Perhaps the most honest thing I have ever read.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

http://nypress.com/17/26/news&columns/MattTaibbi.cfm

His dad(Mike Taibbi, reporter) is either very proud of him or very pissed at him.

[HootieMcBoob]

1. Alright!!

That was one hell of a rant!! :toast:

[MuseRider]

2. Thank you for this link. n/t

[NMDemDist2]

3. holy CHENEY!! that was a fine rant indeed! n/t

[KC21304]

4. Mike Taibbi sure doesn't look old enough

to have a thirty something son. Great piece. Thanks.

[mike_c]

5. wow--had to print that one to share with my work mates!

"Hitchens in his piece accuses Moore of errors by omission: How come he isn't writing about the CNN producers who every day show us gung-ho Army desert rats instead of legless malcontents in the early stages of a lifelong morphine addiction?

Wow!

[Cats Against Frist]

6. I got a kick out of this line:

"I can't imagine anything more uplifting, except maybe a zoo baboon humping the foot of a medical school cadaver."

--speaking about Hitchens "crawling out of a bottle" long enough to denounce Moore.

[liberalhistorian]

7. WOW!

And WOW! again! That is, indeed, one of the most honest things I've ever read from ANY journalist, and so refreshing to see. Hope he's prepared for the major shitstorm headed his way.

[Kurovski]

11. Mitigate the storm somewhat

by emailing the editor and offering thanks.

the address is in a box to the right of the article.

it's a keeper.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

43. Stop using "big words" - don't you know that a Hitchenism? :)

Just kidding...

JB

[Kurovski]

67. Well, that would make sense,

because I was barfing drunk on my ass when I posted it.

So blame the hootch for my Hitchensism!

[Eric J in MN]

8. Thanks, that's great.

If just one of us had shouted Bull Shit! during a press conference about the weapons of mass destruction...

[Imalittleteapot]

9. Dad is proud.

Thanks for this link. It is an honest appraisal of the failure of American journalists and of Christopher Hitchens' attack on Moore's documentary.

I just emailed the editor with comments of praise for Taibbi.

[welshTerrier2]

10. wow, nice raw edge ...

thanks for posting this, TS ...

wouldn't it be something if all journalists could strip away the bullshit like that ...

[rocktivity]

12. "Michael Moore may be an ass...But he wouldn't be necessary

if even one percent of the rest of us had any balls at all. If even one reporter had stood up during a pre-Iraq Bush press conference last year and shouted, 'Bullshit!' it might have made a difference."

And Michael is such an "ass" that he told at least two broadcast TV reporters exactly that: if the mainstream media covered Bush and the war on terrorism properly, he would have no reason for being.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Robbien]

13. Also Wow

I was so impressed that it motivated me to send him a letter of appreciation.

Hope he doesn't get a lot of hate mail from the rabid RWers.

[Jim Warren]

14. Brutal

Thanks to you for the link.
A big thanks to the author and NYP for publishing.
Email thanks to the organization on the way

[bemildred]

15. Bravo. nt

[yowzayowzayowza]

16. WOW!!!

That was refreshing!!!!! Thanks.
:kick:

[leftofthedial]

17. damn!

that was good.

[hansolsen]

18. Thanks for the link -- nice to hear the truth well said

I'd pay good money to hear this guy deliver one of those noon hour talks to the National Press Club they run on NPR. Only I'd want still photos of the expressions on their faces.

[Kanary]

19. OMG!!

I read all the replies, and thought........ what could be that good....

*THIS* is what needs to be said......

This is worth several letters to the editor....... quoting some of the passages.......

Fire away......

Kanary

[Ms. Clio]

20. kick for honesty n/t

[merh]

21. APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE - that is wonderful

Thank you for sharing this article. It is definitely worth keeping.
And Thank you Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Michael Moore for breathing life into some of the press, maybe the others will catch on.

[nomatrix]

22. Thank you for the link

and I fully agree. What a refreshingly honest account of what has happened to the media. I too, thanked the editor.

[Stockholm]

23. Excellent article!!! n/t

[Tsiyu]

24. WE Purge

Matt Taibbi,
I would have your love child....

Okay, I'm too old, but I love you, and may the rest of us (except those who have said this all along) purge our souls of the guilt of contributing in our own way to the mess we are now in....

[OKNancy]

25. This makes up for that awful and inaccurate hit piece

he wrote about Wes Clark.

