Mara Liasson first grabbed Mad Dog's attention during the 2008 Presidential campaign, when her pieces for NPR got Mad Dog frothing at the mouth and in risk of being taken away by the Humane Society as a rabid canine.
What she would do was subtle, but effective. A piece about Sarah Palin would have several extended clips of Ms. Palin delivering zinger after zinger, invectives against Mr. Obama and, with five seconds left, Ms. Liasson would squeeze in, dismissively, a terse summary of what Mr. Obama had said in response. So it would go something like this:
Sarah Palin clip: "Senator Obama has insulted not just every soccer Mom in this great country of ours, but he has betrayed his own sexist attitudes about women when he snidely said you can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig. Well, I don't think I resemble a pig, and that's unworthy of a serious candidate for President of this great country of ours."
Ms. Liasson: "Mr. Obama replied Governor Palin had used the lipstick imagery first, so it was fair game."
And so on.
Over the past five years, Ms. Liasson's antipathy toward the President has become increasingly apparent. Now is a slow news stretch with Congress on recess, and when dead calm strikes, reporters start interviewing each other. Ms. Liasson was asked to comment on what the Obamacare website fiasco means for Mr. Obama's Presidency and Ms. Liasson told her NPR listeners:
1. Mr. Obama's "signature" (read that as "only") accomplishment has been the passage of the health care law.
2. The law is now moribund, owing to the catastrophic breakdown of its website.
3. Mr. Obama's Presidency will never recover from this blow.
4. He has nobody but himself to blame because this is simply a matter of incompetence.
President Obama, one might conclude listening to Ms. Liasson, may as well pack it in. He has been a thoroughly worthless President and he should resign in disgrace.
During the last Presidential debates, Mr. Romney informed Jim Lehrer that as President Mr. Romney would defund public television and public radio because it is anti-American for the government to spend money on things the private sector can do.
Apparently, National Public Radio panicked. We need to appease those conservatives, who think we are a sort of Fox News for the left. So, we'll put forward a few really rank conservatives and then we can claim we are "balanced."
Mad Dog has no problem with that. Just call a spade a spade.
Just say: "And here is NPR's answer to Rush Limbaugh: Mara Liasson."
Mad Dog,
ReplyDeleteWhoa-frothing to the point of being caged and likening her to Limbaugh-now that's mad. I would imagine there's some talking back to the radio involved as well-bet that's entertaining..Despite the constant assurances from the news organizations that their overriding goal is impartial and accurate reporting, that seems so rarely the case. They all seem to have an angle-whether it's "balancing" the news or "explaining" it, there doesn't seem a lot of just providing it going on. Even MSNBC can be annoying with their hour long rah rah fests for the Democrats - with some of the commentators it's hard to decipher whether they are talking about Obama and the Democrats or Jesus and his Disciples... they're the balance for the fruit loops over on FOX, we get it. But just getting the plain unvarnished truth for once would be nice...
Maud
Maud,
ReplyDeleteDon't you wonder sometimes whether that goal of "plain unvarnished truth" or even simply "objective reporting" is simply unattainable?
Walter Cronkite seemed to provide that during the Vietnam war, but in the process of selection, showing the soldier in the rice paddies and the body bags--he didn't have to say he opposed the war when others and images were saying it for him.
Maybe we were better off when we didn't have that patina of objectivity, when newspapers were frankly partisan and you read the Democratic or the Republican paper you knew would present your side of the argument.
One might say at least Fox News makes no pretense of being a Tea Party house organ. Although, it is astonishing how many people I meet who think Fox is simply another channel and there is no difference between Fox News and CBS or NBC.
Mad Dog
Mad Dog,
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree the totally unvarnished truth is impossible to achieve, I still think it should remain the journalistic goal to come as close to it as they can. As the saying goes " Believe those seeking the truth. Doubt those that find it". I grew up in a place where the news was dominated by a very powerful right wing newspaper. The political views of the publisher permeated the news as well as the editorial content and you could never trust what you were reading-or shouldn't have. Do you really see any benefit to that?...I to know several folks who view FOX as a reliable source of information- in fact I'm related to a couple of them. Scary...
Maud