Punting the Pundits

Pour a cup of coffee or brew some tea and contemplate the day.

Glen Greenwald again starts at the top with his continued skewering of the MSM hypocrisy, asking us to consider who has been forced out of the so-called “Liberal Media”

Octavia Nasr’s firing and what The Liberal Media allows

CNN yesterday ended the 20-year career of Octavia Nasr, its Atlanta-based Senior Middle East News Editor, because of a now-deleted tweet she wrote on Sunday upon learning of the death of one of the Shiite world’s most beloved religious figures: “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah  . . . . One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.”  That message spawned an intense fit of protest from Far Right outlets, Thought Crime enforcers, and other neocon precincts, and CNN quickly (and characteristically) capitulated to that pressure by firing her.  The network — which has employed a former AIPAC official, Wolf Blitzer, as its primary news anchor for the last 15 years — justified its actions by claiming that Nasr’s “credibility” had been “compromised.”  Within this episode lies several important lessons about media “objectivity” and how the scope of permissible views is enforced.

In an up date to his column, Glen addresses some  of his harshest critics on his views on Israel. Glen concludes

I view the increasingly unhinged attacks by the worst neocon elements to be a vindication of what I’m doing.  I see them as pernicious and destructive, and genuinely welcome their contempt.

That applies to just about any of the unreasonable, unhinged responses  from the “neocon elements”.

Ezra Klein addresses raising of the retirement age for Social Security and the fact that it isn’t exactly “equitable”

Larry Mishel writes in with another argument for why raising the Social Security age makes much more sense for affluent individuals who work in knowledge-oriented industries than for lower-income people whose jobs require more physical labor. If the argument is that life expectancy is rocketing upwards, and that retirement shouldn’t grow along with it, it’s important to point out that the increases in life expectancy aren’t being shared equally

Author George Lakoff talks about Disaster Messaging and how Democrats can counter the Republican “outmessaging” them.

Democrats are constantly resorting to disaster messaging. Here’s a description the typical situation.

   * The Republicans outmessage the Democrats. The Democrats, having no effective response, face disaster: They lose politically, either in electoral support or failure on crucial legislation.

   * The Democrats then take polls and do focus groups. The pollsters discover that extremist Republicans control the most common (“mainstream”) way of thinking and talking about the given issue.

   * The pollsters recommend that Democrats move to the right: adopt conservative Republican language and a less extreme version of conservative policy, along with weakened versions of some Democratic ideas.

   * The Democrats believe that, if they follow this advice, they can gain enough independent and Republican support to pass legislation that, at least, will be some improvement on the extreme Republican position.

   * Otherwise, the pollsters warn, Democrats will lose popular support — and elections — to the Republicans, because “mainstream” thought and language resides with the Republicans.

   * Believing the pollsters, the Democrats change their policy and their messaging, and move to the right.

   * The Republicans demand even more and refuse to support the Democrats.

We have seen this on issues like health care, immigration, global warming, finance reform, and so on. We are seeing it again on the Death Gusher in the Gulf. It happens even with a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

Just for laughs with all the critically important things happening in the world, Maureen Dowd of the NYT devoted her op-ed to Levi Johnson. You remember him, the almost son-in-law and father of Sarah Palin’s grandson. Really, Maureen, so yesterday.

Let’s consider the latest developments in the Levi Johnston saga.

Good Grief! Why?