The one-eyed coverage of the American election campaign by the American media is beyond repulsive. Here I can be as partisan as I like. It’s a blog and I say what I believe which is what blogging is all about. The media, however, are supposed to show at least a grain of objectivity according to the “journalistic ethics” of their craft, or so they like to pretend. That they are instead undisguised partisans, pressing on with an unrelenting one-way assessment of the candidates, has gone beyond anything experienced in the past. They want Obama to win and Romney to lose and will do whatever they can to achieve that end.
I am continuously astonished, therefore, at supposedly conservative friends and associates who parrot the media’s political judgments. You can say to them all you like that they are merely reflecting the poisonous reports that might as well have been published by the Democrat National Committee but it makes no difference. Romney may be the next Ronald Reagan but how would they know? I also read the same reports and watch the same news but I start with the assumption that they are lying to me. Why this is not the natural reaction of everyone on our side when they go to the ABC or The Age I will never understand. If that is where you get your news about Romney, then you should not be surprised at your own lack of enthusiasm in seeing him as the next president. Even to be the un-Obama ought to be enough, but given his attitudes and beliefs both domestic and international, support ought to be a lot warmer than it seems to be.
This is an article on the American media coverage of Romney’s overseas trip. Other than his observations in London on the preparations for the Olympics, for which he was even mocked by a supposedly conservative Prime Minister (and which has given me all I need to know about Cameron’s basic set of values), the trip was an outstanding success. But that is not how the reports came out. 86% of the Romney coverage by the major networks were attempts to cause damage.
Mitt Romney’s week-long international trip resulted in unrelentingly negative coverage from the big three broadcast networks, a stark change from the glowing press awarded to then-candidate Barack Obama’s world tour in 2008. While Obama was treated like a rock star (from the Associated Press: ‘It’s not only Obama’s youth, eloquence and energy that have stolen hearts across the Atlantic….’), Romney endured a focus on gaffes and the trivial.
Read the entire article but this is the point. The American ancestral media will never tell you the straight facts without large helpings of their own leftist colour, and they will certainly not look at events in the same way as I do, and I hope most of you do as well. My advice for what it’s worth: actively seek a second opinion on everything you come across in the ancestral media. The web is full of such sources. Unless you are happy to take in the undiluted distortions and lies that are the common fare of the ancestral media today, this is the minimum requirement if you are going to follow the politics of our time.
It’s indicative of just how far to the left our own so-called National Broadcaster is that they are entirely in tune with the anti-Romney, pro-Obama memes emanating from the US MSM. Even the normally sensible Richard Fidler did a hit job on Sarah Palin, interviewing that guy who stalked her and lived next door while writing his book. Very disappointing Richard – you didn’t have to be so agreeable about all the crap he spouted.
Unbiased coverage is too much to ask for, there or here.
blogstrop
4 Aug 12 at 11:03 am
The skewed and skewering reporting is very very bad.
What they don’t report at all is worse
JamesK
4 Aug 12 at 11:15 am
steve, The media outlets that survive in market competition are those that at least break-even by meeting readers’ needs.
The expressive voters who think they can change the world is more likely to be among the few that watch news reports rather than someone satisfied with the status quo. Affirmation is all around. They do not need to watch it on TV.
See http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/6919 for ‘Fair and balanced after all? The bias of the US press’ by Riccardo Puglisi, James M. Snyder, Jr:
1. newspapers are located almost exactly at the median voter in their home states. In California, where they had the most data, newspapers are probably slightly to the right of the median voter.
2. newspapers are moderate relative to interest groups and political parties. although newspapers exhibit some variation in their ideological position, they tend to be much closer to the median voter than most interest groups.
3. Newspapers appear more liberal than voters on social and cultural issues such as gay marriage, but tend to be more conservative on economic issues such as the minimum wage.
4. the news and editorial sections of newspapers have almost identical partisan positions – if anything, news sections are slightly to the right of editorial sections.
Another finding is that US media outlets are relatively moderate, in the sense that they are located between the median Democratic and median Republican congressmen.
The marketplace for mass media works well. the media does not write for you because you are not anywhere near the median voter. get over it.
Jim Rose
4 Aug 12 at 11:21 am
That’s the stupidest Jim Rose comment I have ever read anywhere.
