Tag: Media Watch

Levi Johnston Update: Escorts Kathy Griffin to Teen Awards, Would Pose Nude

Jon Ponder

You’ve probably been wondering what Levi Johnston, Sarah Palin’s grandbaby-daddy, has been up to over the past few days. Well, here’s what:

He was Kathy Griffin’s date for the Teen Choice Awards, on Aug. 10. It’ll be an episode in her reality show, “My Life on the D List,” soon. Until then, enjoy the video above of Griffin, substituting on “Larry King Live,” interviewing Levi about their date.

Elsewhere, Levi says he would be willing to pose nude but on one condition:

“It depends on the money, man,” says Levi Johnston, who fathered baby Tripp with Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol.

Johnson now wants to be an actor and model.

“It’s gotta be right for that,” Johnston tells Bravo’s Andy Cohen.

And how does he feel about being a so-called “gay pin-up boy”?

“I think it’s great, man. Um, I just like my fans. Just another person.”

The current issue of Star Magazine cites Levi’s sister Mercede in confirming that Palin and her husband Todd are divorcing. The tabloid has also published a photo it claims shows Willow Palin, 15, smoking pot and drinking vodka.

That’s all the Levi Johnston news we have time for today.

Note to MSNBC: Please Give Lawrence O’Donnell His Own Show

Jon Ponder

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Substituting for Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball” yesterday, Lawrence O’Donnell was at the top of his game during an interview about Republican opposition to health-care reform with Rep. John Culbertson (R-Texas). O’Donnell exposed the Republicans’ hypocritical opposition to the government option because it is “socialism” while insisting they support the equally socialist Medicare program. He also called Culbertson on his party’s lies over “death panels” and the rest. It was a joy to watch:

[…]

Median Age of Fox News Viewers is 65 – Average Dittohead Is a 67 Year Old Man

Jon Ponder

About two-thirds of the way into media writer Michael Woolf’s Vanity Fair column, “The Man Who Ate the G.O.P.,” on the conundrum of Rush Limbaugh’s dual role as GOP party boss and hate radio megastar, this demographic nugget about the conservative media audience caught my eye:

“Among ad-supported cable nets, the news nets … sport the most gray, with Fox News Channel’s daytime and primetime skeds the absolute oldest, clocking in with a median age above 65.”
– Variety

Arguably no message apparatus like [Limbaugh’s show] exists in the nation, except, perhaps, at the White House (or in Oprah — whose position with American women is curiously analogous to Rush’s position with American conservatives). It is concentrated and extraordinary power.

Except that this power ought to be ending. It ought to all be on the wane. It is not just the Obama victory and the magnitude of his approval ratings. It is not just that the gravity of the economic crisis, with historic unemployment rates, means it’s a lot harder to get people excited about Reagan-and-Rush-esque hands-off government.

It is, rather, a crueler demographic point. The dirty little secret of conservative talk radio is that the average age of listeners is 67 and rising, according to [Jon Sinton, founding president of Air America] — the Fox News audience, likewise, is in its mid-60s: “What sort of continuing power do you have as your audience strokes out?”

Only dinosaurs listen to radio these days, and it’s doubtful many people under 50 even know AM radio exists, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the average age of right-wing radio listeners is 67. It’s also truly not shocking that this demographic is also predominantly male. According to a Pew study in February, 72 percent of Limbaugh’s elderly listeners are men and thus are statistically likely to “stroke out” sometime in Pres. Obama’s second term, assuming he wins one.

However, television viewership trounces radio audiences in every demographic, so the fact that the average age of FNC viewers is, well, retired could have huge ramifications on the political playing field over the next decade.

