Wag the Election: GE/MSNBC Crowned John McCain on the Night of the Iowa Caucuses

I. BUCHANAN: I can’t tell you what I am going to do. Because MSNBC doesn’t allow us to endorse as you know, David. From MSNBC Super Tuesday Preview Coverage February 4, 2008

Pardon me while I crawl around on the floor and search for my ass, which I just laughed off.

There, that is better. What Pat Buchanan meant to say is MSNBC doesn’t allow us to endorse any candidates except Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama. As I will show later, the pundits at the GE owned 24 hours news network have been stumping for these two guys since the night of the Iowa caucuses (and McCain did not even win in Iowa). Buchanan can not stand McCain who is soft on immigration and hard on foreign intervention, so he has been about as happy as a hemophiliac at a knife throwers convention.

Now, exactly why would General Electric want McCain to be the Republican nominee? That is easy. The old retired military men that now work for the nation’s defense industry just love the man who spent Viet Nam in a box for his country. General Electric is a military contractor, too. Also, unlike other Republicans, John McCain of Arizona believes in immigration reform of the type that pleases big manufacturers like GE---keep ‘em here, working for those low, low wages that keep U.S. business profits sky high! By now everyone has noticed that while CNN and Lou Dobbs do specials about immigration, MSNBC does specials about prisoners and pedophiles. That is because GE does not want Americans to think that immigrants are scary. I don’t want Americans to think that immigrants are scary, either. But General Electric’s motives are different than mine. Finally, and perhaps most important of all, GE makes over $10 billion a year from selling nuclear reactors to other countries. It desperately wants to start building them again in the U.S. There have been no new nukes started since around the time of Chernobyl. Under John McCain that would likely change. He and bunch of military types believe that nuclear energy is the key to U.S. freedom from oil dependence. The last time I checked, there were over a dozen pending applications for new nuclear plant start ups on file at the NRC. The oil dominated Bush administration may be ambivalent. The “I don’t mind if we stockpile nuclear waste for one hundred thousand years and I hope you don’t mind either” John McCain administration is prepared to rubber stamp those proposals.

Why would General Electric want Barrack Obama to be the Republican nominee? Depends upon whom you ask at MSNBC. They all have different reasons. For the corporate bosses, if a Democrat has to win, he is better than the alternatives, Clinton and Edwards. Edwards just said no to nuclear energy during the debates. Clinton was agnostic . She wants solutions to spent fuel storage and safety issues. In other words, she wants fusion. Obama said that he supports the use of nuclear energy as a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. he belongs to the “nukes are green “ school that proponents of nuclear energy espouse. His voting and donor history also suggest strongly that he is more open minded on the subject than his Democratic opponents, making him a better risk, just in case this really is going to be a Democratic year.

However, from what I read in the transcripts at MSNBC, GE intends to install John McCain in the White House.

II. MATTHEWS: I know that, but there are so many big state Republican parties not to be heard from yet who will want to choose McCain over Huckabee Night of the Iowa Caucuses , Huckabee has just won.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22505399/

The very first contest of the 2008 presidential season and the folks from GE can not wait to proclaim McCain the winner of the Republican primary even though Huckabee just won the Iowa caucuses. We hear a detailed discussion about how Huckabee’s win shuts out Thompson, Romney and leaves only McCain as a viable candidate (Gulianni is declared toast). Note that Huckabee’s win does not make Huckabee a viable candidate . Matthews starts off the festivities with Huckabee bashing, making fun of his foreign policy gaffes, etc. Tweety is one of the GE conspirators in the know.

This would not be so sinister, except that anyone with an ounce of sense recognized that the Republicans had only two candidates in their crowded field who had a snow ball’s chance in hell of surviving the general election. Only one of them was supposed to have a chance of surviving the Republican Primary, too. That was Rudi Giuliani. Unfortunately, the most powerful woman of the 2008 presidential election season took him out. No, I am not talking about Hillary Clinton or Donna Brazile. I am referring to Judith Regan. As soon as the other media giants discovered that Rudi planned to make his FCC favor News Corp above all the others, they went to work undermining the former mayor’s chances. They made him unelectable.

