Some Interesting Admissions By WaPost’s Kurtz
Posted on August 24, 2009
-By Warner Todd Huston
In his Washington Post column for August 25, Howard Kurtz sounds exasperated, fed up with those moron Americans that dare to have an opinion against Obama’s socialist take over of the country’s healthcare system. Oh, and he felt the need to slam Governor Sarah Palin, too… but what’s new about that? What is unusual, though, is the admission that Kurtz thinks that the Old Media should influence public opinion instead of merely inform readers about the news.
Of course he led with a laugher that is hard to take seriously. His very first few words makes of him a laughing stock.
For once, mainstream journalists did not retreat to the studied neutrality of quoting dueling antagonists.
For once? For once? And, what’s with the claim of studied neutrality? He’s kidding, right? Does Kurtz really expect to be taken seriously with that first line?
Next he goes on to attack Palin for her “death panels” line.
They tried to perform last rites on the ludicrous claim about President Obama’s death panels, telling Sarah Palin, in effect, you’ve got to quit making things up.
But it didn’t matter. The story refused to die.
Well, it refuses to die because it is easy to believe that this president would be first to demand death panels. After all, he was always a consistent vote for infanticide and death panels for babies. Not only that, but we know that Obama has brought back the “death panels” for our military veterans, policies that were stopped by Bush. Palin is far more believable than Obama in this debate.
And now for Howie’s unusual admission.
The crackling, often angry debate over health-care reform has severely tested the media’s ability to untangle a story of immense complexity. In many ways, news organizations have risen to the occasion; in others they have become agents of distortion. But even when they report the facts, they have had trouble influencing public opinion.
The media is supposed to “influence public opinion”? I thought the media’s job was to report news so that readers could come to their own conclusion? I thought a journalist was in the just-the-facts-m’am business?
I have to say, though, that Kurtz might be finally realizing the truth about his profession.
Perhaps journalists are no more trusted than politicians these days, or many folks never saw the knockdown stories. But this was a stunning illustration of the traditional media’s impotence.
At last a little sunlight is breaking through his dark world of self-imposed ignorance. You bet no one trusts you and your cohorts, Mr. Kurtz. In fact, there is little reason to do so as your comrades have been caught over and over again in lies, obfuscation and omissions not to mention your sycophancy for the Chief Death Panelist, The One, your Obammessiah.
And, speaking of the media’s sycophancy, Kurtz covers for the messiah even in this piece.
In fact, after the president convened a low-key town hall in New Hampshire, press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters: “I think some of you were disappointed yesterday that the president didn’t get yelled at.” There was a grain of truth in that.
No, Mr. Kurtz, there is no “grain of truth” in that. After all, one would not expect Obama’s manufactured townhall, the one he and his staff carefully arranged and stocked with a friendly audience, to have any “raucous” behavior. Would you think Obama’s stocked audience would be so vocal?
In any case, this Howard Kurtz piece is one of the most laughable, yet revealing, columns I’ve seen by a denizen of the Old Media for quite a while.
» Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Anti-Capitalism, Barack Obama, Communism, Congress, Delusional Dupes and DUmmies, Democrats, Government, Government corruption, Healthcare, Journalistic Prostitution, Liberal Media/Bias, Liberal World, News, President, Socialism, liberalism
Trackback URL
Comments
13 Responses to “Some Interesting Admissions By WaPost’s Kurtz”
Leave a Reply
The bad news is that Kurtz’s drivel will be accepted as dogma by the Post’s communista readers.
The free press in all media forms is a blessing, and I am thankful for it.
That being said, I am ready for the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Time Warner, CNN, MSNBC, CBS and other similar providers to go out of business through loss of market share. I do not have confidence in their objectivity or quality.
Most of their writers and editors lost a fair sense of balance before leaving college, and have never had the kinds of experiences they need to acquire it. They may award each other prizes, but they cannot award each other a clear viewpoint.
There are many other media outlets that, even with fewer resources, show far more honesty and diligence. May they prosper!
Don’t make the mistake of confusing lies that are effective with the truth.
The “Death Panels” meme has no basis whatsoever in truth, but it is effective, so we continue to lose it.
If we start believing our own lies, we’ll quickly lose any ground we’ve gained over these past six months.
