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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsReserving your anger for the idiot left wing punditry.-after debate #1-NOTE THIS WAS PRIOR #2
Last edited Wed Oct 17, 2012, 09:43 AM - Edit history (1)
THIS WAS POSTED BEFORE YESTERDAY'S DEBATE-SO IT REALLY IS A BIT DATED,HOWEVER
IT STILL APPLIES, IN general.
The dems need to stick together positive(last night Eddie & Rachel did), but loose lips sink ships.
Kudos most go to Al Sharpton last night, as always 100% correct, without an error.
ANYHOW-this was post yesterday from someone on Kos-
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A comment from a poster in different site has a good post
(not sure how to link to just a comment, so I am not)
poster name is ultraviolet_uk
"How about reserving your anger for a more deserving target: the idiot left wing punditry.
With the benefit of a couple of weeks and a few more pieces of information emerging, the following seem clear to me:
1. Romney did win the first debate, but he did so by lying his ass off.
2. Obama's performance was not remotely as bad as the hysterical firebagger pundits proclaimed. They, not Obama, caused the most damage.
3. Had the liberal pundits instead concentrated on exposing Romney's lies, he would already be dead in the water. Their failure to do so is a betrayal of democracy.
4. A significant part of the shift in the polls has been caused not by any actual movement but by the switch from registered to likely voter models.
5. Some of those likely voter models use some highly questionable screens which appear to tilt Republican way more than is justified.
6. The media is routinely reporting polls of likely voters against previous polls of registered voters as if they show a shift, when they do not.
7. The media also pounced on unreliable polls from Republican marketing organisations, as opposed to reputable polling organisations, and pronounced that they indicated a shift from Obama to Romney when they did not.
In short, Romney did get a small and short-lived bounce, but 95% of it is entirely a media fabrication."
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lunatica
(53,410 posts)But pointing out the fact that Romney won on lies has been like spitting in the wind. Pundits have done a great disservice, and they should know it, starting with Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz who ran screaming off a cliff because they didn't see Obama acting like a fucking macho prick. Romney practically screaming at Obama while jabbing his finger at him and nothing but lies flooding out of his mouth were so much more Presidential in their eyes.
They need to grow up and drop the teen idolatry for 'manly' men. Especially when that idolatry extends and includes lies as something admirable.
corneliamcgillicutty
(176 posts)My husband and I have just been talking about this. What has happened to our country when MSM chooses to extol and accept blatant lies from a slickster megalamaniac while demeaning our president. Rotney is an unprincipled bag of shit who has all that money can buy. So to quote queen ann, "it's mitt's time". Talk about ENTITLEMENTS!!!!
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)
treestar
(82,383 posts)
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)
Solomon
(12,644 posts)do a lobotomy on me and I still will never agree to point number 1.
SunSeeker
(58,270 posts)
On the Road
(20,783 posts)The majority called it a tie or even a Ryan win, and the effect on the polls has been muted.
You could take the line that Obama was presidential, Romney was agitated and rude, and that you don't win a debate by changing and misrepresenting your positions. Instead, Democratic commentators largely concluded that Romney clearly won, making it a bipartisan consensus. Rachel Maddow in particular has gone out of her way to state that the debate was a "clear win" for Romney on every occasion.
Fewer people saw the debate on TV than heard about it on the news the next day, so the effect of the commentary was probably stronger than the actual debate. In my mind, that's what accounted for the outsized effect on the polls (even with the mitigating factors mentioned in the OP).
I understand that Democratic pundits are trying to be even-handed and perhaps deliver a wake-up call to the Obama campaign. But the tide of negativity IMO has been a bigger factor on the polls than the debate itself.
asjr
(10,479 posts)And at this point the so-called pundits are just trying to cover their fannies. The media are doing the same thing. It is no longer a presidential election--it is "how we climb on the Republican bandwagon" and if Obama seems to be gaining steam they can just slither back into their cocoons. Bi-partisanship still does not work.
LoisB
(13,018 posts)re-election, Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz will have had a lot to do with it.
