Word, Lawrence O'Donnell stated

And this single source close to Deutsche Bank has told me that the Trump-Donald Trump's loan documents there show that he has co-signers. That's how he was able to obtain those loans. And that the co-signers are Russian oligarchs.

That would explain, it seems to me, every kind word Donald Trump has ever said about Russia and Vladimir Putin, if true, and I stress the if true part of this.

Trump family attorney Charles Harder on Wednesday threatened to sue the network unless the latter chose to "retract, correct and apologize for" what he contended were completely false remarks. In response, or simply because MSNBC is a credible news organization, O'Donnell later led his program with

Last night on this show, I discussed information that wasn’t ready for reporting. I repeated statements a single source told me about the president’s finances and loan documents with Deutsche Bank, saying “if true” as I discussed the information was simply not good enough. I did not go through the rigorous verification and standards process here at MSNBC before repeating what I heard from my source.

Had it gone through that process, I would not have been permitted to report it. I should not have said it on air or posted it on Twitter. I was wrong to do so.

This afternoon, attorneys for the president sent us a letter asserting the story is false. They also demanded a retraction.

Tonight, we are retracting the story. We don’t know whether the information is inaccurate. But the fact is, we do know it wasn’t ready for broadcast, and for that I apologize.

Harder had demanded not only a retraction and apology but also a correction. Instead, the undoubtedly carefully vetted statement included "we don't know whether the information is inaccurate." Though a lawsuit, judging by the lawyer's threat, should be forthcoming, it will not ensue. Trump has made a cottage industry out of threatening to sue one entity or another, and then backing off.Also

Threatening to sue someone for misrepresenting your financial dealings while trying to keep all of your business and tax records from being made public makes your legal threats....a little weaker. https://t.co/ipVCWOK5ie

— Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) August 28, 2019

Discovery can be a real bitch.

O'Donnell (presumably) told the truth: one of his sources had told him that Russian oligarchs co-signed for a loan Trump received from Deutsche Bank.  After the MSNBC host issued the retraction, however, the President posted a tweet denying- falsely or otherwise- that there were Russian co-signers, but also lying:

Crazy Lawrence O’Donnell, who has been calling me wrong from even before I announced my run for the Presidency, even being previously forced by NBC to apologize, which he did while crying, for things he said about me & The Apprentice, was again forced to apologize, this time.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2019

As usual, he lied not because he is unable to do otherwise. He lied because there is no reason not to. Thursday's focus, predictably, was on O'Donnell rather than on the deceit of Donald J. Trump, holder of the position previously known as Leader of the Free World.

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Welcoming Bullying

Back in August, Republican National Committee chairperson Reince Preibus threatened

to refuse to partner with CNN or NBC on any presidential primary debates if the two networks move ahead with plans for television projects on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Reince Priebus, the chairman, said in letters to the two networks that he considered the projects to be a “thinly-veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 presidential election.”

NBC has said it plans to broadcast a mini-series about Mrs. Clinton with Diane Lane scheduled to portray the former first lady and secretary of state. CNN is planning a feature-length documentary about her as well.

In a statement issued Monday, NBC News said, “NBC News is completely independent of NBC Entertainment and has no involvement in this project.”...

In his letters to CNN and NBC, Mr. Priebus said he would seek a “binding vote” at the R.N.C.’s summer meeting this month. He said the vote would require the party not to partner with the networks on debates or to sanction debates that they hold.

Fast forward five months to when Politico in late January reported

The boycott of MSNBC might have ended, but Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus says the network is still on “probation.”

“In their professed world of tolerance, they’re sure hitting on all eight cylinders of intolerance,” Priebus said Thursday of MSNBC while on Fox News’s “Hannity.”

Following a tweet by MSNBC’s account late Wednesday suggesting the Republican Party hates interracial marriages, Priebus sent a letter Thursday to MSNBC President Phil Griffin saying all staff members and surrogates would not appear on the network until there was an apology. The letter warned "Until you personally and publicly apologize, I have banned all RNC staff from appearing on, associating with, or booking any RNC surrogates on MSNBC. I have asked Republican surrogates and officials to follow our lead.”

