CNN: "Stomaching" Michael Moore (by Frank Dwyer at HuffPost)

[marmar]

Frank Dwyer
CNN: "Stomaching" Michael Moore


An empty-headed newsreader on CNN just invited me to watch the second part of Wolf Blitzer's interview with Michael Moore, "if," she added, "you can stomach it." She was doing her bit, I suppose, to defend Wolf and handsome Sanjay against Moore's attack yesterday, in which he vigorously demanded an apology from Blitzer for having trashed Fahrenheit 9/11 three years ago. CNN was wrong on every count, Moore raged, and so helped lead us into this terrible nightmare. Moore demanded that Blitzer and CNN apologize for having failed so dismally to do the crucially important job of a free press in a democracy: to find the truth, to disseminate it, to speak it unflinchingly to power.

The comely newsreader and opinion-purveyor (her primary qualification apparently her cheek bones) also referred with haughty disdain to Moore's "ranting and raving." She would have used just that tone, I think, if the story crawling in front of her had been about the rude way Jesus behaved with the money-changers in the temple, and I can only imagine her horror at having to report on Samson and the Philistines. She reminded me of a similarly vacuous partisan, a character in Jean-Claude van Itallie 60s play, America Hurrah, a cheerleader who chanted "Burn yourselves, not your draft cards, Burn yourselves, not your draft cards!" It's another war, another time, but the same battle lines have been drawn again. Whose side are you on? And if you're not for us, you're against us.

The newsreader and her employers should know that a large and growing part of the American public has no trouble stomaching Michael Moore, who is doing the journalists' abandoned work of speaking truth to power. What we can no longer stomach is the neocon fellow-travelers, people who attack Moore so sneeringly, the very people who from their positions of influence have done and continue to do this country such incalculable damage. Why would CNN position itself in opposition to Moore? What are they thinking, the pundits and poobahs? Whose side are they on?

Stomach Michael Moore? But Moore was right! CNN, like the rest of our craven, dishonored media, was comfortably embedded in the worst administration in history, CNN did trash Fahrenheit 9/11, CNN did help lead us into this nightmare, CNN did fail us, and CNN does owe Michael Moore -- and all of us -- a profound apology. All Main Stream Media are guilty of this abominable dereliction of duty. I used to think CNN was better than most, in the days before the execs decided to go whoring after Fox numbers. (How can CNN provide Glenn Beck a regular platform to dispense his bigotry and ignorance with cheerful self-deprecating bully-boy smarm?)

American is seething with anger. More of us every day want Bush, Cheney, the rubber-stamp Republicans, and the American journalists who were and are their willing accomplices out of power and out of sight, off the stage they have so disgustingly fouled. Why doesn't Blitzer apologize, as Moore asked him to? It's a good idea. Let CNN be the first network to apologize, and then let it commit itself to decent, competent, honest work again. That would be so astonishing, and so welcome, it might even bring in viewers -- viewers with intelligence, heart, soul. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-dwyer/cnn-stomaching-michael_b_55666.html

[Sonicmedusa]

1. And more of us are looking at the "rubber stamp" Democrats, too.

[efhmc]

3. So easy to criticize. Don't want to be personal but what are you doing to

make a difference? Are you working to make sure we have a large majority in both houses in '08? Also, have you given time and/or money to getting more liberal people into office recently? Just wondering if you are supporting the cause with more than words of complaint?

[madmunchie]

7. Guess what some of us have been there and done that and CHOOSE

to still DO THAT. AND if we choose to sit back and regroup and OBSERVE the obvious corruption on the DEM side, guess what...It is our right to do so! There is more than our fair share of candidates that act in the mainstream while talking the more radical ideas that never seem to come to fruition. Sometimes it pays to close your pocketbook, sit back and watch and research AND think before jumping on the bandwagon.

If you don't like criticism, move to a country where free speech is prohibited since it seems to bother you so much.

You go Sonicmedusa! There are way too many rubber stampers!

[efhmc]

8. I asked a question and got more of the same "do nothing" unless it is "my

way" rhetoric that is so easy to come by at DU. I am and have been a precinct chair and a Dem delegate in Texas for a long time. I have listened to all the reasons that people do NOTHING but spout reasons why they cannot work or support people who do not exactly fit their IDEA of what a progressive Democrat does or is. In the meanwhile we lose more and more voters because it is sooo easy to badmouth and do nothing and say "I told you so" than to actually walk the blocks and try to convince people that Democrats can, will, and do do things a better way. But that's okay, you keep on blasting those who are actually doing the work and stand by your principals and you can continue to watch the U.S. go down the drain, the way we did in Texas. Every day we work and try to make a difference. We do not need and/or want those who offer nothing but negativism to move us back instead of forward. You are welcome to your lovely, negative, do nothing opinions. However, do not be surprised if they produce exactly the same negative, do nothing results that you are giving out.

[madmunchie]

11. I worked on campaigns and was a precinct comittee person as well.

So don't assume that I am or even WAS a do nothing because that is just showing total ignorance on your part. Not too surprising though since you seem to like to do a bit of unsubstantiated attacking yourself.

[efhmc]

12. Great and good for you. Still no response however, from the person who

made the original comment and to whom I asked the question, not you.

[madmunchie]

14. Oh, so in other words on a public fourn on an open thread NOBODY else

is supposed to be able to comment on an obviously sarcastic holier than thou post??????

I'm sorry I didn't realize that your comment posted on a open forum, in cyberspace had special rules just for special you!

[wtmusic]

2. Was it Suzanne Malveaux?

That would kind of explain things

[marmar]

4. No....I forget the woman's name.

I don't even think Suzanne Malveaux would have done that.

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. Kyra Phillips. nt

[Bozita]

6. Kyra Phillips, same anchorwhore who sparred with Pelosi

I saw it live a few minutes before 4pm ET. I used the DVR's back button to make certain.

[K8-EEE]

13. The one who left her mic on to give us audio of her peeing

and trashing her sister in law.

You know, "part of the most respected news organization!"

[ixion]

9. Wolf's defense of CNN was this: "well, it is a business"

I think that says it all. It's a business first that creates a product called infotainment, that it then tries to re-brand as "news".

As such, not one of their infotainers should be called a journalist.

[bemildred]

10. Is this anything like Cheney having "stomach" for the War On Terror?

Cheney certainly has the "stomach" for something.