There’s only one legitimate journalist anchoring for Fox News, and yesterday he laid blame for a spate of violent threats against members of Congress in the wake of passage of the health-care reform law on “over-inflated rhetoric” on the right:

“I wonder when it is an isolated incident becomes a string of things,” he said Wednesday. “You wonder when some in there, on both sides of the aisle, are gonna look in the mirror and go, my over-inflated rhetoric is causing some people…[to] go out and react given the information that they’ve been given. I just wonder if anybody’s gonna settle down a minute and go, Wow, we better settle down here, relax.”

Shep continued on that subject with a hint that he was really talking about those on the far right, including possibly his Fox News colleague Glenn Beck.

“What we do know is that when leaders on either side of the aisle go with this over-inflated rhetoric and they tell us it’s the end of the world, it’s Armageddon, the Marxists have taken over Washington, it’s the end of the world as we know it, we’re moving into socialism,” he said, “when they say things like that, that maybe some of them don’t believe, and then the fringes believe it, and then they go out and do stupid things…Well, I mean, it’s all kind of tied together isn’t it?”

How long will Shepard Smith keep his job — and how long before he starts receiving threats from tea baggers? Stay tuned.

As we noted here in May, a couple of studies released last year produced surprising results about the average consumers of right-wing media.

We quoted Michael Woolf who wrote in Vanity Fair that the “dirty little secret of conservative talk radio is that the average age of listeners is 67 [so now 68] and rising … [The] Fox News audience, likewise, is in its mid-60s.” In addition, a Pew study in February 2009 found that 72 percent of Rush Limbaugh’s grizzled Dittoheads are men and so have a life expectancy of 75.6 years, which means this cohort will start to expire by 2017. Limbaugh will be 60 next January, which means he will be 67 when his average-aged listeners begin to die off.

A study released by Pew last week had more bad news for the conservative movement, both in the political realm and its propaganda outlets. The report’s title — “Democrats’ Edge Among Millennials Slips” — signaled an ominous development for the left, but a deeper dig produces much worse news for the right. It is dying. Literally.

First the bad news for Dems. Support for the Democratic party among the Millennial generation, the young people who came of age around 2000, dropped from 62 percent — an astronomical high in politics — in 2008 to 54 percent by late 2009. Conversely, Millennials’ support for the GOP was a dismal 30 percent (roughly equal to George W. Bush’s job approval approval during his second term) in 2008, but rose to a less anemic 40 percent by late 2009.

The 8 point drop in youth support for Dems was likely driven by disillusionment in the political process as Pres. Obama and the Democrats confronted the disasters they inherited — the Great Recession, the botched wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rest — from Bush and his Republican-controlled rubberstamp Congress. Bush was president throughout the Millennials’ early adulthood, and they, like many of their liberal elders, were too idealistic about how quickly the crises he left behind could be resolved — a factor that was exacerbated by Obama’s squishy campaign themes, “Hope” and “Change.”

Here’s what the Pew Report said:

The “Millennial Generation” of young voters played a big role in the resurgence of the Democratic Party in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but their attachment to the Democratic Party weakened markedly over the course of 2009. The Democratic advantage over the Republicans in party affiliation among young voters, including those who “lean” to a party, reached a whopping 62 percent to 30 percent margin in 2008. But by the end of 2009 this 32-point margin had shrunk to just 14 points: 54 percent Democrat, 40 percent Republican.

While the Republican Party picked up support from Millennials during 2009, this age group continues to favor the Democratic Party more than do other generations. And the underlying political values of this new generation continue to be significantly more liberal than those of other generations on many measures.

Now for the really — really — bad news for conservatives from the new Pew report. Let’s let Daniel Larison at The American Conservative be the messenger:

The percentage of self-identifying conservatives among Millennials is basically equal with that of self-identifying liberals (28 percent vs. 29 percent). The youngest generation of voters is unusually ill-disposed towards movement conservatism of the sort on display at CPAC, which is the event [Nile] Gardiner hails not only as proof that conservatism is the future but as an “intellectually vibrant” gathering…

[The] evidence we have available right now suggests that conservatism is losing, indeed has already lost, most of the next generation, and that conservatism as we know it today is going to keep losing ground in the future…

Republicans remain behind among all voters younger than 65. That does not seem to herald the future revival of movement conservatism of the sort Gardiner is so embarrassingly praising.

In fact, the youth presence at CPAC declined this year, again quoting from The American Conservative:

The percentage of students declined this year, to 48 percent from 52 percent in 2009. And the percentage of registrants aged 18 to 25 also declined this year, to 54 percent from 57 percent in 2009. (The percentage of those under 18 stayed the same both years — 2 percent.)

