On CNN and MSNBC it's non-stop indictment talk

Show after show after show. Hour after hour. News and opinion, reporting and discussion; you can't get away from it. From Larry King to Paula Zahn. From Brit Hume to Sean Hannity. Scarborough to Carlson.

Breathless newsbits. Rapid-fire pundits speculating on twists and turns, outcomes and possibilities. Legal analysts you've never seen before, now everywhere adding their perspectives and readings on the law. Historians talking about political scandals of the past and comparing them to the current situation. Political analysts meshing the politics with the legal exposures. The old hands of political journalism comparing Watergate and Iran-Contra, Iraq and Vietnam.

Presidents, vice-presidents, House and Senate leaders all under serious threat from multiple sources. Journalists from the pre-eminent newspaper tied in to subterfuge. CIA outings of undercover WMD operations, revenge and recrimination, war justifications - the issues couldn't be more complex, the people involved couldn't be more powerful, and the ramifications couldn't be bigger.

It's a journalist's dream. It's exciting, it's political, it's dangerous. There is no end to the story. The shakeup could and probably will change the political landscape. Prosecutors tackling the highest political offices in the land. Possible indictments right up into the vice-presidency and even the presidency itself. Indictments, grand juries, more grand juries and more indictments coming as early as tomorrow, with the unquenchable journalist desire to get on top of it now.

Every nuance discussed, every rock overturned, every potential outcome postulated. Who did reporters talk to? When did they meet? What did they say? What can happen? What will probably happen? What if it does? Who would succeed the VP? Will it taint the Presidency? What about the Senate? Who's in line in the House? What kind of back-channel politicing going on there? What do the insiders say? What kind of shape will this leave the Bush administration in? What about the Republican party? How do the politics play in middle America? Focus groups. Man on the street interviews. Polls and polls and more polls.

The possibilities are endless. The ramifications could be unprecedented. This is like Watergate, OJ and Monicagate all rolled into one. It's an American journalism feeding frenzy.


Oh wait.

Larry King had Tab Hunter on yesterday. Martha Stewart today talking about pumpkins and the Apprentice. Paula Zahn is talking to New Orleans job seekers today. Scarborough Country is talking about Olivia Newton John's missing boyfriend.


This is American journalism. It's not liberal. It isn't even biased towards Republicans. It's like 1000 to 1 Republican leaning. If this were a Democratic administration you couldn't even begin to imagine the non-stop furor.

This is what they honestly believe is fair and balanced, across the spectrum of America's establishment journalism. When Clinton was being railroaded over nothing they were on non-stop for months, giving equal time to both sides to discuss whether he should resign, be removed from office, or impeached. They call that fair. They call that balance. With these scandals that started a war we can't get out of, there is nobody from the left or the right talking about it at all, because they're just not talking about it. That's also fair and balanced in their calculus.

This is what they have become. This is how they do it. This is what they have made America. Every day they do the impossible and disgust me more.

seeing <gasp> discourse and news. Of course I couldn't tell for sure because I don't watch what passes for news these days. I can only tell you that I too am disgusted with the corporate media. What should we name this era of non-news by the way? Truth takes a holiday? :shrug:

to turn on the television that sits mostly unused above my computer monitor. Instead I slumped and left it off. It gives me more accurate and appropriate news in that condition.

There used to be laws forcing stations and journalists to balance their approach. They were removed under Clinton in 94. It was a bad error.

I realize that there are many causes. However, this same scenario has been prevented in the past by the Fairness Doctrine.

They are being fair, that's the point I was making. When Republicans were assaulting the Clintons, they had Democrats on to defend his, in their view and coverage, indefensible, despicable behavior. Should he be impeached, resign or be forced out of office. They are also being quite fair right now in giving equal time for both sides in this flood of national security and political corruption scandals: zero time for both sides. That's even-Steven. They are adhering perfectly to the Fairness Doctrine even without being forced to by law.

That is my point. This is how they play the game, and it isn't just a tilted field, it is almost vertical. All within their conception of fairness.

I see what they are doing, as do you. And your point regarding the definition of what is "fair" is well taken.

The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine coincided with the removal of anti-trust laws against Public Broadcasters. Now, they all act with one accord.

