Republican Rules
If The Politico is to be believed, Republicans in Congress are instituting a boycott of MSNBC. Apparently they're all worked up over the way David Shuster played 'gotcha' with Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn) the other day. As I'm sure you all already know, Shuster asked Blackburn if she knew the name of the most recent soldier to die in her district, and then produced the name himself when she couldn't come up with an answer.
Shuster was later forced to apologize on air when Republicans complained that the soldier he named was not actually from Blackburn's district. Of course, as is usually the case with stuff like this, the conservative bloggers who objected to the question were wrong. It turns out the soldier was from Blackburn's district.
The absurdities and double-standards at play in this story are abundant. First of all, Republicans are boycotting an entire network because of the behavior of one guy on one day. Literally every news channel has some right-wing gasbag on it who routinely says incredibly obnoxious and unfair things about Democratic politicians. CNN has, among others, Glenn Beck. MSNBC has Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough, and Pat Buchanan, among others. And Fox News is a full-fledged GOP propaganda outlet. Yet Democrats continue to appear on these networks every day.
Moreover, Shuster was immediately forced to apologize by his bosses at MSNBC, even before the facts were in and it was shown that he was right. Yet this is somehow worthy of a network wide boycott? What a bunch of thin-skinned ninnies. If Democrats were this thin-skinned they'd have long ago instituted boycotts of every news outlet.
Shuster was later forced to apologize on air when Republicans complained that the soldier he named was not actually from Blackburn's district. Of course, as is usually the case with stuff like this, the conservative bloggers who objected to the question were wrong. It turns out the soldier was from Blackburn's district.
The absurdities and double-standards at play in this story are abundant. First of all, Republicans are boycotting an entire network because of the behavior of one guy on one day. Literally every news channel has some right-wing gasbag on it who routinely says incredibly obnoxious and unfair things about Democratic politicians. CNN has, among others, Glenn Beck. MSNBC has Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough, and Pat Buchanan, among others. And Fox News is a full-fledged GOP propaganda outlet. Yet Democrats continue to appear on these networks every day.
Moreover, Shuster was immediately forced to apologize by his bosses at MSNBC, even before the facts were in and it was shown that he was right. Yet this is somehow worthy of a network wide boycott? What a bunch of thin-skinned ninnies. If Democrats were this thin-skinned they'd have long ago instituted boycotts of every news outlet.
posted by A.L. at 6:42 PM
8 Comments:
I'm missing something. Isn't it going to hurt the Republican to deny themselves the use of MSNBC to spread their views?
I fail to understand how a politician -- even the President -- can effectively "boycott" a network since all politicians ever do is hand-out press releases. Politicians are NOT a real source of news.
A politician boycotting media is like an alcoholic boycotting a bar: they can't.
Of course insofar as media is entertainment some of the clowns may not be seen on MSNBC. But people switch channels anyway.
Seems like a weak form of protest.
They are so ridiculous. Have you ever listened to Blackburn? She's a total nitwit. I like Shuster; he's very smart, and his pieces are really good. I'd love to see him get his own show.
The Republicans are going to be a much smaller majority very soon. I think that it would be wise of them to be a bit thicker-skinned.
Perhaps Congress should start passing "sense of the house" or "sense of the senate" resolutions condemning anyone or anything they don't approve of. If I understand correctly, these meaningless measures don't require executive signature, so they would at least be able to pass them.
What a pathetic situation.
I'm missing something. Isn't it going to hurt the Republican to deny themselves the use of MSNBC to spread their views?
The point of a boycott is rarely to permanently deny the patronage of the boycotters from the boycottee. The goal is usually to use the threatened loss of patronage as a bludgeon to force a change in some sort of behavior in the target of your boycott. The theory is as true here with MSNBC as it was with the bus boycott that followed the Rosa Parks incident.
Both sides are usually hurt in the short-term, as the boycotters typically hurt there target by denying them of the monetary benefits buying some product, but the boycotters presumably dervived something they wanted by using their target's product. However, the loss of Republican politicians as commenters isn't too far off the mark. I'd guess that it could be looked at as being boycotted by vendors instead of by customers.
Regardless, the whole point is not to drive MSNBC out of business, but bring them to heel and keep them from ever doing anything that might make even the most dispicable Republican look bad. That type of tactic is only allowed on their opponents. A well trained attack-dog is much more useful than a dog's corpse, afterall...
What I want to know is...why do the Republicans always get away with this sort of crap? Why don't Dems boycott? Republicans seem to be outsmarting the smart people at every turn.
Take Blackburn and Shuster. She's an inarticulate goober, and Shuster is smart. But she has outmaneuvered him and MSNBC. And she was WRONG!!! This happens in Congress a lot, and Bush outflanks Dems all of the time, too. What gives? This is getting old.
re: susan (directly above)
what astonishes me about your comment, and indeed the original post, is how close liberals can get to discussing corporate media conglomeration, without actually mentioning it once.
by the number of question marks and exclamation points in susan's comment, it's clear that without grasping the significance of money and advertisers in free media, no explanation really fits.
come on people. MONEY. shuster is a pissant just like carlson, hume, beck, et. all. THEY ARE NOT SIGNIFICANT in any way whatsoever. news channels make ALL of their money from advertisers, who are, by and large, humongous corporations, which are run mostly by very wealthy, very conservative people.
it's not at all mysterious that national reporting slants right. what's mysterious is how confused otherwise intelligent people are about why this is so.
The question was, "Do you know the name of the last soldier from your district to be killed in Iraq?" The answer was, "No." Even if it weren't Bohannon, the answer would still be "No."
Why don't Dems boycott? Because dems don't use coercion, deception, lies and dirty tricks. Republicans are all about dirty tricks esp projection, baiting, dbl standards.
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