Your assignment, Pensito Reviewers, is to take a quick bathroom break, grab the beverage of your choice, and then settle in and read “Loving John McCain” by Eric Alterman and George Zornick in its entirety.
Until you do, you won’t understand the media’s treatment of McCain, and the damage this love affair could do to our country if it causes us to elect another dumb, affable, incompetent, corrupt, jellyfish puppet with malevolent advisers in the shadows.
The authors first explain the startling banal reasons reporters love McCain.
Media love for John McCain manifests itself in myriad ways; sometimes it involves inventing facts, other times simply ignoring inconvenient ones
In his book Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News, Tucker Carlson explains the source of many journalists’ attraction to the Arizona senator: “McCain ran an entire presidential campaign aimed primarily at journalists…To a greater degree than any candidate in thirty years, McCain offered reporters the three things they want most: total access all the time, an endless stream of amusing quotes, and vast quantities of free booze.” Ryan Lizza, reporting for The New Yorker from the current Straight Talk, notes the dichotomy of McCain’s press-friendly campaign style and that of his opponents: “The Democratic candidates rarely speak to the traveling press. McCain not only packs his bus with reporters (whom he often greets with an affectionate ‘Hello, jerks!’) but talks until the room is filled with the awkward silence of journalists with no more questions.”
…McCain flatters the press in other ways as well. For instance, he is particularly adept at embracing reporters’ romantic notions of themselves as tough-minded, hard-charging opponents of power, particularly conservative power.
Yes folks, it’s that easy to get reporters eating out of your hand. And well worth it, too.
“I don’t exactly approve of a lot of the things [Barack Obama] stands for and I’m not sure we know enough about him … He’s got some bad connections, and he may be terrorist connected for all I can tell. It sounds kind of like he may be.”
Who said this? Was it a) Tom DeLay, b) Karl Rove, c) Dick Cheney or c) a member of the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party? “So, yeah, Nation, please believe that there are some people down here in Tennessee who would like to elect progressive, smart, transformative leaders. It just seems to be a Sisyphean battle at times. But we’ll keep at it.” — Alice at 10,000 Monkeys & a Camera
Sadly, the answer is d, Fred Hobbs, who in addition to sitting on the party’s executive committee is a supporter and constituent of Rep. Lincoln Davis, a “Blue Dog” Democrat, who represents Tennessee’s 4th District, which is mostly rural and white, and which Obama lost to Hillary Clinton 23 percent to 68 percent, according to Nashville City Paper.
Hobbs made this outrageous statement when asked why Rep. Davis, who reportedly hopes (hoped?) to run for governor in 2010, had not yet endorsed Obama.
These goomers dug their hole deeper when Rep. Davis’ chief of staff Beecher Frasier was asked for a response by City Paper and said that he didn’t know for sure if Obama is “terrorist connected” but assumed he was not.
Later, the Tennessee Democratic Party issued a clarification in which it attempted to blame Hobbs’ outrageous remarks on the fact that he is so stupid he actually believed Republican smears about Obama:
“The Tennessee Democratic Party is united behind our party’s nominee, Senator Barack Obama. Mr. Hobbs is obviously misinformed, and his statement highlights the perpetual efforts of the Republican Party, especially here in Tennessee, to turn Internet smears and highly offensive gossip into their party’s message against Senator Barack Obama as we head into the general election.
Instead of debating the issues, the Tennessee Republican Party continues to rely upon slanderous and salacious tall tales. They are borrowing from the playbook first written by Richard Nixon and employed in the race against Congressman Harold Ford Jr. Tennesseans of every political persuasion are tired of these tactics.”
This was followed by a clarification from Beecher Frasier, the chief of staff for Rep. Davis:
“No one in their right mind, including me, believes Senator Obama has ties to terrorism. It is truly ridiculous for anyone to try to make hay out of these comments.”
Alice at Chattanooga-based 10,000 Monkeys & a Camera spoke for thousands of sane Tennesseans when she wrote:
Has … Fred Hobbs gone completely around the bend? I have no idea what he could have been thinking when he made comments implying that Barack Obama is “terrorist-connected,” but he’s certainly an embarrassment to our state and should resign from the committee. I wish I knew why only our state’s idiots manage to get national attention.
This controversy has been roiling for a week now, and I’m not seeing anyone attempt to contain the damage that’s being done to our state’s and party’s reputation. Hobbs has since apologized, but he won’t go away, and Lincoln Davis has been annoyingly quiet through it all — if he really wants us to elect him to lead this state, it would have been a good idea for him to get out in front of this and act like a leader.
Alice followed up with a note that Rep. Davis finally condemned Hobb’s comments — even though Davis has still not endorsed Obama!
“I have no idea what happened to the state Democratic Party’s leadership on this — they seem to be satisfied to quietly sit back and watch this performance of the Keystone Cops,” Alice wrote. “Anyway, with Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?!? We’re really going to need a lot of help come November.
“So, yeah, Nation, please believe that there are some people down here in Tennessee who would like to elect progressive, smart, transformative leaders. It just seems to be a Sisyphean battle at times. But we’ll keep at it.”
Pundits say that Trump’s $5,000 midterm bribe was an overreach,
And they agree that if lies were a crime, he’d be impeached.
Despite all the dividend promises he’s made,
The fact is, not one has ever been paid,
So even before the midterms, he already owes us $8,000* each.
*$5000 stimulus checks via “DOGE dividend”; $2000 stimulus checks via a “tariff dividend”; $1000-plus checks via “savings” from expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies
“The man is afraid of the voice of the people and that the people understand and know what he’s doing. He’s trying to stifle the ability of journalists to let the people of America know what’s really going on with their government.”
— “Kamala Harris called President Donald Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House ‘absolutely abhorrent,’” The Wrap reports.
“Not one of them is trained in technical skills. Not one research PhD, as opposed to China, where half the cabinet is science and technology PhDs. We’re led by grifters and fools.”
— Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs, on X, on President Trump’s 35-person cabinet.
“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far… The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”
— Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), breaking with President Trump in a direct-to-camera video.
“Donald Trump made over a thousand stock sales and purchases worth between $79m and $270m in July,” The Guardian reports. “His two largest sales were of Amazon and Microsoft stock, selling between $5m and $25m each on 20 July. That same day, he also sold up to $5m worth of Oracle and Costco stock, $500,000 to $1m in Nvidia, and bought up to $5m worth of shares in Intuit and Salesforce, among dozens of other transactions.”
“The unprecedented spate of mid-decade redistricting for the U.S. House has changed the congressional districts for one-tenth of Americans and significantly altered the makeup of at least one-fifth of districts, according to a new study,” the Associated Press reports.
A new Fox News Poll finds 71% of voters think the Trump administration lacks a clear strategy for ending the Iran War, including 95% of Democrats, 83% of independents, and 43% of Republicans. Sixty percent say U.S. military action against Iran was the wrong decision, while just 37% say it was right.
“The Trump administration last year spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave for federal workers as part of its plan to shrink the government and save taxpayers money, according to a new estimate by a congressional watchdog,” CNN reports.
Reuters has documented at least 470 targets of retribution under Trump’s leadership – from federal employees and prosecutors to universities and media outlets. The list illuminates the sweeping effort by the president and his administration to punish dissent and reshape the government.