Of course, it is true that Fox News and Limbaugh have stronger ratings than liberal broadcasting outlets — some wags suggest this is because liberals can read. But what all these numbers say, loud and clear, is that the movement conservatism that dominated the culture in the late 20th century has little or no appeal among young voters, and this is bad news for the future of right-wing media.

Since 1975, the wordmeisters at Lake Superior State University have submitted for the world’s edification and delight an annual “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.”

For additional commentary that accompanies each entry, check out the university’s Web site.

And now, without further ado, the 2010 list of banished words:

SHOVEL-READY — “Stick a shovel in it. It’s done.”

TRANSPARENT/TRANSPARENCY — “I just don’t see it.”

CZAR — “We have appointed a czar of such-and-such; clearly that’s better than a ‘leader,’ ‘coordinator’ or ‘director’!”

TWEET (and all of its variations: tweetaholic, retweet, twitterhea, twitterature, twittersphere …) — “People tweet and retweet and I just heard the word ‘tweet’ so many times it lost all meaning.”

APP — “Is there an ‘app’ for making this annoying word go away? Why can’t we just call them ‘programs’ again?”

SEXTING — “Any dangerous new trend that also happens to have a clever mash-up of words, involves teens, and gets television talk show hosts interested must be banished.”

FRIEND AS A VERB — “‘Befriend’ is much more pleasant to the human ear and a perfectly useful word in the dictionary.”

TEACHABLE MOMENT — “This phrase is used to describe everything from potty-training to politics. It’s time to vote it out!”

IN THESE ECONOMIC TIMES — “Overused and redundant. Aren’t ALL times ‘these economic times’?”

STIMULUS — “Everything in the news is about the stimulus packages…it is no longer a grant, it’s stimulus money, stimulus checks, etc. I think it is just being over-used.”

TOXIC ASSETS — “Whatever happened to simply ‘bad stocks,’ ‘debts,’ or ‘loans’?”

TOO BIG TO FAIL — “Does such a thing exist? We’ll never know if a company is too big to fail, unless somehow it does fail, and then it will no longer be too big to fail. Make it stop!”

BROMANCE — “I am sick of combined words the media creates to make them sound catchier. Frenemies? Bromances? Blogorrhea? I’m going to scream!”

CHILLAXIN’ — “Heard everywhere from MTV to ESPN to CNN. A bothersome term that seeks to combine chillin’ with relaxin’ makes me want to be ‘axin’ this word.”

OBAMA-prefix or roots — The LSSU Word Banishment Committee held out hope that folks would want to Obama-ban Obama-structions, but were surprised that no one Obama-nominated any, such as these compiled by the Oxford Dictionary in 2009: Obamanomics, Obamanation, Obamafication, Obamacare, Obamalicious, Obamaland … We say Obamanough already.

There’s one denizen of the social networks that won’t show up among the avatars of your Twitter followers or among your friends on Facebook, though it’s there all the same — the U.S. Justice Department.

Seems Justice and some other federal agencies have been using social networks as a source of information on citizens, though how they do it, how often they do it, how much info they mine and what they do with it is a secret. That’s why the Electronic Frontier Foundation has sued the government to find out what agencies’ policies and practices are when it comes to data collection and surveillance using social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

EFF sued only after the agencies refused to comply with its Freedom of Information Act requests within the mandatory 20-day period.

According to a Bloomberg.com article, EFF claims there have been incidents where law enforcement organizations have used socnets for investigations, though no one knows how often or how many:

The EFF said in its complaint that it is seeking the information to “help inform Congress and the public about the effect of such uses and purposes on citizens’ privacy rights and associated legal protections.”

It cited news articles that reported police searching Facebook photos for evidence of underage drinking and an FBI search of an individual’s home after the person sent messages on Twitter during the G-20 Summit notifying protesters of police movements.

The potential number of citizens who could find their social network invaded by cops and feds is huge — Facebook, the biggest socnet site in the world, has 300 million users, while Twitter boasts 58 million.

My mother always used to tell me, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” What I’d like to say to some self-anointed marketing mavens is, If you can’t say anything smart, don’t say anything. Please!

The InterWeb is full of lists these days. Seems that making lists has become the substitute for critical thinking. Plus, it appeals to readers’ sense of What’s in it for me? Today I found a list that struck me as completely idiotic in a way that only marketing lists can be — it’s both obtuse and obnoxious.

I receive a newsletter called “Marketing Charts,” and it usually provides a rich source of short news items that I can share on Twitter. Today, however, it featured an interview with Judy Franks, founder and president of The Marketing Democracy, whose Web site won’t even be live until Nov. 4. Now I ask you, how much credence should you give a so-called marketing company that doesn’t even have a working Web site? Right, my point exactly.

