Replies to post #66380 on Discover GOP Opprobrium

[teapeebubbles]

yes it does

[teapeebubbles]

Now Keith Olbermann knows why.

In a deal between the head of GE (the owner of MSNBC) and Murdoch's FOX News reported in the New York Times, it was agreed that Olbermann would back off his chronic lacerating caricatures of Bill O'Reilly (although it can still be expected that he will go after O'Reilly and FOX, but much less frequently).

In return, FOX and O'Reilly, in particular, will stop attacking the business dealings of GE. Are you getting the picture of how even MSNBC is affected by big corporate ownership?

A key indicator of what was threatening GE is buried in the New York times article about the "peace agreement" (which amounts to a decrease in virulent exchanges between O'Reilly and Olbermann). Here are two points worthy of note to indicate that MSNBC talent may be kept on a shorter leash than progressive followers had hoped for:

The reconciliation — not acknowledged by the parties until now — showcased how a personal and commercial battle between two men could create real consequences for their parent corporations. A G.E. shareholders’ meeting, for instance, was overrun by critics of MSNBC (and one of Mr. O’Reilly’s producers) last April....

In late 2007, Mr. O’Reilly had a young producer, Jesse Watters, ambush Mr. Immelt and ask about G.E.’s business in Iran, which is legal, and which includes sales of energy and medical technology. G.E. says it no longer does business in Iran.

Mr. O’Reilly continued to pour pressure on its corporate leaders, even saying on one program last year that “If my child were killed in Iraq, I would blame the likes of Jeffrey Immelt.” The resulting e-mail to G.E. from Mr. O’Reilly’s viewers was scathing.

Like most of the feuds between the right wing media echo chamber and progressive critics, the publicity surrounding O'Reilly-Olbermann slugfest helped the ratings of both programs.

But when FOX started to go after the business dealings of the parent company of MSNBC, GE, television ratings took a second place to corporate interests.

[teapeebubbles]

You read about all these terrorists, most of them came
here legally, but they hang around on these expired visas,
some for as long as 10-15 years.

Now, compare that to Blockbuster; you are two days late with a video and these people are all over you.

Let's put Blockbuster in charge of immigration.

[teapeebubbles]

Last week, Hawaii's health director apparently checked the president's birth certificate again, and discovered that Obama was, in fact, born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, and "is a natural-born American citizen." A nutty right-wing website, however, produced an obviously-fake document purporting to show that Obama was born in the "Republic of Kenya" in February 1964.

Sigh.

WorldNetDaily and the right-wing fringe are very excited about their scoop that Orly Taitz has "released a copy of what purports to be a Kenyan certification of birth" for President Obama. According to WND, "Taitz told WND that the document came from an anonymous source who doesn't want his name known because 'he's afraid for his life.' " So in order to believe Taitz and WND, one would have to assume that this document was requested 45 years ago, preserved that entire time, withheld through the entire election and transition period, and yet somehow ended up in the hands of someone sympathetic to Orly Taitz.

DailyKos' David Waldman has identified what appears to be an even more glaring problem with WND's latest smoking gun. The document posted by WND purports to have been produced by the "Republic of Kenya" on February 17, 1964. But Kenya didn't even become a republic until December 12, 1964. An article from that day's Washington Post, for example, reported that "Kenya became the newest republic within the British Commonwealth at midnight."



If far-right clowns are going to try a stunt like this, the least they could do is put a little effort into it. Sure, they're wingnuts, but there's no rule saying wingnuts can't show a little pride in their efforts.

Doug Mataconis, who noted some of the glaring problems with the faked document, added, "Something tells me that the birthers are going to be sadly disappointed when this one is revealed for the forgery it most likely is."

If only that were true. Those delusional enough to reject reality are incapable of being disappointed by facts.