Media Matters: All over but the lying

[babylonsister]

Fri, Nov 7, 2008 8:25pm ET
Media Matters: All over but the lying

by Jamison Foser


On Tuesday, Americans chose as their next president an African-American named Barack Obama who campaigned on a near-universal health-care plan, allowing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire, and a move away from the belligerent foreign policy of the past eight years. Republicans, and some journalists, had spent months (falsely) saying Obama is the single most liberal member of the U.S. Senate -- and maybe even a socialist. The American people responded by electing him in a landslide.

This, naturally, is very good news for the Republicans, according to many pundits. It proves once again that America remains a "center-right" nation.

Right about now, you're probably scratching your head, wondering how the election of the "most liberal" member of the Senate, a man who campaigned on a promise of near-universal health care, could possibly be described as evidence of a conservative country.

To be sure, it requires some creative thinking.

NBC's Tom Brokaw, for example, looked at county-by-county election results and concluded that counties carried by John McCain account for greater land mass than those carried by Barack Obama. This would be meaningful, if only fields and streams and rocks and trees were conservative voters. But they aren't: They are fields and streams and rocks and trees. They are neither liberal nor conservative; they tell us nothing about the nation's political leanings. People tell us something about the nation's leanings -- and more people voted for Barack Obama.

Then there's CNN's John King Wednesday night. Just try to follow his logic:

KING: Without a doubt, the electorate voted for Barack Obama, but still perceives him to be a liberal. And one thing you don't want to do when you win an election like this, a sweeping election like this, is alienate the people here in a place like Cincinnati. Why? George W. Bush carried that county four years ago. You don't want to drive them away.

<...>

So, Barack Obama is making inroads in communities that not too long ago voted Republican. The last thing you want to do if you want to keep them four years from now is to alienate them with a liberal agenda.

That simply does not make any sense. John King says Barack won a "sweeping election" even though the electorate "perceives him to be a liberal" -- so he better not pursue a "liberal agenda" or he will "alienate them."

Got that?

Later that same night, King added that Obama "does not get a mandate to be a liberal." Again, this is pure nonsense. John King says voters perceive Obama to be a liberal. John King says Obama won a "sweeping victory." And yet John King says that Obama's sweeping victory among an electorate that considers him a liberal does not constitute a mandate to be a liberal. This is illogical, self-discrediting foolishness.

more...

http://mediamatters.org/items/200811070012?f=h_column

[HawkerHurricane]

1. This does not surprise me.

These same pundits declared that GWB should act like he had a mandate when he won by one vote (5-4, the only vote that counted) in 2000. In 2004, they declared he had a mandate when he won by a couple of percentage points. So of course they're going to make President Obama run a middle course when he wins a landslide... a middle course being "Keep every conservative gain, don't change nothing".

[nashville_brook]

2. night of the living meme -- everything you think is true is wrong.

and you NEED these guys to decipher it for you, b/c, left to your own devices you'd naturally think this was a liberal victory. without them to show us the way, we might make this horrible mistake of logic. no indeed, the Obama victory was a victory for conservatives! we are truly blessed to have the counsel of these wise men.

[Shoelace]

3. I love Media Matters, they are our best ally for truth to power

and that was a great article. I actually watched Faux News gush over the Camelot era of JFK last night! My jaw dropped. They might start to realize that the country has changed direction when their advertising revenue dips and guess what? Murdoch Empire's stock took a 20% nosedive after the election!!

[judasdisney]

7. It took a right-winger to see the obvious need for Media Matters & create it

Did well-funded, well-connected Democrats create Media Matters?

Did the DLC step-up and create Media Matters?

Where were the Democratic Party intelligensia?

Why was Media Matters not created until David Brock, a right-wing hatchet man, converted?

We escaped irreversible Neocon fascism only by cheap grace. The Democratic Party failed me.

Just because Obama has won doesn't change the Democrat culture of fashionable neglect.

[Two Americas]

4. the people rejected all of that

The people rejected right wing "free market" Reganomics and libertarianism. Rejecting that is the essence of the political Left - that is what it means to be on the Left.

Yet not only are the corporate mass media mouth pieces denying this, we have many here who are as well as they continue to promote the "move to the right" strategy - even though supposedly those arguments were only based on the need to win an election - and shout down voices from the Left.

For the Democratic party to win the way it just did meant that millions who were previously voting Republican voted Democratic. Rural areas all over the country shifted toward the Democrats, as did blued collar older suburbs.

What I heard leading up to the election in the feed stores and the farmer coops, in the packing plants and in the fields from almost everyone was "we need another New Deal." They did not vote for the pro-corporate move to the right faction of the Democratic party. They did not vote for Republican lite.

The people are now far to the Left when compared to the party leadership and the most dominant voices in the activist community.

[sce56]

5. Just two things to think about or add to that

1. We need to get the media to be a real and free Media not just corporate whores!
2. We need a across the board check of all voting schemes across this nation to see if the vote was tampered with and I suspect the vote was a greater landslide than reported due to election fraud in the electronic counting software!

The best thing Obama could do to be a real person of change would be to do his first interview with Amy Goodman from Democracynow!
And not do any interviews at all with Faux News!

[Two Americas]

6. symptoms?

Might not media consolidation and election theft be symptoms?