Palin Suck-Up Watch, September 8, 2008

``She's not scared to answer questions, but you know what?'' Davis said. ``We run our campaign, not the news media.''

(http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3475392&mesg_id=3475392)

I think we need a place to name the names of "journalists" and tee vee personalities who are all to eager to oblige the Republicans in acting as stenographers for their PR department instead of finding out who is "Sarah Who?".

List examples as you find them, for weekly compilation a la the Top Ten Conservative Idiots list.

On the September 7 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, citing a New York Post article reporting that television talk show host Oprah Winfrey will not host Gov. Sarah Palin on her show before the presidential election, Tom Brokaw falsely suggested that Winfrey has hosted Sen. Barack Obama on her show during Obama's campaign for president. Brokaw stated: "Oprah did come out for Barack Obama, did have him on the show," then asked Sen. Joe Biden: "Do you think that some people will see that as an elitist position, that, in some ways, Democrats may be afraid of her -- Sarah Palin?" But the Post article Brokaw cited itself reported that Winfrey has not hosted Obama since he began his presidential campaign and that Winfrey said she decided when she endorsed Obama that she would not use her show "as a platform for any of the candidates."

The Post reported that "Winfrey, who tapes her high-rated daily show in Chicago, has had Obama as a guest twice -- in January 2005 and October 2006. Both occasions were before the Illinois senator officially announced he was running for the White House." The Post also reported that Winfrey said: "At the beginning of this presidential campaign, when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates." According to the Post, "Winfrey added 'I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over.' "

http://mediamatters.org/items/200809070008?f=h_latest

way back in 2002 or so.

A week ago, most Americans had never heard of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Now, following a Vice Presidential acceptance speech viewed live by more than 40 million people, Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of American voters. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 37% hold an unfavorable view of the self-described hockey mom.
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The figures include 40% with a Very Favorable opinion of Palin and 18% with a Very Unfavorable view. Before her acceptance speech, Palin was viewed favorably by 52%. A week ago, 67% had never heard of her.

The new data also shows significant increases in the number who say McCain made the right choice and the number who say Palin is ready to be President. Generally, John McCain's choice of Palin earns slightly better reviews than Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden.

Perhaps most stunning is the fact that Palin's favorable ratings are now a point higher than either man at the top of the Presidential tickets this year. As of Friday morning, Obama and McCain are each viewed favorably by 57% of voters. Biden is viewed favorably by 48%.

There is a strong partisan gap when it comes to perceptions of Palin. Eighty-nine percent (89%) of Republicans give her favorable reviews along with 33% of Democrats and 59% of voters not affiliated with either major party.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/rasmussen/20080905/pl_rasmussen/palinpower20080905

Only the idiots sucked into the baloney of Caribou Barbie.

by Glenn Greenwald

Excerpt...

In May White House Chief of Staff Ed Gillespie "sent a scathing letter to NBC News, accusing the news network of 'deceptively' editing an interview with President Bush on the issue of appeasement and Iran." Gillespie warned NBC as follows:

I'm sure you don't want people to conclude that there is really no distinction between the "news" as reported on NBC and the "opinion" as reported on MSNBC, despite the increasing blurring of those lines. I welcome your response to this letter, and hope it is one that reassures your broadcast network's viewers that blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don't hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division.

Yesterday, Gillespie got exactly the "response" that he demanded from a super-compliant MSBNC. There is no question whatsoever that the Bush administration, the McCain campaign, and the Right generally have recently made it a top priority to force MSNBC to remove Olbermann (and Chris Matthews) from playing a prominent role in its election coverage, and MSNBC has now complied with the Right's demands. Does it need to be explained why it is disturbing in the extreme that the White House and the McCain campaign can so transparently dictate MSNBC's programming choices?

Second, in response to media criticism that the press is insufficiently substantive and adversarial to political power, the claim is frequently made that media outlets are simply driven by the profit motive, and that their programming choices are nothing more than a by-product of ratings. But in MSNBC's case, that is plainly untrue. Back in 2003, they actually canceled their highest-rated program, Phil Donahue's show, for purely ideological reasons -- because, at a time when the establishment "liberal media" were systematically amplifying the Government's pro-war views and excluding anti-war views, that short-lived MSNBC show was one of the only venues in America where one could hear anti-war viewpoints, and NBC's fear of angering the Government and the Right clearly caused them, first, to impose extreme and unusual restrictions on the show's content, and then to cancel it altogether.

And now here is MSNBC publicly removing (and therefore diminishing) the person who is, by far, its most valuable asset: Keith Olbermann. The NYT article noted:

As Mr. Olbermann raised his voice, his ratings rose as well, and he now reaches more than one million viewers a night, a higher television rating than any other show in the troubled 12-year history of the network. As a result, his identity largely defines MSNBC. "They have banked the entirety of the network on Keith Olbermann," one employee said. . . . At an anniversary party for Mr. Olbermann in April, Zucker called "Countdown" "one of the signature brands of the entire company."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/08/msnbc...

After Bill Clinton was elected, The New Republic magazine (which still had a liberal reputation, even though by that time it had been taken over by neocons) added a new feature, the "Clinton Suck-Up Watch", a sort of jeering gallery to heckle any reporter whose coverage of the Clintons was seen by them to be too favorable or not critical enough. Thanks to TNR's beltway status and their columnists' frequent appearances on political talk shows, it was an effective tool in pulling the political conversation to the right. Reporters could hem and haw about what might constitute "liberal bias", but no one wanted to be branded a "suck-up".

Fast forward to today: The Republicans want to tightly control coverage of Palin, and are making a full-court press to have the newsmedia take it easy on her. Even a "compromise" on this works in their favor, and there's no reason to give them any quarter. If they want to duck questions, let them be seen ducking questions, as if we don't have a right to find out some "uncomfortable" information about someone two weeks ago was "Sarah Who?" to most of the nation, and who (considering McCain's age and health problems) has a better-than-usual chance of taking over the Oval Office in the next four years should McCain win. What could we expect from President Palin in terms of Supreme Court nominiees, Middle East policy, energy policy, economic policy, etc.?


So the purpose of this is to name names and shame those who act shamefully: those who acquiece to Republican spin and go soft on Palin. In short, those who act more like suck-ups than reporters.

To paraphrase the mayor in "Jaws", "you yell 'Right media bias', everyone says 'huh? what?'. You yell 'suck-up' and you'll have a riot on your hands..."