Of course, the great progressive cable news network, MSNBC, stood by its employee and noted that the appearance of Republicans allows conservatives the opportunity to air their views in the marketplace of ideas (Republicans claim to love the "market."), allowing them to reach voters who otherwise might not be exposed to their perspective. Or less generously (but no less accurately) that the foundation of much of the modern Repub Party derived from dividing Americans on the basis of race. However,  no:

MSNBC President Phil Griffin apologized to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Thursday for a tweet suggesting conservatives “hate” interracial marriages and “dismissed” the staffer who authored it.

“The tweet last night was outrageous and unacceptable. We immediately acknowledged that it was offensive and wrong, apologized, and deleted it. We have dismissed the person responsible for the tweet,” Griffin wrote in a statement.

“I personally apologize to Mr. Priebus and to everyone offended,” he continued. “At msnbc we believe in passionate, strong debate about the issues and we invite voices from all sides to participate. That will never change.”

And neither will Priebus, back with an online petition pleading "Keep the Clintons out of the White House... Again. The RNC claims

Bill and Hillary Clinton will say and do anything to win.

Personal accounts of their campaigns reveal excessive infighting, warring camps and ruthless politics. The Clinton Machine even has a political “hit-list.”

Scandals and controversies follow the Clintons — the ultimate Washington Establishment.

Send a clear message today: we don’t want the Clintons back in the White House.

If Phil Griffin expected his capitulation to Priebus to mollify the RNC chairman, it was in vain.  But the MSNBC chief probably is just as happy he emboldened Reince.   Two weeks ago The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur, former MSNBC host, lawyer, and graduate of the finest high school in America explained (video on the topic, below)

First, let me be clear that this is not intended for the hosts on MSNBC. It's management that's the issue. The way Phil Griffin has his hosts trot out for one apology after another is revolting. At least, he included himself in the genuflecting to the right-wing last time around. The whole display is pathetic.

Let's also be clear about another thing. Phil Griffin, who happens to be the head of MSNBC, is not a liberal or progressive. I worked at MSNBC, I talked to Phil Griffin many times, I know Phil Griffin. He is not remotely progressive. All he cares about is success in his own career. He even basically admitted in this recent interview that he would head a conservative network if it made more money. The idea that he represents progressives as he keeps groveling to conservatives is absurd and sickening.

First of all, the last two apologies were not at all necessary. Melissa Harris Perry called Mitt Romney's black grandson gorgeous (go back and check the tape). Yes, it would have been nice if someone on the set said, "God bless their hearts for being open minded in adopting someone outside of their race." This is about as minor an infraction as I could imagine. Instead we got a tearful apology that was hard to watch and hard to stomach.

Now, there was a tweet sent out about how some right-wingers might not like a biracial ad by Cheerios. Gee, I wonder why they might think that. Maybe it's because some right-wingers already had hateful things to say about that ad (yes, they don't represent all conservatives, but once again, this is the most minor infraction in television history). The MSNBC employee didn't make up that reaction -- it already existed online. How many times has Bill O'Reilly characterized all liberals as saying something based on what some readers in the Daily Kos or The Huffington Post comments section said? Only about a million times.

Maybe that person at MSNBC who sent the tweet got the idea from a recent ad that caused outrage on Fox News because it included a Muslim woman and her husband who is in the U.S. military. They said this ad was only blocks from the site of 9/11! That is 100 percent bigoted response from the right-wing to an ad that involves two people from different backgrounds. Bingo.

Maybe they would have gotten the idea that Republicans don't like biracial couples because ofa poll in the Republican primaries in the South where 21 percent of GOP primary voters in Alabama and 29 percent of the Mississippi GOP primary voters said that interracial marriage should be illegal.

Can anyone in America say with a straight face it is unclear which party in America is more racist? One of the parties had this thing called the Southern Strategy, where they decided being racist toward blacks would get more white voters in the South. Care to guess which party that was? If you're still unclear on that or completely ignorant, maybe the last two RNC chairs could help you because they both apologized for their party's blatantly racist strategy.

Hey, anyone know whether Roger Ailes has ever apologized for running a station that argues we should take away voter rights in a way that disproportionately affects minorities? That's happening right now and only a million times more important than any tweet. You can turn on Fox News almost any day and see some fictional story about voter fraud, the whole purpose of which is to limit voting by the poor, the elderly, college students and minorities. Any apologies about that?

