It’s stupid of me to try to understand the mind of Charles Barkley. I know that. I remember when he made sounds about running for governor of Alabama as a Republican. Now he says he usually votes Democratic. But he’s thinking about voting for a Republican this time around and likes John Kasich. But the Republicans always try to divide and conquer by race, just as Trump is trying to do.
The only thing I can really figure for sure is that Charles thinks CNN sucks and has the courage to say so even though he works for their parent company.
I give him credit both for being correct about CNN and for not giving a crap if his honesty upsets his corporate overlords.
“To be honest with you, CNN has done an awful job this election. They have followed ratings and sound bites this entire cycle. Think about it, I love CNN they’re part of our company but they’ve been kissing butt chasing ratings. They’ve become like Fox News for the Republicans to be honest for you. They follow every single soundbite just to get ratings for these debates. And it’s been sad and frustrating that our company has sold its soul for ratings.”
Damn! Did Charles Barkley just wake up from a long slumber? Or is he just now at the point in his life where he is beginning to pay attention to how the media reports on politics? After all, the vast majority of the mainstream media has enjoyed varying levels of continuing suckitude when it comes to their reporting. Sure, there are glimmers of competence and real substantive reporting. But who is willing to sit through the endless hours of shitty analysis, false equivocations, chasing of right wing rumors and obsessions with petty and irrelevant minutiae in order to find that one piece of solid and informative reporting? It has gotten to the point where my last nerve is so frayed from the absolute pure stupidity and inane discussions that emanate from the TV that I’ve pretty much given up on listening to any of it. There’s too much good reporting going on in other venues that a person is just wasting their time trying to actually become informed by listening to any of the mainstream media giants like CNN. Just look what happens to the human brain when it’s immersed in the likes of Fox News on a regular basis; and even CNN. You end up with all sorts of falsehoods embedded in your brain that simply refuse to be die, in spite of mountains of evidence which prove them wrong. I will give them credit for being an easy source for people to access. But that certainly doesn’t mean that it’s worthwhile to listen to them.
With so many sources available, people simply watch whatever confirms their already existing biases and which carries the familiar and comfortable beat of their tribe. It seems that whenever a full-time Fox News watcher wants to demonstrate their “independent” cajones, they always say to me, “Hey, I don’t just watch Fox all the time. I watch CNN, too. I get all points of view”.
And I just laugh and laugh and laugh.
I got rid of my tv years ago. It wasn’t just the giant suckitude that passes for “nooz,” but that was certainly a huge factor in my decision. I stopped watching tv “nooz” and/or “pundits” on ANY station a long long time ago, other than Bill Moyers – and I don’t buy everything he says either.
CNN is not even a shadow of its former self. It has pretzel twisted itself into a clone of Fox, imo. Oh yeah, once in a blue moon one of the less moronic on CNN might blurt out something that bears a passing relationship to the truth. And when that happens, the “nooz” of that is so amazing that it’s trumpeted far and wide, as in: WOW!!! CNN “nooz” twerp just Told. The. Truth!!!11!! Really. Not being snarky.
The other thing is the false equivalency thing between Fox and oh-so-incredibly-leftwing (or whatever) MSNBC. Diehard dittoheads love to say: you horrible LIEbruls are just brainwashed by MSNBC!!!11!!!
Whut? I don’t know when I last watched MSNBC. Years and years ago. It has some purported “leftish” perhaps marginally more facty pundits on, I believe, 4 evenings per week. So what? We have something like 15 or 20 hours of leftish stuff (I have no idea if it’s good, bad or indifferent, but Tweety Matthews is another giant sucking waste of time) v. 24/7/365 utter inflammatory lies and incendiary garbage on Fox, not too mention the same thing on Hate Radio, etc.
Nice that Barkley, like Rip Van Winkle, is awakening from his long slumber to – gasp! – discover that CNN sucks the big one. But it ain’t just CNN. It’s ALL. Of. THEM, Katie.
WAAAAYYYYY Off Topic but think of this:
Ben Carson says Trump will not be “the only one” to bolt the R’s if the smokers in the back room start playing games at the convention.
Consider a Trump/Carson Ticket throughout the Confederacy. Each of former confederated states has one or more “conservative” party not affiliated with Republicans or Libertarians. Probably the most famous is American Independent Pary (Wallace’s old party).
If Trump could take 25% of the vote in each of these states (not really all that hard) …..
The DEMOCRAT WOULD WIN THE STATE as the presidential nominee. The results of the 2004 presidential election were the last time a white person ran for president as a Democrat. While the South was absolutely solid red … Not by all THAT much. All the Southern states had about 40% Blue votes, statewide.
MS
AL
LA
GA
NC
SC
And so on …
Wouldn’t expect Carson to play second banana to Trump.
Expect he’s just signaling to his (dwindling) supporters that the Carson for President bandwagon can keep going if the GOP rejects him. What he knows and they don’t is that he has a good thing going with his donor base. The grift must go on.
Ah yes, the book sales…
Still makes me giggle:
Loved the Round Mound of Rebound when he was a player; what an unusual skill set he had. As a celebrity, he is worth admiring for how willing he is to say almost anything he wants wherever he wants, as he is here, but if you’re pleased by one thing he says, you only have to wait a minute to hear the next ill-informed thing he says.
I can’t imagine a future in elected office for Barkley.