Anyone Surprised?
There are reports that last night's guest comedian at the White House Press Correspondents' dinner, Stephen Colbert, restricted what Editor & Publisher described as "blistering" "humor" to anti-Bush pot shots, rather than dividing his comments equitably between the press and the president, which is the custom.
Who's surprised? The elite liberal "media establishment" has pretty much refused to give Bush a fair shake from the beginning, so why would last night be different?
Here's the most instructive contrast. Back in 1996 when Don Imus was the featured guest at the Radio and Television Correspondents' dinner, the MSM was "appalled", at what the New York Times described as Imus' "rudeness". (Here's the text of the speech; however bitter the tone, the venom was, at least, equally distributed between the president and the press, which may have been part of the problem).
After Don Imus' line-crossing routine, the Clinton White House asked that it not be rebroadcast on C-SPAN. Wonder how the press would react to a similar request from the Bush Administration?
And with touching sensitivity, the head of the Radio and Television correspondents association even wrote a letter of apology to the Clintons, expressing regret about the "embarassment" they endured (text of letter here).
Why do I suspect the same kind of apology won't be forthcoming this year?
And it's easy enough to see where "Editor & Publisher" stands. In this story, the E&P staff speculates one of the reason for the crowd's discomfort might have been "too much speaking 'truthiness' to power" (and what's with this "truthiness" silliness?). In the other, senior editor Joe Strupp notes at the piece's conclusion, "Finally, those departing the Reuters shindig were given a half-dozen glazed Krispy Kreme Donuts. A comment on the administration trying to sugar-coat half-baked ideas?"
No -- more a comment on the fiction that the MSM is unbiased.
Who's surprised? The elite liberal "media establishment" has pretty much refused to give Bush a fair shake from the beginning, so why would last night be different?
Here's the most instructive contrast. Back in 1996 when Don Imus was the featured guest at the Radio and Television Correspondents' dinner, the MSM was "appalled", at what the New York Times described as Imus' "rudeness". (Here's the text of the speech; however bitter the tone, the venom was, at least, equally distributed between the president and the press, which may have been part of the problem).
After Don Imus' line-crossing routine, the Clinton White House asked that it not be rebroadcast on C-SPAN. Wonder how the press would react to a similar request from the Bush Administration?
And with touching sensitivity, the head of the Radio and Television correspondents association even wrote a letter of apology to the Clintons, expressing regret about the "embarassment" they endured (text of letter here).
Why do I suspect the same kind of apology won't be forthcoming this year?
And it's easy enough to see where "Editor & Publisher" stands. In this story, the E&P staff speculates one of the reason for the crowd's discomfort might have been "too much speaking 'truthiness' to power" (and what's with this "truthiness" silliness?). In the other, senior editor Joe Strupp notes at the piece's conclusion, "Finally, those departing the Reuters shindig were given a half-dozen glazed Krispy Kreme Donuts. A comment on the administration trying to sugar-coat half-baked ideas?"
No -- more a comment on the fiction that the MSM is unbiased.
posted by LadybugUSA at 12:18 PM
2 Comments:
The 10 minutes I saw via computer were hilarious. His "audition tape" for White House Press Secretary depicts Helen Thomas as a marauding beast pursuing him, asking "Why did we go to Iraq?" It made Thomas look AWFUL and was funny.
Colbert is an acquired taste. And I've acquired it. Scalia laughed a lot, too. Are we both wrong, Carol?
What I heard this morning on Laura Ingraham was not funny, and the audience was not laughing, even though they mostly have the same hate Bush mindset.
And doesn't Reuters know that Krispy Kreme donates 100% of it's PAC to the republican party?
The irony of that and that buyblue.org which is supposed to send liberals to "blue" markets and away from "red" markets has backfired. Conservatives simply use their statistics to effect the opposite. I went to Ruby Tuesday and ordered Dominoes Pizza just because!
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