Monday, October 01, 2012
Chuck Todd shares some very good news on MTP. But then things turn ugly.
Okay so the fact that the map shows the President so far ahead in these swing states is good news indeed, and reflects what we have been hearing from numerous polls as well.
That part of the show made me very happy. THAT part did.
However later in the program is where David Gregory seriously dropped the ball and earned my extreme dislike, and made me yell swear words at my poor TV.
Here is the exchange with Ralph Reed (Founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and the same scumbag who was implicated in the Jack Abramoff Indian gambling scandals) that irritated the crap out of me:
GREGORY: One of the things, Ralph, if I can interrupt. This is something that-- that Romney says he wants to do in the debates. He had a-- a conversation with Good Morning America about that. Let me play just a portion and have you respond to it in particular.
(Videotape; Good Morning America; September 14, 2012) MR. ROMNEY: I think he’s going to say a lot of things that aren’t accurate. But I think that the challenge that I’ll have in the debate is that the President tends to, how shall I say it, say things that aren’t true. And-- and-- an in attacking his opponents. (End videotape)
GREGORY: Give me an example of what he would want to attack, what the president has done, and-- and how you think Romney will handle it.
MR. REED: Well, I think President Obama has, and I-- I want to be charitable here, has a-- a casual relationship with the truth. He’s very eloquent. He’s extremely articulate. He is very bright. Anybody who thinks otherwise, who thinks that when you untether him from the teleprompter that he didn’t bring his A-game is underestimating him. But here is the problem. His words are very eloquent, very flowery, very-- tickle your ears. But none of it is true. He said that unemployment would never go above 8 percent if we passed his stimulus plan. It’s never gone below 8 percent. He said that he would cut the deficit in half in his first term. He’s-- he’s doubled it, and he’s increased the national debt by 50 percent. He said he would change Washington and put an end to the partisan rancor. Washington is more polarized and more paralyzed than it’s been in the modern era. The Senate which his party controls has not passed a budget in three years. And we’re 92 days from a fiscal cliff which the CBO says is going to plummet us into a double digit dip recession.
GREGORY: Those might be broken promises. I think people would challenge you on the idea that those…
FMR. GOV. RENDELL: Right.
GREGORY: …those things are-- are lies. There’s some casual relation between-- let me get-- I want to get a break in here because we’re going to come back and talk more about these debates and get some of your questions, suggested questions for the debate. We’re also going to talk about the foreign policy debate that’s going on in this campaign. Richard Engel, our chief foreign correspondent will join us from Afghanistan this morning. More from our roundtable as we continue right after this.
After the break they never got back to this, these allegations that the President is a liar. And except for Gregory's tepid response that those were not lies but rather promises he did not or, more accurately, could not keep, these allegations were left unaddressed.
So those words of Ralph Reed's just hung there in space for every casual viewer to accept as truthful when in fact they are complete and utter bullshit!
The President does NOT lie, that is the habit of a certain Mitt Romney! And he would gladly have kept EVERY ONE of those promises but the Republicans have been fighting him from day one, just so that they could make THESE very claims when the election cycle rolled around again.
And all Gregory did was allow those charges to be made unchallenged, which makes him no longer a journalist but a tool for the Republican party. So Fuck him!
Sorry for the rant, but this literally bothered me ALL day yesterday, and I had to get it off my chest.
Thanks for listening.
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I saw this yesterday and was mad all day. THEN Gregory shows up on TODAY this AM as a host. Go away, David. You are not a journalist, but a tool of the GOP. Anyone that has Reed on their show has just shown their credibility to be zero, and then not to challenge him? These people cannot name one lie from Obama, but they minions are so eager to find fault that they buy the "he never tells the truth" crap every time theu hear it. I hope he wipes the floor with Mitt on Wednesday. No mercy. It is time to play hard ball with these creeps.
ReplyDeleteOver the weekend I parked behind a car with a bumper sticker decrying the "liberal media." It made me laugh; here's someone who must watch nothing but FOX and they're distressed about the "liberal media."