JamesK
4 Aug 12 at 11:26 am
If it is printed in the “ancestral media” it is probably wrong.
stackja
4 Aug 12 at 11:51 am
Agreed. And still they relentlesly ignore the fact that Obummer was born in Kenya and is a Communist. Shameful.
f4 phantom
4 Aug 12 at 12:21 pm
jamesk, market competition is an evolutionary process. It is a lapse to suggest that the mass media is different or journalists get away with more agency slack just because of who they are. As Adam Smith said
Remember Armen Alchian on how market selection made this so:
• Realized profits, not maximum profits, are the mark of success and viability in any market. It does not matter through what process of reasoning or motivation such success was achieved.
• Realised profit is the criterion by which the market process selects survivors: those who realize positive profits survive; those who suffer losses disappear.
• Positive profits accrue to those who are better than their competitors, even if the participants are ignorant, intelligent, skilful, etc. these lesser rivals will exhaust their retained earnings and fail to attract further investor support.
• As in a race, the prize goes to the relatively fastest ‘even if all the competitors loaf.’ relatively fastest will in fact be profit maximizers, and so, in this case selection will lead to the survival only of profit maximizing firms.
Many industries run on a separation of the decision making and risk bearing functions. The form of organisation that survives is the one that delivers the product demanded by customers at the lowest price while covering costs.
Why is the mass media special? A supply-side model of media ownership suggesting that media outlets weigh the rewards of bias—political influence or personal pleasure—against the cost of bias—lost circulation from providing faulty news. the mass media is a big business, and they increase readership and revenue and win investor support by presenting factual and informative news.
Jim Rose
4 Aug 12 at 12:34 pm
Jim Rose
You are making irrelevant arguments.
Have you not eyes to see and ears to hear?
FWIW:
MSM have had decades without competition.
They controlled the narrative and there was no real alternative.
The journalist and pundit class now in their 50′s and 60′s first started in their early 20′s
The Left since Gramsci and the Frankfurt School have sought to control the institutions of society.
I’ll say this s-l-o-w-l-y: if you think the US media is representative of the US population they supposedly serve (rather than dupe), you need your head examined.
JamesK
4 Aug 12 at 12:55 pm
The relentless Romney-bashing of ABC and SBS in this country has been sick-making. But I look on the bright side – they wouldn’t be going to all this trouble unless they were afraid of him. And I love the smell of leftist panic in the morning…or anytime. It smells like…victory.
cuckoo
4 Aug 12 at 2:40 pm
Here Cuckoo. They’re not much different.
JC
4 Aug 12 at 2:43 pm
Here’s toe sucker reporting on the enthusiasm gap and why despite Kenyan’s “relentless negativity” isn’t persuading people to hate Romney. It’s not working.
http://www.dickmorris.com/the-enthusiasm-gap-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/
JC
4 Aug 12 at 2:45 pm
It’s not just the ABC here either that is parroting the left-wing msm in the US. Even the Australian’s US correspondent is dutifully regurgitating the outrageously biased tripe. Brad Norington has on several occasions simply repeated factually incorrect stories that aid Obama and hurt Romney. There is a general belief in the Australian and British media that US politics is much to the right of theirs, that the Dems are more like the conservative party and the GOP is much further to the right than that. I find the only place to get reliable reporting on US politics is Fox News or National Review Online. Only ever read Norington with a grain of salt – he is heavily biased.
John A
4 Aug 12 at 3:12 pm
JamesK, the mass media is a big business that increases readership and revenue by presenting factual and informative news.
your not liking these stories does not make them biased. both ends of the political spectrum think the mass media is captured by the other end so the media must be doing a good job.
Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro produced a way of measuring bias not just using endorsements, but also the language used in the newspaper.
they used congressional records to identify phrases used disproportionately by Republicans or Democrats: (“Death tax”, “war on terror”, and “stem cell” would identify this column as staunchly Republican, if I did not add “estate tax”, “Medicaid cuts” and “cost of the war”.)
• Bias depended on how often they echoed the language of the politicians themselves – an imperfect but objective method.
• They then measured the political slant of each newspaper’s potential readers by looking at votes cast in the 2004 presidential election by zip code in a newspaper’s market, as well as the geographical distributions of campaign contributions.
• The biases of newspapers closely reflected those of their potential readership, neither pushing to the extremes nor pulling to the centre.
• The identity of a newspaper’s owner, in contrast, explained very little of the paper’s content. This is exactly what one would expect from a newspaper which cared more about profitability than election results.