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)have that much of an effect on voters? If Obama loses his bid for re-election, it's because he and his Admin did not deliver -- they have the most culpability in this (election fraud notwithstanding...). Bad Tweety busted on Obama post-debate; good Tweety shone a spotlight on the overt racism of some in the Republican Party. Which trumps which in the voting booth? Poor voters, confused by the theater provided by Corporate Media pundits... and oooooh, evil Firebaggers!
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Tweety and Schultz have an effect on Democratic voters when they launch into hyperbolic hysteria over form (i.e., "the President was timid/not hard hitting enough) rather than substance (i.e., telling the truth).
And it feeds into this "he and his Admin did not deliver" bull$hit being spouted amongst (supposed) Democrats. What part about turning around the economy do you not understand?
OldDem2012
(3,526 posts)
Harriety
(298 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)it's ridiculous to think they could have changed in any measurable way how the public perceived the debate; that occurred in real time.
in any case, mittwit got a significant bump. Anyone not blinded by partisanship can see that.
brush
(61,033 posts)I watched the debate in real time, along with several others and we thought the president did OK. We were livid at Romney's bullying and lying and were even more livid when the "idiot left wing punditry" began their tear down of the President instead of going after Romney's lies. I'm pretty sure they influenced many viewers, and non-viewers who didn't watch but got the reaction of the so called progressive punditry later. It's over now, but I feel they failed as journalists and did some real damage by not doing their job as journalists and pointing out Romney's lies. Instead they called his performance assertive and bold and declared him the clear winner. Where was the balance? Even if they we're pleased with the President's performance how about some balanced criticism? Romney certainly gave them enough material for that.
GOTV
(3,759 posts)I watched the debates and it looked to me that Obama was blowing it in the first 20 minutes.
The punditry called it correctly and the polls are the proof.
brush
(61,033 posts)You do know that the polls switched from registered to likely voters don't you? And that even Silver is factoring in Gravis and the other Rove-backed polls which skewer the results to the right.
GOTV
(3,759 posts)Everyone's electoral projections dropped.
It's picking up now thank god but most of the nation warmed to Romney in the first debate regardless of your personal reaction to it.
brush
(61,033 posts)Think you better take your own advice cause your candidate got his ass kicked last night.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)... came across like a used car salesman. They agreed that Obama looked distracted, and many wonder if something classified was going on at that time.
But the bottom line was that every one us came away with a really negative opinion of Romney. That includes a few people who were leaning Romney before the debate. The debate is the first time they ever paid him any attention, and they really did not like what they saw.
On the other hand, the vast majority of people did not watch the debate. And they go by what the pundits say. So, yes, the pundits definitely have a major input into how people see it. And pundits don't take in the general overall feel of the thing like your average person does. Instead, they look for details that they can analyze.
And, sadly, the details on which they focused was how the words were spoken, not what words were spoken.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)they affect the timid on the left ("the pundits on the left confirm what I felt ... the President's form wasn't tough enough, nevermind the President's argument ... Maybe he isn't the right guy for the job" and give legs to the "lack of leadership" arguments on the right (again, form over substance).
ecstatic
(35,074 posts)and joined many of us who were whining. Their job is to stay professional and get the facts out, not to whine.
brush
(61,033 posts)I've been saying all along The President didn't do that bad and Romney didn't do that good. C'mon, he lied all night. We shouldn't be rewarding a pathological liar for lying. Number 2, "the idiot left wing punditry" (excellent description, love it), they went ballistic. It was, as the poster said, a betrayal of democracy, and the President I might add, who they kinda threw under the bus. FOX and CNN and certainly didn't bash Lyin' Ryan after his actual loss of the VP debate. They went after Joe Biden, unjustly but my point is they had their candidate's back. And much of the MSNBC crowd keeps repeating their overreaction because, I guess, they don't want to admit that they made a mistake even though their Obama-bashing went out into the echo chamber and was repeated by many over and over and over and probably contributed to the distorted poll movements towards Romney.
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)
...with no argument as to your other points.