With the Mayor of 9/11 out of the picture, Democrats appeared to be in good shape. The only other Republican who could put up a fight in the general election was John McCain----and conservatives hated him because of his immigration stance. Evangelicals hated him because he was not god fearing. Bush was mad at him, because they had been opponents. He was too broke to run ads. How could he ever get nominated?

Having a major news network in his pocket sure helped.



You are getting this, right? John McCain won Iowa We only thought that Huckabee won, because we are too dumb to understand the real significance of the vote. “The Maverick” had the nomination sewn up way back in early January.

Tom Brokaw is always in the know. Indeed, when you see Tom Brokaw appear on the set at MSNBC, it usually means that the corporate masters at GE have some special propaganda they need to send out to America. Don’t forget that Tom Brokaw lead the charge to war against Iraq.

On to New Hampshire.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22574559/

Tom Ridge is invited onto the show in order to praise John McCain, as in “the Mac is back!” Note, McCain still has not won anything yet and is still broke and most conservatives still despise him.



We get to hear Matthews call McCain a maverick. Tucker Carlson calls him an elder statesman . The cast talks about all the dirty tricks Romney has pulled.



They key word there is “maverick.” Note that the polls in New Hampshire are still open at this point and will not close for almost another hour. MSNBC often pulls stunts like this. Staging “election night coverage” designed to fuck with the vote while people are voting is one of their specialties. Whether it is a bogus primary day poll about Obama being 20 points ahead in California
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/140

or Nora O’Donnell suggesting that Republicans cross over to mess with the Democratic Wisconsin primary to bring about a “Convention in Chaos”
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/149

GE has come up with a whole new class of Nixonian Dirty Tricks. Maybe because Pat Buchanan, the author of Nixon’s dirty tricks works there.

When MSNBC finally calls the New Hampshire race for McCain, the cast could not be happier. Kelly O’Donnell is ecstatic. They talk about how this is a new start. McCain will win because he is the national security candidate. Only Olbermann remains unconvinced, citing exit polls that show that even Republicans are concerned about the economy, not McCain’s strong suit. Brokaw steps back in—with some help from David Gregory.



Who are these “top Republicans” that you hear people like Gregory and later Fineman refer to? The CEOs of General Electric? Retired military men? Karl Rove? Officials at the RNC? Boy, I would love to know.

Keith Olbermann criticizes McCain’s speech and Matthews jumps in to defend him.



Ah, if only he was so tolerant of Democrats.

Next we move on to South Carolina’s Republican Primary

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22786061/

Recall that last time, after one win in New Hampshire, highly placed Republicans who were not named had been quoted as saying that John McCain was the “front-runner” with a clear path to the nomination. Keeping this in mind, we will do what MSNBC did and completely ignore the fact that there was a Republican caucus that day in Nevada that Mitt Romney won. Because hell, Nevada is right next to Utah, and there are just too damn many Mormons out there.

When South Carolina is called for John McCain, Matthews again predicts victory for McCain---citing an unlikely source.



Finally, Florida and a contest with Rudi, whom all the networks except Fox now hate with a passion. If McCain can beat him, then he really is the man.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22919148/



Poor old Pat Buchanan. General Electric won’t let him endorse anyone, but they trot out Tom Brokaw to call John McCain (the candidate who picks his opinions based upon which way the wind is blowing) “authentic” and a “maverick”. I think that MSNBC is one of the circles of Hell that Dante forgot to write about and Pat "the Lord of Lies" Buchanan is being forced to serve out his sentence for aiding Nixon by working for GE.

Tonight is Giuliani bashing night. Fineman comes on and says if McCain wins by even a vote he will be rolling in money according to his Republican friends in California. Are these the same high ranking Republicans that Gregory was talking to? Lots of defense contractors are Republican. Lots of them live on the west coast. Who is giving money to John McCain right now? General Electric is like the world’s second largest employer. It could probably bankroll a presidential candidate just through its own employee’s contributions.