• This is not to say that newspapers have no influence on readers, but newspapers are careful to listen to their readers. Commercial survival depends on it.
HT: http://timharford.com/2010/05/in-search-of-hard-facts-about-media-bias/ and http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/jesse.shapiro/
Jim Rose
4 Aug 12 at 4:26 pm
I just want to know if Sen. Harry Reid has answered the serious and growing concerns over his being a pederast.
Ace asked his office and they refused to deny it. But a male staffer said the issue was ‘cute’.
SO at least there’s a Reid spokesman officially saying that the Senator considers the issue of his pederasty as ‘cute’.
Mk50 of Brisbane
4 Aug 12 at 4:30 pm
Another finding is that Americans simply do not fucking trust the media.
Majority in U.S. Continues to Distrust the Media, Perceive Bias : More perceive liberal bias than conservative bias
or this:
sdog
4 Aug 12 at 4:44 pm
American conservatives have simply stolen a page out of the Alinksy playbook, Mk50:
sdog
4 Aug 12 at 4:47 pm
Steve
John Howard won 4 elections whilst being completely hated by the media. The people hate the media, and always know when it is lying. Stop worrying, and man up you wimp!.
Rococo Liberal
4 Aug 12 at 5:28 pm
Jim both sides produce ‘studies’ and examples to support both allegations.
Grosseclose’s work and Groseclose’s rebuttals of Nunberg are persuaive imho but so what?
You are seriously deluded man if you believe that the American MSM is a reflection of the values of the American people.
You are seriously a deluded man if you don’t see that they are leftist agenda driven.
Delusion would not be the right word to apply to the apolitical class rather they are misled intentionally but their values are not the values of the MSM.
Political junkies like you are either stupid, lying or deluded when asserting that the American MSM isn’t biased in general and is reflective of the American people.
I think (kindly) that you are deluded.
JamesK
4 Aug 12 at 5:39 pm
Unfortunately Romney’s machine has worked fairly ruthlessly to alienate the portion of the base most able to counter this media divide.
Ain’t karma a bitch.
Driftforge
4 Aug 12 at 6:03 pm
Why the obsession with media bias in the USA? Bias is MUCH more apparent in Australia. At least the States has the Wall Street Journal and Fox, and it has the most liberal free speech laws in the whole world. Stop going on about bias in the US and join us trying to prevent a further erosion of free speech in Australia.
Have you considered that most people are supporting Obama because Romney is an idiot? Take your blinkers off.
Johnno
4 Aug 12 at 6:58 pm
When the question to the uninformed is “If (he ABC or The Age) is where you get your news about Romney….”, my only question to them would be “How could you be so stupid?” When the facts and nuances are out there for all to discover from the United States itself, why would you rely on the absolutely woeful offerings from American-based Australian correspondents? And I mean just about ALL the Australian ones. The facts are out there, directly available from numerous sources and if there is bias from the right left or wherever, there are plenty of sources from new media to test and weigh up the facts for yourself.
I often think that the “Washington Correspondent” position of Australian media outlets has to be the cushiest job in the world, especially the last two Fairfax ones. I have never seen such shallow reporting, usually of a theme from the US mainstream media and invariably two or more days after we have had the chance to dissect it from our own use of all direct US media sources.
M Ryutin
4 Aug 12 at 7:16 pm
jamesk, a leading characteristic of media bias is that people agree on its existence, but disagree on the signs so see http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/groseclose/pdfs/MediaBias.pdf
• Measures media bias by the times that a particular media outlet cites various think tanks and policy groups, and then compare this with the times that members of Congress cite the same groups.
• Results show a strong liberal bias: all of the news outlets examined, except Fox News’ Special Report and the Washington Times, received scores to the left of the average member of Congress.
Why is this inconsistency with basic spatial models of firm location so? Why do these news outlets survive in market competition?
1. young females tend to be one of the most marginal groups of news consumers (i.e., they are the most willing to switch to activities besides reading or watching the news). this group often makes the consumption decisions for the household. advertisers are willing to pay more to outlets that reach this group.
2. Since young females tend to be more liberal on average, a news outlet may want to slant its coverage to the left. Newspapers selling space to advertisers tailor the way they cover politics to gain more readers.
