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Townhall...
2012: A Year of Media
Savagery
by Brent Bozell
Dec 28, 2011
For those Republican presidential candidates who eventually conclude
there is no path to the nomination, there is consolation in the notion
that they won’t be the ones to face the brutal onslaught being prepared
for the GOP king-of-the-mountain by team Obama and its army of
“objective” media allies.
This time around, the Obama machine cannot run on the fairy dust of
hope and change. It cannot suggest after four years of dreadful
executive-branch performance, that the promised one is on the horizon.
Its only path to victory is the one that finds its opponents even more
disliked. So it can be guaranteed that whoever wins the Republican
contest will face one of the most scorching personal assaults the
country has ever witnessed.
Occasionally, the old style, thrill-up-my-leg over Obama quote still
emerges. The Media Research Center’s 2011 winners of “Best of Notable
Quotables” provide examples. Stephen Marche of Esquire magazine won
over judges of the “Obamagasm Award” by energetically asking “Can we
just take a month or two to contemplate him (Obama) the way we might
contemplate a painting by Vermeer or a guitar lick by the early-’70s
Rolling Stones or a Peyton Manning pass or any other astounding,
ecstatic human achievement?” At least when people said this in 2008, it
hadn’t been completely disproved. Marche reminds us of Baghdad Bob, the
ridiculous propagandist for Saddam, proclaiming the defeat of allied
troops while they emerged around the corner.
Marche actually claimed we will look back decades from now and see “a
glorious idyll in American politics, with a confident, intelligent,
fascinating president riding the surge of his prodigious talents from
triumph to triumph.” Someone hearing Marche declare this might rush him
to an emergency room for signs of dementia.
The winner of MRCs “Media Hero Award” came forward as the congressional
career of Anthony Weiner was about to end after having demonstrated his
contempt for his wife by showing off his body parts all over Twitter
(and actually exchanging tweets with high school girls).
ABCs Barbara Walters urged Weiner not to resign, citing as her role
model the most shameless, brazen sex offender to ever darken the White
House door. “And we had a President named Bill Clinton who went through
a great deal of trouble, weathered the storm and is now not only
respected, but he’s beloved by many people with a very good marriage.
So, I think Anthony Weiner should hang in there.” Bad word choice.
ABC is chock full of nonsense like this. Diane Sawyer, their evening
news anchor, won the “Occupy My Heart and Soul Award” for lathering
praise on the anti-capitalist park squatters. “We thought we’d bring
you up to date on those protesters, the Occupy Wall Street movement,”
she panted. “As of tonight, it has spread to more than 250 American
cities, more than a thousand countries -- every continent but
Antarctica.” There are some 190 countries on Earth, but Sawyer earned
points on the left for enthusiastic baloney. Days later, Sawyer
restrained her hype to “more than a thousand cities around the world.”
Anywhere two hippies lifted a sheet of tagboard, they were counted as a
part of the burgeoning global “reform” movement.
Katie Couric finally conceded her utter failure as anchor of the “CBS
Evening News” in May, but she won the “Audacity of Dopes Award for the
Wackiest Analysis” by concluding America was so deeply bigoted and
consumed by “seething hatred” toward the world’s Muslims that we need a
sitcom to straighten ourselves out. “Maybe we need a Muslim version of
‘The Cosby Show.’ ... I know that sounds crazy. But ‘The Cosby Show’
did so much to change attitudes about African-Americans in this
country, and I think sometimes people are afraid of things they don’t
understand.”
Loathing of Obama was still classified daily as transparent racism.
Sean Penn won the “Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity
Vapidity” by reading Tea Party minds on CNN and projecting murder
fantasies: “You have what I call the ‘Get the N-word out of the White
House party,’ the Tea Party.... At the end of the day, there’s a big
bubble coming out of their heads saying, you know, ‘Can we just lynch
him?’”
The transition from Obama adoration to Republican defenestration was
exemplified by Chris Matthews on MSNBC. He earned the “Mean-Spirited,
Nutty, Blathering Chris Award” for just blurting out against Newt
Gingrich, “But he looks like a car bomber. He looks like a car bomber,
Clarence. He looks like a car bomber. He’s got that crazy
Mephistophelian grin of his. He looks like he loves torturing. Look at
the guy! I mean this is not the face of a president.”
But the real award-winning quote (for denying liberal bias) was this
delusional Matthews gem captured by Politico: “Hardball is absolutely
non-partisan.”
2012, here we go.
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