One way to create more balance is to restore independence from centralized external influence.

at all, for a number of different reasons. The one reason I'm pointing out here is that the disparate coverages of the Clinton Administration phony scandals and of the real life-and-death Bush scandals BOTH adhere to the Fairness Doctrine. And yet even so they are played out three orders of magnitude difference in favor, of course, of the right wing. Both fully Fairness Doctrine Certified. That is not how American 'journalism' plays its right-wing game.

Also, I don't believe that the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine coincided with the watering down of antitrust regulation of media ownership. I'm pretty sure the Reagan admin repealed the Fairness Doctrine, while Clinton let the Republicans undercut antitrust regulation of media corporations in the 1994 Telecommunication Act.

I am definitely against the loosening of media ownership requirements, but I think the Fairness Doctrine is less than worthless. That was the subtext of my initial rant. I have seen how the media works its right-wing bias now across a few political changeovers over the past twenty years. You can't understand it if you've only been following politics for five years, say since the start of this Bush administration. You have to watch the media work, and pay attention to what they're doing over a long period of time to see how they play their game. It's all about context and they won't tell you the truth because they lie even to themselves about what they do. In fact, they lie alot to themselves.

to fully appreciate what is happening now.

Take Watergate as but one small example: there was no cable; there were no blogs, no alternatives to the MSM thirty years ago. Still, in the wake of Nixon's resignation the hue and cry came up for government reform. Oh, we must insure this kind of thing never happens again! Legislation was proposed, bills were passed, all in the name of preventing future abuses of power.

Many were repealed over the next few years, and we see how well the remaining ones worked. But you'd never know that from watching the MSM.

We didn't receive both sides of the WMD argument leading up to the war.

There has been a lot of suppression of the sights and sounds of the returning war dead.

If you were not at the anti-war rally or reading DU, you might not have even know it happened. It showed up on page 37 of my paper in an article about the pro-war rally!

What about all the disturbing inconsistencies of the 911 story????
Think that one has been covered fair and balanced????? Sheesh

Why is it that most folks don't even know that there is a grand jury looking into the Plame outing??????

Why is it that most folks think the election was fair and square???

Didn't the fairness doctrine cover more than political campaignes? Perhaps I need an education on the fairness doctrine.

Bama

The Fairness Doctrine was not just for campaigns:

"The two corollary rules, the personal attack rule and the political editorial rule, remained in practice even after the repeal of the fairness doctrine. The personal attack rule is pertinent whenever a person or small group is subject to a character attack during a broadcast. Stations must notify such persons or groups within a week of the attack, send them transcripts of what was said, and offer the opportunity to respond on the air. The political editorial rule applies when a station broadcasts editorials endorsing or opposing candidates for public office, and stipulates that the candidates not endorsed be notified and allowed a reasonable opportunity to respond."

Wikipedia

Bama

i.e. (I think) not allowing owners of broadcast media to own print media and vice versa. Also (I think) limiting the share of a given market one corporation could control and preventing foreign ownership of large media chains (Mr. Murdoch apparently didn't like that one.)

It was only geared at two kinds of broadcasts...political advertising and strictly political programming. If you offered Candidate A airtime or gave them a commercial for $50, you had to do the same to Candidate B. That's all the doctrine was.

This never covered bona fide news coverage. It also would have never covered today's talk programs and those aren't considered news or politics but are classified as "entertainment".

From one who worked with the Fairness Doctrine, it was a pain in the ass and never worked. That's why it was repealed and no one missed its passing.

it, then you'll disregard important, vital, pieces of law, like the Fairness Doctrine.

Since Reagan shredded the Doctrine, its almost been a systematic degradation of quality or substantive programming. But apparently thats of no importance to you.

Only someone who prefers Republicans and neo-cons have more say would say they didn't value the Fairness Doctrine.

I thought it was for real. Great writing job.

Let's replace the government. We'll start with MSM.

Liberals will only be heard if the media ownership requirements is loosened.... I've always wondered, would an English Al-Jazeera capture a large audience in the US ?

It's a fact that the Liberal agenda can never be driven by the current media, but we have it easy compared to Countries like Venezuela or Iran....


If Democrats ever get elected again.......the Media must get a major overhaul!!

or buy from their sponsors. They will get an overhaul faster than you can say "take me to the bank".

And welcome to DU :hi:

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

they've got to keep talking and filling up the empty air and their brains aren't up to the challenge of coming up with anything worthwhile to fill the time so they revert to fluff. the actual "news" you get in a 24-hour cycle might fill 1/2 hour. the rest is yak-yak-yak-yak-yak-yak mind numbing noise. disgusting.