How about an apology for the fear mongering and race baiting about the New Black Panther Party? How about an apology for white Santa? And white Jesus? How about an apology for a guest on Fox Business talking about executing his political opponents? Oh, maybe he was joking. What do you think would happen if Ed Schultz joked about executing some Christian fundamentalists? They would fire everyone at 30 Rock and schedule an implosion of the building by lunchtime.

And oh yeah, anyone remember who worked for Richard Nixon when they came up with the Southern Strategy? That's right, Roger frickin' Ailes. Has he ever apologized for that?

MSNBC doesn't get it. Fox News and the right-wing are using this to set up a false equivalency. Yes, the Republicans race bait. Yes, Karl Rove did a push poll in South Carolina in 2000 asking if people would change their vote if they knew John McCain had an illegitimate black daughter (he doesn't). Wait, who does Karl Rove work for again? Yes, Bill O'Reilly is amazed when he goes into a black restaurant and they act like regular human beings. Yes, the Republican Party got 2% of the black vote in the last election because of their obviously hostile stance against African-Americans. But wait someone at MSNBC tweeted something mildly inappropriate.

If MSNBC cared about not presenting liberals as sniveling cowards, they would never go through these debasing apologies one after another. But they don't care about that because the guy who runs the network doesn't give a damn about how progressives look, because he isn't one of them.






The best example ever of a candidate doing "anything to win"- though, in this case, fleecing his state's taxpayers of $12 million to run up the score- is the current chairperson of the Republican Governors Association.   If Reince Priebus knows of any election in which either Bill or Hillary Clinton did "anything to win," he should put up and shut up.  Otherwise, we are left with the classic example of a stolen election (from Issues TV):






Perhaps in an odd sort of way Reince Priebus and Phil Griffin, the latter heading cable's alleged "liberal" network are- in the famous phrase of former New Jersey governor Tom Kean- perfect together.





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Mission Accomplished


I come not to bury Joy-Ann Reid.  I come also not to praise Joy Reid, though she apparently understands that the excessive violence in sports is more damaging to youth than to professional athletes.  In a discussion Sunday about  the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports,  she noted

Right, exactly, and I mean, I think that for parents of kids who play sports, this whole spectacle has been even more depressing, because, I just lived in Florida, which is a factory for little football players, and no one talks about the injuries these kids are suffering. The extent to which they`re destroying their growing bodies in order to play this sport, because sports has this great iconography that is almost all a lie. That`s sort of a lesson we`re learning.

Sports has (have?) become a sacred cow in America, and Reid called them on it.

But on MSNBC there is another sacred cow.  Despite critics who lump MSNBC in with Fox News as the liberal answer to conservative excess, MSNBC is only accidentally a liberal network.  And it is only accidentally a conservative network.  It is not only accidentally an Obama network- and few (o.k., a few) individuals demonstrate this as Reid, managing editor of thegrio.com and MSNBC contributor.

In Chris Hayes' inestimable program (virtually buried Saturday and Sunday mornings on MSNBC), Reid on Sunday (show transcript, here) not only drew the connection between drug use and violence in sports and the obscene elevation of sports in American culture, but also about Guantanamo and the Persian Gulf.

During the course of this blog, Guantanamo Bay has been the topic of a post only twice and is something I'm not now going to "relitigate"- as politicians put it when they want to avoid an issue.  (It's not even a word, making it an even more splendid dodge.)  But Reid's remark Sunday served as a reminder of her value to MSNBC not in the insight she brings when she chooses but in her shilling, however subtle, for Barack Obama.   In a discussion of the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director, another of Hayes' guests, Ellen Goodman, explained

He`s also been there for four years of President Obama. And they`re involved with the drone program. I just came from Doha, Qatar where I was covering the climate change summit, but during that time, I went over to al-Jazeera and they interviewed the only journalist who was held at Guantanamo for six years. His name is Sami Al-Haj, never charged, released after six years. Held in Afghanistan, then in Guantanamo. He was tortured, he was constantly interrogated about what -- who were the bosses at al-Jazeera. It was an astounding story of how this man was held, only freed after a 400 day hunger fast.

