It is even more challenging if you don’t have the smarts to read the facts and form informed conclusions.
For the 1000th time-there is no such thing as the “MSM.” There are lots of media, and you can find whatever opinion you want if you look. Smart people read a lot of varying ideas. Morons only read the things they agree with.
Let Mr. Simon explain it to you:
Why the media should apologize
By ROGER SIMON | 9/4/08 12:15 AM ESTSarah Palin gave a really good speech. Why go beyond that, asks Simon.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — On behalf of the media, I would like to say we are sorry.
On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.
We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.
We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?
We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?
Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.
It is not our job to ask questions. Or it shouldn’t be. To hear from the pols at the Republican National Convention this week, our job is to endorse and support the decisions of the pols.
Sarah Palin hit the nail on the head Wednesday night (and several in the audience wish she had hit some reporters on the head instead) when she said: “I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.”
But where did we go wrong with Sarah Palin? Let me count the ways:
First, we should have stuck to the warm, human interest stuff like how she likes mooseburgers and hit an important free throw at her high school basketball tournament even though she had a stress fracture.
Second, we should have stuck to the press release stuff like how she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere (after she supported it).
Third, we should never have strayed into the other stuff. Like when The Washington Post recently wrote: “Palin is under investigation by a bipartisan state legislative body. … Palin had promised to cooperate with the legislative inquiry, but this week she hired a lawyer to fight to move the case to the jurisdiction of the state personnel board, which Palin appoints.”
Why go there? What trees does that plant?
Fourth, we should stop making with all the questions already. She gave a really good speech. And why go beyond that? As we all know, speeches cannot be written by others and rehearsed for days. They are true windows to the soul.
Unless they are delivered by Barack Obama, that is. In which case, as Palin said Wednesday, speeches are just a “cloud of rhetoric.”
Fifth, we should stop reporting on the families of the candidates. Unless the candidates want us to.
Sarah Palin wanted the media to report on her teenage son, Track, who enlisted in the Army on Sept. 11, 2007, and soon will deploy to Iraq.
Sarah Palin did not want the media to report on her teenage daughter, Bristol, who is pregnant and unmarried.
Sarah Palin thinks that one is good for her campaign and one is not, and that the media should report only on what is good for her campaign. That is our job, and that is our duty. If that is not actually in the Constitution, it should be. (And someday may be.)
The official theme of the convention’s third day was “prosperity,” but the unofficial theme was “the media are really, really awful.”
Even Mike Huckabee, who campaigned for president this year by saying “I am a conservative, but I am not mad at anybody,” discovered Wednesday night that he is mad at somebody.
“I’d like to thank the elite media for doing something,” Huckabee said, “that, quite frankly, I didn’t think could be done: unify the Republican Party and all of America in support of John McCain and Sarah Palin.”
And could that be the real point of the attacks on the media? To unify the Republican Party?
No, that is simply the cynical, media view.
Though as Lily Tomlin says, “No matter how cynical I get, it’s just never enough to keep up.”
I couldn’t resist that. For which I am sorry.
Don’t be-step up to the plate and continue the attack.
Where do you go to find the truth and/or the facts?
Who do you trust?
@Richard,
Trust no one.
Also, no one man can fight the future alone.
Also, please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy.
Also, Mulder and Scully.
Richard,
Verify what you hear. There are lots of official sources of information that are easily findable online.
For example, the oft cited bridge to nowhere… Congress killed the funding to that project in 2005, Sarah campaigned for the bridge in 2006. After congress killed the funding, she signed off on it after the fact, then kept the money. The story then got twisted into what we hear today…
press release from Senator Stevens office
Just one example, there are many. Don’t worry, BO does it too. People need to stop believing everything they hear and do some research, then hold the liars accountable. That is the only way we can affect change.
I guess it comes down to this:
McCain has very cleverlt co-opted Obama’s narrative. Nothing wrong with that. However it is astounding to me-and only to me it seems, that prior to picking Palin, he was -despite a very credible record of standing up to entrenched political interests on his own-an anthema to many in his own party. He picks Palin and all is forgiven, very suddenly. And she-despite clear cut evidence that she is just as guilty as any other politician of changing her views to suit political expediency-is somehow viewd as the second comiing of Christ.
So now they could find out that her husband was a child molester, and it just would not matter. She’s bullet proof. I worry what it really says about the Republican party. Namely that they like to be lied to.
Darn! Had a whole long diatribe, right before post, hit back on browser….gone.
Clifs notes version
Would never vote Obama. Respect McCain, (service, senate, big boobed blonde with free beer and 100mil). Was going to vote McCain regardless.
Thought he’d pick Romney, told FIL that I hoped for Palin. Tired of same old boys/BS/dynasties in DC for the last 50 years. Need someone that MAYBE, can bring about change.
MSM exists at least in my view. when majority of media with major access to american public donate to DNC over 90% of the time, views WILL affect work.
Skippy, although we’ll likely never vote for same ticket, bet we’d have hell of a discussion over some good pilsners. Although shipmates eons ago, I don’t come here for agreement. good discussions, fun, and sometimes just to see someone more pissed off at the world than I am.
Claudio
PS. I originally though you’d have some good p0rn links, but got cured of that. Seems all your links go to KOS, or other similar webpages….
You obviously are not checking MY links. You must have missed Asian Sirens.
And there will never be a Kos link here-ever.
I don’t link to real porn though-for a whole lot of Google related reasons.