It's stupid! I would be so pissed if I was one of the actual anchors over there with this guy (the boss) simply deciding to put himself on primetime for an hour. MSNBC...holy crap it's bad.
...don't they mean the "Snack Cam"?
Posted on 07/15/2002 1:06:58 PM PDT by Conservative Chicagoan
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Here They Come: Chung, Nachman, Donahue, Buchanan
Christopher Ruddy
Monday, July 15, 2002
Break out the popcorn and beer. Watching the TV cable news wars can be fun.
MSNBC has been running promos for Phil Donahue's comeback this week.
"Hey, I'm back," Donahue says with a certain demented look – you wouldn't want this guy anywhere near the knives in your kitchen.
Another promo has Donahue talking about the importance of free speech.
Free speech for Donahue, that is. As those who remember his old syndicated talk program know, free speech meant Donahue speech.
It was bad enough that Donahue invented toilet-Springer TV, with his "lesbian nuns who like to roller skate" programs.
Donahue's idea of free speech on such programs usually meant three liberals with one, inarticulate conservative trying to explain why the Catholic Church might not see roller-skating lesbian nuns as a good thing.
Who cares about free speech when you are as left-wing as Phil? Phil Donahue is so far left he makes Alan Colmes look like a rational moderate.
Yet the Donahue dinosaur was resurrected as a result of the success of Fox News Channel.
Since January of this year, Fox has trampled titan CNN and new fish MSNBC in ratings.
Neither has figured out a clear strategy to beat Fox, which appeals to Republican-leaning viewers in America's heartland.
Certainly the success of Fox News has added more diversity and fresh debate to MSNBC and CNN.
MSNBC this week will be launching Jerry Nachman's new program. Jerry is a solid citizen and his program should be a success. He likes to break taboos.
He did that this weekend with a test run of his program. He had his friend, a New York priest, on the show. Jerry had the priest bless his program and set. Pretty amazing stuff for network TV circa 2002.
MSNBC is bringing Bill Press and Pat Buchanan back on the air this week. The program should be superb, if for no other reason than Buchanan's voice should be part of the national debate.
And CNN has dramatically improved its standing with the likes of Paula Zahn and Connie Chung. Neither is conservative, but both have a reputation for being fair.
Chung sometimes rankles conservatives – and that can be a good thing. She often asks hard questions that also annoy liberals, which is why I like her. She is one of the few "journalists" actually populating the news programs on the cable shows.
But CNN, which has tried to enhance its credibility by bringing in respected journalists like Brown, Zahn and Chung, also has taken steps that completely undermine its standing.
For example, the network has James Carville and Paul Begala on its premier debate program, "Crossfire." Both men are nothing more than political hatchet men. No journalism background. No pretense of fairness.
Somehow it's OK for major news networks to hire former Democratic operatives and make them "journalists." ABC News recently made George Stephanopoulos, Bill Clinton's one-time mouthpiece, its top man on "This Week."
But imagine the cries of derision and hysterics from the liberal media if a Republican, such as Karl Rove, was given the anchor of a major news program.
So, Fox has improved the standing of conservative-leaning folks in the media and forced the media cartel to open up a bit. Still, the left dominates and continues to write the rules.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Media Bias
A product that might interest you:
Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News
That's the whole point. When the target is eliminated, government has to stand down as it can no longer justify the wartime budget. To avoid this eventuality, government conjures up an omnipresent, ambiguously defined, ever-changing enemy in order to justify continuous, increasing budgets and regulations. To define the enemy in tangible terms would, from government's perspective, be counterproductive to its real mission: perpetuating and expanding its power.
What views?
It's stupid! I would be so pissed if I was one of the actual anchors over there with this guy (the boss) simply deciding to put himself on primetime for an hour. MSNBC...holy crap it's bad.
...don't they mean the "Snack Cam"?
"Jerry Nachman may effect "calm" better than any newsman alive. He is sitting in his new, mostly unfurnished office in MSNBC's squat gray headquarters in Secaucus, N.J., and the only obstacle between him and nirvana is a cookie. He must have a cookie! Cookie delivered, the mood brightens and a champion talker unspools his thoughts...Donahue has gotten all the press, but Nachman - waving the chocolate chip cookie about - gives the impression of someone who will shortly correct that egregious oversight."
Is this a joke? Nachman would need viewers (stupid ones at that) before he could change anything. I would advise Nachman to jump ship before the SS MSNBC goes totally under...if I thought nachman could swim... 
So "terrorism" is an "abstract noun" (whatever that is), but "Germany" and "Japan" (names we give to not-precisely-defined groups of people and/or the geographic locales they inhabit, not always even making a clear distinction between the two....) are not?
Can't I use your argument to poo-poo the idea of a war against a "nation", as well? "Pshaw! How can one fight a war against a 'nation'? It's so abstract! So open-ended! Why, the very idea of fighting a war against 'Germany' or 'Japan'! It's preposterous!"
Let's speak realistically for a moment. The war is against radical Islamists. That's who is trying to kill us or convert us, and so that's who the war is against. In order to conform to current sensibilities, we can't refer to the war in these terms, so we call it (some do, anyway - personally I don't care what we *call* the war) a "war on terror". This is understood by most people. However, there are some (like yourself) who like to focus on what we call the war, as if that is paramount, as opposed to what we are trying to do in this war.
No, you can't fight wars against "abstract nouns", you are right. You can't fight wars against "terrorism" and for that matter you can't even fight a war against "Germany". Wars are fought against people: i.e. Nazis. Or, Islamo-fascists. Get it now?
If, on the other hand, the enemy is defined in abstract terms such that he could be anyone and everywhere, then the billions in spending and expansion of federal power can be sold to the voters as necessary and proper.
The War on Terror and, more specifically, the Department of Homeland Security, will move very quickly beyond Islamic militants to the mission originally intended by the Clinton/Gore administration (which actually drafted the plans now being implemented by the Bush administration): the apprehension of domestic anti-government activists.
No argument there (I said as much). Its name (or rather, the name everyone seems to be calling it - do wars have "official names"?) is precisely what makes it more palatable to the average Joe Americans, and that's why it was chosen, rather than, say, "War Of Holy Vengeance to Exterminate Islam".
The War on Terror and, more specifically, the Department of Homeland Security, will move very quickly beyond Islamic militants to the mission originally intended by the Clinton/Gore administration (which actually drafted the plans now being implemented by the Bush administration): the apprehension of domestic anti-government activists.
We'll see. If that happens, it will be wrong, of course. I'm not crazy about the "Department of Homeland Security" in the first place, and never said I was - but of course you've changed the subject anyway (from your original comment claiming you can't fight wars against abstract nouns....).
Best,
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