the media - "enemy of the american people ..." says pat caddell
***
SO SAYS LONG-TIME LIBERAL DEMOCRAT POLSTER/CONSULTANT/STRATEGIST
AT SEPTEMBER 21 'ACCURACY IN MEDIA CONFERENCE'
"The audicity of corruption"!
Of course those of us who actually follow the news, and especially the news the media conspires NOT to cover, Caddell's observations are not new or surprising. They simply note a new and astronomical level of media malpractice.
You can read the entire eye-opening address here:
http://www.aim.org/video/pat-caddell-the-audacity-of-corruption/
Here are some excerpts:
PAT CADDELL: ... I think we’re at the most dangerous time in our political history in terms of the balance of power in the role that the media plays in whether or not we maintain a free democracy or not. You know, when I first started in politics - and for a long time before that - everyone on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, despised the press commonly, because they were SOBs to everybody. Which is exactly what they should be. They were unrelenting. Whatever the biases were, they were essentially equal-opportunity people. That changed in 1980...
Also the change from evening news emphasis to morning news by the networks is another factor that’s been pointed out to me. Most recently, what I call the nepotism that exists, where people get jobs-they’re married to people who are in the administration, or in politics, whatever. But the overwhelming bias has become very real and very dangerous. We have a First Amendment for one reason. We have a First Amendment not because the Founding Fathers liked the press-they hated the press-but they believed, as [Thomas] Jefferson said, that in order to have a free country, in order to be a free people, we needed a free press...
We designed a constitutional system with many checks and balances. The one that had no checks and balances was the press, and that was done under an implicit understanding that, somehow, the press would protect the people from the government and the power by telling-somehow allowing-people to have the truth. That is being abrogated as we speak, and has been for some time. It is now creating the danger that I spoke to.
A few weeks ago I wrote a piece which was called “The Audacity of Cronyism” in Breitbart, and my talk today is “The Audacity of Corruption.” What I pointed out was, that it was appalling that Valerie Jarrett had a Secret Service detail. A staff member in the White House who is a senior aide and has a full Secret Service detail, even while on vacation, and nobody in the press had asked why. That has become more poignant, as I said, last week, when we discovered that we had an American ambassador, on the anniversary of 9/11, who was without adequate security-while she still has a Secret Service detail assigned to her full-time, at a massive cost, and no one in the media has gone to ask why.
The same thing: I raised the question of David Plouffe. David Plouffe, who is the White House’s Senior Advisor-and was Obama’s campaign manager last time, he and [David] Axelrod sort of switched out, Axelrod going back to Chicago for the campaign-and just after it was announced that he was coming, an Iranian front group in Nigeria gave him $100,000 to give two speeches in Nigeria. Now, let me tell you: There’s nobody that hands-no stranger gives you $100,000 and doesn’t expect something in return, unless you live in a world that I don’t. And no one has raised this in the mainstream media. He was on with George Stephanopoulos, on ABC, a couple of weeks ago, and they were going through all these questions. No one asked him whatsoever about that.
... and found out just how strongly Americans are concerned with Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, what’s happening in the Middle East, and cuts in defense spending. This is not the place for that, but it strikes me as the American people identify, in the polling we’ve done over the last year, Iran as the single greatest danger to the United States. And here’s a man who’s being paid by an already named front group for that-for a terrorist regime, and is not asked about it, or queried about it!
The third thing I would say is that-then there’s of course [National Security Advisor] Tom Donilon, who I know very well from years back, who I caused a little bit of a stir over a few months ago when I said he was the “leaker-in-chief.” I mean this ridiculous running around-“How did these secrets get out?”-when it is clear he has no credentials for foreign policy; who has been in the White House; who was a political operative for Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter, and others; who was known to have, in my opinion, to be just the most amoral person I know in politics; and who is using and orchestrating national security.
When we see what happened this week in Libya-and when I said I was more frightened than I’ve ever been, this is true, because I think it’s one thing that, as they did in 2008, when the mainstream press, the mainstream media and all the press, jumped on the Obama bandwagon and made it a moral commitment on their part to help him get elected in a way that has never happened, whatever the biases in the past... This press corps serves at the pleasure of this White House and President, led by people like Ezra Klein and JournoList, where they plot the stories together. The problem here is that no one will name names.
But I want to talk about this Libyan thing, because we crossed some lines here. It’s not about politics. First of all we’ve had nine day of lies over what happened because they can’t dare say it’s a terrorist attack, and the press won’t push this. Yesterday there was not a single piece in The New York Times over the question of Libya. Twenty American embassies, yesterday, were under attack. None of that is on the national news.
