Just Listening To The Rerun Of Tweety's Hardball Where He's Asking Why Don't The Dems Around....

[global1]

the country come to the aid of the President and take the Offense. He's saying things like it's because the President has no friends or they are not organized. I think his intention is to help the President - but in fact he is doing damage to the President by making such comments. In discussing this he's actually making the President seem weak.

What he fails to say - nor do his guests say (David Corn and the former Gov of Pennsylvania) - is that the MSM always plays up to the Repugs and tosses them softballs and doesn't challenge them when they out and out lie. And the same MSM always puts the Dems on the defensive by lobbing accusatory questions at them. The MSM doesn't give the Dems a chance to go on the Offensive. Just take David Gregory as an example of someone that lobs softball questions to Repugs and doesn't challenge them.

Pet Peeve:

The other thing that is getting my goat lately is these MSM show anchors writing books and using their show to promote their books. Tweety does this every chance he gets and this a.m. I was flipping through the channels and came across Joe Scar doing the same thing with his new book.

I don't remember the news greats of the past doing that - like Cronkrite or Huntley or Brinkley.

There should be a broadcast standard that prohibits these guys from doing this. Their so-called news shows become one big commercial promoting themselves and how great they are.

That's it - I'm turning off the TV now and getting back to reading Dan Brown's Inferno. Goodnight DU.

[grasswire]

1. Rendell is a DINO. nt

[KG]

2. the dem party is a joke.

but for too many of us it's not too funny.

[Scuba]

8. Toss the liberals a couple bones on social issues, screw them with corporate fiscal policy.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

3. It's the first time I've heard Ed Rendell finally stand up for the president!!

I have been screaming this question now for five years!!

This is the one issue that has angered me, that has baffled me about the Democrats, that has made me feel that the Democrats have deliberately tried to sabotage this president.

Few have come to his aid. Especially leadership.

And don't come at me with bullshit about the president's policies, either! Bill Clinton was practically a fucking Republican! And the Democrats still went out of their way to defend him. Rendell was right! No matter what Clinton did, the Democrats had his back, but Obama has no friends. He truly is a Washington Outsider.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

4. But I agree with Tweety on this point. The media does play up ReThug talking points

And the president doesn't have friends in the media. There's no Paul Begala or James Carville. When the president needs Democrats out there to help him explain the stimulus package and push for it or explain the ACA, the Dems ran scared in 2010, causing us to lose the House.

I've been screaming about this for many years!!

The president always seems to be out there alone. People complain that he's not using the bully pulpit!! Bullshit!! He is!!! He gets virtually no MSM coverage. He gets little backup from the Democratic Party leadership. Where's Joe Biden? Where's the party leadership?

The Republicans are always on message so it's easier for the MSM to go out there and push their talking points.

The president is out there alone.

Ed Rendell was absolutely right tonight and he articulated an argument that I've been making for years now! David Corn was 100% wrong!! It's not the president's sole responsibility to craft the message. He needs his party behind him. That's been the biggest failing in my view.

All the misinformation about the ACA may have been avoided had the Democratic Party been there to aid and support their president. I simply do not see the party. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was on some shows, but she has bot been effective. Reid is too soft spoken. Pelosi? I don't know where she's been. Sebelius has been under fire. Joe Biden has been in hiding. Invisible.

The president is out there all by himself. So of course he is bound to misspeak. Make mistakes. He's had to take on the ReThugs all by himself it seems.

[global1]

6. I Don't Know How The Media Works - But Don't You Have To Be Invited To Appear On A News Show?....

Or does one just make themselves available and they get coverage? If the people that do the booking of guests for programs - lets say Meet The Press - favor inviting Repugs to appear on their show. If the host of the program lobs softball questions at them and doesn't challenge them - what do you expect - but for the Repugs to always be on message and spew lies or falsehoods.

