Newsweek desperate for readers

So, I'll do my small part to help them get attention. Tina Brown knows her marketing -- that's why she has chosen such a revoltingly weird duck as Sullivan to write a piece of propaganda that would make Stalin defenders blush -- it's controversial. I would like to make it clear that I'm not comparing Obama with Stalin. Some people have problems whenever you mention two people in one sentence -- they think you're making a direct comparison between the two. There are many differences between Stalin and Obama -- for one, unlike Obama and Sullivan, Stalin was mostly honest within his party and among his loyal supporters about his propaganda campaigns. Newsweek is not concerned with accuracy, facts and truth, which are so boring and unhelpful at times -- they need readers, dammit. Come on people, pay attention.

Sullivan loves Obama, and this is understandable. When you love someone you're blind, as they say -- you can't see the flaws, like the ones listed here by Conor Friedersdorf -- http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/dear-andrew-sullivan-why-focus-on-obamas-dumbest-critics/251528/.

We've all been in love, so Sullivan can be forgiven. Tina Brown can be forgiven, because her Newsweek rag is in trouble. No one is reading it. What is a person to do when their enterprise is flopping like a flounder out of water? You throw it in water to save it. Tina Brown is saving her flounder -- she's throwing her flounder in a sea of lies...oh, nevermind. Although it smells fishy, it's understandable. Modern liberalism is dying, so, Tina shouldn't feel so bad. It's not just her inferior magazine -- it's the whole philosophy, if it can be called a philosophy. Sullivan's painful love for Obama, enduring The One's painful betrayals, can be compared to modern liberals who once thought the Democrat Party would bring about an enlightened age of technocratic proficiency. Little did they know that modern liberalism itself, steeped in statism, is doomed to failure. Sullivan's love for Obama is doomed to failure, unless Sullivan has accepted the contradictions and now embraces the pain of betrayal as the price love extracts when the heart's muffin is a ruthless statist with no respect for constitutional limits, and you, the faithful lover, are a professed defender of liberty. When love succeeds under these conditions, that love is kicking. The heart has reasons the head will never understand, so go figure.

Morning Joe 12/21/2011 -- Media bias and other stuff

On Morning today the guests were John Heilemann, Michael Steele, Tina Brown, Chuck Todd, Doris Kearns Goodwin and a few others. The subjects ranged from the House's rejection of the two month payroll tax cut extension to Obama's high self regard to Gingrich and negative ads to Scarborough's wish that Elizabeth Warren was in another state and could be elected along with Scott Brown.

Mika and a few other Leftists on the show believe that Obama is benefitting from the vicious Republican primary. Two polls show Obama's approval numbers are up, but about four other polls show his approval numbers are still in the low 40s. New CNN polls show Obama beating the individual Republican candidates. These polls are useless. Until there's a single candidate facing Obama we won't know how the race is going.

Although it appeared everyone on the Morning Joe panel agreed that a two month extension of the payroll tax cuts is ridiculous, Mika made a big deal about the politics and how the public will perceive Republican insistence that the tax cuts be approved for a year. Scarborough said he supports the Republican House decision to reject the short, meaningless extension, although he agreed with Mika that the politics are hurting Republicans. I say the politics are hurting anyone playing the political game. 2012 will be a different election year. The political class still hasn't realized the shift in public awareness regarding the current crisis in governance. The Morning Joe pundits are still working off an old political playbook, and they are guided by useless, biased polls. Media and the political class believe they can still influence the outcomes of elections, but they have lost relevance.

Yesterday, Scarborough called for the return of the draft, and this morning he said he wished Elizabeth Warren could become a senator. This confirms that Scarborough's talk about being a small government conservative is just that -- talk. It's obvious that Scarborough is a Big Government, progressive Republican. This faction of the Republican Party has been complicit in the statist advancements which have virtually killed our economy.

On the subject of Super PACs, as I said yesterday, the biggest problem is the feeding trough in DC that attracts money from business interests who have to protect themselves by competing in the policial realm rather than the economic realm. The Morning Joe crew wastes a lot of time talking about policial strategy, when the most important issue facing the country going into 2012 is the role of government in America in the 21st century.

Morning Joe also reported on the Obama 60 Minutes interview recently in which he said he is the fourth most effective President in modern times, behind Lincoln, FDR and LBJ. At least there was comic relief on Morning Joe today.

Morning Joe 9/7/2011 -- the tension is mounting

On Morning Joe today there was the usual Rick Perry bashing and the, recently, customary analysis of how Obama needs to Go Big or Go Home. The tension is building for media sleight of hand regarding Obama. I predict that after Thursday Obama will have his groove back as the new Comeback Kid, channelling FDR and kicking ass. Hoffa set the stage with a left hook, and now Obama will deliver the knockout punch-- the Tea Party will be yesterday's puny obstructionists and Republicans will fall one by one as Obama delivers Hope and Change at last. Well, maybe not that dramatic, but you get the drift -- it's on, and 2012 is in gear. Media will do their best to portray Obama as a transformative figure bringing America back to her former greatness, but this time with a kinder, more humble heart and a collective will to sacrifice for the common good.

