Wolf Blitzer doth protest too much. The guy is absolutely salivating over the nasty Congressional race between Deadbeat Dad Joe Walsh and disabled Iraq war vet Tammy Duckworth. Yet he pretends to eschew the nastiness. He wants the duo on his show to have a debate on the "substantive" issues.
"No name calling! No nasty words!" he huffily warns the victim of Joe Walsh's nastiness, then proceeds to litanize every last blasted quote from the politicians, instead of giving us a clue about the so-called important stuff. Although Walsh is widely viewed as the crazoid instigator, having complained that Duckworth flunks his heroism test by spending too much time talking about herself and other wounded warriors, Blitzer felt it vital to have Duckworth on his show yesterday for a good old-fashioned dose of his stentorious false equivalency. She'd had the chutzpah to correctly call Walsh a belligerent extremist, and Wolf was not about to let such language, especially from the mouth of a woman, pass.
"Do you have a problem?" he asks her at one point during the interview. "Is it appropriate to use that kind of language to a sitting Congressman?" (Duckworth had also quoted Walsh as proudly referring to himself as the poster child for the Tea Party.)
Watch the clip here. It is blessedly short, to jibe with Wolf's attention span.
Wolf Blitzer obviously fancies himself the Cotton Mather of cable news. He's the lord of discipline who made Hilary Rosen apologize (over and over and over again) on the air to Ann Romney for remarking how Mrs. Mitt had never worked a day in her life. But thankfully, Tammy Duckworth did not falter under the scheisse-blitz.
What I would really like to see is Wolf hosting a substantive name-calling debate between New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and the true American hero who accosted him on the boardwalk the other night, demanding that he show a little respect to the teachers. The more airtime Chris Christie can get, the more the mythical low-info American voter will sit up and take notice of politics, the higher the ratings and revenue of cable snooze shows.
Christie, who truly deserves to be picked as Mitt Romney's running mate, has been looking more than usual like a cardiovascular accident waiting to happen. Watch the Jersey Shore gubernatorial episode here. It, too, is blessedly short. Just like Christie's temper.
Want more? Do you crave some irony to go along with the substance and the nastiness? Well, how about a congress critter named Phil Gingrey complaining that President Obama shows too much gum when he smiles? Gingrey, who along with his gum-flapping compadre Newt Gingrich hails from Georgia, told CNN (surprise!) that Barry is all style and no substance because he smiles and swaggers a lot.
As an M.D. specializing in Ob/Gyn, Gingrey should probably stay away from periodontic diagnoses, despite having a name reminiscent of a gum disease. To his credit, though, he admitted to Stephen Colbert that he is low-hanging fruit. Ain't that just peachy.
Typical mafioso.
ReplyDeleteYou're so right to call out Wolf for his supposed seriousness and tut tutting. Of course he wants nothing more than a good fight. That's what you want when you're an incredibly lazy reporter. Or whatever he is.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of Wolfie, the first thing that comes to mind is this SNL skit:
ReplyDeletehttp://chickaboomer.blogspot.com/2010/03/wolf-blitzer-such-exciting-man-for-such.html
A very close second is his pathetic performance on Celebrity Jeopardy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1fDYYplGpw
What a poor excuse for a journalist.
Wolf?
ReplyDeleteha
He's just a mangy coyote.
Love ya!
S
Our bread and circuses. Our lamer version of Punch and Judy. Conflict sells. Blitzer wants a fight because people will watch. It's the same old shit. Only the flies are different.
ReplyDeleteCNN reminds me of GlobeLink News.
The British comedy series Drop the Dead Donkey was about the on-going conflict at GlobeLink News between those trying to maintain the company as a serious news organization and those trying to make it more sensationalist.
Damien Day was GlobeLink’s star reporter. His goal was always to make his stories as sensational as possible, even where doing so requires the use of exaggeration or misrepresentation, as in:
“Drop the dead donkey - Firing Squad” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpBoAg_7L04&feature=related,
“Drop the Dead Donkey-Damien In The Field” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hL_DyvEV84
@Suzan--
ReplyDeleteI live within howling distance of coyotes--I can often hear them from my back porch on fall and summer evenings--and I have an enormous respect for this wily and adaptable animal.
