Every single Democrat should be fucking outraged over the media's coverage of the Wright scandal..

[NJSecularist]

The media, especially FoxNews, hasn't shown one ounce of journalistic integrity during this entire "scandal". Not once. All they have fucking done is repeat a fucking soundbite over and over again and cherrypick one sermon out of thousands.

If you are a Hillary supporter, put aside your hatred for Obama for a second and just look at how the right wing media is absolutely smearing Obama without presenting all sides of the issue. Every Democrat should be outraged by this bullshit. This is not fair and balanced journalism, this is deliberately and inaccurately trying to frame Obama in an inaccurate attempt to smear him.

This goes for Obama supporters too who encourage the right wing media when they try to perpetuate their bullshit lies against Hillary. Newsflash: the biggest danger to this country is not Hillary and Obama. It is the right wing media and their perpetuation of lies and smears.

[saracat]

1. Actually, I am more disgusted with the fact that our party forced Edwards out of the race, but go

figure.

[polichick]

7. Why do you claim the party forced Edwards out??

I've seen no proof of that, or even any well-researched articles.

[MrModerate]

9. Don't know that they forced Edwards out . . .

So much as he was unable to generate sufficient enthusiasm to overcome Clinton and Obama's momentum ("momenta"?)

[Hippo_Tron]

12. Edwards was forced out becuase he couldn't raise $100 million

I don't think it was so much forcing Edwards out as making that basically a prerequisite for being a serious candidate.

We need public financing NOW.

[polichick]

16. 'Course Edwards has a bunch of his own money he could've used.

[Hippo_Tron]

65. True, but he shouldn't have to

My point was less about Edwards and more about the system itself. Iowa and New Hampshire only have the influence that they do because front loading has made campaigning prohibitively expensive for most candidates.

If we had public financing, this would all be much less of a big deal and candidates could compete in other states besides Iowa and New Hampshire without fear of the well drying up because of loss of "momentum" which is an artificial construct created by the mainstream media.

[movonne]

42. I think that was the media (I was an Edwards supporter) and not

the party...but I could be wrong...I loved Edwards and really wanted him to be the nomonee...but that didn't happen and had to make another choice...and now the media is going after him...

[pdxmom]

47. I am of the opinion that the media was the downfall of Edwards. I have

supported him since the beginning. Followed his career in NC, where my mother's family is from. And the media did to him what they are doing to Obama. Marginalizing. Since when is someone's haircut a news story and since when do "journalists" keep a non-story such as that alive with their mocking? If you truly are disgusted about what happened to Edwards, then you should be equally disgusted about the way Obama (and Hillary, when they do the same thing to her) are treated.

[blues90]

55. I'll second that . nt

[krawhitham]

2. Democrats are, hillbots are not

[cbayer]

20. You know, that's really offensive and unecessary.

Here's an OP asking for some unity to stand up against something that will hurt us all, and you have to dismiss half of the party. And do it in a really ugly way.

It's just wrong.

[greyghost]

25. Nice, keep dismissing half the party. When it comes back and

bites you in the ass don't be surprised. GET A CLUE.

[rodeodance]

28. SHAME ON YOU--no respect whatsoever!

[quinnox]

3. If only most Obama supporters had a balanced view

referring to the last sentences. But alas, you know Obama supporters would be applauding Fox news and the other media if this was a big scandal on Hillary! Turnabout is fair play.

Having said that, you make some good points.

[Blue State Bandit]

15. Nice assumptions.

As they "are" assumptions.

[Catherine Vincent]

4. Screaming preachers always scare me.

Don't care for them at all.

[NJSecularist]

6. Fair enough.

But what the media has done is cherrypicked one sermon out of thousands. It is dishonest at best and cherrypicking at its worst.

[FrenchieCat]

5. Yep.....I had written about that.......

I have to make some small revisions, but it is about to be published (I've been notified)--

Although I renamed it, "Race in America - Teaching Moment or Missed Opportunity?"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5111151

[woolldog]

50. that's great

where is it being published????

:applause:

[TwilightGardener]

8. Please. The howling screech monkeys will jump on anything that

might bring him down. Never mind that the same guilt-by-association smearing will bite ALL Democrats on the ass if they allow the RW media to have this much power over our elections.

[Fredda Weinberg]

10. I don't hate Obama ... what amazes me is that you don't recognize

when you're the object of contempt.

[NJSecularist]

11. Explain...

[Fredda Weinberg]

61. I suggest that you're not hearing Jeremiah Wright's criticism personally

I won't assume your ethnicity, but if you are white, the reverend's hostility is directed at you. And don't take it personally ... the antipathy is toward your racial identity as he defines it.