ReplyDeleteEven the Google headlines which we get (yuck) are so pro-Romney I feel like throwing something at the computer screen. (Of course I won't because I do not want to become like she-who-cannot-be-named.) Just now there was a not too flattering photo of President Obama and the headline that Romney accuses Obama of leading the country to "atrophy." This must be one of his zingers for the debate. Usually there is a sanctimonious photo of Romney and some inane statement from him or about him. I just can't stand the media (any of it/all of it) anymore. That's why I come here for my news!
Beaglemom
I wish I could find some of that liberal media, especially on radio where in my area I have the choice of Rush, our republican ex-con governor, some second rate republican shills, and Mike Huckabee. It's only by paying extra for MSNBC that we get any of that left leaning media.
DeleteMSNBC was bought by Comcast which is probably why KO isn't there anymore.
DeleteI lol when I hear about the "liberal media bias" when all the RWNJ companies own EVERYTHING except NPR and NPR is so fearful that Congress will cut them/gut them they can hardly report the news.
Our media has come to a sad state of affairs and its b/c of CONSERVATIVE RW MONEY!
VOTE the Congress GOP out!
Vote the GOP out everywhere.
Lets show them a "liberal media bias"!
"The Senate which his party controls..."
ReplyDelete-----------------------------
This right here is BS. Thanks to the republicans demanding 60 votes to pass anything, we were treated to the spectacle of the Senate being unable to vote on the veterans jobs bill.
Why? Because the vote to bring it to the floor to vote on passage lost.
Votes to bring it to the floor = 58
Votes against bringing it to the floor = 40
So it "lost" even though the majority voted 58-40 to bring it to a vote, because we didn't have 60 votes.
So, Ralph Reed and others of your ilk, spare me the crap about how the Senate is controlled by Democrats.
Exactly. Every time I hear a GOPers say that Dems had 'total control' Obama's first two years, I want to say, "No, unless we have 350 reps and 62 Senators who will vote with us, we do not, and have never had, control. But it makes their "Obama is a failure" meme sit better with their moronic base.
DeleteThanks for all you do, Gryphen, I know we just have to keep fighting these shitasses (what my dad called the radio preachers… and a lot of other people… he wasn’t fooled).
ReplyDeleteRalph Reed gave the religious nutcases a home in government.
I like Jimmy Carter as an old man, but he made being “born again” acceptable. In my experience, born again people are those who throw up their hands, finding the world too difficult, and becoming easy targets for the preaching predators. When Jesus said “born again of water and the spirit,” I think he was referencing reincarnation. Just my thoughts.
Doesn't ANYONE have anything good to say about Gregory? I wonder why? No, I don't. I know why.
ReplyDeleteHe's make a great stand in for a "Planet of the Apes" movie, with no need for special effects.
DeleteThat's the ONLY good thing I can think of.
WTF, Meet the Press?
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/8pn6kf4
David Gregory Misquotes President, Acts as Romney Surrogate
http://tinyurl.com/8oesst2
To add to the anger- Gregory also said that the president claimed in May that Al Quaeda had been defeated. President Obama never said that! No one challenged Gregory's misquote. Think Progress has the actual quote. Gregory's got to go!
ReplyDeleteWhenever I hear "Dick Gregory" I think back to him dancing on the stage with Karl Rove. Remember that?
ReplyDelete...that alone should disqualify Gregory from the title "journalist".
Karl Rove funny rapping and dancing and David Gregory
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAA79s0TLaI
That was the last time either one had a hard on.
DeleteMeet the Press Loses Credibility by Letting David Gregory Misquote Obama
ReplyDelete...Meet the Press should correct David Gregory on the record next Sunday. Otherwise, they risk their credibility, which is already skating on thin ice with Gregory having headlined for a major Republican advocacy group. NBC said Gregory wasn’t paid, but they failed to address the matter of his travel, accommodation, meals, swag, etc.
Undisclosed advocacy on any level does not impart trust, and David Gregory knows this. David Gregory is hardly alone in advancing an unchecked argument that is a copy of Paul Ryan’s, but he misquoted the President to achieve it today.