Chris Matthews on, and they talked about it. Remarkably enough, Couric wasn't being a Bush or Bush administration apologist over this, except for one thing. She started off with Why Should The American People Care...which Matthews did explain very well why they should. That it had to do with bringing us to war over WMDs over false information, and how the Administration tried to play hardball politics to attack Wilson.

Yes it has to do with bringing us to war based on lies.

Yes it has to do with the administration's reprehensible behavior to damage a political threat.

But I think even those two items aren't as compelling to Joe Q. Televisionwatcher as the ramifications of the outing. If a telejournalist really wanted to appeal to his audience he or she would be reminding everyone that the outing didn't just threaten Plame. This was an assault on U.S. intelligence and resulted in undermining an established network including a long-term dummy company needed for National Security. Let me say it again Joe Q. Televisionwatcher. This treasonous action damaged national security. Yes, Joe. You are less safe today because some arrogant, self-righteous, greedy, power-hungry politician wanted to intimidate a state department worker.

Okay, that's being melodramatic...maybe...but that's what I'd like to see reported.

lack of the truth being reported, I will almost take any crumb that leads to the path of revealing the truth.

Plame has become I am sure, close to a household word now, but how many in the media has mentioned Brewster Jennings? That by outing Plame, they did destroy a carefully built front company to investigate WMDs and terrorism? Personally, I think Fitzgerald is working on the premise that Brewster Jennings was The Target, and Plame was a casualty on the way of doing that. Fitzgerald's biggest case involved the first bombing of the WTC and he successfully prosecuted it, and indicted Bin Laden too. He also has worked on terrorist financing. I think that he is connecting all the dots. I pray to the Universe that is what he is doing, and that Justice and Truth will be served.

Extremely well crafted description of "Life in These United States" as our forefathers envisioned it. Our society just gets more and more dumbed down and bought out. As Rather described it, the dumbed town, tarted up news.

One of the reasons they were non-stop for months is that they were being manipulated by the prosecutor, who was constantly politically grandstanding, leaking and holding press conferences. Fitz, on the other hand, is playing his cards very close to his vest. He has not been appearing on camera or holding press conferences, and I have the feeling that that is the way he wants this. I am not sure that a "real" investigation can be conducted effectively under the glare of publicity.

I agree that some of the media is naturally Republican biased, but some of the media is also naturally lazy and in a "follow-me" mode.

Cross my fingers, but I think you will get all the publicity your heart desires after the indictments come down. :evilgrin:

Fitz is the most professional prosecutor thats been in the news in a very long time.

While its been pins and needles for us (and the admin I imagine) with little leaking and no newsie strokes. We really couldn't have asked for anything better as far as I can tell right now. If we were to allow ourselves some small bit of schadenfreude it should be organic and naturally arising from the fact that if there are indictments of admin officials with name recognition, it is going to back slap the hell out of a whole lotta people really quick. I don't think I will be able to stop myself from enjoying the squealing of the purposefully ignorant as their cult finally runs out of Kool Aid ("dark god bush" flavored)

If indictments come down I fully expect a media blitz, as thats when they'll know there are no more silver ribbons binding their hands to their genitalia. I hope some feel a little vengful and really take it to them. I'd really like to see what a liberal media looks like for once.

That the Clinton thing was about something tittilating. It's much easier to attract viewers with a who blew who story than with anything that requires lengthy explanation.

and it is wrong in both directions. That wasn't titillating, and this isn't not-titillating, or wouldn't be if they were covering it.

For one thing this story has all the intrigue you could ever want. We have the vice-president's chief of staff and the president's 'brain' involved in what is essentially treason on the issue of the day - national security.

For another, and most people don't remember this well, their unremitting jihad against Clinton's philandering had cost them a huge amount of viewership. People had turned off the news in droves and their ratings were way down. It was the start of the broad disgust with the media. During the height, if you can call four months of that crap the height, of their ceaseless coverage, I watched a broadcaster respond to one of the few questions that even called into question the validity of the assault. They were questioned on why the media was showing this stuff so pervasively when people didn't want to see it and had made the point by tuning out in big numbers. In a somewhat flustered and very defensive voice he explained that this was an important 'Constitutional' matter and they had a 'responsibility', as newsmen you see, to cover it so rapaciously even if people weren't watching it and didn't want to see it. You'll recall Clinton's 70% approval rating throughout. The country wasn't behind it, so the 'titillation' excuse is flat-out wrong. The country wasn't titillated, it was sick of the personal attack, and the media didn't care that they were losing viewers and presumably money because of it. THEY, and only they wanted it covered, incessantly.