Check out Jon Stewart on the VP debate: http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/jon-stewart-fox-news-vp-debate.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
His point: when Obama underperformed in the first debate (and YES, he did underperform), left-leaning commentators like Rachel Maddow called it for what it was. When Biden rocked the house in the VP debate, the idiots over at Fox practically lit themselves on fire to avoid stating the obvious truth of it.
The first group reported the facts, the second group acted as cheerleaders.
Speaking as a card-carrying member of "the idiot left-wing punditry," if you think people who have my job turning themselves into cheerleaders is a good thing, no matter what the facts are, that's a sad and sorry damn statement...and a terrible thing for journalism in general.
Not going to happen with me, my friend, so you may as well make use of the Ignore button at the top of this post. If tonight goes poorly, don't expect me to La La La La Everything's Fine my way through it...and I devoutly hope the other members of "the idiot left wing punditry" do the same.
brush
(61,033 posts)Many on the MCNBC crew just about ignored Romney's lies. Pointing them out would have also been "reporting the facts" as you say.
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)I can't speak for the TV people, but speaking for myself: expecting TV commentators, even good ones, to pull the fat out of the fire is a waste of time. Especially guys like Chris Matthews, who I have considered hopeless for more than a decade.
This is balance on my terms:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11930-a-nationally-televised-presidential-fail
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12047-hey-joe-the-debate-faceoff-between-biden-and-ryan
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12075-big-joe-and-the-joyful-noise
I haven't done a word search in those, but I know for a fact that while writing those, I practically burned my brain out trying to find different ways to say "Romney lied" without getting absurdly repetitive.
brush
(61,033 posts)I don't have a problem with your writing, have been following you on Truth-out for years, I do, however have a problem with the extreme Obama-bashing v Romney coronation of many on the MSNBC crew on the night of the first debate.
GOTV
(3,759 posts)WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)The cognitive dissonance is as strong as with Dubya.
is right.
Let's hope he brings his A-game tonight...
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I think no one here at DU cares about the reporting of the first fact; but most are concerned that the pundits on the left have allowed the first fact to eclipse all other facts ... and "how he appeared" fact, is far less relevant than the "what they said" facts.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Naw,...the media wouldn't lie over a silly thing like millions of dollars in ad time,....right?
Whisp
(24,096 posts)I lost track, but at one time NBC was heavy into profits from blood and war and wouldn't mind a crazed fuck like Romney being the Decider in these matters.
Are the pundits that stupid or don't they really care - they get their nice health care packages however they can, they will probably be comfortable for their entire careers, unless they rock the boat a bit Too much. They give a shit other than to make it Look like they give a shit?
maybe the Rev does, yeh, him. but the rest can go suck rotten eggs. idiot selfish fucks.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)matt819
(10,749 posts)My wife listened to this on the radio and the clear winner was President Obama. He came across as reasoned, while Romney came across as frantic.
I read else on the intertubes (so it must be true) a post from someone who works with the blind, and the people he was with had the same assessment. The visuals left viewers with a different impression, and, then, of course, the media took over, because no lone likes a horse race better than the media.
-Steph-
(409 posts)Last edited Tue Oct 16, 2012, 12:31 PM - Edit history (1)
I watched the debate online and my feelings throughout it were that Romney was blatantly lying through the entire debate while also avoiding giving any specifics or details, and Obama gave a steady performance based on truths. When the debate was over I turned the tv on expecting to see the pundits commenting on Romney's steady stream of lies and lack of substance. Instead what I saw was horrific, the pundits were giving Obama a verbal beat down while praising Romney's performance. It was as disgusting then as it is now. I am still appalled at the way they handled it and also by this silly notion that somehow they were right.
I suspect tonight Obama will give them a little more of what they were wanting, and I'm hoping in return to see less of a knee jerk reaction from the pundits and instead more of a thoughtful analysis of the debate.
SCVDem
(5,103 posts)I expect more from Rachel and the rest. As for Tweety, may I suggest a ball gag!
Why did I learn about The Gish Gallop strategy from Bartcop blog? I'm talking resources here, MSM vs one guy.
This burying your opponent in lies and strawman arguments is exactly what Romney did, and the viewers knowing that there is a name and an actual strategy, would have a more pro President view.