It took some googling but I found a reliable source that confirms that during the 2007-2008 television season, the most recent season for which figures are available, the average age of Fox News viewers was 65:

According to a study released by Magna Global’s Steve Sternberg, the five broadcast nets’ average live median age (in other words, not including delayed DVR viewing) was 50 last season. That’s the oldest ever since Sternberg started analyzing median age more than a decade ago — and the first time the nets’ median age was outside of the vaunted 18-49 demo…

Among ad-supported cable nets, the news nets (along with older-skewing Hallmark Channel, Golf Channel and GSN’s daytime sked) sport the most gray, with Fox News Channel’s daytime and primetime skeds the absolute oldest, clocking in with a median age above 65. (Emphasis added.)

By the way, MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” does the best in cable news primetime among the most desirable younger demographic, but according to numbers from last season, the average “Countdown” viewer is 59 years old, and 55 percent of its audience is male.

Update: Hollywood Reporter, August 10, 2010:

In a survey released by analyst Steve Sternberg, Fox News has the oldest audience among fully distributed cable networks. The network’s average viewer last season was 65 years old, according to Nielsen. Heck, it’s viewers are even older than viewers of Hallmark Channel, Military Channel and Golf Channel.

(Note Hollywood Reporter is owned by Nielsen.)

Did CNN’s Rightwing Nutcase Glenn Beck Say Malibu Liberals Hate America, So Deserve Wild Fires?

Jon Ponder

Most of the 300,000 Evacuees Are from Republican Enclaves

On his radio gabfest yesterday, CNN’s resident rightwing crackpot Glenn Beck implied that because residents of Malibu, Calif., “hate America,” they were therefore unluckily suffering the loss of their homes to wildfires:

I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire [sic] today.

Leaving aside the fact that there isn’t a “forest” within miles of Malibu, just seconds before that outrageous, though half-baked, assertion, Beck made a statement that contradicted what he was about to say:

[We’re] all one America, that just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean you hate America, and I love America. We all love America. We just disagree on how we should function…

He then contradicted himself in the same sentence a second time, saying he was not referring to Democrats but to nefarious people (liberals? terrorists?) who pretend to be Democrats:

There are a few people that hate America. But I don’t think the Democrats are those. I think there are those posing as Democrats that are like that.

Huh? It’s always dicey trying to parse logic from the ravings of an unbalanced mind, but since the fires being reported in the national news yesterday were mostly in the Malibu area, it appears that Beck’s “America haters” are Hollywood liberals who live in Malibu.

Or maybe he was referring to Muslim terrorists who are hiding out in Malibu pretending to be Democrats. (If so, they are rapidly burning through Osama bin Ladin’s fortune.)

Ironically, while the wildfires on Sunday did significant damage to the tiny but wealthy and politically liberal beachfront enclave of Malibu, the widespread and horrendous destruction that is going on now is in the politically conservative areas of inland Los Angeles County, coastal Orange County and throughout northern San Diego County, where around 300,000 people have been evacuated.

This recalls TV preacher and diamond-mine owner Pat Robertson’s prophesy in 1998 that God would destroy Orlando, Fla., with a hurricane because Disney allowed a gay group to host activities in its theme park. Instead, God smote Robertson by hurling Hurricane Bonnie directly at his headquarters in Virginia Beach that August.

Lame Duck Bush Team Killing Time By Blogging

Trish

You know blogging has gone mainstream when two members of Bush’s cabinet start doing it.

Yes, I now have something in common with Michael Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Defense. Welcome to the internets tubes, guys!

The men take very different approaches with their blogs.

Leavitt says he writes every blog entry himself, often late at night in hotel rooms when he is traveling. He is concerned that his entries are too long; on Aug. 20, he wrote 2,444 words about his trip to an orphanage in South Africa.

…Chertoff comes up with an idea for a blog entry, then someone in the department writes it, and Chertoff heavily edits it, said Jeff Ostermayer, a department spokesman who oversees the blog.

Mercifully, Chertoff’s picture is not shown on his blog, “Leadership Journal,” which also calls upon guest contributors like W. Ralph Basham, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Kip Hawley, Transportation Security Administration.