3. If the majority of journalists have left-of-center views, liberal news might cost less to supply than unbiased news!
4. Owners are most likely to indulge this if skilled journalists value independence and will trade salary in return.
Charges of a liberal bias essentially require the existence of a cartel in the USA: the biggest, most competitive media market in the world. Competition usually forces firms to cater to their customer’s preferences.
Why media owners allow journalists to indulge their liberal views at the expense of potential profits? What protects the cartel against defectors and entrants?
Jim Rose
4 Aug 12 at 9:54 pm
A cartel is quite unnecessary Jim.
Group-think, elitism, journalism schools etc etc etc are all that necessary.
The worst of bias isn’t in misinformation, it’s in prominence and whether certain stories are reported at all.
Non-reporting is the worst of the bias in the MSM for the many still dependent on them for news.
You could google ‘journolist’ active during the last presidential election campaign and read all about it in the dailycallerdotcom and you decide whether that constituted a ‘cartel’ of opinion-makers.
Or look at this old short video at Ace o’night and tell me how ‘balanced’ the reporter was.
JamesK
4 Aug 12 at 10:19 pm
What is your filter to promote an end which was no part of any individual intention and is the unintended outcome of complex social interaction?
What is your equilibrating mechanism to promote an end that is no part of any individual intention and is the unintended outcome of complex social interaction?
Both a filter and an equilibrating mechanism of these are required to coordinate decentralised behaviour!
Nozick explains that the invisible hand has two cornerstones:
1. Filtering processes wherein some filter eliminates all entities not fitting a certain pattern, and
2. Equilibrating processes wherein each component part adjusts to local conditions, changing the local environments of others close by, so the sum of the local adjustments realizes a pattern.
Profits and losses is the filter that eliminates media outlets that do not serve their markets. Relative prices and profits and losses alerts each mass media market participant as to what they need to do more of or less of in order to survive and prosper. Prices are a signal wrapped in an incentive.
Class and other conspiracy theories fail because they cannot explain how a diversity of people are induce to work towards an outcome unknown to them and unknown to and unintended by anyone and each other before it emerges from complex social interaction.
how does the spontaneous interaction of many people, each possessing only bits of knowledge, dovetail and bring about a specific state of affairs, unannounced in advance (a biased media) where prices still are enough to recover costs?
To a surprising extent the criticisms of the mass media reflect impatience at the costs inevitably associated with the achievement of desired goals. An unwillingness to pay for a ‘Daily Me’.
Jim Rose
4 Aug 12 at 10:55 pm
Right Jim.
So the disillusionment Americans have with the MSM and their perception of bias in their media is all because the are impatient and want a ‘Daily Me’
Very intelligent stuff.
I’m bored with you Jim
JamesK
4 Aug 12 at 11:36 pm
The vast majority of Americans don’t trust the media and see it as biased because they’re too stoopid to see how very trustworthy and unbiased it is.
So shut up and listen to your Betters.
o_0
sdog
5 Aug 12 at 3:39 am
jamesk, why does the MSM survive if they do not serve their customers?
• Plenty of newspapers are closing, many more are losing money.
• The electronic media is cutthroat. Programmes are cancelled if their ratings start to fall.
Face-up to it, what you perceive as bias is a by-product of being on the political fringes.
Jim Rose
5 Aug 12 at 9:37 am
I’ve spent multiple substantive commentsts explaining the endemic leftist cultural elite which controls the media and universities and Hollywood and journalism schools and you talk of a supposedly competitive free markets.
They aren’t and certainly there used be no alternative views except in subscription newsletters and a few magazines.
The leftist media had a monopoly captive audience.
They don’t any more with talk radio, blogs and the WSJ and FoxNews on cable.
They still contol a overwhemlming majority of news sources for a majority of people
Free-to-air tv in the US is by 3 over-arching national broadcasters.
Cable is a limited audience with only 1 centre-right station which has more than 50% of the total cable audience
Newspapers are controlled almost entirely by 9 owners.
You serially deny what’s evident to your eyes and ears Jim.
I’m fed up dealing with your serially inane comments on this issue across two threads.
JamesK
5 Aug 12 at 9:52 am
Conspiracy theories suggest someone is in control; that dark, all-powerful cabals of men in cultish robes control the world. The truth is no one is in control.
As for a monopoly, what about 57 channels, nothing on!
Newspapers, TV and cable, the many you mentioned are not a monopoly. A monopoly is a single seller with a legal right to bar new entry.
