Posted on 10/31/2012 1:53:27 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
NBC's David Gregory isn't always a news reporter. As we're seeing with increasing frequency on that network, he's squashing stories. Call him an unreporter. On Sunday's "Meet the Press," he showed the extent to which he'll vaporize any suggestion that Team Obama failed to offer adequate protection from terrorists at our consulate in Benghazi.
Businesswoman Carly Fiorina slammed Obama's Libya response: "That attack went on for seven hours ... [with the] Secretary of Defense saying he denied requests for help over that seven hours." Gregory cut her off: "We'll get to Libya a little bit later." Surprise: It never came up again.
It sounded a lot like 1999, when Gregory squashed RNC spokesman Cliff May on MSNBC as he tried to mention Juanita Broaddrick's rape charges against Bill Clinton. Or the obsequious 2008 moment when then-CNN anchor John Roberts promised Obama in an interview he would create a "Reverend Wright-Free Zone."
Too many in the "news" media think of themselves as a deputized PR Secret Service for Obama, just as they did for Clinton. They reject the concept of nonpartisanship. In their view, one side is credible, the other not. Why balance social service with greed? Tolerance with hate? Justice with oppression? There is right, and there is wrong, and there ought not to be a middle ground in enlightened journalism. There is only the light of truth.
It follows that they use their influence to protect the White House, to preserve the president's "political viability within the system," as they say. If, God forbid, Republicans win the presidency, these same "journalists" are justified in brawling and mauling to derail the GOP agenda. In fact, they're called to do so. It is, after all, the public's Right to Know.
Look across the Sunday shows that aired on the networks with nine days to go in the campaign. On most, there was a total avoidance of any scrutiny for Obama.
On ABC's "This Week," Newt Gingrich noted Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's refusal to send assistance to Benghazi and ripped into Obama: "He's canceling trips over the hurricane. He did not cancel his trips over Benghazi." George Stephanopoulos moved on to another campaign question.
On CBS's "Face the Nation," Bob Schieffer asked John McCain about the hurricane, and which party might get hurt by it. McCain squeezed in Libya in his answer: "This tragedy turned into a debacle, and massive cover-up or massive incompetence in Libya is having an effect on the voter because of their view of the commander in chief. And it is now the worst cover-up or incompetence that I have ever observed in my life." Schieffer moved on.
Perhaps the worst performance in this sorry flock of sheep came from CNN's Candy Crowley. She'd enabled Obama's Libya lies by supporting him with a mangled "fact check" in the second debate, and learned nothing from the ensuing criticism -- or just refused to alter her position. She failed to ask Obama spinner David Axelrod anything about Libya. She punted. Then when RNC Chairman Reince Priebus arrived, she focused on GOP "gaffes," like Richard Mourdock sticking up for the humanity of a baby conceived in rape.
Crowley couldn't ask about Libya damage for Democrats, but she pounded Priebus about damage to those anti-woman Republicans: "Does it hurt the party image to have these issues out there in a way that makes the party or that is portrayed as making the party look unbending and, you know, anti-woman, as is described in the Obama ad?"
Notice how the media bashing of Mourdock and Todd Akin so perfectly matches the messaging of Obama's advertising?
Priebus stated the obvious -- no party has a monopoly on gaffes -- but the network news squashers specialize in ignoring the obvious. Obama and Biden can say the most foolish or obnoxious things, and the networks skip them. None of them, even Crowley, found it "anti-woman" when Arizona's Democratic Senate candidate Richard Carmona joked during a debate that his male moderator was "prettier" than Crowley.
Shameless Crowley just moved on to another alleged Republican "outrage." John Sununu implied that Colin Powell endorsed Obama in demonstration of racial solidarity.
On "Fox News Sunday," Brit Hume denounced the Libya squashers. "One of the problems we're having here is that it has fallen to this news organization, Fox News, and a couple of others to do all the heavy lifting on this story. The mainstream organs of the media that would be after this like a pack of hounds if this were a Republican president have been remarkably reticent."
In squashing Obama's failures for partisan reasons, these journalists share in the disgrace that Obama earned by coming clean instead of covering up. They share the cover-up. If their man is defeated as a result of his horrific record, these media guardians should share in that defeat as well.
If the lame-stream media did fair reporting, Romney would be ahead by 10 points. But that will never happen. Never. We have to accept that these partisan hacks will always report the way they do, and republicans/conservatives must factor that into their interview strategy when they appear on Meet the (left) Press and Slay the Nation.
I personally thought that even though Stephanoupolus and Shieffer quickly tried to move on to other topics, both Gingrich and McCain got their talking points out about Libya with devastating effect.
Once this election is over we need to double down on exposing the media and who is behind them. It was sickening how these same people hammered Pres. Bush 24/7. I’m sure they will do the same to Romney.
What gives me new hope is the ubiquitous Internet and the decline of both broadcast media and print media. Sites such as this and other that aggregate actual news independently will have an impact.
Why do strong experienced business people like Carly Fiorina let themselves be bullied and cut off by the likes of little Davie Gregory?
Surely there are courses in business communications that teach how to assert control over a dialogue and not lose it to a boor.
Quash vs. squash
As a verb, squash means to beat, squeeze, press, or crush something into a flattened mass. As a noun, it denotes the family of tendril-bearing plants with leathery rinds and edible fruit, and squash is also racket game played in a closed-walled court with a rubber ball. Quash means (1) to set aside or annul by judicial action, and (2) to suppress forcibly and completely. When squash is used figuratively, its meaning can come very close to the second sense of quash.
Like I’ve said, it’s not the lies they tell, it’s the truth they hide.
Shouldn’t that be ‘quashing’ not ‘squashing’?
Bookmark for later response.
You're right. And I've been thinking of that a lot of late.
If you dig out an old video of a Kennedy Press Conference(1) it was like one huge Love Fest. The 'journalists' would fawn all over him. Laughing, joking, asking really tough questions, like about Jackie's newest dress.
Utterly sickening and a sign of things to come, like Billy-Jeff's underwear -- Boxers, or Briefs Mr President. (gag).
(1) They'll pop up on the History Channel, 'H2', every now and then. And the Nat Geo Channel too.
“...since the fictitious Camelot Days of Kennedy.”
Ben Bradlee (then Washington Bureau chief for Newsweek) & JFK went to a pornographic movie while waiting for the results of the W Virginia primary. Can you imagine what would have happened if the voting public in 1960 knew that “King Arthur” went to porn flicks? Of course, his secret was safe until years after JFK’s death....
— “A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures” - buy it used, if you wish, so BB won’t get any royalties.
quash vs. squash
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Did I remember to thank you?
(and we haven’t even got to quell, squelch, stanch or quench!)
Exposing them? How about impoverishing them? Everything they have came from these crimes against fairness they commits every day. Strip them. I want to see David Gregory on a street corner, rattling a tin cup.
Let the Democrat Party take up a collection for them.
I'll take that as a misstatement for "instead of coming clean".
But Obama couldn't come clean -- because his intentions were even worse. If the new-media outriders are right, and this was a Muslim Brotherhood play to "exchange" the ambassador and his staff for the Blind Sheikh, then Obama was engaged in actual treason.
There’s nothing I’d like better. They are traitors and/or enemies of this country.
There’s nothing I’d like better. They are traitors and/or enemies of this country.
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