None of it is being pressed in the papers. If a President of either party-I don’t care whether it was Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or George Bush or Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush-had a terrorist incident, and got on an airplane after saying something, and flown off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas, they would have been crucified! It would have been-it should have been the equivalent, for Barack Obama, of George Bush’s “flying over Katrina” moment. But nothing was said at all, and nothing will be said.
It is one thing to bias the news, or have a biased view. It is another thing to specifically decide that you will not tell the American people information they have a right to know, and I choose right now, openly, and this is-if I had more time I’d do all the names for it-but The New York Times, The Washington Post, or the most important papers that influence the networks, ABC, NBC, and, to a lesser extent-because CBS has actually been on this story, partly because the President of Libya appeared on [Bob Schieffer’s Face the Nation] and said, on Sunday, while [U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.] Susan Rice was out-the U.N. Ambassador has no portfolio on this matter-lying, said of the Secretary-you know why, notice the Secretary of State wasn’t out there doing this-was on national television, lying and promoting the White House line while the Libyan President, the very same moment, is saying “This is a premeditated attack.”
Nobody has asked that question. This morning-take a look at The New York Times this morning, it’s a minor reference. Oh, now we’ve decided that it was a terrorist incident. But this is-that would have changed, that should change the politics.
The facts and truth you need to make intelligent decisions is being managed, spun, and suppressed.
And yes, I know most of you don't give a tinker's damn as long as you are comfy and get your way.
Thank God there are a few liberals like Pat Caddell who have the intellectual honesty to look beyond their ideology, speak the truth, and do what is right, confront their colleagues, and try to help protect this great country from tyranny and oppression by an increasingly elitist minority and the millions of mush-for-brains drones.
Oh, did you hear? The world is burning as radical Islamic rage continues Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and the West ... as this corrupt media fiddle the Obama administration.
Deaths in Afghanistan under Obama have more than doubled under Obama (almost 1400) in half the time than under Bush (638) and the media are silent!
We just passed 2,000 deaths of brave Americans there ... and not a peep from the media who refuse to report anything that will hurt their "Chosen One" at the polls.
p.s. I clicked on "distressed" below only because there is no "disgusted" mood listed.
SO SAYS LONG-TIME LIBERAL DEMOCRAT POLSTER/CONSULTANT/STRATEGIST
AT SEPTEMBER 21 'ACCURACY IN MEDIA CONFERENCE'
"The audicity of corruption"!
Of course those of us who actually follow the news, and especially the news the media conspires NOT to cover, Caddell's observations are not new or surprising. They simply note a new and astronomical level of media malpractice.
You can read the entire eye-opening address here:
http://www.aim.org/video/pat-caddell-the-audacity-of-corruption/
Here are some excerpts:
PAT CADDELL: ... I think we’re at the most dangerous time in our political history in terms of the balance of power in the role that the media plays in whether or not we maintain a free democracy or not. You know, when I first started in politics - and for a long time before that - everyone on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, despised the press commonly, because they were SOBs to everybody. Which is exactly what they should be. They were unrelenting. Whatever the biases were, they were essentially equal-opportunity people. That changed in 1980...
Also the change from evening news emphasis to morning news by the networks is another factor that’s been pointed out to me. Most recently, what I call the nepotism that exists, where people get jobs-they’re married to people who are in the administration, or in politics, whatever. But the overwhelming bias has become very real and very dangerous. We have a First Amendment for one reason. We have a First Amendment not because the Founding Fathers liked the press-they hated the press-but they believed, as [Thomas] Jefferson said, that in order to have a free country, in order to be a free people, we needed a free press...
We designed a constitutional system with many checks and balances. The one that had no checks and balances was the press, and that was done under an implicit understanding that, somehow, the press would protect the people from the government and the power by telling-somehow allowing-people to have the truth. That is being abrogated as we speak, and has been for some time. It is now creating the danger that I spoke to.
A few weeks ago I wrote a piece which was called “The Audacity of Cronyism” in Breitbart, and my talk today is “The Audacity of Corruption.” What I pointed out was, that it was appalling that Valerie Jarrett had a Secret Service detail. A staff member in the White House who is a senior aide and has a full Secret Service detail, even while on vacation, and nobody in the press had asked why. That has become more poignant, as I said, last week, when we discovered that we had an American ambassador, on the anniversary of 9/11, who was without adequate security-while she still has a Secret Service detail assigned to her full-time, at a massive cost, and no one in the media has gone to ask why.
