Democrats Have No Spine Because ZOMBIES in the Press Have Eaten It

[McCamy Taylor]

It is quite fashionable nowadays to say that Republicans have firm resolve that allows them to weather any scandal with their ideals and goals more or less intact. In contrast, Democrats run screaming like a bunch of teenaged girls anytime they are attacked. This is true, but not quite accurate. The Democrats are scared. You would be pretty nervous too if the nation’s newspapers, airwaves and television screens were full of zombies who want to tear out your heart and have it for a snack.

Whatever Fox Has Must Be Contagious: The CBS Story

It is true. Watching CBS News will rot your brain. These guys serve a slightly dressed up version of the same corporate bullshit you get over at Fox.

Today, I learned that CBS News named Jeff Ballabon, a New York Republican activist, to serve as the Senior Vice President of Communications…. A decade ago, I debated Ballabon in New York. I represented the Democratic Jewish community while he spoke on behalf of Republican Jews. During the debate, Ballabon claimed that, after his most recent job in Washington, he became convinced that Democrats are inherently bad people and Republicans are fundamentally good people.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ira-forman/cbs-news-pick-claimed-dem_b_168688.html

This, in a nutshell, is why the Democrats have no spine. The same breed of corporate cannibals that I wrote about in “The Carlyle Group is Run By Zombies That Want to Eat Your Brains”

(link here http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/381 )

have infested the Fourth Estate, turning it into one great big housing project for the GOP---and a zombie infested horror house for Democrats, progressives, union activists and those of us who believe that the almighty dollar does not trump common decency.

CBS was the worst offender (after Fox ) during the Bush years. Recall how they tossed Dan Rather to the monsters in the wake of the Bush AWOL 60 Minutes story as documented by me in “The Scoop on CBS: Why Redstone Sold Dan Rather for 20 Pieces of Silver”

(link here http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3539083)

all for the sake of their precious television holdings.

When CBS chose Bush-o-phile Bob Scheiffer to moderate their debate between Obama and McCain, they were showing their bias once again. Note that Viacom’s lobbyists was one of McCain’s favorites. I am sure that the feelings were mutual. McCain never met a telecommunications lobbyist that he was not ready to fall into bed with.

(link here http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/315)

And the loud mouth whiners on the right continue to scream about the “liberal bias” of CBS. Makes you wonder if they ever watch CBS.

Now, when a supposedly respectable news network flaunts its bias so openly, and none of their competitors call them on it---you know that something is wrong with the whole industry, not just the portion that Rupert Murdoch controls.

Things have only gotten worse since Obama took office. Here is a Media Matters report about how CBS is goose stepping right along with Fox when it comes to reporting on the disrupters at Congressional Town Halls. Katie Couric describes these self proclaimed terrorists as average citizens who represent a true grassroots movement.

Couric: Members "getting an earful" from those opposed to health reform; "at least 200 showed up" at recent town meeting. Couric reported: "embers of Congress are getting an earful from constituents opposed to the president's plan. Many of them worried about the price tag and who will pay for it."

http://mediamatters.org/research/200908050017

Note that when media lackeys of corporate America talk about “getting an earful”, they mean a big mouthful of some Democrat’s ear. Or maybe his nose or his jaw. Watch how CBS reporters leave no lie untold in their efforts to tear President Obama apart.

On the January 23 broadcast of the CBS Evening News, chief White House correspondent Chip Reid advanced the falsehood that President Obama's stimulus plan gives "tax refunds for people who don't pay taxes." Discussing Obama's meeting with congressional leaders to discuss the economic stimulus plan, Reid reported that "when Republicans criticized tax refunds for people who don't pay taxes, sources in the meeting say the president said, quote, 'I won,' referring to the election and making it clear he's sticking with that part of the plan."

http://mediamatters.org/research/200901230019

Some Zombies Know How to Read and Write: The Washington Post



This is the kind of treatment that our elected Democrats can expect from the print media. Case in point, Drudge creates a suggestive photo that supposedly shows Obama checking out a girl’s butt. The nation’s major newspapers run with the story. Even the Washington Post---which might surprise you at first, if you do not remember that the Post was the first paper to tear into “Hillary’s Cleavage”.

Here is the photo:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200907180009

And here is link to video showing that the president was helping his wife down the stairs.

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907120003

How on earth do the nation’s major newspapers justify this blatant lie? They don’t have to justify it. Their corporate masters want them to tear down Democrats and prop up Republicans. They are rewarded for calling every accused Democrat guilty until proven innocent. Witness Eliot Spitzer who was forced to resign as governor though he was never charged with anything. The same zombie journalists win praise for insisting that every guilty Republican was railroaded (What exactly happened to the Republican senator who paid for sex? Viter. Oh, I remember! He is the Senate). And it is not just the politicians. The constituents get mauled, too. Ever notice how much attention the press pays to minority on white crime? And how little focus there is on minorities as victims? If you believe the papers, every DWI is an illegal alien and every rape-murder is committed by someone named Tyrone. In a climate like this, if I were an African-American politician, I would be looking over my shoulder too. But note that no one wants to do on record agreeing with Gov. Patterson that he might be the victim of media racial bias. That would be like painting a great big red "Eat Me" sign in blood for all the media zombies to see. You can practically smell the fear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/nyregion/22paterson.html