The reason I raise Sami al-Haj is when people watch the Senate confirmation hearings of John Brennan, he`s an example of one of the few voices of the voiceless who can describe the reality of what is happening on the ground at Guantanamo. This is not just about John Brennan. It goes to President Obama as well who promised to close it. It`s now the fourth anniversary of President Obama promising to close it.

Cue Joy Reid, exquisitely sensitive on behalf of Barack Obama, who responded "And Congress blocked it. We need to remember, Congress is also implicated in that. I mean, it was one of the first executive orders."   When Goodman, apparently trying to question her obeisance to the Executive Branch, stated "absolutely fine, but-" Reid interjected "And Democrats wouldn't vote for it."

But the 'but' is critical, its absence tending to absolve the President of responsibility.  Last July, Glenn Greenwald wrote

What made Guantanamo controversial was not its physical location: that it was located in the Caribbean Sea rather than on American soil (that’s especially true since the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that U.S. courts have jurisdiction over the camp). What made Guantanamo such a travesty — and what still makes it such — is that it is a system of indefinite detention whereby human beings are put in cages for years and years without ever being charged with a crime. President Obama’s so-called “plan to close Guantanamo” — even if it had been approved in full by Congress — did not seek to end that core injustice. It sought to do the opposite: Obama’s plan would have continued the system of indefinite detention, but simply re-located it from Guantanamo Bay onto American soil.

Long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention — the defining injustice of Guantanamo — as his own policy...

When the President finally unveiled his plan for “closing Guantanamo,” it became clear that it wasn’t a plan to “close” the camp as much as it was a plan simply to re-locate it — import it — onto American soil, at a newly purchased federal prison in Thompson, Illinois. William Lynn, Obama’s Deputy Defense Secretary, sent a letter to inquiring Senators that expressly stated that the Obama administration intended to continue indefinitely to imprison some of the detainees with no charges of any kind.

At first glance, it would appear that at least President Obama wanted to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, a symbol to much of the world of U.S. arrogance.   Call me Machiavaellian- but I doubt it.  Rather, it's likely that Obama, who uniquely thinks two chess steps ahead of others, realized that a plan to re-locate the camp in the U.S.A. would incite a torrent of opposition.  Eventually deciding not to close the prison, he avoided virulent opposition from the hard right while maintaining support from his apologists, who have been able to argue that he made an effort or, as less generously described by Greenwald,  "classic Obama: a pretty, feel-good, empty symbolic gesture (get rid of the symbolic face of Bush War on Terror excesses) while preserving the core abuses (the powers of indefinite detention ), even strengthening and expanding those abuses by bringing them into the U.S."

That abuse of power was further defended by Reid, who later in the program responded to criticism of the Executive branch's drone program, greatly expanded under the current President, by arguing

And by the way, shock and awe, dropping cluster bombs all over Iraq, also killed a lot of civilians, but we had a Congress that authorized the president of the United States, George W. Bush, to wage unlimited war on terrorists, to decide who those terrorists were and to go and kill them, whether killing them with bunker buster bombs or killing them with drones.

When the Congress of the United States gives to the president the power to wage war, it`s very rare that an executive gives back power. That`s why we have a balance of power.

Uh, no.  Ceding to the President a power, one never returned, in times of national urgency is not "why we have a balance of power."  It undermines the balance of power, vesting it almost entirely in the Executive, giving him/her authority disfavored by the Founders.

Congress increasingly has allowed the Executive branch to assume additional power over the past several decades. However, with those added prerogatives goes additional responsibility- or should.  President Obama shouldn't be given a free pass by the left simply because he is constantly under attack by the right.  But with the likes of Joy Reid, Chris Matthews, Melissa Harris-Perry and Al Sharpton at MSNBC, "shouldn't" is not "won't."




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Targeting Public Education



It's a very influential, though thankfully still slightly disagregated, interest group.

As Harold Meyerson remarks on the opinion pages of The Washington Post

Here’s a bit of advice to America’s teachers: If you want the nation’s opinion leaders and CEOs to like you, don’t congregate in groups. Everyone, it seems, loves teachers individually. But when they get together, they become a menace to civilization.

