The Progress Report.

I hope this doesn't happen.

Rumors have it that Sarah Palin may appear on Saturday Night Live to spoof their spoofing of her.

Seriously, SNL?

This is NBC/SNL wimping out completely. Neither Palin nor McCain, nor Obama or Biden, should be asked to appear on that show, at least until the election is over. Nothing sullies good satire like having the object of said satire appear. They have to be fair and say none of the 4 candidates can appear on the show, but it's really important to keep themselves at a distance from the politicians. It'd be like if Garry Trudeau allowed Bush to come up with a few ideas for his strip. It's what happens when sportswriters start getting too chummy with ballplayers and managers, they can't have objectivity to do their job properly. It's SNL writers and performers job to lampoon these people and keep those worlds separate.

UPDATE: Sounds like the rumors are bogus. Though I still don't like SNL's open door policy.

Fox Attacks: Obama, Just Like They Did Kerry

From Robert Greenwald/Brave New Films:

 

Did you see Barack Obama go on The O'Reilly Factor last night—right into the belly of the beast?  While we didn't want Obama to appear on FOX initially, he wisely chose the same night John McCain delivered his RNC speech (the same night FOX received some of its highest ratings) to make an appearance.  Talk about stealing the GOP's thunder!

 

Obama was no doubt trying to appeal to conservative voters, since 88% of FOX viewers voted Republican in 2004. But FOX won't let their conservative base go without a fight.  That's why O'Reilly needled and interrupted Obama, trying to get him to simplify many of his answers—a far cry from the softballs O'Reilly lobbed at many prominent Republicans like Rudy Giuliani in the past. And that's why FOX has been attacking Obama with the same relentless smear tactics that they used against John Kerry four years ago.  Watch them use the exact same attacks.

Don't let FOX repeat its history of distortions.  Send this video to everyone you know!  And get a copy to networking sites like Digg as soon as possible.  Make sure everyone knows that FOX is always willing to distort, slander, and smear—whatever it takes to advance their conservative agenda.

And for more on how damaging FOX and the corporate media have been, tune into Meet the Bloggers today at 1pm ET/10am PT.  Our guest host, punk rock icon Henry Rollins, will be joined by bloggers Jonathan Kim (FOX Attacks!), Liliana Segura (AlterNet.org) and Paul Waldman (Media Matters) to discuss the media's overt bias.

How Fox News "Reports" on Peaceful Gathering in Denver...

By calling the protesters "leftists," by misrepresenting what they were doing and who they were. Notice how the Fox News "anchor" shakes her head disdainfully as she helps the "reporter" (he reports, we decide!) cover the "story."

Here's the clip, via Huffington Post.

And here's what really happened, according to a commenter who was actually there in Denver at the scene:

One thing stands out: Fox says that "Recreate 68" is about "recreating the riots of 1968."

This is 100% not true. It misrepresents the group's agenda. I'm not a member and don't know anyone in the group, but live in the Denver area and follow the news. They're about recreating the anti-war and activist spirit of 1968, they do not condone violence.

The name gets them in trouble because of intentional confusion by "news" outlets like Fox and right-wing talk radio.

I took a ride downtown earlier today to see what was going on in Denver before the convention. We saw the Big Tent where bloggers are hanging out, out-of-towners wandering the streets, and a *lot* of cops.

I drove past the state capitol, right across from a park that's ground central for protests. The majority of the protestors directly in front of the state capitol were anti-immigrant and anti-abortion. Guess those count as "leftists" to Fox.

There were other protesters in the park, hanging out, holding signs. Peaceful, low-key. Anti-War signs were the vast majority.

There were about 50 bike cops out in front of the capitol standing around looking bored.

Also note: The Fox News reporter couldn't get anybody to talk to him. According to news reports, he made things much worse by putting his hands on Ward Churchill. R68 security folks were there in a flash to protect Churchill. I doubt this will get mentioned on Fox News.

Obama follows Gore, and News channels hit mute button.

