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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Apr-2009
Vile "teabagging" jokes signal the deterioration of CNN and NBC news

Web Log - April, 2009

Vile "teabagging" jokes signal the deterioration of CNN and NBC news

"Tea party" protests are anti-Washington, anti-tax and anti-spending.

Here's something that I posted on an online forum early in 2004:

"I actually believe that things are much better today, because there's a much wider range of political views expressed in newscasts. My reading is that the major networks lean far left, CNN leans slightly left, and Fox leans to the right. The one that I believe is squarely hitting the center is MSNBC."

At that time, MSNBC's newsroom was run by Jerry Nachman, a distinguished journalist who made sure that the news reporting was balanced. His death early in 2004 caused a big slide in MSNBC's news standards.

By the time of the 2006 election, both CNN and MSNBC had completely abandoned journalist standards for Democratic party ideology. CNN essentially turned the network over to be a 24-hour per day advertisement for the Democrats. NBC news did the same, and in November ran a huge ideological dog-and-pony show announcing that the Iraq war was a 'civil war,' and that the US would be defeated.

Unfortunately, both CNN and NBC have only gotten worse in the last two years, and they both really seem to have become so disgusting in the last week that it's hard to see how they could become any worse (though I'm sure they'll find a way).

In the last couple of years, there have been only two major sources of decent journalism at NBC: Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw. But Russert has died, and Brokaw is already semi-retired.

The MSNBC web site describes David Shuster as "The Emmy award-winning journalist [who] has covered the nation's capitol for 16 years and is based in Washington, D.C."

Before I quote from Mr. Shuster's Emmy award-winning journalism, let me explain for those who don't know what "teabagging" is (as I didn't) that it's a component of oral sex, where the man places his testicles in the lady's mouth.

So now, if you watch this video of Shuster, you'll see him introduce his topic as follows:

"Thousands of them whipped out the festivities this weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the teabaggers are full-throated about their goals -- they want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing, and lick government spending."

Later in the "news" story, Shuster makes some puns about "DICK Armey," referring to the former House Majority Leader for the Republicans.

CNN's Anderson Cooper says, "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging," and David Gergen laughs. <font face=Arial size=-2>(Source: CNN/YouTube)</font>

CNN's Anderson Cooper says, "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging," and David Gergen laughs. (Source: CNN/YouTube)

CNN's Anderson Cooper took up the joke, as you can see in this video when he said, "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging," to howls of laughter from the other CNN correspondents, including David Gergen.

As if that weren't offensive enough, here's what far-left actress Janeane Garofalo said on MSNBC, completely unchallenged:

"Let's be very honest about what this is about. This is not about bashing Democrats. It's not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea party was about. They don't know their history at all. It's about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up and is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks. There is no way around that."

She went on to describe a "right-winger, Republican or conservative or your average white power activist" with: "Their synapses are misfiring. ... It is a neurological problem we are dealing with." She said that Fox News had captured the "Klan demographic," referring to the Ku Klux Klan. She added, "Who else is Fox talking to? Urban older white guys and their girlfriends who suffer from Stockholm Syndrome."

Garofalo is obviously a total nutjob, and she's entitled to her opinion. But the point is the the MSNBC anchors simply accepted her statement, and tacitly agreed with it.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, what we're seeing here is a growing populist movement.

A typical remark that I heard on CNN or MSNBC was, "The people at Fox News had a lot of fun creating these Tea Parties."

You'd have to be a total idiot to believe that a mass movement of this size was "created" by anyone.

The first major sign of this populist movement came in the reaction to CNBC market reporter Rick Santelli's February 19 rant, criticizing President Obama's bailout plan. What was significant about this was not the rant itself -- Santelli rants about something almost every day -- but that the rant achieved "viral" status and spread around the internet. As I wrote in "The mob turns ugly as AIG bonuses come under fire," Santelli's rant signalled a signficant change in public attitudes, and for the first time, the Obama administration was put on the defensive about its entire economic strategy.

Now we're seeing that this populist attitude is growing. And to say that CNN, MSNBC, and other mainstream media outlets don't have the vaguest clue what's going on is a vast understatement.

Some years ago, I heard the aphorism: "Liberals think that conservatives are evil, while conservatives think that liberals are stupid."

We can see from the above quotes that liberal nutjobs at CNN and MSNBC do indeed believe that conservatives are evil. But what about the second half -- are liberals stupid?

That the liberals on CNN and MSNBC are incredibly stupid is obvious from their ratings. In the 1990s, it used to be that CNN was far and away the ratings leader in cable news ratings. Fox News Channel (FNC) presented an alternate viewpoint, and began to surpass CNN in ratings. Today, FNC is far ahead of CNN,

The following chart shows the cable news ratings for Thursday, April 16. It compares the number of viewers for the five cable news networks (HLN is CNN's Headline News). All numbers are in the thousands of viewers:

    Network  Total day   Morning (6-9 am ET)      Prime Time (8-9 pm ET)
    -------  ---------   ----------------------   ----------------------
    FNC       1443       FOX & Friends     1098   O’Reilly Factor   3897
    CNN        725       American Morning   529   Campbell Brown     942
    MSNBC      441       Morning Joe        429   Keith Olbermann   1229
    CNBC       234       Squawk Box         217   CNBC Reports       228
    HLN        375       Morning Express    301   Nancy Grace       1172

Bill O'Reilly, who is hugely hated on the left, is now celebrating 100 consecutive months of being #1 in his time slot. As you can see from the above chart, he draws more viewers than all four of the other networks combined.

So how many additional viewers did CNN and MSNBC drive away to FNC in the last week? You have a growing, popular anti-Washington, anti-tax, anti-spending grass roots movement, and CNN and MSNBC are insulting and offending ordinary people by making odious oral sex jokes, calling them racists, and saying that the wives are victims of the Stockholm Syndrome. These vicious, vile attacks appear to be a sign of desperation on the left.

If the people at CNN and MSNBC want to drive viewers away from their networks, I cannot imagine a more effective way to do it.

CNN and MSNBC are being gratuitously offensive to millions of ordinary people, and this is costing them dearly in ratings. If that isn't stupidity, then I don't know what is.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Fox News Channel vs CNN and MSNBC thread of the Generational Dynamics forum.) (18-Apr-2009) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Apr-2009 Vile "teabagging" jokes signal the deterioration of CNN and NBC news

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Apr-2009
Vile "teabagging" jokes signal the deterioration of CNN and NBC news