Leavitt, possibly a frustrated editor, features no guests but he does offer a confusing list of categories. I guess you have to spend some time on the site to understand the differences between “health” (capitalization Leavitt’s own), “Health Coverage,” “Health Diplomacy,” “Health IT,” and “Personalized Health Care.”

The blogs are not quite like, say, ours. Or most others for that matter.

The public can comment on Chertoff’s and Leavitt’s blogs, but both departments established ground rules that include a ban on personal attacks and vulgar language.

As all you Pensito Reviewers know, the three of us are on the receiving end of our share of personal attacks and vulgarity. And every once in awhile, we’re on the giving end too. But knowing how much time blogging takes the three of us, I have to agree with a comment on one of Chertoff’s posts.

Another comment said, “This is a serious question. How do you have time to blog? Don’t you have a 24-hour-a-day job with very important things to do?”

Not really.

Limbaugh Caught on Tape Mocking Speech of 12 Year Old Graeme Frost

Jon Ponder

Rush Limbaugh phoned into the Oct. 18, 2007, edition of “Hannity & Colmes” on Fox News to deny charges he’d attacked 12-year-old Graeme Frost, the boy who dared to speak out against Pres. Bush’s veto of the health insurance program for children. But in denying he attacked Graeme, Limbaugh trashed him again. He imitated the boy’s speech, even appeared to mock Graeme’s slight speech impairment (his vocal cords remain slightly paralyzed) — but you be the judge.

The mockery gets underway on the video at the 5:54 minute mark but, depending on your intestinal fortitude, you may not want to miss the ass-kissing Sean Hannity lays on Rush at the start of the tape. Boys, get a room!

Transcript via Newshounds:

LIMBAUGH: No, Alan, that’s an interesting question. I never once attacked this family. I attacked the Democrats for exploiting them. I attacked the Democrats for putting lies into the head of a 12-year old. A 12-year old they send out before microphones and cameras, to sit there and say, [mocking Graeme Frost, age 12, who suffered brain damage in an automobile accident] “I only want health care for the rest of American children like I got and George Bush is against it.”

A 12 year-old can’t write that garbage. The fact of the matter is, Graeme Frost was covered and got the health care he and his sister — both got the health care they needed under the current circumstances of the program. …I never attacked this family. I simply reported what their financial circumstances are. I actually feel sorry for ‘em to be used… I never once attacked — I wouldn’t attack a 12 year-old kid. I feel sorry for the fact that the kid is having words put in his mouth. He’s sent out before the whole country to lie, when he can’t know any better because he’s 12 years old, simply to advance another lie that the Democrats want to put forth.

This is not the first time Limbaugh, who went deaf reportedly because of the mass quantities of OxyContin he consumed, has mocked someone who is disabled. In October 2006, Limbaugh did a takeoff of Michael J. Fox’s loss of motor control as a result of Parkinson’s disease. Fox earned Limbaugh’s derision because he appeared in an ad for Claire McCaskill, a stem cell research supporter who was running for the U.S. Senate in Missouri.

Here’s Keith Olbermann’s take, including video of Limbaugh imitating Fox’s disability and an interview with Michael J. Fox:

Was Cruella de Malkin Fired by Fox over Smear of 12 Year Old?

Jon Ponder

Is it possible there is a bottom to the depths of rightwing hackery? Probably not, but there is a rumor going around that Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit most likely to skin puppies to make a fur coat, has been fired as the occasional guest host for the Bill O’Reilly comedy hour on Fox News because of her vicious attack on 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family.

Graeme and his sister were seriously injured in a car accident in 2004, after which SCHIP, the children’s health insurance program Pres. Bush has vetoed, covered the costs of their extensive hospital stays and rehab. On Sept. 29, Graeme gave the Democrats’ rebuttal to Pres. Bush’s radio speech in which he sought to justify vetoing SCHIP, and Malkin, along with Rush Limbaugh and their running dogs at sites like Free Republic and Redstate — and even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office and the Bush White House, no less — have been trying to silence and discredit the kid ever since.