[merh]

26. KICK KICK KICK

[burythehatchet]

27. Excellent article

Thanks

[nostamj]

28. wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christopher Hitchens crawling out of a bottle long enough to denounce Michael Moore as a coward. I can't imagine anything more uplifting, except maybe a zoo baboon humping the foot of a medical school cadaver.

Such is the pretense of modern journalism, that we are to be lectured on courage by a man who has had his intellectual face lifted so many times, he can't close his eyes without opening his mouth.


paging John Stewart! what a rant!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

29. A picture is worth a 1000 words.

[GOPisEvil]

30. Holy smokes!

:wow:

[Kid_A]

31. Preach!!!

"If even one network, instead of cheerily re-broadcasting Pentagon-generated aerial bomb footage, had risked its access to the government by saying to the Bush administration, "We're not covering the war unless we can shoot anything we want, without restrictions," that might have made a difference. It might have made this war look like what it is—pointless death and carnage that would have scared away every advertiser in the country—rather than a big fucking football game that you can sell Coke and Pepsi and Scott's Fertilizer to."

CHENEYING A!!!!!

:toast:

[myrna minx]

32. Wow...

what an amazing rant. :kick:

[Malikshah]

33. I will SUE!

That woodchipper idea was MINE!!! (I had them going in feet-first, though) Of course, I was referring to certain politicians at the time, but I'd settle for journalists. :)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

34. HUGE BALLS OF TITANIUM!!!

:wow:

[Shopaholic]

35. That was brilliant.

One of the best pieces I've read in a long, long time!

[LWolf]

36. Better late than never

Thanks to Matt Taibbi and the NY Press. America would be a different place if we got blunt honesty as a main course from mainstream press. Imagine.

[MountainLaurel]

37. Oh. My. Maude.

Like you said, this is one of the most honest pieces that has ever come out of the American media, at least in recent memory. I am speechless at just how truthful and revealing it was.

:wow:

[chiburb]

38. Thank you for the link! n/t

.

[Hotler]

39. More liberal dribble, blah, blah, blah...

Ha ha. made you look. That's a great piece, and oh so true. That article should be mandatory reading for all journalism classes from high school up. Better yet every tv, radio, and print journalist in our town. Is ass kissing and sucking up taught in journalism school, or is it an on the job learning experience?

[merh]

42. I agree, mandatory for journalism classes.....

How about Faux news - strap them to their chairs with * underware on their heads and read this to them. Then make them rewrite the article 1000 times, and then fire them all.

[Hotler]

49. I like the way you think.

Start with the three spinless pretty people on the Fox morning show. Does Eddy ever get off her knees????

[Hotler]

50. How long before they silence him for ....

speaking the truth? Plane crash, sudden suicide, where's my roll of tin foil????

[merh]

51. From faux we go to NBC & get Curiec &Lauer

Then Gibson & the lot at ABC (I hate Disney).

[redqueen]

40. More people should read his columns

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031027&s=taibbi

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

41. SEARING Op-Ed. Hitchens is a sh*thouse bum w/ a large vocabulary.

That was AWESOME! I'm copying to all my likeminded friends...

JB

[Raster]

53. hitchens == a lush with a large vocabulary

[Guaranteed]

44. OhhhhHHhhhhh YEAH!!!!!!!!!

SLAM!!

FUCK YOU HITCHENS!! OWNZED!!!

[hunter]

45. Courage...

Courage. Isn't that what Dan Rather was asking for?

Picture the wealthy women at their society club, their husbands at work, the woman mostly at play under the pretext of raising funds for some non-contreversial charity, let's say breast cancer research.

Studdenly one of them looks around and in great distress stands up screaming, "Oh my God! We're all whores, every last one of us! We fuck dirty old men for money!"

Please sit down dear, have another drink, and don't forget to take your medication again. Everything will be all right.

[southlandshari]

46. kick

for truth

[KoKo]

47. An incredible rant. It's what we've all thought here about "the press"

for awhile, but still good to see it out there.

[cease_fire]

48. Kick ASS!

Finally!

Finally!

A real journalist!

Now, I'd like to see him take up cause and start reporting the truth.

It's nice to have a reckoning, but action would be far more desirable.

[Raster]

52. last four paras....

<snip>

If even one reporter had stood up during a pre-Iraq Bush press conference last year and shouted, "Bullshit!" it might have made a difference.

If even one network, instead of cheerily re-broadcasting Pentagon-generated aerial bomb footage, had risked its access to the government by saying to the Bush administration, "We're not covering the war unless we can shoot anything we want, without restrictions," that might have made a difference. It might have made this war look like what it is—pointless death and carnage that would have scared away every advertiser in the country—rather than a big fucking football game that you can sell Coke and Pepsi and Scott's Fertilizer to.

