Update [2006-5-3 9:44:32 by howieinseattle]: “House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) took on a rare role yesterday as a defender of President Bush. Hoyer came to the defense of the commander in chief after Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where the president took a drubbing from comedian Stephen Colbert.
“I thought some of it was funny, but I think it got a little rough,” Hoyer said. “He is the president of the United States, and he deserves some respect.”
“I’m certainly not a defender of the administration,” Hoyer reassured stunned observers, but Colbert “crossed the line” with many jokes that were “in bad taste.”
I commented here that there would be “consequences” because of Colbert’s remarks, but I was referring to what they might try to do to Colbert. I hope one consequence is going to come down on Steny, sometime in the future.
More evidence of Steny’s bad judgement: He used the same phrase, “crossed the line” as a top Bush aide, according to US News.
A history lesson from Seeing the Forest:
Don Imus was the speaker at the 1996 Correspondent’s dinner and his talk insulted President Clinton along the lines of the ongoing “conservative movement” narrative. Whitewater, Susan McDougal getting payoffs, Clintons getting indicted, missing billing records… The press had a field day — coverage everywhere. NY Times, TV Notes;Imus in the Spotlight.
This is no big deal, except when compared with this week’s press response to Stephen Colbert’s appearance Saturday. The only way to describe the press response is: intentional blackout. A scan of Google News finds almost no coverage outside of the blogs.
Why is there such an obvious difference in the coverage given Bush in general, compared to the coverage given Clinton? The press coverage of President Clinton led to his impeachment, even when all of the Republican-initiated investigations found he had done nothing wrong. In contrast the press continues its blackout of coverage or even discussion of possible crimes committed by President Bush.
In 1987 Ronald Reagan ordered the FCC to abolish the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcast media to provide balanced coverage of issues. Majorities in the Congress voted to restore the Fairness Doctrine and were blocked by Republican vetoes and filibusters. (Any time you hear a Republican complain about the “liberal media” ask them why it is Republicans, not Democrats, who oppose the Fairness Doctrine.) Following that, Republicans began to allow fewer and fewer large corporations to control more and more of these information channels. (PLEASE click the links. More here and here.)
I recall Howard Dean making some comments in the same vein, just before he was swift-boated out of the race. Do you see a pattern here? If you followed all the links, give yourself ten points.
Great links, Howie, I bookmarked the first two for later reference. Media consolidation is Public Enemy Number One.
Amazing how the word gets out, though, in spite of it. For example, there are now 32,189 thank yous on the Thank You Stephen Colbert website.
And that probably translates as millions of people who at least know about and even saw Colbert’s speech.
http://thankyoustephencolbert.org/
Congrats. I hope it translates into millions of people who realize what is happening in our country.
Exactly.
It’s now 32,988. That’s 800 more thank yous in less than two hours.
Even worse. If memory serves, not only did Howard want to reinstate the fairness doctrine, he wanted to reinstitute a lot of media ownership rules to cut back on the abuses by (for example) Clear Channel.
Jeepers, there is a pattern!
What’s really impressive is how the lack of media attention seems to have accelerated the spread of this. Everyone’s talking about it, seemingly because it hasn’t been on the mainstream news, so they feel the need to inform others. Fascinating!
Sometimes we don’t realize how extensive the change has been over the last 6 years. This points it out very specificially.
I worry that Colbert will have his wings clipped over this. It’s not nice to point out that the Emperor (in this case, the media) is wearing nothing.
I predict there will be consequences.
The media didnt understand what that was going on up there on that stage.
To begin with, the Bush routine was pretty surreal in and of itself.
Then Mr. Colbare barges right in, and bares his ass right in the powdered faces of our corrupt, effeminate, degenerate, immoral, dullwitted and humorless elites.
Mr. Colbare delivered a loud, sustained, noxious fart–the kind where the odor seems to hang in the air for eternity and in your nose memory even longer. The kind the elites never smell coming off their own powdered asses.
A courageous piece of work.
I followed most of them. Can I have 5 points?
This is an important issue, and one that should be bandied about until more folks know more about it — even just discussing the issue itself should get more people to react with more of a discerning air concerning their news (particularly in our current climate).
The pundits are running scared. Folks aren’t taking them at face value anymore, and — for them — it’s painfully obvious that their “beauty” has only been skin deep; their “ugly” goes straight to the bone.
I am happy to give you 8!
from James Wolcott:
He calls Colbert a real pro who performed his piece of satire with ease and aplomb, without self-deprecation, never bothering that most of his lines were not getting laughs…
He says of NYT’s reporter:
“Elisabeth Bumiller seems to have slept through face-down in her entree.”
Mr. Colbert is too good for the corporate media. They would not know how to describe him.
I was going to start of by saying that it is about time someone wrote about the lack of coverage in any media source other than the blogosphere. But, ya know what- that would be stupid. I would be writing and trying to get it posted on sites in the blogosphere-DUH!
In my opinion, the key aspect of this article is the fact that maybe, just maybe, this will be a wakeup call! Cause if we all don’t wake up and realize that we must break through this criminal blockade we are in more serious trouble than we realize. Much more!
I don’t have the answers but I have to point out that I think that nothing and I mean nothing is taboo! All I know is that when i was listening to c-spans’ Washington Journal this AM and the posed question was directed solely at repugs and the question was: what do you think of your party- I was stunned. Simply stunned at the replies.
billjpa
I think “blockade” is a very good word. We have a news blockade in this country. What are we going to do about it? I don’t know . . .
CNN and MSNBC covered Colbert. I saw Lou Dobbs cover it last night.
it many times and even covered the lack of coverage.
The point being is that when dubya made fun of himself finding the WMDS in his office, it was not funny at all..as a matter of fact it was of great offense to many….especially those who had lost loved ones in the war zone….to those of us who fought against going to war, in the first place…those of us who knew that Iraq posed not one threat to us.
That was the most humiliating of all performances I have ever seen in my life.
for Bush’s shtick are better than reviews for Colbert.
The reviews that count, like James Wolcott, Editor & Publisher think Colbert was superb. I mean he was more than that, he was Supermaaaan.
The NY Times has a follow up article today on Colbert. It covers the controversy over his not being reported on and highlights a bit of his anti-Bush remarks:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/arts/03colb.html
What is interesting is that most of the media has still missed the point he was making. His Bush remarks were just the warm up for his real target – the press.
His extended video showing him running away from the only person to have asked a real question in the recent past (Helen Thomas) was his real message. That the press fell down on reporting his criticism of the press, having fallen down on reporting about Iraq, shows that they still don’t (or won’t) “get it”.
The press likes to “cover” others, rather than itself.
on Colbert’s routine and his show before they attempted to write a review. What gross laziness!
By having the minority whip come out with critical comments, the Colbert routine is kept alive in the news, raising awareness that it even exists.
If Rep. Hoyer had come out in favour of Colbert’s sketch, it wouldn’t have gotten as much newsplay. After all, the journalists themselves want this to disappear, as it pointed out how much they have become lapdogs to the current regime.
But to make people aware of why Rep. Hoyer’s remarks are pertinent, the news shows will bring clips of it, online news sources will have “See the controversial clip here” links and similar ways that the general public can find out about it.
Not only that, but the criticism is one that he can spin into praise later. After all, he did say that he thought some of it was funny. Maybe later he could say that it was too rough because it hit too close to home. There’s plenty of spin room in his remarks.
This is feint-and-jab politics. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the old boxer Harry Reid came up with the idea of Hoyer making that comment just to stir up coverage of a sketch the press was too ashamed to report about.