That's what I mean by you have to watch how America's right-wing journalism establishment operates over a long time across their coverage of both (phony) Dem and (real) Repub scandals. Their excuses are always specific to what they want to cover. Where is the 'important responsibility' now? It's nowhere.

On one of the so called scandals (maybe runaway bride or Aruba girl), I saw some poll about how many followed the story and were interested. It was very, very low. Folks just aren't interested in these hyped up stories but the media keep playing them to distract us from real news. The Clinton/Monica story may have been important if it covered the root of who was pushing the story and why the House Managers went forward in the face of a disinterested public. Yet, the media played it like this was important and almost scolded the public for not thinking it was. The corporate media is losing viewership and yet it still does the same thing.

I saw the teaser for it while I surfed the channels before my rant.

The VP's chief of staff and Bush's right-hand man may be indicted for perjury regarding: treason in outing a CIA WMD operation out of revenge or worse, and the lies that got us into an illegal war.

And their coverage is: a reprise of Aruba girl.

American political journalism isn't even bad. It is twisted and corrupt to the core.

If Clinton, or Gore or Kerry or Hillary, had lied to start an illegal war, outed CIA operations in reprisal for the exposure, and perjured themselves in the aftermath, do you think we'd be seeing Aruba girl?

It would be 24/7 coverage before, during and after any grand jury testimony, let alone indictments.

And they stand there bewildered that they and their wholesome, vital contribution to America is held in contempt. They don't have a clue because they don't want one. They hold themselves and each other in total esteem, while their ethics are lower than people who scam old ladies out of their life savings, and their impact is a million times worse. They aren't journalism. They are the betrayal of journalism.

One way to do that is to throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor.' Enough! Fini! What a ridiculous, fraudulent election system--behind the "Wizard of Oz" curtain. Get in there and pressure and push and fight at the state/local level to get rid of Bushite-controlled secret, proprietary programming code, and restore transparancy.

And when we do, then we can bust up the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, reclaim some of our public airwaves for political debate, deconstruct corporate entities, and do all sorts of good things. Indeed, these potentials are WHY they took our right to vote away. It's a powerful item, an American vote. Could do a lot to bring peace and justice to the world. They know this.

So, roll up your sleeves, gang! Lot a work to do to set this right.

See "MythBreakers," an excellent pamphlet on the perils of electronic voting, and what to do about it: http://www.votersunite.org

See, a project for statistical monitoring of the 2006 and 2008 elections, which needs help: http://www.UScountvotes.org

why the thread hijack?

for the juglar. If they know for a fact that they will no longer have to answer to KKKRove and the WH, they will finish off this regime. I THINK they have had enough. At least I hope that's the plan. I can hope, right?

edited spelling.

How did circus acts get involved in this?

:eyes:

They ginned up the story from the get. They fostered and fomented the story. Without the media playing for Republicans there would have been no story. They made the story. They essentially created the environment for a phony and illegal impeachment.

Here you have people, their own people, already sent to jail. You have expected perjury charges. On top of the underlying treason from the highest levels of a sitting administration. Regarding lying this country into an illegal war. The inherent story is huge.

And yet there's no story? They are waiting to see if there's a story? They make stories, out of nothing when they want. Here there is more real 'story' than there has been since Iran-Contra, and they are talking about Olivia Newton John's missing boyfriend.

Like I said, if you look at how America's right-wing corporate journalistic establishment works, their tissue-thin excuses only work in isolation. We cover this because <insert phony situation-specific rationalization here>. We don't cover that because <insert phony situation-specific justification here>. When you look at what they cover, and don't, across issues, you see their actions and their motives clearly: they assault Democrats and they protect Republicans, and not just in shades of grey. They do it wholesale. They assaulted the Clintons vindictively - over nothing - for years. They have protected BushCo - from national security malfeasance, serious corruption and treason - for half a decade.

This is no accident and you can ignore their flimsy excuses for why and why not. Their excuses are contradictory and hypocritical in the extreme. They are playing this country wrong, and in big, big ways. In many ways they are more corrupt than Republicans, and not only are they corrupt, but they enable the corruption of the Republicans, so it is really all on their heads. As a profession, American political journalism has become dishonest to the point of depravity. And they stand there astonished, confused and hurt about why people see them that way. There is no other way to see them.