Back to the Washington Post. Ceci Connelly was the writer who lead the “Al Gore is a Liar” campaign back in 2000 for Bush/Rove. She got demoted to medical news for her troubles. But guess what? This year medical news is the place to be for any ambition zombie journalist who wants to rip the flesh from Democrats. Media Matters describes how she asked a Democratic Congressman one question about health care reform (specifically the public option) but then pretended that his answer was in response to a different question. Journalism with a bloody chainsaw.

http://mediamatters.org/research/200906280013

Here is another Washington Post atrocity. Everyone knows about the psychiatrist turned journalist, Charles Krauthammer, right? If there is a media feeding frenzy going on, he is there, ripping out Democratic intestines and splashing them against the page in a modern version of the ancient art of haruspicy(divination through the inspection of entrails). His favorite trick is diagnosing Democrats with psychiatric disorders. Krauthammer got into a fight with Dan Froomkin, who criticized the doctor for endorsing torture in the pages of the Washington Post. You know, most of us would be a little worried by a doctor who advocates water boarding and electric shocks. That kind of stuff will get you stripped of your medical license (and it raises interesting questions about why Dr. Krauthammer chose to pursue an alternative career in later life). Here is Fromkin’s piece:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/torture/krauthammers-asterisks.html

In a better world, the newspaper would have let its two writers have their say. Debate being intellectually stimulating and all. But like CBS, the Washington Post wants to eat your brains, not feed them. So, they fired Froomkin for taking a stand against torture. Because, hey, torture is so zombie .

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/what-liberal-media-washington-post-sa



Now, when a newspaper takes a stand like “Torture is good” and says that no one who refuses to torture should ever be Commander-in-Chief, basically they are calling the Democrats who want to investigate Bush era torture dickless and un-American. I could see that kind of talk from Drudge, but the Washington Post??? I do not need to stare at the Post’s entrails to know that they are seriously sick and twisted. If I were a Democrat, I would want to stay out of their radar, too.



You know what needs to be done. The zombies that have infested the nation's corporate media---the Katie Courics and the Charles Krauthammers---are there to do just one thing. Their corporate masters have unleashed them upon the nation in order to eat our brains and turn us into Stepford Citizens who will vote as we are told and spend as we are told and lay down in the street and die as we are told. They attack any elected Democrat who tries to make things better, because if it does not lead to chaos and bloodshed and the death of innocents and hell on earth for the common man, then it is not the mainstream media news.

The only lasting cure for the news zombies is a real, public network, like Britain's BBC. When the U.S. taxpayers are their boss, the journalists will think twice about biting off the hand that feeds them.

[grantcart]

1. well now that you mention it Stephanopoulus looks like he just had

a little snack of homo sapien brain matter.

Then there is his book




Doesn't it seem like he "protesteth too mucheth?"


I mean was someone suggesting that George wasn't human?


Take a look at that picture and tell me he doesn't want to
eat the photographer's frontal lobe.



Then there is that telltale sign of zombies - the guy asks idiot questions and no matter
how stupid the Republican talking points have been he will say "but some people say" and then
repeat them.


Yep you convinced me.


BTW I love the more humorous slant of this excellent piece.

[troubledamerican]

2. Does NPR have spine? They didn't in the months before March 2003.

[zeos3]

3. Nice work nt

[sjdnb]

4. Until the middle class/silent majority rediscovers their spines ....

This country is screwed and will continue to be run into the ground by the uber-wealthy and their bought and paid for lobbyists/spokespersons.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

7. I wonder if a part of the "silent majority"'s seeming lack of spine is more like a lack of NETWORK

i.e. a lack of a focused outlet? As the OP says at the end, we need a network like Britain's BBC. Without a VOICE, it will continue to look as if we have none.

[Overseas]

5. K&R -- thank you for this review.

We've been through so much in the last 15-20 years that our media has been systematically moved further and further to the right.

I remember watching a lot of this happen but you brought some things into new focus for me-- like Elliott Spitzer vs Vitter. And I hadn't realized Froomkin was fired for calling Krauthammer out on defending war crimes.

I had realized how much our media had been successfully moved to the right, and I've always considered that a tough challenge for Democrats. How do they get the air time to counter those distorted stories when the stations just invite 3 right wingers and 1 centrist or conservative Democrat to discuss most issues?

Yes it would be great to have a strong, independent national broadcaster like the BBC, but it has been sad watching NPR be pushed to pretend that the Bush Gang was okay during their 8 years of destroying this country. To provide bland reporting on "both sides" as though we were not witnessing war crimes and the destruction of our economy and lots of vicious Republican lying.

Instead of Rahm figuring out how our president can best capitulate to right wing goals of intensifying corporate power, I wish he'd apply his political skills to devising how the Democrats and Independents who voted for significant change could grab more media time to move the national dialogue back toward rational problem solving.

[Jakes Progress]

6. Maybe it's true that

we get the leaders we deserve.