Where are the articles about the cowardice of those people? Hitchens in his piece accuses Moore of errors by omission: How come he isn't writing about the CNN producers who every day show us gung-ho Army desert rats instead of legless malcontents in the early stages of a lifelong morphine addiction?

Yeah, well, we don't write about those people, because they're just doing their jobs, whatever that means. For some reason, we in the media can forgive that. We just can't forgive it when someone does our jobs for us. Say what you want about Moore, but he picked himself up and did something, something approximating the role journalism is supposed to play. The rest of us—let's face it—are just souped-up shoe salesmen with lit degrees. Who should shut their mouths in the presence of real people.

Howard Stern and Michael Moore are now the de facto representatives of the Fourth Estate.

[chiburb]

54. Kick to the top.... n/t

.

[ElaineinIN]

55. kick

great post

[Mandate My Ass]

56. Blistering!

He laid it out.

[TeeYiYi]

57. Wow. Excellent. kick

TYY:kick:

[govegan]

58. Good Stuff!

n/t

[Jacobin]

59. Please email the editor

This guy could lose his job over calling for the media to report what the government is doing.

Here's my email to the editor on this brilliant piece:

Dear Sir:
I’m still cheering and high fiving Matt Taibbi for his brilliant excoriation of the current state of “journalism”.

I hope to hear much much much more from Mr. Taibbi, and perhaps others who call themselves journalists will allow the dam holding back the flood of secrets and lies from the dysfunctional administration currently in power to come pouring out. We can certainly hope so, for unless that happens, this country is doomed to an insipid repetition of government sponsored pablum. It has been a very long time since I’ve heard the phrase: “The press is the watch dog of the government.” For the sake of civilization, I for one hope that credo comes back in vogue.

Please thank Mr. Taibbi for his piece. It is more appreciated by millions in this country than he will ever know.

[Ann Arbor Dem]

71. I just emailed the editor too.

We need more journalists like Taibbi and more news organizations that will publish their work.

[chiburb]

60. This is in the E&A forum, but here's a kick for GD....

.

[hiphopnation]

61. To use a common hiphop parlance...

"Off da chain"

Thanks for this. :thumbsup:

[peekaloo]

62. kick

:kick:

[Cheswick2.0]

63. send the editor an email

[e-mail]

[Wind Dancer]

64. kick

[mzmolly]

65. Wow ... this says it all!

I'm off on this tangent because I'm enraged by the numerous attempts at verbose, pseudoliterary, "nuanced" criticism of Moore this week by the learned priests of our business. (And no, I'm not overlooking this newspaper.) Michael Moore may be an ass, and impossible to like as a public figure, and a little loose with the facts, and greedy, and a shameless panderer. But he wouldn't be necessary if even one percent of the rest of us had any balls at all.

If even one reporter had stood up during a pre-Iraq Bush press conference last year and shouted, "Bullshit!" it might have made a difference.

[wadestock]

66. Doesn't impress me at all....

How would he explain the complete lack of veracity of the media going after Clinton.

He won't admit that the current media is completely controlled by the Neocons....as Howard Stern and others have gone out and had the balls to say.

This guy's OK...he's showing a bit of truth here....but he's quite off the mark in terms of what is the real issue here.

The REAL issue is the media is controlled by the NEOCONS and it's becoming more insidious each and every day in terms of LOW QUALITY of who's doing the work and the crap that we're being bombarded with.

This guy is still walking a wonderful safe line to avoid that real truth.

[Make7]

68. Which of the following are accurate statements?

1. "All conservatives are cowards. Limbaugh knows it, I know it, everybody in politics knows it."
   
2. "All liberals are cowards. Moore knows it, I know it, everybody in politics knows it."
   
3. "All journalists are cowards. Hitchens knows it, I know it, everybody in this business knows it."
   

Which appeared in "perhaps the most honest thing I have ever read?"

You should read more. This is an insult to the few honest journalists out there working for us. Does he really need to generalize, exaggerate, and resort to name calling to get his point across?

-Make7

[davsand]

69. Thanks for putting up that link!

I had to send it to a "few" of my fellow liberals (more than a few, actually!) :evilgrin:

He rocked, and it was something I literally had to cheer about as I read it.


Laura

[roguevalley]

70. I want to be his mother.

[Jacobin]

72. This sums up the last fifteen years or so perfectly

A world class rant of epic proportions.

He should be given a medal.

Instead, he'll probably now be relegated to reporting on the annual watermelon festival.