That’s one of the clearest take-aways from the just-concluded teachers strike in Chicago. Editorial boards from the right-wing Wall Street Journal to the liberal New York Times were nearly unanimous in condemning the seven-day strike. The Chicago Teachers Union was depriving the city’s children of their right to an education not just during the strike, editorialists argued, but also every day — by refusing to bow down to standardized tests. In the eyes of our elites, such tests have emerged as the linchpin of pedagogy and the best way to measure teacher, not just student, performance.

There is little evidence that standardized tests for teachers improves educational achievement, nor that such testing for students boosts anything but scores on those tests.   Teachers teach to the test, as demonstrated wonderfully by the State of Texas, where preparation for the tests is almost as enthusiastically undertaken as Friday night high school football.  Fortunately, a backlash is brewing among individuals actually interested in education.

Charter schools have, on the whole, performed slightly worse than conventional public schools, even with the ability of the former to pick and choose their students.   Meyerson notes

the most extensive survey of student performance at charter schools, from Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes , found that, of the 2,403 charter schools tracked from 2006 to 2008, only 17 percent had better math test results than the public schools in their area, while 37 percent had results that were “significantly below” those of the public schools and 46 percent had results that were “statistically indistinguishable” from their public-school counterparts.

As Helen F. Ladd and Edward B. Fiske observe on the op-ed page of The New York Times, "NO one seriously disputes the fact that students from disadvantaged households perform less well in school, on average, than their peers from more advantaged backgrounds"  Sean F. Reardon of the Center for Education Policy Analysis at Stanford University reports "a given difference in family incomes now corresponds to a 30 to 60 percent larger difference in achievement than it did for a child born in the 1970s."  The income achievement gap, which he defines "as the income difference between a child from a family at the 90th percentile of the family income distribution and a child from a family at the 10th percentile", has become "nearly twice as large as the black-white achievement gap.  Fifty years ago, in contrast, the black-white gap was one and a half to two times as large as the income gap."

Many no doubt will celebrate the apparent, superficial, progress in race relations, wherein the gap in educational achievement between white and black is now less than the gap between rich and poor.  

But all this evidence, and far more, is not stopping the educational "reformers,"   for whom the importance of poverty must be ignored.   As Donald Earl Collins explains in The Nation, this week, NBC (along with its corporate liberal arm, MSNBC) is running its

Education Nation Week in New York City. It will involve MSNBC's rising stars like Melissa Harris-Perry, Chuck Todd and Alex Wagner. It will include a two-day summit broken down into a series of case studies about the various issues in K-12 education and how to improve it for America's children. It will also include a teacher town hall and a student town hall.

In the end, it will all be a staged pageant of concern about kids, a subliminal message of corporatized education reform, a series of half-baked ideas that wouldn't have been good for schools a hundred years ago, much less now. I don't normally trash events before they begin, but I've seen this movie before. It's the one that's been given a bad title, a poor script worked on by five writers, with poor character development, mediocre actors and a wholly implausible ending.

NBC's Education Nation Week fits all of those because its hosts know about as much about the nuances of education as I do about the interactions of neutrinos with the Higgs boson particle. The week-long event is sponsored by University of Phoenix, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ExxonMobil, Target, Citi and the General Motors Foundation (the last one as a "Knowledge Partner"). Seriously? A for-profit institution with a ten (10) percent graduation rate? The biggest funder of ill-conceived education reform efforts, ones that have little chance of actually creating better conditions for teachers to effectively teach students of all stripes? Not to mention a bunch of corporations that have little incentive to reform public education for America's low-income students in a way that would truly level the playing field? Are you kidding me?

(Collins is disappointed in Harris-Perry, who contributed a pro-reform commentary to The Nation.  But those who have caught the latter's act should not be disappointed in her, nor in Wagner, whose deep consideration of political issues runs the gamut from A to B.)

This Committee to Destroy Public Education continues to propagate the easy answers, including the cliche "a good teacher..." (fill in the blank yourselves).  While the overall tax burden is lower now than it has been in the last fifty years, Republicans and neo-liberal supporters of the movement (when not speaking of education) continue to bemoan what they claim are high taxes and push for continuing today's low marginal tax rate for the wealthy.  They understand, but know not to acknowledge, that political support for significantly increasing the pay of teachers doesn't exist and, as long as they continue to demonize a progressive tax system, will not.   Further, those good teachers are not likely to be beating down the doors to teach in the most impoverished neighborhoods, any more than the wealthy reformers are likely to buy a home in north Philadelphia, Detroit's Highland Park, or Todd County in South Dakota

Blaming parents- many of them holding two or even three jobs- for lacking interest in their children's education- also is popular.   Insufficient involvement in the educational achievement of their children (or step-children) is a tendency of poorly-educated parents.  But Reardon concludes

the growing income achievement gap does not appear to be a result of a growing achievement gap between children with highly and less-educated parents. Indeed, the relationship between parental education and children’s achievement has remained relatively stable during the last fifty years, whereas the relationship between income and achievement has grown sharply. Family income is now nearly as strong as parental education in predicting children’s achievement.