Again - when a Dem finally gets on one of these shows - he/she now has to defend themselves against the Repug lies instead of being able to go on the offensive.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

9. Yes! All of that is true. But again, the president is being blamed for that. And all I'm saying is

that I agree with Ed and Tweety that:

(a) President Obama has no friends in the media, unlike Bill Clinton. Rendell gave the example of Democrats immediately rallying behind Clinton the moment he was impeached and running to the cameras outside of the Rose Garden to speak to reporters. Clinton had his entire Democratic Party in line. His entire cabinet behind him. He had friends in the media that went to bat for him. Who spoke on his behalf, and of course, this was before Fox News really became the behemoth that it did. Ironically, it was the post-O.J. Simpson/Monical Lewinsky/Impeachment fiasco that made Fox News what it is today.

(b) The Democrats, even when they ARE on these shows, they are timid and weak-kneed; milquetoast, apologetic and acquiescent to Republican point of view.

(c) When liberals are invited on these Sunday talk shows, it is only because they disagree with the president, and of course, they're invited on precisely for that reason--to sow discord within the ranks of the Democratic Party; or, so that they can demonstrate uniform disagreement and disdain for the president among conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats.

(d) There is no viable leadership outside of Obama. He cannot do all of this himself. He needs a strong party behind him. David Corn placed the blame entirely on Obama and his "lack of leadership". Rendell--much to my surprise--called Corn out and suggested that he was entirely wrong. He said that Obama has no party leadership behind him. Reid and Pelosi are ineffective. Wasserman-Schultz is timid. Joe Biden is missing.

Tweety chimed in with the fact that the media hasn't done its job with respect to dispelling the lies about Benghazi, Obamacare, the government shutdown and the debt ceiling, the fact that the deficit is the lowest it has been in five years, and the list goes on. And there's no one in the media--not a Begala or a Carville--in the Obama camp who can take on the Fox News brand and call out these liars.

I totally agree with you about the Sunday morning commentary shows. "If it's Sunday, it's totally Republican talking points" that go unchallenged. Absolutely! And when there are any Democrats at all, they are typically Blue Dog or middle of the road, timid or acquiescent blowhards like Harold Ford, Jr. or Donna Brazille who is absolutely worthless!

So I feel you! I truly do.

But every once in a while, Tweety will surprise me. And Rendell has been absolutely horrid when it comes to Obama--he has never hidden his disdain for the man. That's why I was totally shocked last night when he came to the president's defense with a question that I have been asking now for the past 5 years: WHERE THE HELL ARE THE DEMOCRATS?? It's a question that has baffled me; that has made me incredibly frustrated and angry, demoralized and has left me feeling defeated at times.

No other president has been treated as disrespectfully and with as much disdain and hatred as this current president. There's really nothing anyone can tell me that will convince me otherwise.

[Drunken Irishman]

5. Obama has always been an outsider.

He didn't have many party bigwigs throwing their support behind him in 2008 and has constantly gone up against the Clinton wing of the party - which still has a great deal of influence within the party.

Just take a look at Corey Booker last year. He attacked the Obama campaign for going after Romney's Brain record. It's that rhetoric that has handicapped much of what Obama has spoken about all these years.

Sadly, the Dems most trotted out were never close to Obama - guys like Harold Ford, Ed Rendell, Booker and others who have always been critical of Obama in one way or another.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

10. Exactly. That's what I've been trying to explain to many people. It's been to his advantage and his

great disadvantage. I feel sorry for him, but he asked for this job. I sometimes think it was a bit naive to believe that he could come in and think he could change the culture of Washington. I live and work here. I've lived and worked here for many, many years. You can't change this place.

Obama making a deal with the health care insurance industry? Thinking they would act in good faith? Hmpf!!

Deals with Republicans, believing they would return the favor? Please!!!

No! Obama, no!! This is not Chicago machine style politics. This isn't the Illinois State Senate. Nor is it the U.S. Senate. Those are venues where wheeling and dealing takes place. You exchange ideas. You bargain. You give and take. You give something; you get something else in return.

It doesn't work like that really in Washington, D.C. Well, not exactly like that in practice. Maybe in theory. But not in practice. You have to be a good negotiator. Any maybe Obama is but maybe they just simply don't want to negotiate in good faith. And that's the lesson that he has to learn.

