Jon Stewart: "Barack Obama could cure cancer and..."

By: Lowell
Published On: 8/26/2008 8:14:19 AM

As usual, Jon Stewart nails it, this time speaking at a Monday morning breakfast at the University of Denver:

"I'm stunned to see Karl Rove on a news network as an analyst," said Stewart, adding only "Fox News Sunday" moderator Chris Wallace "saves that network from slapping on a bumper sticker...Barack Obama could cure cancer and they'd figure out a way to frame it as an economic disaster."

Other Stewart comments:

*"Fox's 'fair and balanced' slogan is an insult 'to people with brains'" (what about the entire network?

*The cable news networks are a "brutish, slow-witted beast." (I'd add TV in general)

*Fox News is "an appendage of the Republican Party." (not exactly a revelation, but it's good to hear Jon Stewart call them out).

By the way, speaking of insults to people with brains, how about Dana Milbank?  Now he's mocking the Democrats for trying to be more environmentally friendly.  What next, criticizing them for using sign language interpreters? Meanwhile, he somehow manages to focus on the supposed "rift" between Clinton and Obama supporters, even though by all accounts it's a minor issue in the convention hall.  The corporate media's obsession with this is pitiful, formulaic, oversimplified pabulum and demonstrates how utterly irrelevant (extinct?) they're becoming. Blech.

P.S. The NewsHour has had its typically excellent coverage, and I hear that CSPAN is doing a great job. The rest of the networks...not so much.

Comments



Begala: "Too many reporters chasing too few stories" (Lowell - 8/26/2008 8:31:41 AM)


Interestingly, (aznew - 8/26/2008 9:36:20 AM)
as I was channel surfing the coverage last night, the one network that pointed out that the Clinton-Obama conflict was pretty minimal on the convention floor was Fox. Brit Hume even chided the floor reporter for stepping all over the media's main story.

As for commentary on Fox, it was idiotic, but I didn't find much to like on CNN or MSNBC, either.

As for whether yesterday was a lost opportunity because of failure to slam the GOP record, I'm not so sure. A positive vision is an element of winning as well, and we still have both Clintons and Biden to set out the case against the GOP.

I suspect/hope after that (assuming Bill, Hillary and Joe rip the GOP as I suspect they will), we will look back and understand Day 1's sentimental, positive message in a different light.



Maybe newspapers dying isn't such a bad thing (TheGreenMiles - 8/26/2008 3:37:22 PM)
The Washington Post pays five figures to send Dana Milbank to Denver for the week so he can send back stories about bananas and condoms? I have no idea why the newspaper business is in such deep trouble, do you?


Dana Milbank is the pits (Lowell - 8/26/2008 4:01:52 PM)
Absolutely awful.  At this point, given the decline in quality at the Washington Post and elsewhere in the newspaper industry, I'm starting to think you may be onto something. Ideally, though, I'd like to see a strong, vibrant, citizen-oriented journalism press in this country.  Instead, we have a bunch of corporate, dumbed-down garbage (shark attacks, Chandra Levy 12 part series, etc.).  If that's the case, then good riddance to the so-called "mainstream" media.