At best, newspapers, TV and cable, are a large and unwieldy cartel under pressure from costs and new entry. In Internet makes electronic news competition global.
Your own post mentioned many different news outlets and media types, three national networks, plus many cable news networks and 9 media owners. That is more than enough to destabilise any cartel.
Why is the mass media special? A supply-side model of media ownership suggesting that media outlets weigh the rewards of bias—political influence or personal pleasure—against the cost of bias—lost circulation from providing faulty news.
The most likely to turn-off are women, and women vote to the Left more often than do men. The media is pandering to the marginal buyer. that is what markets do.
Jim Rose
5 Aug 12 at 10:55 am
I’m fed up with this dross Jim.
Apparently Gramsci, the Frankfurt school and Alinsky passed you by.
Apparently en-cultured leftism in the media, entertainment, public service and universities is but a conspiracy theorist’s wild imaginings
Tthe Rosie perspective – much re-told – is that the MSM accurately reflects the values of the American people although all polls and even the barest modicum of commonsense makes that premise laughable on its face.
Presumably you’d also be having us believe this mornings Insider panel and host accurately reflected the values of middle Australia.
You’ve said nothing new on this topic for what seems a very very long time.
And neither have I.
Give it a rest.
JamesK
5 Aug 12 at 11:14 am
A news cartel is like any other cartel. As James McGee wrote, ‘the history of cartels is the history of double crossing’. All cartels break-down and some get back together.
One sign of a cartel that was developed by Aaron Director is periods of stable prices, despite cost fluctuations, followed by sudden price changes when the cartel collapses or decide to increase prices.
For a news cartel, this means toeing the line and then periods of truth, and then a sudden return to the party line when the cartel reforms.
The exercise of collective market power will not be stable unless sellers agree on prices and production shares; on how to divide the profits; on how to enforce the agreement; on how to deal with cheating; and on how to prevent new entry.
A cartel is in the unenviable position of having to satisfy everyone, for one dissatisfied producer can bring about the feared price competition and the disintegration of the cartel. Thus a successful cartel must follow a policy of continual compromise.
cartels do not work unless, as stigler noted, there is some method of punishing cheating. How do news cartels punish cheating on the cabal’s line?
Jim Rose
5 Aug 12 at 11:20 am
Who’s the one who has got the conspiracy theorist indecipherable language and incoherence down pat?
You are boring me to tears Jim
JamesK
5 Aug 12 at 11:27 am
Cass Sunstein defines a conspiracy theory as: “An effort to explain some event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.”
Millions of people hold conspiracy theories – that powerful people have worked together to withhold the truth about some important practice or terrible event.
Most conspiracy theories typically stem not from irrationality but from a sharply limited number of relevant information sources.
Many extremists fall in this category; their extremism stems from the fact that they have little relevant information, and their extremist views are supported by the little they do know.
Conspiracy theories generally attribute extraordinary powers to certain agents – to plan, to control others, to maintain secrets, and so forth.
Conspiracy theories overestimate the competence and discretion of officials and bureaucracies, who are assumed to be able to make and carry out sophisticated secret plans, despite abundant evidence that in open societies that government action does not usually remain secret for very long.
Conspiracy theories also assume that the nefarious secret plans are easily detected by members of the public such as themselves (often at the margins of society) without the need for special access to the key information or any investigative resources.
A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy
Karl Popper argued that conspiracy theories overlook the pervasive unintended consequences of political and social action; they assume that all consequences must have been intended by someone.
HT: cass sunstein
Jim Rose
5 Aug 12 at 11:55 am
Yo!!
That Cass Sunstein is heroic in Jim Rose’s eyes says it all.
New York Post: GAG THE INTERNET!
AN OBAMA OFFICIAL’S FRIGHTENING BOOK ABOUT CURBING FREE SPEECH ONLINE
A inane evil leftist thug.
The quintessential embodiment of the banality of evil
And Sunstein apparently is Jim Rose’s Jim Rose.
JamesK
5 Aug 12 at 12:17 pm
I should add “On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done”, Sunstein’s book, is a blueprint for online censorship.
In it he describes how he wants to hold blogs and web hosting services accountable for the remarks of commenters on websites while altering libel laws to make it easier to sue for spreading “rumors.”