I noticed this too but thought I was dreaming or hallucinating.  One channel is disappointing; this number of news channels behaving the same way is disgraceful. 

Dan Brown says it all (via Huffington Post):

CNN and MSNBC both aired Al Gore's primetime speech in Detroit tonight when he endorsed Barack Obama for president. The moment that Obama took the microphone, however, both networks piped in the voices of their anchormen while continuing to show muted footage of Senator Obama speaking.

On CNN, Larry King spoke about programming changes and how his interview with Steve Carrell promoting Get Smart would air tomorrow. On MSNBC, Dan Abrams chatted with some analysts about what Obama should say to beat McCain. All the while, the man who could be president spoke about his plans to lead the country, but viewers across the country could not hear him.

I wanted to hear him.

In a hopeless last ditch effort, I flipped to Fox News, where the muted Obama footage was also airing, while Hannity and Colmes spoke unrelatedly about McCain's veepstakes. None of the networks ever turned the sound on for Obama. Viewers were treated to a cavalcade of pundits dissecting the Democrat candidate, but denied the ability to hear Obama for themselves.

Was I naïve to expect the most important news event of the night not to be muted? Or should I have grown accustomed to spin preempting the real news event?

The place for politics.

The best political team on television.

We report, you decide.

Shame.

Election '08, Weird Parallel Universe Edition: Murdoch hearts Obama?

As you have no doubt seen by now, Rupert Murdoch's fascinating, candid and often very surprising comments this past week about the upcoming election included these words about Obama:

"We're on the verge of a complete phenomenon," Murdoch said. "Politicians are at an all-time low and are despised by 80% of the public, and then you've got a candidate trying to put himself out above it all. He's become a rock star. It's fantastic.

"There are a lot of problems. The education system in this country is a total disgrace."

Murdoch heaped praise on Obama, saying he was a "highly intelligent man with a great record at Harvard", but stopped short of a full personal endorsement because he wanted "to meet him personally".

Then Murdoch ended with this punchline -- it is a joke right?

The audience laughed when Murdoch insisted that Fox News, his US right-wing TV channel, was balanced.

"Fox gives both sides that the others haven't done in the past," he said.

Huh? Both sides that others haven't done in the past... I take it "both sides" means "reactionary" and "arch-conservative." Good thing they've covered all the bases!

Anyway, this all reminded me that in January of 2007, Murdoch's Fox News posited what was basically a smear against Obama courtesy of the show "Fox & Friends" (which sounds like a Disney cartoon but alas is not) host Steve Doocy (thanks to Think Progress and Democrats.com)

DOOCY: Why didn’t anybody ever mention that that man right there was raised — spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father — as a Muslim and was educated in a madrassa?

DOOCY: We should also point out that Barack Obama’s father is the one who gave him the middle name of Hussein. And the thing about the madrassa, and you know, let’s just be honest about this, in the last number of years, madrassas have been, we’ve learned a lot about them, financed by Saudis, they teach this Wahhabism which pretty much hates us. The big question is was that on the curriculum back then? Probably not, but it was a madrassa and the big question is whether or not any of these revelations about the fact that he was a Muslim — right now I understand he does go to the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, although not a regular parishioner — but raised as a Muslim, went to a madrassa.

Did Murdoch ever call out or censure his host or that show's producers for those comments? Never. 

So while the network may not always reflect his beliefs, it still comes as a bit of a shock that Murdoch's NY Post endorsed Obama, and that the man himself has stopped just short of doing so publicly himself. Murdoch's "good friend" McCain may be called out for being hard to trust, because "he's unpredictable," but the same could be said of Murdoch.

What will Fox News be like if there were an Obama presidency? Would it go from no longer being the mouthpiece of the current administration to being the exact opposite, an attack dog nipping at the heels of the president? Even better for all of us would be for it to become increasingly irrelevant and finally implode from too much of its own hot air. Still, given Murdoch's vast media empire, it can't hurt Obama to have Murdoch more on his side as it were.  But clearly Murdoch cares less about red states and blue states than he does green, and knows which way the wind blows.