Perhaps it’s time for Meet the Press to disclose Gregory’s bias on each show, if they’re not going to insist on accuracy.
http://www.politicususa.com/meet-press-destroys-credibility-letting-david-gregory-misquote-obama.html
I was actually watching that while I was browsing the web, and my hubby was rolling eyes at what he heard. It was completely bull, it demonstrated this Reed guy like the kind that would sell their soul to WIN. I think to WIN these "Flounder and Thief" Coalition guys, who think they stand on christian principles, are practicing the 'means to gain an end' any way, any how.
ReplyDelete"Tickle their ears" is from one of the epistles in NT, where the writers, apostles, warn christians to watch out for those exploiters who preached things off the narrow road, and who tickled men's ears to get them to follow them.
And as far as David Gregory, I hold my breath when he speaks because I know he's either not going to defend good men, or patronize slime. I don't trust his judgment.
David Gregory misquotes Obama, saying that Obama declared victory defeating al Qaeda, trying to make Obama out to be the liar that Romney is now saying he is.
ReplyDeleteHe set this up for Reed to openly accuse Obama of telling lies.
Only Obama NEVER said that at all, this is what he actually said:
“The goal that I set — to defeat al Qaeda and deny it a chance to rebuild — is now within our reach.”
Gregory has been Twitter bombed ...@davidgregory ......with this and refuses to acknowledge or retract his OWN deliberate lie.
We should keep pointing this out to him via Twitter, MSNBC, FB, etc until he comes clean and apologizes.
Gregory is a GOP shill, giving speechs at their events etc., for which he has been hugely criticized...his excuse was like a line out of the Romney playbook, that he wasn't paid for it ..so therefore he didn't ~really~ break any rules.
This time he's gone too far....deliberately misquoting, lying himself, and then refusing to correct it.
A REAL journalist would ask for an example of how the President has a casual relationship with the truth.
ReplyDeleteOnce he's examined all aspects of that,
then move on to what of "none of it is true" can Mr. Reed defend?
And compare, Gregory, because you have to hold up the other end.
Romney and Reed have called our President a liar.
Let them, in detail, say what they mean, or you, Gregory have no business at that desk.
Real journalists like Tim Russert would have eviscerated those claims as fact. Instead we have these guys that can moderate but not defend or shore up their guests statements. Like that hapless dude that let U.S. Senate candidate Congressman Akin say a woman's body could 'shut that whole thing down' if she were raped - to prevent a pregnancy.
ReplyDeleteCharles Jaco ended up apologizing to viewers for not following up on Akin's ludicrous and insulting claims.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/akin-legitimate-rape-interview.php
Ron Allen posed a very good question to Newt Gingrich at the RNC when an unknown Sarah Palin was rolled out as a VP candidate in 2008, and Gingrich humiliated him. It sounded good, it sounded competent, but a good journalist would have stood his ground and asserted that the candidate still needed to be vetted and not just touted by an establishment PR machinery.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKQw8EjMh_U
Gryphen, you have seriously got to stop watching MTP!! David Gregory is a HORRID replacement for the much-loved Tim Russert. I stopped watching MTP only a few weeks after Gregory took over the show. Why don't you try the excellent "Up with Chris Hayes" on MSNBC from 8 am to 10 am (ET)? I just love that show.
ReplyDeleteExactly what the above person said! Up With Chris Hayes just had their one year on the air anniversary. Every Saturday & Sunday morning "Up" trends at first or second place on Twitter. Guests are clammering to be on the "Up" panel. Meet The Press is dying a slow, painful to watch death.
DeleteI love Chris Hayes! He's great on UP, and I love when he's a guest on other shows like Rachel's or Alex Wagner.
DeleteDavid Gregory Misquotes President Obama
ReplyDeleteGREGORY: The president has said as recently as May of this year that al Qaeda has not had a chance to rebuild, that al Qaeda has been defeated. There is an election on, as we've been talking about, and the president's challenger said plain and simple, the president failed to level with the American people and call this a terrorist attack, because you had to be concerned about another terrorist attack from al Qaeda in the Middle East after the president said that al Qaeda had been defeated.