Did you know that the coyote has thrived in North America along with human population growth?
" Despite being extensively hunted, the coyote is one of the few medium- to large-sized animals that has enlarged its range since human encroachment began. It originally ranged primarily in the western half of North America, but it has adapted readily to the changes caused by human presence and, since the early 19th century, has been steadily and dramatically extending its range. Sightings now commonly occur in a majority of the United States and Canada. Coyotes inhabit nearly every contiguous U.S. state and Alaska." --Wikipedia (Bold emphasis added.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote
And as for "mangy," well the coyotes that I see in my area look pretty sleek and well-fed, to the dismay of owners of outdoor cats and small dogs, which are easy prey for Mr. and Mrs. Coyote.
There's nothing ignoble about the coyote, and I think you owe them a blanket apology when you compare these clever animals to the distinctly unclever likes of Wolf Blitzer.
(I am, of course, joking. At least partly. )
I meant Christie is a typical mafiosa, almost a burlesque
ReplyDeleteof one. Blitzie is not even scheiss which is the waste of a vital process and therefore can be justified; poor, poor Blitzie cannot.
Life's more bearable without either Wolf or Fox.
ReplyDeleteLo, the poor coyote. Vermin they've been called. We're such a silly bunch of shits, we Homo sapiens (now that was an astonishing expression of hubris, if there ever was one). We even invented a God to give us the earth to do with what we will. Voltaire was right - about the invention part, not the existence, but I suspect he knew that. One had even to be more careful in those days. I think though that Gaia may soon have her revenge.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how these poser "journalists" manage to keep their jobs while great REAL journalists have had to turn to the blogospere for crap pay - if any pay - to get the REAL news out to the public.
ReplyDeleteI am watching the drama unfold in Australia. The corporation that owns the Sydney Morning Herald is struggling financially due to lack of readership of print media and competition from the Internet. A mining magnate has bought up 17% of the stock and demanded a seat on the board. However, she refuses to sign a "hands-off" contract where she respects the editorial independence of the staff - a tradition the board has had for years. I see the writing on the wall, a newspaper financially strapped with huge expenses might very well be ultimately forced to make a deal with the devil.
The mining industry to Australia is what the oil industry has been to the U.S. They are a huge employer and as such, have been granted special compensations - lower taxes than other corporations, lower environmental standards, allowed to buy up farmland for mining purposes and destroy water tables - the offences are endless. Now that the public has been made aware that 85% of the owners of the mining corporations in Australia are foreign owned, they are less and less tolerant of letting them get away with these offences. Gina Reinhardt, the mining magnate, thinks if she buys a big newspaper conglomerate, she can buy good press for herself and her fellow mining corporations.
So far the board of the Sydney Morning Herald has stood its ground demanding that all members, including Reinhardt, adhere to the tradition of supporting editorial independence, but I wonder how long they can last. While the public claims to want a free press, they aren't prepared to support it buy purchasing newspapers. As I watch this drama unfold, I can really see how the loss of a truly free press in the U.S. has led to the demise of our democracy. It really is the first step - controlling the flow of information -
With faux journalists like Blitzer - stenographers and provocateurs - we might as well have no press at all..
@ Zee and Mrs. Zee
ReplyDeleteBe careful out there!!
200 miles south of Albuquerque at Holloman Air Force Base, the primary training center for drone operators, the Air Force is training drone pilots to trail civilian auto (and motorcycle?) traffic on New Mexico's highways.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/magazine/the-drone-zone.html?_r=1&ref=magazine
@Denis--
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link and the (literal) "heads-up." The Alamogordo, NM area is not prime motorcycling territory--being well south of the forested Ruidoso area--but we do go down there occasionally on pistachio runs.
While I believe in a strong national defense, I personally would not care to be used as a "training exercise," nor do I know many people who would.
So I'll be keeping a weather eye out for drones and Hellfire missiles, and prepared to take evasive action.
And then, of course, we always have to be prepared for an alien encounter in that part of the country.