Harold Meyerson is wrong about a couple of things (One is fairly inconsequential.).  He cites the support for the Chicago teachers' strike among black and Hispanic parents, arguing "it’s safe to say that the school reform movement hasn’t converted many outside the upper middle class."   But as he no doubt realizes, the movement is probably even more popular among the rich (a politically incorrect term, now that the right has admonished us to say "job producers") than the upper middle class.    For-profit universities, well-heeled foundations, oil companies, mega-banks, even big-box stores: hardly a lineup of the middle-class, of the upper or mainstream sort.

Addressing the importance of the socio-economic level of the home to which schoolchildren return from school, Ladd and Fiske point out "rather than confront this fact of life head-on, our policy makers mistakenly continue to reason that, since they cannot change the backgrounds of students, they should focus on things they can control."    Or, perhaps, their economic interests.


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At Most, An Obama Network



Progressive blogger and (Hilary) Clinton enthusiast Taylor Marsh explains today why Barack Obama never has been a shoe-in for re-election.    One problem, she notes, is

That Obama hasn’t made solid relationships inside the Democratic Party and in the progressive community, beyond his die hard fans and supporters, makes it rougher for him. I don’t know anyone who thinks Obama runs the Democratic Party, with more evidence today that he doesn’t. He’s the un-Lyndon Johnson, a man who gets by on his own steam, not through relationships inside Democratic or progressive circles. The attitude of Robert Gibbs is brought to mind and just what a bad beginning the Administration made toward their base. Obama is another in a long line of presidents who don’t feel compelled to build the political party that made his rise possible. The feeling is Pres. Obama’s a one man ego band.

Tuesday, however, Marsh had slapped The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf, who had mistaken MSNBC's Chris Matthews for an objective journalist and therefore was aghast at Matthews' criticism of Mitt Romney over his Bain Capital involvement.   Marsh similarly criticized Politico's Dylan Byers because he had naively slammed Matthews for exhibiting "partisan loyalties" when he "accused the Obama surrogate of 'sabatoge' and 'betrayal' of the campaign."

Matthews, Marsh argues, lost his journalistic credentials when he became an enthusiastic cheerleader for Obama's 2008 campaign, most infamously for his "thrill going up my leg" comment.        Marsh observes "Chris Matthews has been a die hard Barack Obama supporter for over four years now, which is his choice."   Then, however, she draws a false parallel, claiming

Fox News Channel is a ratings juggernaut doing partisan coverage. Are Friedersdorf and Byers really the only ones who don’t know MSNBC is now the bookend to Fox News Channel? 

Friedersdorf and Byers may be confused about MSNBC but, to a lesser degree, so is Marsh. MSNBC is not the Democratic alternative, nor is it the liberal or progressive alternative- that would be Al Gore's Current TV, especially with the Young Turks' Cenk Uygur. With little more than two exceptions (staunch liberal/progressive Chris Hayes on weekend mornings, populist Dylan Ratigan on weekday afternoons),  MSNBC is the pro-Obama network.     That is hardly synonymous with "liberal," "progressive," or (as Marsh obviously understands better than most) even "Democratic."  

Matthews' pro-Obama slant during the 2008 campaign was far more noble, with far more benevolent effect, than his approach to the 2000 presidential campaign, when he functioned as an unofficial surrogate for the Republican.   Bob Somerby describes Matthews' role in the Bush-Gore campaign:

Of course, it was Matthews’ remarks about Campaign 2000 which provided the comic relief. “I think he ran a terrible campaign in 2000,” Matthews said, skillfully keeping his straight face. Just last Friday, we gave you a small idea of what this big nut-case meant (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/17/11). What made Gore’s campaign so “terrible?” For one thing, he wore a three-button suit—and those buttons had Freudian meaning. Beyond that, he had hired a woman to teach him how to be a man. He was “today’s man-woman,” “a man-like object;” he “didn’t have his gender straight.” He would lick the bathroom floor to be president. Over and over and over and over, he was “Bill Clinton’s bathtub ring.”

