Make Them Accountable headlines from Carolyn for 6/5/09

Politics and Media News Headlines 6/5/09

Special Report asks of Obama: "Islam or Isn't He?" (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

The Weekly Standard and its Arabic freak-out (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
If we've confirmed anything this week about the GOP Noise Machine it's that its members' heads pretty much explode at the mere mention of Islam or Muslims in the context of the Obama president...The sheer xenophobia though, and the blatant disdain for all things Islamic and Arabic, doesn't get much more transparent that a kooky blog post at the Weekly Standard in response to Obama's two-syllable response to the king of Saudi Arabia: "Shukrun," which is Arabic for thank you...at the Arab-hating Weekly Standard that set off all kinds of alarms bells.

Liz Cheney: Obama Wants To Hold Hands With Terrorists (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
That's not really an exaggeration! On an appearance on MSNBC, Liz Cheney appeared to say that Obama's speech in Cairo today showed that he wants to deal with terrorists by 'hand-holding.'
Click through to watch the video.-Caro

Pagliarulo: Obama should do what Reagan would have, tell moderate Muslims "screw you," love us or "live in your cave" (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh on Obama speech: "This is a call for the end of sovereignty" (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Hannity airs Obama "apology tour" montage (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

ABC News thinks Sean Hannity's anti-Obama screeds = news (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
We noted earlier that the news crew at ABC dashed to post a bulletin about how right-wing talker Sean Hannity hated Obama's Muslim speech. Because at ABC, Hannity's important and insightful. A couple hours later here's how the Note summed up the reaction to Obama's speech: "This is an extension of what has become an apology tour, that America is an arrogant country," Hannity said....The instant reaction from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, per ABC's Jake Tapper: It was a 'wonderful speech,' she said."

At ABC News, Sean Hannity's reaction to a foreign policy speech is on par with the reaction of the United States' Secretary of State. Behold your liberal media at work.

How Fox News Defies Ratings Gravity (by Jeff Bercovici at AOL Daily Finance)
In the just-ended May ratings period, Fox once again manhandled the competition, posting big gains in both primetime and full-day while MSNBC stumbled and CNN plunged headlong...It's tempting to ascribe Fox's surge to the change in administration. There's something to this. Political media outlets, whether print, web or broadcast, tend to flourish in opposition. Certainly that was the case with MSNBC, which rode the crests of Obamamania to new highs last fall, only to settle to earth once campaigning gave way to governing. Even the network's powerhouse, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, was down in May (a 20 percent drop among viewers 25-54), the first time that's happened in almost three years.

But Fox has never fit comfortably into this mold. When George Bush took office, analysts and competitors predicted Fox would fizzle without Bill Clinton to beat up on. Instead, it merely opened up an ever-growing lead on CNN. Just a few months ago, the chin-strokers were thinking that maybe it was actually Bush and his War on Terror that had been propping up Fox and that the dawn of the Obama era would prove Fox's undoing. That's clearly not happening.
What Fox News gives its audience is a worldview that it reinforces every single day, many times a day. How else could almost 30% of the population still have believed, when he left office, that George Bush did anything worthwhile as president?

What so-called progressives like those on MSNBC have tried to do is mimic the us-vs.-them mentality that Fox News uses so successfully. But I don't believe that reinforcing tribal hatred and propensity for exclusion is the way to build a more progressive, more tolerant, dare I say more moral society. And Obama's kind of moralizing isn't the way to do it, either.

Too bad we have so few voices explaining, convincing, teaching. Too bad so many people have bought in to the smartass model of social interaction that they don't think teaching and being taught, convincing and being convinced, is worthwhile. Too bad for our social structures. Too bad for all of us.-Caro

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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com