Conservative bloggers even went so far as to publish the Frost family’s address online and, to no one’s surprise, the Frosts have been receiving death threats ever since.

The Malkin controversy arose just as the dust was settling after Bill O’Reilly’s racist comments about African-American restaurant-goers, and may have been too much for Fox executives and, more to the point, FNC advertisers.

If the rumor is true, Malkin’s cover story for her departure has it that she is leaving in a fit of pique because an apology she received from Fox correspondent Geraldo Rivera on an unrelated matter was not sincere enough:

[…]

Limbaugh Had Himself Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize, Now Is in a Snit of Jealousy over Gore’s Win

Jon Ponder

While it may have been common knowledge in the Dittohead universe that Rush Limbaugh was nominated for the Nobel Prize this year, the story went largely unreported out here in the real world.

Rush is so busy smearing 12 year olds and wounded veterans that he probably wouldn’t have had time to go to Norway to accept the award.

Even though Limbaugh had no chance, now that Al Gore is the official winner, Limbaugh is in a snit of jealousy:

LIMBAUGH: My lawyers at the Landmark Legal Foundation are looking into the possibility of filing an objection with the Nobel committee over the unethical tampering for this award that Al Gore is engaging in. This is clearly above and beyond the pale. I mean, this might happen in high school class president elections and so forth, but this is shameless.

Rush’s nomination sounds on the surface like a stunt dreamed up by Sascha Baron Cohen. A deeper dig reinforces the perception that it was a stunt.

For starters, it appears that Limbaugh de facto nominated himself. The nomination went out under the letterhead of “his lawyers” at the Landmark foundation, a rightwing nonprofit for which Limbaugh is an unpaid adviser. (Landmark’s donors include relatives of Richard Melon Scaife, the Pittsburgh heir and newspaper publisher who funded the Arkansas Project, a smear campaign against the Clintons that served as the prototype for what we now know as Swiftboating.)

Landmark’s president, Mark Levin, is a snarling, unappealing ideologue who made his name in the 1990s as a Clinton-basher on cable news. Levin is a Rush acolyte and wannabe who, despite having a voice that would curdle milk, has his own talk show.

Levin and Landmark are Limbaugh’s lapdogs. Even if the idea for the stunt didn’t come from Limbaugh himself, it was done with his approval and, more than likely, guidance.

Here is Levin’s cynical and unintentionally laughable rationale for the nomination, quoting Landmark’s news release:

Limbaugh … was nominated for the prestigious award for his “nearly two decades of tireless efforts to promote liberty, equality and opportunity for all humankind, regardless of race, creed, economic stratum or national origin. These are the only real cornerstones of just and lasting peace throughout the world,” said Landmark President Mark R. Levin.

“Rush Limbaugh is the foremost advocate for freedom and democracy in the world today,” explained Levin. “Everyday he gives voice to the values of democratic governance, individual opportunity and the just, equal application of the rule of law — and it is fitting that the Nobel Committee recognize the power of these ideals to build a truly peaceful world for future generations.”

Only in the “up is down,” “black is white” opposite world of rightwing spin could the nation’s leading pro-war cheerleader be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Of course, the nomination had no official standing from the getgo:

Nominations for the Prize may be made by a broad array of qualified individuals, including former recipients, members of national assemblies and congresses, university professors (in certain disciplines), international judges, and special advisors to the Prize Committee. In some years as many as 199 nominations have been received. The Committee keeps the nominations secret and asks that nominators do the same. Over time many individuals have become known as “Nobel Peace Prize Nominees,” but this designation has no official standing.

Rush is so busy smearing 12 year olds and wounded veterans that it is doubtful he could have found the time to go to Norway to accept the award had he won.

Michael Medved: Six Reasons Slavery Wasn’t So Bad

Jon Ponder

In a remarkable piece of sophistry titled Six Inconvenient Truths about Slavery, right-wing movie and social critic Michael Medved lays out a clear and concise justification for the slavery of Africans in America.