Matthews behaved like a genuine demon for the campaign’s twenty months, offering ugly, bizarre complaints about Gore’s “terrible campaign.” He told Gennifer Flowers how hot she was when he dragged her out on the air; she then spent a full half hour denouncing the Clintons’ murders. Presumably, Matthews did this to serve the pleasure of Welch; his salary was $1 million in 1999, but it soon went up to $5 million. (This type of largesse cannot be explained by Hardball’s ratings, though the show was influential at that time within the mainstream press.)

Somerby typically is too harsh toward Matthews, who conducts some searing interviews which would (or should) put nearly everyone else on TV news to shame.    Still, Somerby's suggestion (there and elsewhere) that the host was doing the bidding of his corporate sponsor has its parallel in today's MSNBC.  

After the network's Rachel Maddow defended Obama's recent remarks about Bain Capital, she interviewed Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who had criticized the campaign (though, significantly, not Obama himself).      Maddow served as public relations flak for Booker, one of Wall Street's favorite Democrats, arguing that he had been misunderstood.    Fawning over Booker (whom Somerby says is a buddy of hers from Stanford), she chose not to emphasize the impact of the Bain Way upon the employees of the companies it took over.     Somerby commented

If Maddow would stop her absurd attempts to defend her appalling friend, maybe she could report on what Romney actually did at Bain! Maybe she could report the looting of those pension funds, in ways her viewers could grasp and pass on.

Or is she keeping her trap shut too? Despite what your lizard brain is saying, corporate-picked multimillionaires may not always be on your side.

Rachel Maddow does, at times, question corporate power, as does Ed Schultz.     (O'Donnell does so infrequently and Sharpton is little more than Obama's mouthpiece.) Other hosts, especially Matthews, on the network are hardly reticent about criticizing Democrats, a wise tactic for a pro-Obama operation intent on avoiding being typecast as "pro-Democrat." MSNBC surely is not impartial, and does not claim to be, but neither is it the partisan counterweight to the cable network representing the public relations wing of the Republican Party.

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One Step Closer


You knew it would happen.

This morning, MSNBC's Chris Jansing referred to a vague notion that "President Obama was the big winner last night."      Now, at 11:00 a.m. eastern, Ed Schultz is saying "the anti-Romney club is starting to galvanize" with "stars aligning" as Santorum becomes "the right candidate at the right time."    Last night, as Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney were running neck-and-neck, network heavies Schultz, Chris Matthews, and Lawrence O'Donnell already were pushing the idea that Romney is deeply distrusted within the GOP, Santorum is a growing force, or the race has become more unsettled.

Don't believe any of it.     There could be a late entrant to the field or maybe a draft at the convention, but either is unlikely.      If a candidate is chosen from among those currently in the race, we- and they- know who it will be.        There is a reason the former Massachusetts governor, in his speech to supporters after the caucus ended, congratulated the former Pennsylvania senator for scoring "a great victory" (not for doing well- but for a victory!) and it wasn't only to appear to be a nice guy.     He knows that ultimately Rick Santorum absolutely will not be the nominee.         In the past month or so, there has been only one candidate in the race with any chance to upend Romney at the convention and, thanks in part to the pounding Newt Gingrich took from Romney's SuperPAC, the former House Speaker is dead in the water.

Obama surrogates posing as pundits isn't pretty.     And it does no good for the liberal, or the Democratic, cause to have conservative and moderate Republicans, the mainstream media, and virtually everyone else in the country other than liberal Democrats to write off MSNBC, misjudging it as part of the "liberal media."          In prime time it is, with Al Sharpton, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, and Lawrence O'Donnell, a network promoting not liberal causes or Democratic causes, but Barack Obama.     (Rachel Maddow, with somewhat more commitment to principle, is an exception.         And she is not likely to boost a GOP candidate hostile to gay rights.)       Sharpton, who wouldn't stop referring last night to "Willard" (instead of "Mitt" or "Romney"), is the most brazen example, having been plucked from the roster of informal Obama advisers in order to waste the viewer's time at 6:00 p.m. Eastern.