If the “Death Panels” meme has no basis whatsoever in truth, then truth has lost its meaning. I suppose we will next hear that the “Death Book” for vets meme “has no basis whatsoever in truth” because, after all, the government would never publish such a document, and none with that title actually exists, and such talk is controverted by all “the facts” — unless…. you mean the publication “Your Life, Your Choices”, the veteran’s end of life guide.
I guess from the beginning I assumed Palin’s “death panels” referred to the medical care rationing “advisory” boards that would implement system wide schemes like those described by the Presidential advisor Ezekiel Emanuel.
You wouldn’t individually be summoned to stand before a panel per se and plead your case, but some efficiency experts along the lines of Macnamera’s Best and Brightest would set up an algorithm to measure your actuarialy calculated future societal worth against the expected cost of further treatment, and zippo, bango out would come the decision when your particulars were entered.
After 2014 (as I have read it) those advisory decisions would be enforceable against medical care givers in the form of assessed penalties for violating them.
Can’t wait for the days of medical rationing to hit…how about you?
There has been no single statement of greater truth in our time by a political figure than Palin’s “death panel” remark.
This is why it has been reverberating across our landscape and rattling the political-media elites who traffic in doublespeak and collude in their crusade for “healthcare reform” aka government dominion in human life. And it is why it ratcheted up the hatred for this woman.
As for Kurtz, I’d like to say his remarks are shocking, but really, who doubted that he viewed the media as the ultimate shapers of human events and not mere reporters.
When 0 votes to deny medical assistance for the live birth that results from a botched abortion in IL, who says “chose a pill rather than an operation for elders”, who supports a bill now in Congress that authorizes paying Doctors to promote Hospices to die in rather than attempt to cure, “Death Panels” is only mild hyperbole.
Palin, and I am a strong supporter, is perhaps guilty of using hyperbole with the term “death panels”. But her point is, was, and shall be well taken because it lands quite closely to the fears of many that the government is out of control in general and has little regard for life specifically.
This was a brilliant stroke. With two brief paragraphs on FaceBook, Sarah Palin derailed the whole ObamaCare Sales Force Autumn Rollout.
The spectacle of the media running around flapping its wings in collective outrage that Palin’s remarks were not technically accurate contrasts vividly with the passivity with which they have conducted themselves when Obama spews lies about cost savings from ObamaCare, preservation of current provider systems etc etc etc.
No wonder they have no credibility left.
I feel like I’m living the 1970’s all over again.
If, during the TET offensive of ‘68, we had listened to the “most trusted man in America” we would have believed the VN war was lost at that time.
If we had listened to Rather, who figured that, although the the papers(on Pres Bush’s Guard duty) were fake, they were basically true. This from a man who couldn’t pass Marine boot camp, but he knows how the Air Force works, especially the Guard.
As I posted somewhere else, I’m 73, retired, and a veteran with some kind of pain in one hip. I wonder when I’ll get my visit?
“I feel like I’m living the 1970’s all over again.”
New Obama Administration Initiatives:
Mood-Rings-for-Clunkers
Disco-Records-for-Clunkers
Beta-Max’s-for-Clunkers
8-Tracks-for-Clunkers
Reopening “Studio 54″ with stimulus funds. One change: the disco will be renamed “Stimulus 54″.
Free Billy Beer for All!
Complimentary “Whip Inflation Now” buttons for party loyalists.
New Obama Permanent Campaign Theme: “Do the Hustle.”
“If we start believing our own lies, we’ll quickly lose any ground we’ve gained over these past six months.”
Good point, Moby.
I realize there are many people in our great nation who for reasons known only to themselves who are still enamored with the one. It is sad and even tragic that this is the situation, considering the slippery slope we are being led down to socialism.
I can understand to some extent why the elitists in Washington want our nation to be totally under the control of the government, but it is hard to understand why there are intelligent people throughout the country who would agree with this stupidity.
Of course there are always those who have grown up believing that the purpose of the government is to take care of them. And if the government run school system perpetuates this fallacy it shows the importance of making major changes in our educational system. Of course that cannot happen as long as there are socialist already entrenched in Washington.
As many bloggers have said, “kick out the encumbants, and send a completely new group of elected representatives to Washington, and at the same time get rid of some of the bureaucrats (or even the majority of bureaucrats) at the same time. I realize this is a tall order, but there is no reason to not at least attempt this feat.