Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Send Them All To Jesus Camp



Right-wing, rightist

A general descriptive term for any of several otherwise rather different, conservative, reactionary or fascist political ideologies, the common denominator of which is their qualified or enthusiastic support for the main features of the current social and economic order, accepting all (or nearly all) of its inequalities of wealth, status and privilege (or even in some cases support for a return to an earlier, even more inegalitarian and hierarchical political-economic order). Right wing ideologies tend to emphasize the values of order, patriotism, social cohesion, and a personal sense of duty that makes the individual citizen who “knows his place” responsive to discipline from his political and social superiors. In America, the term has a somewhat more derogatory flavor than in Europe.

Debate moderators

The right wing is in a frenzy about the fact that Gwen Ifill is working on a book about "emerging young African American politicians," which supposedly means she cannot be neutral during the VP debate she is moderating tomorrow night. Since the right wing is in a frenzy, we can be pretty sure the establishment media is about to join in.

Two things to keep in mind:

1) The October 7 presidential debate will be moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw, who currently serves as NBC's liaison to the McCain campaign -- while spreading pro-McCain misinformation on Meet the Press. In fact, the McCain campaign hand-picked Tom Brokaw to moderate the October 7 debate:

Mr. Brokaw said he had been told by a senior McCain aide, whom he did not name, that the campaign had been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of the moderators of the three presidential debates -- until his name was invoked.


"One of the things I was told by this person was that they were so irritated, they said, 'If it's an NBC moderator, for any of these debates, we won't go,' " Mr. Brokaw said. "My name came up, and they said, 'Oh, hell, we have to do it, because it's going to be Brokaw.' "

2) CBS' Bob Schieffer moderated one of the 2004 debates, despite the fact that he is a longtime friend of George W. Bush who had previously acknowledged that his personal relationship with Bush made it difficult to cover him. Schieffer's brother was a business partner of Bush's before Bush became president -- and Bush made him an ambassador.

UPDATE: At the Huffington Post, Judd Legum notes that the Associated Press reported that Ifill was writing the book weeks before the McCain campaign agreed to her moderating the debate.

Wednesday, Oct 01

John McCain Straight-Talks Maureen Dowd Right Off the Press Plane

cuar01_proust_dowd0512.jpgIt's not like we don't have our own numerous issues with Maureen Dowd, but kicking her off the press plane? That's just not okay. But, via Politico, it looks like that's exactly what former straight-talker, press-lover, current campaign-suspender John McCain recently did.

Apparently it all started back on Aug 30 (two days after the Palin announcement was made) when, after covering a McCain-Palin rally, MoDo (whose go-go boots column didn't run until the next day) was banned(!) from the press plane. Says Dowd:


I had had a great relationship with John McCain for 16 years, through columns he liked and didn't like. So at first I thought it was a mistake and doublechecked with the press office. They said I was banned from both planes for 'the foreseeable future.' Then [McCain spokeswoman] Nicole Wallace was gloating about it to reporters on the Palin plane," Dowd wrote in an email. It was disappointing because I didn't think John McCain would ever be as dismissive of the First Amendment as Dick Cheney.

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