Mitt Romney's 25% share of the overall GOP vote was, admittedly, underwhelming and unimpressive.     But he initially planned to bypass Iowa, figuring he could begin in New Hampshire where he was, and is, a heavy favorite.         Iowa, with its preponderance of evangelical Christians, was known to be unfriendly territory for the Mormon Romney, where in 2008 he was defeated by Reverend Mike Huckabee.       Romney had to avoid finishing third in Iowa; instead, he finished an extremely strong second or extremely weak first.

Gingrich now promises to be Barack Obama's prime surrogate.     He wouldn't put it that way, of course, and it might be unwitting, but his vow this morning to join Rick Santorum in denouncing and condemning Romney will be doing the President a great service.       That is, in the long run, advantageous for the country, chipping away at Romney's image to Obama's advantage.         But it's the only thing left for a bitter guy who knows it's over for him, with only a glimmer of hope for the candidate, Rick Santorum, he now has to pretend he likes.





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The Republican Media- No. 31

The more things change, the more they stay the same. In August, 2009- 17 months before General Electric relinquished majority ownership of NBC Universal to Comcast- Glenn Greenwald wrote

Having Richard Wolffe host an MSNBC program -- or serving as an almost daily "political analyst" -- is exactly tantamount to MSNBC's just turning over an hour every night to a corporate lobbyist. Wolffe's role in life is to advance the P.R. interests of the corporations that pay him, includingcorporations with substantial interests in virtually every political issue that MSNBC and Countdown cover. Yet MSNBC is putting him on as a guest-host and "political analyst" on one of its prime-time political shows. What makes that even more appalling is that, as Ana Marie Cox first noted, neither MSNBC nor Wolffe even disclose any of this.

Wolffe, who has been described by Digby as "Obama's stenographer," still is a frequent contributor on MSNBC programs. MSNBC was a cheerleader for the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, both pre- and post- nomination. Much of the network still is owned by General Electric, whose CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, was tapped early this year to head Barack Obama's Council on Jobs and Effectiveness.

But while MSNBC is now owned primarily by Comcast, Phil Griffin (Senior Vice President at NBC News) remains its president. And now, the network's host most critical of Barack Obama, Cenk Uygur, is out. Uygur, a graduate of Columbia Law School, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and the finest high school in the U.S., explained (video, below) his departure from MSNBC on his on-line outfit, The Young Turks.

Since he took over the 6:00 p.m. (Eastern) hour, Uygur argued (as can be heard on the video below) MSNBC's ratings have significantly increased in that time slot. Nevertheless, the "head of MSNBC" warned him "people in Washington told me that they're concerned about your tone" and "we're insiders. We're the establishment." Uygur stated the head honcho told him "you gotta tone it down and then he had me talk to one of their top contributors," who told him, in the host's words, to "tone it down" and have more Republicans" (which was fine with Uygur). A few months later, he was out, though he was offered "a different role."

No doubt, this came as no surprise to Greenwald or to the Daily Howler's Bob Somerby, who frequently has slammed corporate control of MSNBC. Still, pundits promoted by Fox News, CNN, and others will whine about the "liberal media." The more fair-minded of them, such as Michael Smerconish, instead will argue that there are Fox on the right, MSNBC on the left, and CNN in the middle.

But CNN, Fox, and MSNC all promote insider wisdom, whether on the need to cut those evil "entitlements," tacit support for growing income inequality in the nation, or the educational "reform" movement (a favorite of MSNBC), proxy for privatization.

MSNBC never has been a predominantly liberal network, though it always has been aggressively pro-Barack Obama. Now that President Obama has taken on the values and interests of Wall Street, it's critical that their hosts, including the well-meaning but hapless and oft-confused Ed Schultz, heed the advice to "tone it down." This isn't a matter of tone of voice. Al Sharpton currently is hosting the 6:00 p.m.-7:00 hour; a discredited (think Tawana Brawley and Korean-American shopkeepers) loudmouth, he nevertheless is practically an Obama syncophant and will not "talk truth to power" as long as the latter occupies the White House.

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