WTF Is It Now?!?

Word of the day: Savant Chimpy the Choker, an idiot savant, is an intellectually disabled person with severely limited emotional range who exhibits extraordinary ability in hypnotizing the media into total whoredom.

Nooze Laughingstock/repuke Whore CNN Degenerates Even Further into Official Propaganda Ministry of der bushreich

The high-minded protestations of the news channels notwithstanding, the fact is that the majority of the Bush events they've rushed to cover have nothing whatsoever to do with the war on terrorism. Moreover, an analysis of CNN coverage since Bush's inauguration reveals that Bush was being given an unprecedented amount of live coverage on cable TV even before Sept. 11. And it's the best kind of coverage for him -- often of events where he's speaking before a friendly, partisan crowd, working from a prepared script and not taking any questions.

CNN has tended to feature Bush addressing partisan crowds, giving him an extraordinary platform to simply push his domestic agenda.

"There's a double standard," complains Ranit Schmelzer, Daschle's spokeswoman. When asked about the allegation, CNN's spokesperson declined to elaborate beyond the network's prepared statement on the Daschle/Gephardt letter.

Early last year, for instance, viewers who regularly watched CNN saw it break away from programming to show the new president deliver prepared, extended remarks about faith-based charities, defense modernization, education reform and tax cuts, and addressing the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the New Jersey state Legislature, a group of small business owners, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Republican Party retreat and on and on.

And as Monday's address on tax reform illustrated, many of Bush's post-Sept. 11 addresses are essentially stump speeches as well. Yet they're dutifully picked up by CNN. Democrats note the CNN irony in all this. During May of 1999, the network's high-profile business anchor, Lou Dobbs, got into an on-air tiff with then CNN chief Rick Kaplan. A noted friend of the Clintons, Kaplan demanded that producers cut away from Dobbs' "Moneyline" in order to show Clinton addressing a ceremony honoring the victims of the shooting at Columbine High School. Dobbs, a lifelong Republican, was incensed.

As the New York Post reported, "Dobbs, who didn't consider the staged event breaking news, was absolutely livid."

But no one at CNN seems mildly concerned -- let alone absolutely livid -- about the 100-plus staged events the channel has aired for Bush.

- From Eric Boehlert at Salon.com. You can contact CNN here.



Hit 'im with your AWOLstick, hit 'im, hit 'im...

"First, let me defend myself against your personal attack. I was 13 when the war ended in Vietnam, Bob. They weren't drafting 13-year-olds, I'm sorry. I did register for the draft when I turned 18. And I would have proudly served, unlike Bush, who went to the National Guard and then was AWOL for a year and failed to show up." - Paul Begala on Crossfire