I'm so excited!
And I just can't hide it!

Yeah, I'm that silly over the prospect of Rove going down.

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/neillisst/

It's been quite awhile.... I watched for a few minutes, cane back and clicked on your post.... sigh.

The way it should be but isn't. It would be funny, if it weren't so damn sad! Let the little bastard** get a blow job and lie about it on national TV, maybe that would bring him down! AS IF! Paychecks are enormous/obscene, and the Corporate owned media whores protect theirs at all costs! Disgusting for sure!

when he told the truth about Bush's National Guard actions. They all sneered at their fellow journalists who dared to push back against the endemic corruption of the right.

They COULD have rallied around CBS and dug and questioned and supported their colleague who was in fact trying to do a righteous job. They did nothing of the sort. They snickered.

And you're right that a bj wouldn't even touch Bush. If they mentioned it, it would be in passing, and they'd most likely cast it as Democrats doing dirty politics against decent Republicans. While they were spitting at Clinton in the 1992 campaign about his infidelities, a CNN reporter questioned Bush Sr about his long-time affair with one of his secretaries, Jean something I believe. You know, for context: Clinton is being assaulted for his dalliances so what about yours? Tit-for-tat same issue they were attacking Clinton on in the same campaign at the same time. Bush snapped back at her that he wasn't going to answer any 'sleazy' questions from CNN. And that was that. End of the story. Mary Tillotsen was then banished to someplace in Siberia I believe, never to be heard from again. That's how fair and balanced they were.

I should have realized back then how they play the game, but it took another eight years, campaign 2000, before I finally understood exactly how the media plays only for the right wing. It's been going that way for at least fifteen years, and I think it's probably always been that way. I think if you look back, Murrow v McCarthy, and later Woodward and Bernstein v Nixon, were isolated aberrations, in no way representative of America's baseline-corrupt journalistic culture. American journalism is long-term, and hard-core, completely supportive of the right wing in America. Not to say that they don't occasionally prod the right wing for one-tenth of their absolute corruption, but taken in whole, the American media is Republican down to the core to the point of abdicating virtually any semblence of journalistic integrity.

They do it day-by-day, minute-by-minute, issue-by-issue, and they don't even have the slightest awareness of their innate political hypocrisy. In fact, because they are always being told they are 'liberal', and always will be told so, by the right wing, they keep moving further right in their acceptance of the corrupt, unfair, nonsensical ideologies of Conservatives. They just keep getting worse.

And I think, however ironic it is, that that horrible woman, who was involved in the Monica scandal, Linda Tripp, was the one who also exposed Bush Sr. LOL! I never paid attention either, so don't beat yourself up on that score. I think a lot of us were complacent or delusional or whatever and now we are where we are. Question is, how do we fix this? I am open to suggestions.

They are rich, corporate and comfortably ideologically corrupt. They aren't going to change except in the wrong direction as they have been on an ongoing and accelerating basis. They make big bucks and are public successes; they have travel and prestige and full health-care. Their bosses don't make 580 times as much as they do, with low-tax investment returns and jam-packed severance packages instead of shaky pension plans. They make those things. All is right in the world of America to the faces on TV.

The last time they did right by America, again excepting the aberration of four journalists on Watergate, was when they stood against hosing down black people in Alabama. That was forty years ago. Since then it's been comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted.

The only suggestion I have is that this country desperately needs journalism. We need a progressive news network, and we need it ten years ago, period. There is no relying on corporate journalism and there never will be again. It is wrong, it is bad, and it is ideologically corrupt in its basis.

How shameful! And how very Un American of them! If I were them, I would be so ashamed of myself! As if! I can't watch "main stream" TV anymore. I mostly quit after the '00 sElection, but came back for '04 campaign and after Nov, I stopped completely until Katrina coverage. I am now done forever, unless and until, the media whores stop injecting their bias' into their 'news' coverage. So where are the wealthy Liberals? Why won't they help out?

yes, agree the MSM has been fucking us for years... as in making a presidential blowjob an earth-shaking above-the-fold media event for 2 years.

