It what has to be considered a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, right-wing operatives, conscienceless campaign hacks like Terry McAuliffe, and - of course - President Bush are calling MSNBC all kinds of names because it carries Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.
"They're complaining about Chris Matthews?!!"
I know, huh?
MSNBC, which bills itself as "the place for politics," is being pummeled by political practitioners.
"It's an organ of the Democratic National Committee," says Steve Schmidt, a senior strategist for John McCain's campaign. "It's a partisan advocacy organization that exists for the purpose of attacking John McCain."
Ed Gillespie, President Bush's counselor, says there is an "increasing blurring" of the line between NBC News and MSNBC's "blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann."
Terry McAuliffe, chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign, says Matthews has been "in the tank" for Barack Obama "from Day One" and is practically "the Obama campaign chair."
Why are operatives from across the political spectrum suddenly beating up on the third-place cable channel?
After years of blather, lies, innuendo and intimidation, trivialities, rumor-mongering and gossipy liberal-trashing, the RWNM (yes, I include McAuliffe in that group - he belongs there) has decided to go after the only even mildly progressive voice on cable tv. Excuse me? Do the names "Rush Limbaugh" and "Bill O'Reilly" mean anything to you, Terry? Ed G?
The word that describes this is "gall".
To answer the question "why" is easy enough: BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE LISTENING NOW.
When Keith was a lone voice inveighing against a popular president's rape of the Constitution, nobody bothered to attack him because they didn't think anybody was listening to him. They had all the other pundits (anybody they didn't have was frozen out by their tame producers and their toady bookers) and anyway Keith was a probably-non-replicatable anomaly. There weren't going to be any more of him. Nothing to be afraid of there.
But then a strange thing happened. Keith's numbers began to grow as Bush's obstinate war-mongering alienated so many people his approval rating sank to all-time lows - lower than Richard Nixon's at the height of Watergate. As Bush sank, so sank accolytes O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity, et al. The last time I saw the Neilsons, Olbermann's show had beaten O'Reilly's by a factor of almost 3.
Keith's head is on the chopping block primarily because people are finally watching - and listening - to him, and whenever he skewers the president with those "Special Comments" we progressives have been treasuring for so long his numbers go through the roof.
Chris is a slightly different story. Matthews' and his Hardball have been reliable softballs for Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and the entire gang of Bush Liars, Con-Artists, and Weasels for Georgie's entire presidency. He gave them lots of media time and rarely challenged anything they said no matter how outrageous it was or how untrue he knew it to be. He was One of Them.
But Chris can read the numbers, too, and he knows Bush and the neocon ideologues are through, their day as over as the dinosaurs'. So now he has begun to challenge them when they cross the line into unbelievable. has begun - only on occasion, but still - to act like an actual reporter.
Better late than never, I suppose, but all it means is that all the rats are abandoning the sinking Bush ship, media gulls as well as staffers eager to divorce themselves from the stink of Bush's failure.
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