JamesK
5 Aug 12 at 12:20 pm
sunstein’s white house post is not shadowy! his appointment was subject to senate confirmation: 57 to 40!! It was on c-span!!!
under Bush, the senate confirmation vote for the head of Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs was on the list of seven most important congressional environmental votes.
there are even a far-left NGO with a watch office: see http://www.ombwatch.org/node/10371 where he is denounced as an ardent supporter of the use of cost-benefit analysis, a controversial economic tool used in regulatory decision making, and for being a pragmatist without an ideological agenda.
OMBwatch was established in 1983 to lift the veil of secrecy shrouding the White House Office of Management and Budget. It must be a fluttering veil?
Jim Rose
5 Aug 12 at 12:42 pm
LOL!
The Dems had a 60 to 40 super-majority in the Senate at the time, Jim
Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat was subsequently lost to the GOP after his death
The very next formal election on just a third of the Senate the Dem majority was decimated to a few votes and come Nov they will lose the majority.
Please desist from playing the clown Jim.
It’s long past the time when someone with an ounce of self-respect would have relented with this long inane line of argument to assert the patently untrue and nonsensical.
But not you, Jim Rose.
JamesK
5 Aug 12 at 12:50 pm
Yea, tell that to Fairfax, Jim Rose.
JC
5 Aug 12 at 1:01 pm
A footnote: Left-Wing Appointees Have a Friend in Dick Lugar
One of the very few (?only) Republicans who voted for Sunstein was Dick Lugar who lost his party’s nomination for the Senate election in 2012:
JamesK
5 Aug 12 at 1:03 pm
Curious development – Cass Sunstein resigns position at the White House.
St Hubbins
5 Aug 12 at 3:10 pm
Solid speech by the Romster.
http://finance.yahoo.com/video/romneys-5-point-plan-jobs-165700053.html
JC
5 Aug 12 at 5:58 pm
a spilt vote on an obscure presidential appointment is unusual, as is the need for a senate cloture vote: 63-to-35.
Democratic senators Mark Begich (AK), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Pryor (AR), Jim Webb (VA), independent Bernie Sanders (VT), and 34 Republicans voted against Sunstein. hardly a secret appointment slipped through in the night on a party-line vote?
Being exceptionally prolific— 30 books and 300 articles—Sunstein provided his opponents with plenty of material to search for ammunition against him.
When the Obama administration first announced Sunstein’s nomination to the regulatory post, it was liberals who initially expressed the most concern about him because his writings calling for regulations to be subject to analysis seeking to balance their cost against what is gained by them!
Much of the conservative attack on Sunstein focused on statements made in Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.
an appointment cannot be to what is in your words ‘a shadowy post’ if it is famous for 30 years as a key sub-cabinet nomination and senators of your own party voted against Sunstein! QED.
Jim Rose
5 Aug 12 at 6:06 pm
So after having been thoroughly hammered in 2006 and then 2008 and washed out by the kool-aid tsunami losing the presidency, the Senate and the House with a wildly popular President and super-majorities filibuster proof is both houses, 34 of the 40 odd Republicans (80%) in the Senate and a significant rump of Dems still voted against a standard WH appointment?
And that’s supposed to be an apologia of the loathsome Sunstein, Jim?
LOL
JamesK
5 Aug 12 at 6:23 pm
At least he did better than that other attempt at a prime presidential appointment.. Elizabeth Pocahontas Warren who they didn’t even bother trying to get through the process.
JC
5 Aug 12 at 6:29 pm
is a well-known post subject to senate confirmation shadowy?
Conspiracy theorists and muckrakers use words like secret and shadowy to drum up fear among fellow-travellers and the less informed.
Conspiracy theorists live on the ruse that nefarious secret plans and shadowy appointments are easily detected by members of the public such as themselves (often while living at the margins of society) without the need for special access to the key information or any investigative resources.
Jim Rose
5 Aug 12 at 6:36 pm
Try and endeavour to not be disingenuous Jim.
Its not a cabinet post afaik but possibly more powerful.
And I’ve not seen him hauled in front of various judiciary and finance committees of Senate or House to answer routine questions like a cabinbet members are.
The title of the office is essentially meaningless and could mean pretty much anything or everything the President or Sunstein might want.
By all accounts his power was pervasive and encompassed many different departments
I didn’t describe it as such I merely quoted and linked to an article citing his dangerous illiberal leftism ironically called ‘liberalism’ in the US.
I must say I have no quarrel with the writer describing such an non-descriptive post as “shadowy”.
it’s right on the money, I think.