Franks shares her top 10 integrated marketing trends to watch for next year. I’ve stripped them of their explanations, which tend to make them seem sensible. You can read the whole thing here. But taken as assertive statements, they’re just smelly piles of marketingspeak:

1. Less will get done until we learn to do more with less.
2. Marketers will mistakenly “whack” a medium of the marketing mix.
3. Marketers rush to employ “social networking” strategies.
4. More data but even less “understanding.”
5. Lines between media will continue to blur.
6. Push vs. pull will become less relevant.
7. Great content will travel at the “speed of share” while “average” experiences will evaporate.
8. The adult 18-49 demo will become even less relevant as a target cohort.
9. Symbiosis will create interesting and — at times strange — partnerships.
10. 2010 will become the year of the good idea.

Lord help us if any of these predictions comes true. Seems to me you could have made up these predictions by tossing a bunch of pieces of paper with words written on them in a hat and pulling them out randomly. What exactly does “more data but even less ‘understanding'” mean?

It doesn’t mean anything, and it’s not designed to. The whole purpose of that exercise was to position Judy Franks as a thought leader, though apparently she can’t be bothered to back that up with a thought.

Don’t get me wrong, I like marketing. I find it a most interesting topic. I just don’t think you have to dress it in some wizard’s cloak of nonsensical language to make it seem magical and mysterious.

I do hope Franks is right about one thing: “2010 will become the year of the good idea.” We could use one of those right about now.

See Minute 3:22 for MSNBC’s “We’re Number One” promo

Now that Fox is officially the GOP informercial network, it has lost its top spot in news channel rankings, leaving the field to MSNBC:

For the first time, MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” beat CNN’s prime-time highlight, “Anderson Cooper 360,” and … Rachel Maddow’s programs both finished solidly ahead of “Larry King Live” in the prime-time hours.

In the past few months, the ruse that Fox was a news channel has collapsed under its own weight. In August, a poll found that three-quarters of Fox viewers said they believed as articles of faith lies and distortions about health care reform — Republican disinformation that nonpartisan analysts had debunked without equivocation.

At a real news network, a report that 75 percent of the audience was misinformed would taken as a sign of gross incompetence in delivering the news. Heads would roll. But because it’s Fox, no one is surprised because it’s an open secret that Fox’s objective is to disinform. From Fox’s point of view, they have succeeded.

Recently, the Obama White House has generated headlines by calling Fox an “ideological unit” and by excluding it in the president’s round of Sunday shows last month.

With Fox out of the picture, the new ratings reflect MSNBC’s rising influence:

For the month, CNN averaged 202,000 viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 — the group that television news organizations use as their basis of success because of their advertising sales. [It] trailed MSNBC, which had 250,000 viewers in that group and HLN, which had 221,000.

The only CNN show from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. that did not finish last was Larry King, which was [second], ahead of the new Joy Behar show on HLN. [First] was Rachel Maddow on MSNBC with 242,000. Mr. King averaged 224,000 and Ms. Behar 181,000.

At 7 p.m. CNN’s host, Lou Dobbs was [last], barely beaten by Jane Velez Mitchell on HLN, 166,000 to 162,000. [First] was Chris Matthews and “Hardball” on MSNBC, with 79,000 viewers.

CNN’s performance was worst in the 8 p.m. hour. Mr. Olbermann, with his first-run program, was [first] with 295,000. Close behind was the first edition of Ms. Grace’s show with 269,000. Campbell Brown on CNN trailed with only 162,000.

For the record, Bill O’Reilly, Fox’s top rated GOP infomercial host drew 881,000 viewers, trailing by nearly 3 million viewers its closest in-kind competitor — wrestling. WWE Friday Night Smackdown had 3.8 million viewers for its Oct. 2 anniversary show.

In the most recent edition of TrendWatching, the editors introduce the concept of “nowism” to explain the transitory and hyper-current currency of our high-speed, now-focused lives. While I am adverse to making up cute names for passing fancies, there is something about nowism that seems to ring pretty true.

In an age where one’s life can be parsed into a series of 140-character tweets or posted on a page where all the world can see your friends, hobbies and pet peeves, where scanning headlines has replaced reading the newspaper and we only watch or listen to TV or radio programs that support our world view, it’s difficult to argue against the existence and power of nowism.

Here’s the definition:

NOWISM: Consumers’ ingrained* lust for instant gratification is being satisfied by a host of novel, important (offline and online) real-time products, services and experiences. Consumers are also feverishly contributing to the real-time content avalanche that’s building as we speak. As a result, expect your brand and company to have no choice but to finally mirror and join the “now,” in all its splendid chaos, realness and excitement.