 

Recount: A quick review of sorts.

The HBO film RECOUNT, which aired this past Sunday, was a surprisingly effective encapsulation of the whole nutty affair that was the 2000 election, centered around the mess in Florida and the subsequent battles back and forth. The fact that much of the true story involves people counting ballots and lawsuits would lend one to believe it wouldn't make for all that much drama but screenwriter Danny Strong found plenty. And certainly there was some embellishment, particularly in individual interactions and in some of the chronology. But in general, based on what I've read about the 2000 election, documentaries and news I've seen, and personal accounts, overall it was fairly accurate. (Interesting, and sad, to think that just departed Sidney Pollack was slated to direct the film initially but couldn't due to his battles with cancer.)

I had to chuckle a bit at a few reviews who criticized it for fictionalizing some of the dialogue between key players. Oh really? You mean it's, you know, a film?  I mean, seriously, if the gist of the truth is captured in those interactions, so what if the conversations are embellished and dramatized. It's a drama!

Certainly it empathizes more with the Democrats if anyone, but it doesn't paint Warren Christopher (played pitch perfectly by John Hurt) in the shiniest light, and shows Ron Klain (a wonderful Kevin Spacey) as not being totally sold on Al Gore, having been previously snubbed by him. And if Fla. Secretary of State Katherine Harris isn't portrayed in a flattering light, well, scary to say, but Laura Dern's portrayal is pretty spot-on, frankly, and anyone who doubts that should look at real life footage of the in-over-her-head Harris during that time.  And Tom Wilkinson's James Baker is empathetically portrayed, too, with a scene near the end that reveals why he became a Republican after being a Democrat for the first 40 years of his life adds to his complexity.  As well, movies like an underdog and in that story the Democrats were the underdogs even though they won the popular vote, who had a legitimate beef (or twenty) with the chaotic and corrupt electoral process.

Watching the film is often amusing, as it captures the black comedy of it all, but it's also fairly depressing. No matter who else committed errors and ethical transgressions during that election, it's pretty disturbing to think it was the US Supreme Court who ultimately committed the biggest screw-over of all. By approving a stop on the hand counting of ballots in Florida, and then saying the hand counting couldn't continue because they missed the deadline, an irony the film captures well, with Spacey's Klain  basically laughing at the absurdity of it all, and then by literally calling their ruling a "one-time only" (offer not good in any stores) deal, the Supreme Court as much as anyone in 2000 has the taint of that mis-election on their hands.

As a personal sidenote: Watching the film I also realized how much of that period I'd blanked out on. Partially because it was so surreal and awful, but also because it was then that my stepmom was on her last legs with cancer. I even remember her saying after the election some sort of blackly funny comment about at least she won't have to be around for the Bush administration.  Oh, but if only you knew, dear.

Recount: ***1/2 (out of 5)
Airing on HBO all this month. Out on DVD this summer.

Note: There's also an interesting epilogue posted on the official site.

Saturday Night Live: "Influential Political Player," or toothless satire?

Despite the fact that SNL hasn't really been nearly as relevant or consistently funny as it was during its heyday, or, really, even as much as it was a few years ago, I know many people who missed it during the writers strike. After all, as a presidential election campaign gets rolling, what is more important than having access to good, hard-hitting political satire? Even if that satire is more likely to be relatively toothless in recent years.

Then I read Entertainment Weekly's recent puff piece on the show's return ("Saturday Night Live Rocks the Vote," March 21, 2008) -- subtitled, "Behind the Scenes of TV's Funniest and Most Influential Political Player." Is that true? It can probably argued that, when SNL does hit on something, it can be influential on our culture. Even now. But a "political player"? 

And in the piece something I'd been suspecting was accidentally confirmed. First of all, while the piece talks at length about the show's satire of both Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama (and the potential controversy of having a non-black actor play the latter), it doesn't once mention whether the show had any hard hitting new John McCain sketches in the works. 

