Of Course, The White House Denies The Rumor…
As you know, I normally don’t like to cut and paste commentary by media (“MSM”) outlets or from my fellow bloggers, preferring for the most part to simply paste a link so our readers can click on the referenced articles/columns and decipher them on their own. However, Greg Sargent from The Plum Line (H/T goes to MemeOrandum for the pull) starts this controversial topic out rather nicely:
White House Disavows Report That It Disdains Gay Critics, Bloggers As “Internet Left Fringe”
The White House is strongly denying a report making the rounds that it views gay critics and bloggers as part of an “Internet left fringe,” with a senior adviser asserting to me that this sentiment “does not reflect White House thinking at all.”
Yesterday, CNBC correspondent John Harwood set off a min-firestorm on the left after he claimed that the White House views gay and blogospheric criticism of the administration’s foot-dragging on gay rights issues as part of the “Internet left fringe.” Harwood claimed that an anonymous adviser said that “those bloggers need to take off the pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.” …
Eight More Bush Years? That's What I'm Thinking... Sadly...
Then again, we ARE talking about just another politician here, aren’t we? Remember — it’s not rare at ALL for the president to dismiss their so-called “fringe” base he pandered to once he has sat his butt down in the desk chair behind that huge desk in the Oval Office. Please recall — President Bush and his cronies REGULARLY laughed their collective “butt” off over the “evangelicals” they pandered to so hard enroute to the 2004 electoral victory. You say “Obama isn’t Bush though”? I say, they’re both NEOCONSERVATIVES and there ain’t a dime bit of difference between either war monger thus far but then again, you might disagree. Allow me to remind you, however; our current Secretary of State, Sir Hillary Rodham Clinton I, is a former Wal-Mart Director and Republican Activist, so you tell MOI (and yep — part French) it’s a ridiculous assertion. After all, why would the man surround himself with neocons like Hillary Clinton and FORMER (thank God!) Bush Secretary of Defense and CURRENT Obama Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates? You are who you hang out with, aren’t you?
Since I’ve digressed from the original point of this column, shall we allow Mr. Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish to sum it up before we all get too excited about this? Yes, we SHALL, and I’d appreciate it if you’d click on his entire post because you’ll learn he, even as a gay man, seems to be taking this “rumor” a bit less seriously than I:
… Let the anonymous leaker come out of his or her closet and tell us what he or she really meant. That should clear things up. …
Well, I’d like to keep it just that simple. Unfortunately, I just don’t TRUST politicians and/or the folks they surround themselves with these days, whether or not they proudly display that “D” or that “R” behind their names…
Call me a “skeptic”.
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1:43 am on October 13th, 2009 1
And to think that just yesterday his official schill was on a FOX hunt, loudly breying that FOX is an arm of the GOP and was given to trahsing him while praising GOP candidates. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/12/white-house-escalates-war-words-fox-news/ To illustrate just how biased against him FOX was, look at this
from the article:”As for Dunn’s complaint about Fox News’ coverage of the Obama campaign, a study by the Pew Research Center showed that 40 percent of Fox News stories on Obama in the last six weeks of the campaign were negative. Similarly, 40 percent of Fox News’ stories on Obama’s Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, were negative.
On CNN, by contrast, there was a 22-point disparity in the percentage of negative stories on Obama (39 percent) and McCain (61 percent). The disparity was even greater at MSNBC, according to Pew, where just 14 percent of Obama stories were negative, compared to a whopping 73 percent of McCain stories — a spread of 59 points.”
WOW that IS biased – FOX was negative about The One a whopping 40% of the time. But only negative about McCain a measly 40% of the time. OBVIOUSLY biased against The One.
But all the others, as you can see from the Pew report, were very even handed. Especially MSNBC. They badmouthed The One a full 14% of the time, and almost matched it with 73% of their stories about McCain being negative. How much more balanced can you get?
Sounds like the former junior senator from the Chicago Democratic Machine can’t take any critcism. Seems that he has also struck FOX from his list of people to talk to.
Mike 300 Spartans Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
@Joe Lovell, Thanks for the link Joe- That Anita Dunn seems like another warped mind in an administration full of warped minds. The sooner those guys are out the better.
2:58 am on October 13th, 2009 2
Right on, Bro! Right ON!
9:40 am on October 13th, 2009 3
Skeptic? Heck I’m a full on cynic. The problem is this goes into “He said she said” territory. I want the name of the source so we can badger him out of office. Until he’s willing to give that up, I’ll assume he’s FOS.
Not that I have a lot of room to talk. I’ve spent the last few days calling our fellow “progressives” dirtier names than I ever called conservatives over the support for the “opt out” nonsense.
@Joe: That study doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot. It depends mostly on how you define positive and negative. It also doesn’t allow for the scale of the negativity. For an example, if a Fox anchor said “McCain has some policies we disagree with slightly.” then five minutes later said “Obama is a Muslim Terrorist Sympathizer that was born in Kenya and anyone that votes for him is voting for Hitler!” it would count as a negative for each candidate. Which is about how their coverage went.
Joe Lovell Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 11:13 am
@JThompson, You mean as opposed to the unbiased “BUSH is SATAN incarnate! And McCain chennels him!” we got from CNN, MSNBC,et al. And you need to draw a distinction between hard news and pundetry. When you have a big name reporter for one of the networks say on air that it is his job to see that the junior senator from IL gets elected and his policies succed, and others are agreeing with him, there should be something there to tell you that there just might possibly, maybe be just a touch, a bare hint, of bias in favor of the former ACORN worker.