This is how to call Romney a liar to his face without saying liar. The delayed reaction comes when people know what Gish actually means.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Whisp
(24,096 posts)and it's TRUE. if the idiot left side pundits focused on Romney's LIES we would be in a much better spot today. I will never forgive them for playing their own little games at the risk of SO MUCH. fuck them all - the selfish assholes. They are all Hamsher to me now.
thankyou thankyou thankyou
porphyrian
(18,530 posts)
PatSeg
(53,213 posts)
xxqqqzme
(14,887 posts)watch on C-SPAN and don't listen to talking hairdo's on any channel.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)OldDem2012
(3,526 posts)....Sorry, but there's just no way to justify or excuse that kind of poor behavior.
hay rick
(9,602 posts)The liberal pundits can attack Romney's lies 24/7 and the MSM will largely ignore them. If a few of said pundits throw in an occasional paragraph on President Obama's feet of clay, that is not going to change the MSM narrative. Recognizing flaws in the preferred candidate also gives a little more credibility to the writers than unabashed cheerleading.
Anger should be directed at the MSM echo chamber and the interests which have co opted them.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)CheapShotArtist
(333 posts)Sure, maybe the president wasn't as aggressive as he should've been, but how can the MSM declare Robme the "winner" when he got caught in more lies? Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I thought debates were won on things called facts. Furthermore, unlike Robme with his PBS comments, the president never made any major gaffes during that debate.
As much as I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, what the media seems to be doing in order to boost ratings in trying to make it into some horserace is disgusting. Whether it's showing right-leaning polls that under-sample Democratic-leaning electorates, or declaring Pinocchio the winner of a debate. Ever since I got involved in politics a few years back, I've been losing trust in them. I used to believe they could do no wrong, and they're always accurate.
fishwax
(29,346 posts)great strategy to me.
It strikes me as odd that the post starts out by calling out "idiot left wing punditry" but the majority of the points speak about the media in general rather than the "left wing punditry." Newsflash: the media as a whole isn't left-wing, and never has been.
OldDem2012
(3,526 posts)....to me and to quite a few others. Tweety and Big Head Ed were particularly galling with their uncontrolled attack on the President. Defend them if you wish, but they did FAR more damage to the President's campaign then Obama did himself.
SCVDem
(5,103 posts)is interested in feeling out the opponent, seeing his strategy and guaging the media and public reaction.
Let Mitt be Mitt.
Now the President knows he can be aggressive and bitch slap Romney all over, and we will cheer!
Micro analyzing things just fills air time.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)DU is now attacking the "left wing."
bullwinkle428
(20,662 posts)tearing apart Fox News like a pack of rabid hyenas for not being sufficiently supportive of Repukes? We would be mocking them for YEARS, and justifiably so!
NOTE : For those that want to suggest I'm playing some kind of equivalency game between Fox News and MSNBC, "PLEASE PROCEED" at your own risk! Fox News has built their entire empire on a foundation of lying their ass off, while the star pundits at MSNBC are generally honest brokers of the truth beyond the obvious exceptions (Intern Killer, Sippy Cupp, etc.).
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)the point is, negativity is what Karl Rove thrives on
and he knows we are more honest
The person who wrote the comment I posted in OP has a point-
and I myself said it all last week about debbie downers/sad sams- we breed negativity if we put our side down.
forget the handwringing whining-we have time enough AFTER election to do that and be armchair QB's.
Ted Kennedy was always positive. He would keep people in line. We haven't had a "whip" basically since LBJ.
And we all need to stick together.
And it's very easy last night for Ed and Rachel to firmly say Obama won, because Candy Crowley gave them cover to say it. same with Matthews who is never totally on our side anyhow.
It's when the going gets tough, we more than ever need to stay positive-EVEN IF WE KNOW IT ISN'T TRUE. That is what winners do.
and our President is smarter than all of us anyhow, and he knows what he needs to do.
Way it turned out, like I MYSELF said last week, this all part of the 9 step ahead chess match and the rope-a-dope.
And it also shows again the person who goes 1st is at a major disadvantage, because the first speaker has to say something at the most, neutral.