Every part of this question, from its faulty premise to its phony conclusion, is arrant bullshit. The president never has said that al Qaeda "has not had a chance to rebuild" or that it has been "defeated." (You will also note that Gregory uses the "challenger said" technique to catapult Willard Romney's desperate hogwash into respectability. This, too, was a Russert specialty, as Dick Cheney's old flack once said under oath in a court of law.) In May — and I looked it up because I thought, damn, this president never has said anything that stupid in his life, that's Congressman Peter King Caliber stupid right there — this is what the president said, in a speech from Afghanistan:
'Despite initial success, for a number of reasons, this war has taken longer than most anticipated. In 2002, bin Laden and his lieutenants escaped across the border and established safe haven in Pakistan. America spent nearly eight years fighting a different war in Iraq. And al Qaeda's extremist allies within the Taliban have waged a brutal insurgency. But over the last three years, the tide has turned. We broke the Taliban's momentum. We've built strong Afghan security forces. We devastated al Qaeda's leadership, taking out over 20 of their top 30 leaders. And one year ago, from a base here in Afghanistan, our troops launched the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. The goal that I set -- to defeat al Qaeda and deny it a chance to rebuild -- is now within our reach. Still, there will be difficult days ahead. The enormous sacrifices of our men and women are not over. But tonight, I'd like to tell you how we will complete our mission and end the war in Afghanistan.'
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/david-gregory-misquotes-obama-13267220
IMHO David Gregory is the worst- a wolf in sheep's clothing. I don't know what his agenda is but his demeanor and reporting always depresses me. He never deserved to succeed the great Tim Russert. On Luke Russert's very first broadcast, he was already more competent than Gregory- and he was just a kid!
ReplyDeleteI personally don't think Gregory is a GOP shill, but I do think that he's very sensitive to possibly being criticized as a "homer" for the Democrats. IMO, I think it's more of his being a chicken-shit than actually pushing for the GOP to gain ground.
ReplyDeleteIt's the "false equivalence" argument- a goal or objective (campaign promises) not being fully realized because of factors outside the President's control VS. the GOP's candidate making and supporting outright lies, statements taken out of context, deliberate misinformation, etc.
Plus, remembering that the media is corporate-owned means that a "good, close, election" is a huge boost to ratings and revenue. It's obvious obvious the suits at the major networks want a closer race because a closer race means more ads are purchased so advertising revenue is greater, plus more interest in the election yields higher ratings for debates,evening news, Sunday shows, etc. Higher ratings for the 4th quarter of 2012 allow for higher rates on the card for advertisers in Q1-2013, which will give the networks a good bump towards their 2013 profit objectives.
As far as the damage from Gregory's not pinning Ralph Reed down, the audience for MTP is fairly wonky and know who Ralph Reed is and what his history is. He is noted for being a GOP butt-sniffing shill, and is seen as one of the worst in terms of integrity in the political process as far as exploiting social/religious/corporate interests.
Bottom line: People in the middle know why he's appearing on there in the first place, who he's shilling for, and why they will let him provide some "tells" about what Romney's tactical strategy might consist of on Wednesday night.
FYI, on the Right-wing, they're paranoid that the LSM, including Gregory, are being allowed to set the bar too high to be a fair assessment of Romney's performance in the 1st debate. In other words, the wingers think the press is allowing Romney's folks to talk smack so they can say that Romney has to hit a home run, just to stay in the game.
The debate will be entertaining, and there will be differences in how it is scored afterwards. I have a lot of confidence that the President will deliver when it's crunch-time. But if the worst thing happens and he is flat and Romney does better than he ever has before, the game isn't over. If Barack Obama shoots a three at the buzzer and misses, that doesn't mean we lose the game, especially if we're already ahead by 6 points. It just means that we win by 6 and not by 9.
Honestly, I think those numbers are pretty close to my personal estimates. I think if Romney goes for broke and plays crazy down the stretch, Obama could actually win by 9 or double digits in some of the battleground states.
Gryphen, as any successful GOP consultant or senior campaign operative will tell you, there are two simple rules to beating the Democrats in elections:
ReplyDeleteRule #1) ALWAYS, always, always accuse your opponent of doing now whatever nefarious deeds you plan to commit in the near future. That way, low-info voters can - when the Repugs do commit the act - shake their heads and sadly conclude, "Oh, they ALL do it... But at least our guys are white!"