However, THIS story is STILL going strong in the MSM... saw it in the opening minutes of NBC's Today Show, saw it on MSNBC and CNN this morning.. MSNBC just wrapped up an interview with Mort Zuckerman on how the loss of Rove and Libby will rock B*sh's world. To boot, we've got Bush's "Scripted Chat w/ American Soldiers" being shown on all the above-mentioned programs AND in the foreign press... my thread on the topic: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

I love to piss on the media as much as the next guy, but I think they have been taking 'baby steps" in the right direction recently... the fact that Olbermann's corporate bosses didn't can him after his amazing "Nexus of terror and Politics" segment 2 nites ago, and the pummeling Scotty took yesterday from a pissed-off press (re: Chimp's fakery at the scripted event) are just some signs that the media is started to feel safe challenging this WH (perhaps because it's vindictive arm, Rove and Libby, has been effectively removed) or more cynically, they are hedging their bets knowing that political power may switch over to Dems. Who knows.

Martha Stewart and The Apprentice will never go away, as they pay the bills.

Thanks for resurrecting this topic. It wasn't getting much play with everything else going on, but I think it's important to keep the focus on where all of this corruption is coming from: America's utterly banal right-wing corporate establishment journalism.

When you acknowlege that the corporate media has been fucking America for years, in fact decades now, you are correct. I wasn't being excessive when I said there is three orders of magnitude difference in the coverage of Clinton's peccadillos versus BushCo's treasonous activities. As you say they covered that for two years and for much of that it was non-stop. Before, during and after every grand jury hearing, whenever there was any kind of leak or even just the rumor of more to come they were on it hard-core on every show on every cable channel all day long, day after day after day. They didn't even need any facts to spend hours every night howling about nothing more than the possibilities. And remember, this was before Fox 'news'.

Where was the saturation coverage when the Plame CIA-outing was revealed? Where was the wall-to-wall feeding frenzy when the facts became uncontrovertible that Bush and Cheney had lied us six ways to Sunday into an illegal war? Let alone Bush and Cheney's purposeful negligence of national security leading up to 9/11? Nowhere. Nowhere. Treason up one side and down the other, and nothing. A mention in passing. A scroll bit. Nothing, for three years straight now.

In fact, if American journalism wasn't such a corrupt, disgusting blight on America there SHOULD have been 1000 times the coverage. IN THE OTHER DIRECTION. American journalism is literally one-million-times in arrears to their responsibilities to this country and to the journalistic integrity of their profession. An extramarital dalliance versus lying us into a war and comitting treason to cover it up on the back side. And their coverage was biased in what direction 1000 to 1? And to those thousands who have died, and tens of thousands who have lost limbs, eyes and parts of their brains, and to their families of course, six orders of magnitude doesn't even begin to cover the impact of our thoroughly cowardly and ideologically corrupt establishment journalism.

In some ways you can't even blame Bush and Cheney and their whole rancid cabal that much. They are just behaving according to their nature. It's what they are. If someone lets a pack of rabid pit bulls loose on a playground to maul and kill children, do you blame the dogs? Oh, bad dogs? No. American journalism is those people. They let run, and participated themselves, in attacking a very moderate, centrist Democrat who was demonstrably successful across the entire spectrum of American governance, from economics to foreign relations to national security and beyond. Clinton only failed where he was stymied by Republicans. Yet they provided the environment for and promoted his impeachment and since. Continuously and over a long period of time they attacked him, and his wife, with contempt and disdain over whatever they could gin up or just plain make up. And they proceeded on to Al Gore when they were done with the Clintons. All while they coddled, protected and promoted America's sick, hard-line right-wingers as being honest, efficient and posessed of integrity, when they are blatantly the most extreme opposite of any of those things. And now that the monumental character flaws, corruption and dishonesty of Republicans has become manifest in the real world, they ignore, deflect and protect them from consequence wherever they can.

I saw Scottie's scuffle with the press and I wasn't nearly as impressed with them as some here appear to be. He shut them down pretty quickly and they all had a good chuckle at the end. Big deal; a scripted photo-op. Oh bad boys. It simply doesn't put a dent in the totality of their betrayal of everything they were supposed to stand for as journalists. I couldn't be less impressed. I know you recognize this, and there's nothing wrong with being appreciative of the occasional smidgen of backbone they show on the small things, but let's be clear - these people have betrayed America, Americans and their profession in the most horrendous ways over a long period of time. They deserve no appreciation, and don't feel bad for them - they appreciate each other more than you and I and everyone else could ever justify.

Sorry, that wasn't directed at you; I just took off from your post. I'll make this my closing rant.