Thursday, March 27, 2008

PESKY OPEN LETTER: What the Hell's Wrong with MSNBC?



To paraphrase the late humorist Fred Allen, you could put all I know about the Economy in a flea’s navel and still have room left over for three caraway seeds and an agent’s heart.

So I was watching Senator Obama’s speech on the Economy today with a combination of bewilderment and fascination. While what I heard made sense, I suspect what will linger long after speech was the memorable catch phrase he uttered about Sen. McCain, who he said was running for George Bush’s third term as President. As the economic mess and Mesopotamia mess vie to see who’s going to Hell faster, Obama’s effort to associate Granpa with the people responsible for both disasters makes sense.

Before his speech had even ended, McCain had issued a statement accusing Obama of the crime of Liberalism, and MSNBC, which was carrying the speech live, cut away. Why? To get back to what they do best—turn presidential politics into a Hybrid circus--half Dancing with the Stars, half Maury! (Seems they had some more dirt on Reverend Wright that just could not wait.)

What in the high holy Hell is wrong with you MSNBC? Aside from your one bright shining star—Keith Olbermann—the rest of your programming is bad and getting worse.

Dumping the Tuckster was a good idea, but replacing him with Journalist turned Karl Rove Backup dancer David Gregory? I don’t watch the new show much because every time I tune in I see tiny boxes filled with talking heads, one of whom is always Pat Buchanon. And Pat Buchanon makes my dog yak up her Alpo.

And the one thing the 24/7s don’t need are more hours devoted just to politics. (And almost exclusively presidential politics, at that. Had MSNBC dumped out of Obama for updates on the latest post Surge resurgence of violence in Iraq, I could understand. But MSNBC is so far behind the power curve in Iraq, I had to tune over to Fox NewsFOX!—to get a live update from that beleaguered nation. They had some Scotsman named MacDonald reporting live. Yes, American TV is now outsourcing it’s war coverage.

Meanwhile, two Americans have been killed by recent shelling in Baghdad’s Green Zone. (as of 3 PM PDT) The U.S. Military blames Iranian-backed Shiite Militiamen. George Bush blames Congress. John McCain blames Mongol Insurgents, trained by al Qaeda in Philadelphia. The Mainstream media has bought the Administration line of hooey that the Surge has worked so it may take them a while to realize it hasn’t.

2 comments:

John Corcoran said...

I think McCain is part-pirate, based off that picture. Somewhere in the ether of the internet there should be a picture of him in a dress. I think he did drag when he hosted SNL after he lost to Bush in 2000.

Anonymous said...

The problem is MSNBC is owned by General Electric; one of the bigger war profiteers in the "war on terrorism."

Keith Olbermann or not, I turned off MSNBC when they shut Dennis Kucinich out of the Nevada primary debates.

FYI - Nevada is the site of Yucca Mountain, a storage facility for spent nuclear waste. And, General Electic makes nuclear reactors. Congressman Kucinich was the only candidate calling for a carbon-free and nuclear-free energy policy.