But either way it’s irrelevant to the critique of Sunstein.
That Cass Sustein your hero and thoroughgoing liberal-fascist.
I’ve been preternaturally bored with your garbage over 20 odd comments plus now Jim.
Your intelligence has dropped considerably in my estimation.
Wanna continue with da mindlessness?
JamesK
5 Aug 12 at 7:17 pm
jamesk, google congressional testimony Cass R. Sunstein, Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. I got bored with the listings after page 4.
Jim Rose
5 Aug 12 at 9:05 pm
Here’s Mike Allen of leftist Politico yesterday announcing Sunstein’s resignation:
Mike didn’t say ‘shadowy’ but we get the gist.
And what do the “potent levers” do eggsactly?
Indeed how did congressmen and women know what to ask him about Jim?
JamesK
5 Aug 12 at 9:17 pm
Does the congressional record show any questions Jim?
Say for example:
“Hey Mr Sunstein, what potent levers did you press and which did you pull and which that you coulda pulled or pushed but you decided to leave alone?”
JamesK
5 Aug 12 at 9:20 pm
Here is an interesting piece on the US Republican Party, it’s religious interests and a variety of other insights…….. http://www.salon.com/2012/08/05/republicans_slouching_toward_theocracy/
Xevram
6 Aug 12 at 11:15 am
Here’s an “interesting” article on the Right by leftist Salon hyper-linked by ultra-leftist nutter Marvex……..
LOL
JamesK
6 Aug 12 at 11:20 am
Here’s an “interesting” article on the Right by leftist Salon hyper-linked by ultra-leftist nutter Marvex……..
LOL
Here is an intersting post by JamesK, the well know open minded intellectual, on a personal quest for self knowledge and personal growth………
Xevram
6 Aug 12 at 11:29 am
Xevram
There’s no need to post leftist swill here. No one is interested in what leftwingers have to say.. about anything.
Go away.
JC
6 Aug 12 at 11:30 am
LOL
We all know by now howe ‘open-minded’ leftists are Xevram and you’re toward the extreme end of that spectrum
JamesK
6 Aug 12 at 11:31 am
Seeing we’re sharing reading Xevram, why don’t you read this very concerning article that outlines the links between the Democratic Party & the crony capitalism where Obama & former speaker Pelosi have pumped billions to Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists who were bundlers for their political campaign.
As you say, very interesting!
Token
6 Aug 12 at 11:33 am
Such a terrible thing to suggest!
The sort of thing that should happen if the government strays off its reservation and starts addressing social issues.
Driftforge
6 Aug 12 at 11:43 am
LOL on the Breitbart link, but as you say very interesting reading.
Breitbart is or rather was so respected he even generated a “fan” site…. http://hatingbreitbart.com/
Some interesting reading there as well.
We all know by now howe ‘open-minded’ leftists are Xevram and you’re toward the extreme end of that spectrum
Well done JamesK, your absolutley correct, I am indeed towards the “extreme” end of open mindedness.
Xevram
6 Aug 12 at 12:14 pm
indignant 5 yo in the school yard
JamesK
6 Aug 12 at 12:17 pm
Great to hear you admit like all uneducated Lefties you are fueled by your hate and detirmination to remain ignorant.
Token
6 Aug 12 at 12:44 pm
JamesK, I wonder how much press coverage is required before the smear ‘shadowy’ loses credibility with regard to Sunstein and his sub-cabinet post
Jim Rose
6 Aug 12 at 5:56 pm
Sunstein is a creep but he’s not shadowy.
The adjective was applied to the post because … well it’s shadowy.
JamesK
6 Aug 12 at 6:00 pm
An extreme leftist creep in a ‘shadowy’ but powerful post with an meaningless name and an extreme leftist President it all adds up to a bad combo Jim.
JamesK
6 Aug 12 at 6:19 pm
President Obama said
jamesk, a shadow does not lead an Administration’s regulatory reform agenda.
Jim Rose
6 Aug 12 at 6:30 pm
Quite right Jim Rose – as I said in my previous comment a leftist creep does.
We all know by now what leftist ‘reform’ means don’t we and in Australia as well?
Jim I’m actually beginning to believe that you’re a fool and not just merely deluded.
You are disappointing me mightily, Jim
JamesK
6 Aug 12 at 7:07 pm
jamesk, make up your mind about what you have just said.
Jim Rose
6 Aug 12 at 10:32 pm