The same thing: I raised the question of David Plouffe. David Plouffe, who is the White House’s Senior Advisor-and was Obama’s campaign manager last time, he and [David] Axelrod sort of switched out, Axelrod going back to Chicago for the campaign-and just after it was announced that he was coming, an Iranian front group in Nigeria gave him $100,000 to give two speeches in Nigeria. Now, let me tell you: There’s nobody that hands-no stranger gives you $100,000 and doesn’t expect something in return, unless you live in a world that I don’t. And no one has raised this in the mainstream media. He was on with George Stephanopoulos, on ABC, a couple of weeks ago, and they were going through all these questions. No one asked him whatsoever about that.
... and found out just how strongly Americans are concerned with Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, what’s happening in the Middle East, and cuts in defense spending. This is not the place for that, but it strikes me as the American people identify, in the polling we’ve done over the last year, Iran as the single greatest danger to the United States. And here’s a man who’s being paid by an already named front group for that-for a terrorist regime, and is not asked about it, or queried about it!
The third thing I would say is that-then there’s of course [National Security Advisor] Tom Donilon, who I know very well from years back, who I caused a little bit of a stir over a few months ago when I said he was the “leaker-in-chief.” I mean this ridiculous running around-“How did these secrets get out?”-when it is clear he has no credentials for foreign policy; who has been in the White House; who was a political operative for Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter, and others; who was known to have, in my opinion, to be just the most amoral person I know in politics; and who is using and orchestrating national security.
When we see what happened this week in Libya-and when I said I was more frightened than I’ve ever been, this is true, because I think it’s one thing that, as they did in 2008, when the mainstream press, the mainstream media and all the press, jumped on the Obama bandwagon and made it a moral commitment on their part to help him get elected in a way that has never happened, whatever the biases in the past... This press corps serves at the pleasure of this White House and President, led by people like Ezra Klein and JournoList, where they plot the stories together. The problem here is that no one will name names.
But I want to talk about this Libyan thing, because we crossed some lines here. It’s not about politics. First of all we’ve had nine day of lies over what happened because they can’t dare say it’s a terrorist attack, and the press won’t push this. Yesterday there was not a single piece in The New York Times over the question of Libya. Twenty American embassies, yesterday, were under attack. None of that is on the national news.
None of it is being pressed in the papers. If a President of either party-I don’t care whether it was Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or George Bush or Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush-had a terrorist incident, and got on an airplane after saying something, and flown off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas, they would have been crucified! It would have been-it should have been the equivalent, for Barack Obama, of George Bush’s “flying over Katrina” moment. But nothing was said at all, and nothing will be said.
It is one thing to bias the news, or have a biased view. It is another thing to specifically decide that you will not tell the American people information they have a right to know, and I choose right now, openly, and this is-if I had more time I’d do all the names for it-but The New York Times, The Washington Post, or the most important papers that influence the networks, ABC, NBC, and, to a lesser extent-because CBS has actually been on this story, partly because the President of Libya appeared on [Bob Schieffer’s Face the Nation] and said, on Sunday, while [U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.] Susan Rice was out-the U.N. Ambassador has no portfolio on this matter-lying, said of the Secretary-you know why, notice the Secretary of State wasn’t out there doing this-was on national television, lying and promoting the White House line while the Libyan President, the very same moment, is saying “This is a premeditated attack.”
Nobody has asked that question. This morning-take a look at The New York Times this morning, it’s a minor reference. Oh, now we’ve decided that it was a terrorist incident. But this is-that would have changed, that should change the politics.
The facts and truth you need to make intelligent decisions is being managed, spun, and suppressed.
And yes, I know most of you don't give a tinker's damn as long as you are comfy and get your way.
Thank God there are a few liberals like Pat Caddell who have the intellectual honesty to look beyond their ideology, speak the truth, and do what is right, confront their colleagues, and try to help protect this great country from tyranny and oppression by an increasingly elitist minority and the millions of mush-for-brains drones.
Oh, did you hear? The world is burning as radical Islamic rage continues Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and the West ... as this corrupt media fiddle the Obama administration.
Deaths in Afghanistan under Obama have more than doubled under Obama (almost 1400) in half the time than under Bush (638) and the media are silent!
We just passed 2,000 deaths of brave Americans there ... and not a peep from the media who refuse to report anything that will hurt their "Chosen One" at the polls.
p.s. I clicked on "distressed" below only because there is no "disgusted" mood listed.