Until the end of the piece, when we get this:

As for future political cameos, Marci Klein, whose responsibilities include booking guests, isn't confirming anything at this point — and may not have any idea herself. (No one knew Hillary Clinton was appearing until the Thursday before the show.) ''We're always talking to everybody,'' says Klein. ''We've been in contact with Obama's people this week. Anyone can come on as long as it's funny.'' That includes Sen. John McCain, whom the show plans to reach out to, and who was surprisingly funny when he hosted in 2002.

Awww.  That's really sweet. I hope he comes on and is funny again. 

But, hey, at least we know they are also doing John McCain impressions, too. I'm sure they'll really hit him where he lives, right?

Well, there's this recent SNL sketch satirizing John McCain which essentially cuddles up to him while instead poking gentle fun of people who make fun of his age. Anything for a laugh. Plus, they really want him to come on as a guest again so it's probably better to be nice to the geezer, right?

Right when we really need SNL to have some cojones.

Aftermath from ABC Debate and the media's free ride for John McCain

I'm sure by now everyone's seen or at least heard of ABC's pathetic Democratic debate the other night, which The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, among other places, both properly ripped into. As Jon Stewart noted, why ask the most important question 16th, long after you've asked one insipid and embarrassing question after another? Even though Obama stumbled a few times - which the Daily Show also pointed out - he also had a great, properly frustrated response to one of Stephanapolous' dumber questions.

At any rate, passing this along from filmmaker Robert Greenwald and co:

Last week's Democratic debate in Philadelphia was an abysmal display of journalism. By sticking to trivial topics for half of the debate, ABC sought to provoke controversy without asking the candidates serious questions. The Huffington Post's Jason Linkins wrote that the debate "ventured into territory so utterly asinine that I could scarcely believe what I was witnessing."

Ironically, the mainstream media have been giving John McCain a free ride while trying to pin Clinton and Obama with manufactured "gotcha" questions. In fact, they don't seem to be challenging McCain at all. So there's no reason to think ABC's brand of pseudo-journalism won't continue tomorrow morning, when George Stephanopoulos will interview McCain on his show. Here's a satirical look at what that interview might be like.

Watch the video: http://bravenewfilms.org/watch/22652949/36224?utm_source=rgemail

We used satire here because we felt it's our most effective way to make a point about the shoddy journalism coming from ABC. The network was so desperate to stir up controversy at the debate that Stephanopoulos took incendiary remarks from FOX's Sean Hannity and tried to pawn them off as his own question.

We can't let the FOXification of the mainstream press continue. What's more, we can't allow journalists like Stephanopoulos to give John McCain a free pass. What are the satirical questions you think Stephanopoulos and his colleagues should be asking McCain? Post them to the website and let us know just how shoddy their journalism has become. We'll award the best (meaning worst) satire. It's high time we hold ABC to higher journalistic standards! --- Robert Greenwald

Daily Show on Fox News

Comedy Central's John Oliver pays fair and honest homage to the greatest single American in history... Fox News. (Inspired by their absolutely laughable - and sickening - documentary on the legacy of the GW Bush presidency.)

The Daily Show on Fox News: The Meter is Running

Don't miss this one. It's spot-on, making a fine counterpart to the Fox takedown "Outfoxed." Dig the montage on their attacks on Clinton's Executive Power during the Clinton presidency vs. their positive strokes on Bush's Executive Power.

Part of me wonders if there's any real point in mocking Fox News. Is it preaching to the choir? Aren't the same people who watch Fox News now going to continue watching it, even after being constantly reminded as to how one-sided it is, as to how it quickly became a mouthpiece of the Bush administration? The Comedy Central piece is satire, but it has a painful truth behind it. If it makes just a few people finally decide to change the channel and seek their news elsewhere, then I suppose it's already worth it. But Fox has set a bad precedent, influencing a desperate CNN to become more like it, more sensationalized and imbalanced. At least MSNBC offers both Keith Olbermann and Joe Scarborough, for what that's worth, but whatever happened to journalism being, well, fair and balanced?