Rule #2) If polls suggest that you're not winning, see Rule #1.
It's like what's-his-name so cheerfully told the attendees at the Republican Convention, "Hey, fuckwads, wake up and smell the overpowering stench of stale bourbon, cheap hooker perfume and metastasized cynical delusion!!! Do you think ANYONE would vote for us if we told the truth?"
And that is why I have endorsed Mittens/Lyin' Ryan for president and vice in 2012.
Someone left this link over the weekend and since I was out of pocket most of the time, I'm not aware how many of you saw it of went to the link. But I did the survey myself, and it actually gave me a lot of insight on the other groups/subsets of voters and what their overlaps are in terms of interests, ideologies, etc. along with demographics and the relative sizes of these voting blocs.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of tabs to drill down into the data based on research by Pew Research Center. I think all of us understand our own segment and maybe one or two others just as well, but it helped me to see more fault lines within the groups of conservatives, liberals, non-affiliated, libertarian, post-modern, etc. It also helped me to quantify the size of these groups and to understand the exact reasons that Romney's fishing strategy for independent votes has caused him to lose ground instead of picking up votes.
Anyway, it took about 20 minutes last night to click all of the way through everything on that page and it's internal links to more detailed info.
Big thanks to whoever left it! By the way, I fell into "post-modern", a term for which I was vaguely familiar with as it relates to art and philosophy, but hadn't a clue where it was on the political ideology scale. Now I understand why.
http://www.people-press.org/typology/quiz/?result
Grrr. The media should shun Ralph Reed unless it's to expose his lies.
ReplyDeleteI don't think IM covered his abominable 'Voters Guide' that will be widely distributed.
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/27/three_shameless_lies_in_the_religious_right_voter_guide/
A must see: Bill Moyers' comprehensive look at the abomination that is Ralph Reed (and also his college friends Grover Norquist and Jack Abramoff).
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-the-resurrection-of-ralph-reed/
Coincidentally, I came across this link last night and spent several hours reading Mitt's 533 lies. Granted, there are probably only about 350 distinct lies. But many have been repeated so often, even after being debunked repeatedly, they're worth the multiple mentions.
ReplyDeleteAll of Reed's statements up to "He said he would change Washington and put an end to the partisan rancor." are included in this list. As far as I know, even Romney hasn't blamed the republican's obstructionism on President Obama. That would take some brass, considering Ryan was one of the 15 traitors who vowed to march in lockstep against Obama on inauguration day.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/08/29/mitt-romney-tells-533-lies-in-30-weeks-steve-benen-documents-them/
He said he would halve the deficit, he's doubled it. He said he would halve the deficit, he's doubled it.
ReplyDeleteI hope people are contacting Gregory and those above him to say what a horrid interviewer he is! I'd so love to see Rachel Maddow in his place.
ReplyDeleteThe media is 'making' the mess of this election there is no doubt.
Dumbing down society - dumbing down the expectations of the Presidential Debate makes me sick to my stomach.
Romney has proven he is not a very smart character and we have a great record to review on President Obama's and VP Joe Biden's past four years.
Get to the polls folks and vote, vote, vote!!!
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012
Don't let it get your blood pressure up G. David Gregory is horrible and the ratings for Meet the Press have been going down ever since he took over. After Tim Russert died, I thought Chuck Todd would make the best replacement, but obviously NBC didn't call and ask my opinion, so we have Gregory.
ReplyDeleteGregory never asks a followup question and doesn't challenge anyone's answers. Chris Wallace did a much better job interviewing Ryan on FOX News Sunday yesterday. And when I think Chris Wallace is better, that means Gregory really sucks.
I moved two months ago and just registered to vote in my new town today. I will be requesting an early ballot (not in yet I was told). I am voting early just in case I drop dead before election day (you never can tell when you hit 57 years old - many of my friends have already passed).
Tim Russert must be spinning in his grave. He worked so hard to make MTP a great show, and this idiot takes over and makes it garbage.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad to see I wasn't alone, I was seething when he lied about Obama and when he let Reed's comments go unchallenged.
Liberal bias, my ass.
ReplyDelete