It's not an accident that much of this will coincide with 9/11. The media can't help itself, it's politically absorbed. The Morning Joe show today could have had cut-out cardborad representations and recordings of its guests and nothing much would've been different -- it's the same old tired conservation leading up to the transition of Obama into a new President, and the fall of the Republican Party. The problem is that the public doesn't pay much attention to Morning Joe and Tina Brown or Tom Brokaw or Joe Scarborough or Mike Barnicle or Rick Stengel. There are two worlds -- the political realm and the private realm, and the two are drifting further apart. In the political world, the players are looking for marketing gimmicks to create a believable illusion, while in the private realm people are looking for real solutions and a way out from under the oppressive thumb of government.

Morning Joe 8/24/2011 -- Jeb Bush, Obama and Libya

On Morning Joe today they decided to go Right-free and stack the program 100% Left. It didn't help because the Left is making a good case against itself. With Katty Kay, Howard Dean and Harold Ford as the beginning group, they played a clip of Jeb Bush on Fox warning Republicans not to blame everything on Obama. This is priceless considering the attacks from Obama on down against the Tea Party. Howard Dean went a step further and said that the Right is "mean-spirited" and irrelevant to the current political discussions. See what I mean -- the Left is making a good case.

They then discussed an article by Thomas Friedman which compared Obama to Tiger Woods. Friedman says Tiger has great golf instincts, but he has lost confidence by listening to all the advice he's getting from others -- Obama is like Tiger, Friedman writes, listening to Washington insiders and not following his instincts to go out to the public and sell his Grand Bargain. Dean thought this was a terrible analogy and accused writers like Friedman of blathering -- Dean said Obama's problem is a bad economy, and there's little Obama can do. Katty Kay said Obama should be out there fighting for his stimulus plans.

This current meme that Obama has not sold his Grand Bargain is mystifying. Obama is shown on tv everyday talking about something -- I've never seen a President get more air time, and I've heard him sell his ideas over and over -- his problem is that he hasn't developed a written plan, so no one has anything to work with. This suggests the Grand Bargain was an illusion, and now Obama has delayed putting forth a written plan until we're pushed up against the coming elections. The irony is that some of the guests were suggesting Obama propose something big and when the Republicans balk at another stimulus, then Obama can blame them for everything that's wrong with the economy. So, on one hand,  Republicans shouldn't blame Obama for everything, but on the other hand Obama should blame the Republicans for everything. Yes, the Left is making a good case.

The best part of the show I saw this morning was when Jeremy Shahill from Nation came on to talk about Libya and Obama's Mideast performance. Tina Brown was on with Howard Dean, and they were both praising Obama's stealth campaign to drone-kill the enemy and avoid large troop involvement. Shahill caught them by surprise by showing he's done some work on this issue and believes that we're setting ourselves up for many problems down the road, killing many innnocent people to get to a few targeted bad guys, and even killing tribal leaders who could be our allies. Shahill said that Obama has been given free reign over dark ops and that this is dangerous. It's like Obama has his own private army and no one knows what all he's doing with this army.

Shahill said that Libya is a potential disaster, plus he contradicted Dean regarding large troops -- even though Obama is operating his own private covert military campaign, there has only been talk about troop withdrawal, and there is every indication we'll have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq for years to come. Dean and Brown were simplistically praising Obama's "smart power" as if he's invented a bloodless way to win wars and create regime change -- they aren't thinking about the blood of innocent brown people who happen to get in the way of our "smart power", and they aren't acknowledging the ongoing reality of Afghanistan and Iraq. Shahill had it right when he said there's a dearth of good reporting on the 7 nations we're now operating in militarily. This is not very smart -- seems pretty much like old-fashioned dumb power.

Morning Joe 8/10/2011 -- The invisible candidate -- Ron Paul

On Morning Joe today there was talk about the Michele Bachmann photo on Newsweek, and Tina brown was on to defend her magazine. Brown says it depicts the intensity involved in the Tea Party, or something to that effect, but everyone with a wink and nod understood it was a hit job and publicity stunt. There was also much criticism of Rick Perry from Joe Scarborough, and then there was talk about Obama's operatives' plan to destroy Romney because he's a little strange. To give all this priceless analysis, in addition to Brown, were Sam Stein, Eugene Robinson, Chuck Todd and the mainstay Mike Barnicle. Counting Mika, that's 6 lefties against Scarborough and Ari Fleischer who came on later -- Scarborough and Fleischer are moderates and hardly count as voices of the Republican Party, especially the new Republican reps who lean more toward limited government. There was a recent poll shown regarding the positions of the Republican candidates and possible candidates like Perry -- Romney is in the lead, then in a virtual tie are Ron Paul and Rick Perry, and then close behind is Michele Bachmann. Of the declared candidates, Ron Paul is in second place, yet, there was not a word spoken about Ron Paul -- nothing.

It's obvious that the Left's strategy is to make Romney, Perry and Bachmann appear weird, radical or flat out crazy, and it's obvious they are ignoring Paul because they don't want to give him exposure, and they don't think he can win -- but he's polling in second place. If political analysis really mattered on Morning Joe, Paul coming is second is the story, but political analysis is a low priority on Morning Joe.

I will write more today about Ron Paul and the fact that he's getting high ratings from voters even as the media focus on the other candidates. Paul's message is the biggest threat to Obama's chances of reelection , and many pundits might be caught by surprise if Paul does good in Iowa. Right now, Paul is the invisible candidate, but only to the political class in DC.