What is unclear is why he felt such a justification was necessary:

1. Slavery was an ancient and universal institution, not a distinctively American innovation.

Yes, Michael, slavery was excused, or at least not condemned, in the Bible, but that doesn’t make it right. Besides, who said it was a uniquely American innovation, and what difference does that make in the greater scheme of things? The fact that the Brits and the Spanish did it too is hardly an excuse.

2. Slavery existed only briefly, and in limited locales, in the history of the republic — involving only a tiny percentage of the ancestors of today’s Americans.

This is bizarre. Yes, slavery ended in the North not long after the republic was founded but slavery of Africans was present in various locales along America’s Eastern Seaboard from around 1670 until 1865.

3. Though brutal, slavery wasn’t genocidal: live slaves were valuable but dead captives brought no profit.

Got that, black Americans? You’re lucky we didn’t kill you.Where’s your gratitude for that!

4. It’s not true that the U.S.became a wealthy nation through the abuse of slave labor: the most prosperous states in the country were those that first freed their slaves.

This is historical revisionism, at best. The Southern colonies were more prosperous than the north for much of our pre-revolutionary history. Charleston, S.C., was the largest city in the colonies for years. Even after the North’s ascendancy in the early Industrial Era, the majority of the vast wealth generated by the states that would comprise the Confederacy was generated by slave labor. To ignore that fact is disingenuous and not a little reprehensible.

5. While America deserves no unique blame for the existence of slavery, the United States merits special credit for its rapid abolition.

All it took was the deaths of 500,000 Union and Confederate soldiers, and the complete destruction of the slave economy in the South — a loss we are only just now starting to recover from in many ways.

6. There is no reason to believe that today’s African-Americans would be better off if their ancestors had remained behind in Africa.

It is impossible to game out what would have happened in Africa if so much of its population hadn’t been captured and exported into servitude, especially since the descendants of these people have proven to be enterprising, innovative, intelligent and talented.

This article is a real head-scratcher. It appears to be a preemptive argument against paying reparations to the descendants of African slaves, but if the reparations movement has made significant inroads lately, it is news to me.

On the other hand, if Medved’s piece was intended to open a new dialog on racism in America, it is clear that liberals and conservatives are as far apart as ever on this issue.

Inspired Casting: Laura Dern to Play Katherine Harris

Trish

We told you about the HBO feature film about the aftermath of the 2000 election, titled “Recount.” More cast members are being named and some of the choices make a lot of sense.

Kevin Spacey, Laura Dern, Ed Begley Jr., Denis Leary, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson and Bob Balaban will star in HBO’s Recount, sources close to the production confirmed on Monday.

Spacey will play Ron Klain, former chief of staff to Al Gore, while Dern will portray Katherine Harris, Florida’s secretary of state, who certified that George W. Bush won the state during the closely contested 2000 presidential election.

Recount, which starts filming in Jacksonville next month, takes place during the five weeks between the 2000 election and the U.S. Supreme Court 5-4 decision that ended the Florida recounts. Jacksonville will stand in for numerous locations around Florida.

Balaban will play Ben Ginsberg, lead attorney for the Bush/Cheney camp. Begley will play David Boies, lead attorney for Gore.

Wilkinson will play James Baker, the secretary of state for George H.W. Bush, an advisor to George W. Bush during the recount. John Hurt will play Warren Christopher, secretary of state for Bill Clinton, who advised Gore.

Denis Leary will be Michael Wouley, Gore’s chief field operative.

Jay Roach, who directed the Meet the Parents and Austin Powers franchises, will direct. Executive producers are Paula Weinstein, Sydney Pollack, Len Amato and Roach. The film was written by Danny Strong.

Laura Dern was so likable in Jurassic Park(s) that it should be a challenge for her to play America’s most famous nutcase.

The roles of Poppy and Laura Bush are still open, we’ve noted. Both Bush and Gore have been cast although the actors playing them have not yet been publicly named.