I know grudges and how hard they are to surrender, but forgiving nutty uncles doesn't break the cycle. Instead, the message is passed down to unquestioning youngsters, who looked at someone like me coming into the 'hood as the enemy.

Not many people have the experience of walking into a crack dealer's house to retrieve a CD player that had been earned by a neighborhood child. Under the circumstances, the boy's uncle was perfectly justified in assuming that the item had been stolen and was fair game. All I had to do was show up ... the property was promptly returned.

So this is the reality I know ... you may not have ever seen the hatred that raw and exposed, but it's real. And if you're white, please understand that you are the object of Reverend's Wright's outrage, whether you deserve it or not.

[nolabels]

64. Contempt is powerful thing, it will make you believe things that mostly are not true.

My dyed-in-the-wool-republican brother-in-law from Kentucky wanted to take a peak at how our new big screen to how it looked. When i turned it on, the CBS network news was blazing Hilary's face on the screen. My brother-in-laws instant reaction was to say how even more ugly she looked when she was in hi-definition. To be fair he had quite a few knock downs for Obama too. The point being once the groundwork for contempt is broken it's hard to change it back the other way when many others inculcate that same contempt into the culture

[Mooney]

13. It's to be expected.

The MSM eats this type of shit up. That's just the way the game is played.

Something else will come along though, don't worry.

[MrModerate]

14. You could have stopped at "Every…Democrat should be fucking outraged over the media's coverage…"

Since that coverage is one of the major reasons we've been afflicted by 7 years of Schimpanski's missrule.

[NJSecularist]

18. You are correct. DUers need to realize the real threat.

[mzmolly]

17. I'm more disgusted at the faux outrage here.

But, I gotch yer greater point. :hi:

[BillE]

19. If you think it is bad now,

just wait for the GE, when GOP(media) go full throttle.

[greyghost]

22. They ain't seen NOTHING yet.

[greyghost]

21. You expected journalistic integrity from Faux News?

[NJSecularist]

23. I expect a certain standard of journalism from all 3 major news networks

MSNBC and CNN haven't been the greatest, they've been decent, but FoxNews is just disgraceful with their coverage...

[Drachasor]

27. Is Fox News' disgraceful behavior anything new though?

They've always been horrible, as far as I have seen.

[greyghost]

31. That's their "standard."

[MethuenProgressive]

35. "An ABC News review of dozens of Rev. Wright's sermons, offered for sale by the church..."

Is the plan that if you can frame this as being all about "FOX" (and not the media outlet that broke the story) that people will dismiss the significance of Obama's connections to Wright?

[LTR]

24. It's much worse here

The Shrillbots are absolutely giddy about this nonsense.

[cbayer]

26. Agreed.

My only disagreement with your piece is this line:

"If you are a Hillary supporter, put aside your hatred for Obama for a second."

I think most Hillary supporters are not haters of Obama. Just a few VERY vocal ones.

And I haven't seen the official Clinton camp use this story. But they also haven't denounced it and they should.

[MethuenProgressive]

29. ABC News did a great job uncovering PastorGate. Link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5124978&mesg_id=5124978

[Unsane]

30. The bright side? It's happening now instead of October.

Now, when we have a chance at a nominating a different candidate, so as to avoid disaster. Or, another way to look at it, Obama, the eventual nominee, has a chance to combat this smear now instead of in the GE.

[greyghost]

32. Timing is everything. I truly beleive that either one can beat McWarmonger

as long as the party is behind them.

[Coexist]

33. what irritates the hell outta me, is that the networks actually pay

some idiots like Falwell and their ilk as respected commentators, yet they are shocked at Wright.

There is far more hatred coming from these people, and it is just glossed over.

[greyghost]

37. Of course they are the "establishment", as we refered to them in the 60's.

[Coexist]

41. what are some of their names, I think I may start a list

of their quotes to send to the networks when they decide to use them as commentators.

Ted Haggard
Pat Robertson

who is that really white guy who was on MSNBC the other night? do you know?

[greyghost]

46. You got a good start.

[Horse with no Name]

34. I quit being outraged when the media lied about ALL the candidates

and you obamites couldn't be bothered because it benefited your candidate at the time.

[SunsetDreams]

36. You won't get a spin from me.

This is outrageous! Every Democrat should fight against this!

[greyghost]

38. "We are the ones, we've been waiting for" ~ Barack Obama

[grantcart]

39. It is pure trivialization. While a war rages be upset about somebody who preached against the war.

If there had been more pastor's who had the courage of Rev. Wright then this totally needless slaughter might have been avoided.

I wonder what Bush's pastor was preaching, "God wants you to kill bad people"?

I am guessing that if Cheney ever went to a church he would go to one where the pastor would title his sermon "You were chosen to hold power - now use it".