You hear that, Republicans? Tweety just called you a bunch of sissies who are too scared to vote for a real man like McCain. What are you going to do about it?

Joe Scarborough, who claims not to like McCain even calls him a “maverick” three times.

When John McCain is declared the winner of Florida and news arrives that Giuliani is going to endorse him, everyone celebrates.



Who the hell is this “top Republican”?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23011406/

Super Tuesday Preview Coverage

Nora O’Donnell is outraged. She does not "endorse" John McCain. She just adores him.



This is the episode where Pat Buchanan will reveal that MSNBC does not allow its pundits to endorse candidates. Such sweet irony.

This takes me up to the journal I wrote months ago about MSNBC’s atrocious Monster Super Tuesday Election Night coverage:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/McCamy%20Taylor/140

In which I noted that everyone was calling McCain a “maverick” in much the same way that the president’s cabinet in Idiocracy say’s “Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.”. Were they getting bonuses for saying it? And late in the evening this is how I described Tom Brokaw’s little chat:




More to come about MSNBC's scripted election night propaganda in my next journal.

If I did not know better, I'd accuse you of using a crystal ball.

However, the whole thing was painfully obvious to me as well ... from the beginning... and I didn't even crack out the tarot deck.

I think Matthews, Abrams, and KO will all be Obama supporters, though you wont know it from Tweety's coverage. And that is there entire 7-10 lineup.

at the point where you said Giuliani had a snowball's chance in hell at surviving the general election. :eyes:

Guiliani was frozen out by MSNBC...even though he pursued a strategy of not bothering with the early contests and planning to make landfall in Florida, while saying 9/11 a lot. Nobody but the evangelicals liked Huckabee. Conservatives loved Fred Thompson but he seemed to lack interest in actually expending any effort to get anywhere. None of the conservatives were behind Romney (too much of a Robot, too wealthy) until it becomes obvious that McCain is going to win and they stage a last desperate rally around him. Immigration-bashers complained that none of the candidates reflect their views but none of them actually sent money or votes for Tom Tancredo or Duncan Hunter.

You should try monitoring some Republican or mixed forums in your spare time. McCain won because everyone knew who he was and it brought him votes from independents in open primaries. The rest of the GOP were too busy infighting to settle on a candidate. Your conspiracy theory is largely bunk. Conservatives mainly watch Fox, not MSNBC, and if any of the GOP candidates had properly defined themselves early on they'd have had a support base to present a serious challenge to McCain. Instead most of their base spent last winter making fun of the Democratic candidates and dissing each others' picks.

All through last year they were expecting to be campaigning against Hillary Clinton; until recently they believed that the Clintons had mythical political powers and that the Dem race would really be a beauty contest to see who would be her VP. When I told my conservative friends last August that I was in or Obama they hooted with laughter. They had spent the last 8 years working up their attacks on Hillary Clinton and assumed that they'd be able to repeat the Bush/Rove election calculus. The hard core bush voters assumed before the primaries started that it was going to be Rudy v. Hillary.

But then Huckabee upset the apple cart in Iowa. Mitt Romney suddenly looked like a tool because everyone knew he was spending a lot of his own money and had seen he wasn't much good at retail politics, and Rudy Guiliani was too into himself to go anywhere that might involve getting dirt on his shoes, so he just bounced up and down the east coast prattling about 9/11 and riding a segway (his Dukakis moment...I spread that picture far and wide, sending it to every Republican I knew). He had to be practically dragged to New Hampshire and was plainly uncomfortable there.

Rudy's failure had nothing to do with MSNBC or GE; he just had no clue how to campaign outside New York. The conservatives were devastated when his campaign imploded in Florida, but they'd already fatally wounded both Huckabee and Romney in the belief that they were clearing the stage for Rudy.