Joe Lovell Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
@Joe Lovell,
Intersting: http://www.journalism.org/node/13436#fn1
“These are some of the findings of the study, which examined 2,412 stories from 48 outlets during the time period from September 8 to October 16. [1] The report is a companion to a study released October 22 about the tone of coverage overall. This new report breaks down the coverage of tone by specific media sectors—print, cable news, network television and online.
Among the findings:
MSNBC stood out for having less negative coverage of Obama than the press generally (14% of stories vs. 29% in the press overall) and for having more negative stories about McCain (73% of its coverage vs. 57% in the press overall).
On Fox News, in contrast, coverage of Obama was more negative than the norm (40% of stories vs. 29% overall) and less positive (25% of stories vs. 36% generally). For McCain, the news channel was somewhat more positive (22% vs. 14% in the press overall) and substantially less negative (40% vs. 57% in the press overall). Yet even here, his negative stories outweighed positive ones by almost 2 to 1.
CNN fell distinctly in the middle of the three cable channels when it came to tone. In general, the tone of its coverage was closer than any other cable news channel to the press overall, though also somewhat more negative than the media overall. “
10:22 am on October 13th, 2009 4
This wouldn’t be the first time that the left side of the blogosphere felt the chilly hints of disdain from Team O. Nor…I’m sure…will it be the last.
10:46 am on October 13th, 2009 5
“let’s give the White House and President Barack Hussein Obama a break here.” Well that is mighty fine of you GTL, fine but naive’ my friend, I may be wrong, but I do not recall you extending the same courtesy to our former president. Ever. And justifiably so. Where there is smoke there is fire. Do you really think the Harvard educated elitist is not disdainful of the fringe, and his reaction to negative commentary is being more documented everyday. Leftists don’t do criticism. How long before this president starts taking his lessons on dealing with dissent from the hero of the workers paradise, Mr. Stalin? You are right to be skeptical. It is our duty to be skeptical.
1:20 pm on October 13th, 2009 6
Joe Lovell and JThompson – one side will never convince the other that their news network of choice, whether its MSNBC, Fox, ABC or others, is biased against one candidate over the other. I do believe, however, that the American people do not like to be misled, manipulated, or deceived. That is why Fox News continues to dominate all cable news in viewership; more than 2:1 over CNN and almost 3:1 over MSNBC. The ratings tell the story. Fox News presents the best, least biased news coverage.
Joe Lovell Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
@Fandb, Exactly. Their new is, for the most part, NEWS. Not much commentary in it. Now, their commentary programs are another matter. But even those have, as strident as they may be, have enjoyed a much higer viewership than any of the attempts by the more left leaning networks.
And THAT is what pisses off the left. They can’t put together anything that rivals FOX for accuracy in actual reporting and followers in the pundetry.
So, like as not we will see the Fairness Doctrie reenacted. And I hope that the NRA, pro-life grops, and others, all take advantage of it and force NPR and Public Television to carry pro-second amendment, pro-life, pro-civil rights shows. Can you imagine All Things Considered being forced to air something like “Armed Citizen” showing how often ordinary honest citizens use eeeeee-vvvilll firearms to protect themselves and loved ones from thugs?
2:14 pm on October 13th, 2009 7
GTL hammers the nail right on the head of a huge NON-issue. What would it matter if any politician distains one group of people or another as long as that politician passes the agenda they want? On the flip side, what good is it if a politician loves a particular group but does nothing for them? It is all in the actions, not sentiments that matter. P.S.-What would it take to end the militairy’s “Don’t ask , don’t tell” policy? Not legislation as far as I know, I believe just an executive order. Am I wrong?
5:59 pm on October 13th, 2009 8
Ya know, looking at all the former junior senator from IL is doing, we got a guy with the megalomania of Lincoln and the paranoia of Nixon. Lovely combination.
6:23 pm on October 13th, 2009 9
Hmm, looks like y’all on the left need to get those big bus marks cleaned off your backs.
BTW, love the Sarah Palin ad on the sidebar. Finally, you are moving from the dark to light side!
The GTL™ Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
@William Teach, Now, now, Mr. Teach — my friend — not fair. Not fair at ALL. You know as well as I those are just Google Ads and they can run anything they want to to a point on my sidebar
Low blow! 
Mike 300 Spartans Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
@The GTL™, You mean you don’t personally interview the Japanese girls before they advertise their link on your site? I thought they where recommended by you, I’m not visiting them anymore.
The GTL™ Reply:
October 14th, 2009 at 12:14 am
@Mike 300 Spartans, Now, now, Mike — Japanese girls are HOT and so is Sarah Palin… I truly believe I should get a very “hush-hush” 1-on-1 interview with each and every sexy woman advertiser on my site but I need a little more support and traffic before I’ll be able to convince Google this is how it NEEDS to be
William Teach Reply:
October 14th, 2009 at 7:22 am
@The GTL™, Ha! Now you have a Stop Government Run Health Care” one.
6:35 pm on October 14th, 2009 10
I don’t care what the White House “calls us” – as long Obama is holding the reins – I trust him and I think he has the people in his mind more than the Corps.