I am not unhappy that this came out now. Better than a week before Pennsylvania or in October.

Let everyone go nuts, these things die down and go away.


But what I find interesting is the high level of hysteria at DU. Be afraid - the Republicans will play the ad and Obama will lose

be very very afraid. How do so many intelligent people become subjected to so much fear?


I am not outraged by the media - I am outraged by the democrats who continue to cower.


Clinton lost a golden opportunity. All she had to do was to come out and say that she had heard nothing but good things about Rev.

Wright, that Obama didn't need to apologize for a few passages in a couple of sermons and the media's reaction bordered on racism.

This is not a criticism of her handling of it, simply to say I think she had a great opportunity.

[redqueen]

43. Very well said. (nt)

[BigDDem]

40. How dare they order "Reverend" Wrights

tapes FROM THE CHURCH!
Outrageous!!!

:rofl:

[phantom power]

44. Yes...

As we hurtle forward into GOP smear season, this article in this week-end's NY Times magazine may help us explain how these character assassinations damage Democrats so successfully:

...To determine the veracity of a given statement, we often look to society’s collective assessment of it. But it is difficult to measure social consensus very precisely, and our brains rely, instead, upon a sensation of familiarity with an idea. You use a rule of thumb: if something seems familiar, you must have heard it before, and if you’ve heard it before, it must be true.

The rule obviously invites many opportunities for error. The seniors in Skurnik’s study couldn’t remember the context in which they had heard the health claims (research shows that we are quick to forget “negation tags,” like whether something is said to be false or a lie), so they relied, instead, on a vague sense of familiarity, which steered them astray. Repetition, psychologists have shown, easily tricks us. Kimberlee Weaver of Virginia Tech recently found that if one person tells you that something is true many times, you are likely to conclude that the opinion is widely held, even if no one else said a thing about it.

The right has been on top of this for decades now, repeating lies about Democrats over and over again until everyone just accepts them as true. The mainstream media as often as not apply Cokie's Law and run with it too. (It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's "out there.") From candidate smears to "tax and spend" to "unamerican" they repeat it like a bunch of wind up dolls until people have internalized it and don't even know why they believe it, they just do.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/tell-me-lies-by-digby-as-we-hurtle.html

[Bake]

45. Crying about the media isn't going to make them stop.

You just can't hand them shit like that on a silver platter. Obama knew this stuff was toxic, he knew it when he started his campaign and did very damn little to prevent it. He had Wright serving on some campaign advisory committee, even though Wright himself warned him that the whole thing might blow up on him.

I fault Obama for endangering the party's chances this fall.

Bake

[HuffleClaw]

48. every single democrat shouldn't be in the least bit surprised at how the media's covered this story

or any other story that has to do with ANY democrat.

[moobu2]

49. I'm fucking outraged the MSM didn’t cover this MORE!! If had involved the Clintons

they surely would have. I never watch corporate news anyway, haven’t for years.

[GeorgeGist]

51. Everyone should be outraged that Rev. Wright

thinks he's entitled to give orders to God.

[Beacool]

52. I'm not outraged, it's about time he got a little of what Hillary has been getting for years.

No one stays in a church for 20 years without knowing what the pastor is all about. Besides, this guy is his spiritual adviser, married him, baptized his kids and all of a sudden Obama is surprised by this man's sermons?????

Please........

[barack the house]

53. The best form of protest is turn them off except Olberman.

Support progressive radio especailly headonradionetwork.com listener suported but good hearted people. What we give out we get back 3 fold.

[barack the house]

54. Farrakhan "The media can make a bad man look good (GWB) and a good man look bad (Barack)"

[Horse with no Name]

56. I thought obama denounced Farrakhan?

Amazing that some people are loyal to a fault...and some...aren't.

[GoldieAZ49]

57. Ah, good idea, lets get Farrakhan out there defending Obama

that will make it all better

[GhostofSandpiper]

58. The racial double standard couldn't be more obvious

Jerry Foulsmell was still allowed to be a guest host on Crossfire after blaming gays, educated women, and the ACLU for 9/11.

[Life Long Dem]

59. I noticed Fox News had coverage today on this, while other stations had little.

I thought that was strange since Fox has shown to be going after Hillary. I think the truth is coming out and Fox News is showing us where they really stand.

[JVS]

60. It seems some here prefer to pretend that Wright is the equivalent of KKK

[Fredda Weinberg]

62. He's what the KKK hoped to produce. They're gone ... has Wright's sermon changed? n/t

[doyourealize1]

63. Hillary supporter here

The Wright scandal isn't a big deal, and it's being blown out of proportion.

[RememberWellstone]

66. Freedom of speech?

Ring a bell?