Bizarro world: The debate showed us the real “liberal media bias” — for Donald Trump

[DonViejo]

Cable newsers didn't watch the same debate as the rest of us — they tried to give Clinton's victory to Trump

BOB CESCA

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Specifically, it was the alleged liberal cable network MSNBC and its team of wise men, Chuck Todd, Joe Scarborough, Brian Williams and Chris Matthews, who couldn’t wait to tap into the “Trump comeback” narrative by praising Trump for a performance that the rest of us observed as the creepiest, most sniffle-punctuated and, in places, Third World presidential debate appearance in at least a century.

I hasten to note that not all of the MSNBC panelists were so infuriatingly forgiving. To the contrary, Lawrence O’Donnell, Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, Eugene Robinson and, yes, Republican strategists Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt were the exceptions — nailing Trump’s twitchy, seemingly coked-up “jumble of sniffles and nonsense,” as John Oliver described it last week. But among the network’s self-styled “grown-ups,” including the “Morning Joe” panel the next day, the reaction was basically that Trump was not as stupid and offensive as during the first debate, and therefore he won.

This bears repeating: The liberal network, the network that’s routinely mischaracterized as being populated with left-wing apparatchiks, declared Trump to be the narrow winner simply because he wasn’t as horrendously buffoonish as during his first go-round. Joe Scarborough, for example, whom Trump has blasted for being a loser and a clown, said that it was the Republican nominee’s “most effective debate performance so far” and “he dominated the second debate in the same way she dominated the first debate.”

While I’ve had friendly conversations with Scarborough and, unlike many peers, I don’t dislike him, I don’t mind saying that his analysis was nothing but Pollyanna-ish, “both sides” horseshit that unnecessarily rewarded a debate performer who is so unqualified and so politically carcinogenic that he had no business even being there in the first place. Worse, Scarborough’s reaction was a more polished version of what Todd and Matthews said the night before.

Perhaps they were doodling or taking a bathroom break when Trump stalked Clinton, lurking over her shoulder; or when Trump told her that he’d abuse the office of the presidency to imprison her; or when Trump proudly confirmed that he didn’t pay federal income taxes for 18 years or more; or when Trump denied a tweet in which he said we should watch a sex tape; or when Trump nearly inhaled his microphone dozens of times due to inexplicable nasal snorts; or when he implied that one U.S. senator can somehow unilaterally pass tax law; or when Trump called Clinton “the devil.”

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http://www.salon.com/2016/10/10/bizarro-world-the-debate-showed-us-the-real-liberal-media-bias-for-donald-trump/

[wildeyed]

1. The bar is set so incredibly low for this clown,

The fact that he did not physically assault Clinton (just looked like he might) or soil himself in public means he "won" the debate. That makes them part of the problem. They are enabling Trump's misogyny and violence against women, just as much as Pence or any of the GOP. Anything for the ratings

I gave up on MSNBC ages ago and try to avoid cable news, in general.