*In the end, just like all our other trends, NOWISM represents a case of consumers jumping on something the moment they actually can. So the need is never new, the new ways to fulfill it are.

Well, they certainly have the instant gratification angle covered, but is there something deeper than that at work here? Trendwatching’s editors direct the reader to the writings of Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish sociologist, who posited the effects of what he calls “liquid modernity”:

“Liquid Modernity” is Bauman’s term for the present condition of the world as contrasted with the “solid” modernity that preceded it. According to Bauman, the passage from “solid” to “liquid” modernity has created a new and unprecedented setting for individual life pursuits, confronting individuals with a series of challenges never before encountered. Social forms and institutions no longer have enough time to solidify and cannot serve as frames of reference for human actions and long-term life plans, so individuals have to find other ways to organize their lives.

Individuals have to splice together an unending series of short-term projects and episodes that don’t add up to the kind of sequence to which concepts like “career” and “progress” could be meaningfully applied.

Such fragmented lives require individuals to be flexible and adaptable — to be constantly ready and willing to change tactics at short notice, to abandon commitments and loyalties without regret and to pursue opportunities according to their current availability. In liquid modernity the individual must act, plan actions and calculate the likely gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) under conditions of endemic uncertainty.

“Nowism” actually sounds a lot less scary than Bauman’s “liquid modernity” with its reduction of life to an episodic, unpredictable and essentially meaningless sequence of events. Man, it sounds like 1940-1950s existentialism all over again, except accelerated by Twitter and Facebook and smartphones and DVRs ….

With all this liquid modernity, I need a drink.

On Sept. 29, the right-wing magazine Newsmax published and then scrubbed from its Web site an article by John L. Perry titled, “Obama Risks a Domestic Military ‘Intervention,'” in which Perry provided at point-by-point rationale for the the idea that U.S. military officers could launch a coup against the nation’s elected government.

(Media Matters grabbed the text of the Newsmax article, which you can view here (PDF), and we posted the text in a Web page. Go here.)

According to the Newsmax rationale, military officers could legally launch a coup against the government because, unlike enlisted personnel who swear to “obey the orders of the president of the United States,” officers swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

This loophole in their oath-swearing, according to Newsmax, provides military officers with a legal basis for overthrowing the government.

The article then provides a laundry list of outrages that could form the basis of a rationale for a military coup:

• The citizenry is scared of Pres. Obama’s policies that are changing the country so that it “may not be recognizable as America by the 2012 election.”
• The economy is “ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation [and is] is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.” (This is typical Newsmax/Fox disinformation. As everyone knows, all the financial outrages Perry listed were caused by the greed and incompentence of Republicans, particularly George W. Bush and his GOP-controlled Congress.)
• Pres. Obama is “waging an undeclared war on the intelligence community” — by which he means the investigation into torture of detainees by CIA and other intelligence officers ordered by Bush, Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and other top Bush administration officials.
• The “dismantling” of the missile defense system is leaving us unprotected — even though the administration has announced it will be replaced with a more efficient and targetted system.
• “They can see the horror of major warfare erupting simultaneously in two, and possibly three, far-flung theaters before America can react in time.”
• “They can see the nation’s safety and their own military establishments and honor placed in jeopardy as never before.”

The Tea Bagger rhetoric — including a jibe at the president for having “bonded with his twin teleprompters,” which could also be said about all his immediate predecessors as well as at such right-wing leading lights as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and every bikini-model newsreaders at Fox — lends a discordantly trivial tone to what amounts to an argument for the most profound act of high treason ever committed against the United States.

The folks at Media Matters flagged the Newsmax article on Wednesday. On Thursday, the article was removed, without comment, from the Newsmax Web site. However, a Newsmax representative released this bit of non-contrition to Media Matters and other outlets:

In a blog posting to Newsmax John Perry wrote about a coup scenario involving the U.S. military. He clearly stated that he was not advocating such a scenario but simply describing one.

After several reader complaints, Newsmax wanted to insure that this article was not misinterpreted. It was removed after a short period after being posted.

Newsmax strongly believes in the principles of Constitutional government and would never advocate or insinuate any suggestion of an activity that would undermine our democracy or democratic institutions.

Mr. Perry served as a political appointee in the Carter administration in HUD and FEMA. He has no official relationship with Newsmax other than as an unpaid blogger.

Of course, if the Newsmax writer hadn’t intended to promote the rationale for treason, he wouldn’t have written it, and if Newsmax hadn’t endorsed it, they wouldn’t have published it.

And he may be an “unpaid blogger” but he was described as “a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents [and] a regular columnist for Newsmax.com.” Elsewhere we learn that he has been writing a weekly column for Newsmax since 1999, a year after it was founded.