He has no friends in the media. He never did. That was the biggest lie of Election 2008--that Obama was somehow the darling of the media. It was a bullshit lie! It's a lie that losing candidates always use as an excuse. Hillary used it to her advantage, as did John McCain--all of them do. So the Republicans ran with it. And even many Democrats wrongly bought into it. But, it was a flat out LIE!! Obama was NEVER in the Corporate Media's favor. He never had friends in the media. He was never a friend of the media.

And the Democrats--I somehow believe that many of them didn't want to see Obama succeed. Sadly, some in the black Democratic Party Establishment owed a lot to the Clintons--or felt that they did. They didn't think Obama adequately paid his dues. You are so right about this. I heard this argument in many circles. Some blacks in social and political activism also resented Obama: Jesse Jackson, and Tavis Smiley and Cornel West made it personal. And some in Black Intelligensia questioned Obama's "blackness," since he didn't have ancestors who suffered from the black American experience of slavery and Jim Crow-style racism and segregation. Angela Davis, bell hooks, and other well established, brilliant minds--though they were proud to have the first black president--there was always some suspicion of Obama.

And then there were the Blue Dog/Wall Street/DLC types that I mentioned who never warmed to Obama--you mentioned Harold Ford, Jr. (who happens to be my second cousin), Ed Rendell, others who view Obama as an outsider who never quite fit in well with the Establshment and who also eschewed the DLCers. (Remember, Obama was approached by the DLC and was said to have rejected membership on the organization.)

Anyway, this is an interesting conversation and I could go on and on...

But the bottom line for me is: WHERE ARE/WERE THE DEMOCRATS?

Why is it that they have their president out there alone fighting this fight by himself? Bill Clinton wasn't treated this way. Not even Jimmy Carter.

Crazy!!

[BumRushDaShow]

13. "He has no friends in the media. He never did."

It depends on what you define as "media". If you are talking about TV politcal-focused hosts, I would say that Al Sharpton and Martin Bashir (and occassionally, moreso recently, Ed Shultz) have been near-100% supportive and vocally so. Pundits like Joy Reid and Joan Walsh (both columnists and Managing Editors of News/Blog sites) have also been notably supportive, continually pointing out and effectively correcting the RW talking points.

IMHO, outside of folks like Mike Malloy, most liberal and progressive media (and elected officials outside of folks like Alan Grayson) have eschued the combative, shock jock style of RW M$M, so their megaphones naturally lack any sort of amplifier. Folks like Ed Schultz were "tamed" by both the higher ups and even many "liberal" viewers/listeners who claimed (including here on DU) that they didn't like "left-wing Limbaugh-like" rants (note what happened with Keith Olbermann). And you now have an "accepted" manic RW reporting style, which is basically the result of a purported cost-savings and quest-for-ratings move by the media, who combined the news departments with the entertainment departments, and laid off most of the editors. Accountability and accuracy become irrelevent as long as the outlet delivers viewers, listeners, or readers.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

14. Thanks. I'm referring to mainstream or Corporate Media. When I think of them, I don't necessarily

think of mainstream, corporate media, even though they work for GE--one of the worst offenders who paid ZERO taxes. The people you mentioned are often marginalized, dismissed as "liberal hacks" and Obama apologists. We all know how much Sharpton is hated. And Ed? He's often treated as just another loud-mouthed blowhard, falsely-equated to Rush Limbaugh on the Right.

The larger points that you're making are spot on!

[PeteSelman]

7. He's right on this issue. No one fights for Obama.

Not his party, not his staff, not himself. They all just let him get abused and let the Birchers control the narrative. Yeah, the corporate media gives the regressives a ton of play but they actually show up to talk the shit. If more Democrats opened their frigging mouths and demanded attention there would be a much more balanced distribution. 90% of everything is showing the fuck up and no one in this party does that. They're mealy mouthed punks for the most part.

[HipChick]

12. I have said this many times before..

[Bluenorthwest]

11. About the books and 'news greats of the past'. Those talking head commentary shows are not the news

and the pundits on them are not newspeople they are pundits. The 'so called news shows' are not called news by those who make them, but by those who watch them because actual news bores them and they want commentary and editorial view points, arguments.
Tuning into Hardball and complaining that it is not a good news show is like tuning in to the Superbowl and complaining that there was no Opera involved.