Month: May 2012

Fox News Ignores Story About Their Anti-Obama Video

Posted by on May 31, 2012 at 11:09 am. 6 Comments :

Fox News Faux PasYesterday Fox News aired a brazenly biased video that could have passed for a Republican attack ad against President Obama. It confirmed the widespread, well deserved, reputation of Fox as the PR arm of the Republican Party.

The video was quickly and harshly criticized by pundits and television critics from across the political spectrum. Even Fox recognized the highly inappropriate nature of the video in their own response. First they removed it from their web sites. Then they edited it to remove all traces of the Fox & Friends connection to it and reposted it online. But even the revised version was deemed too far over the line and they later deleted that as well.

The news of this partisan escapade was reported by numerous media outlets including:

  • Atlanta Journal Constitution
  • Newsday
  • McClatchy Washington Bureau
  • CBS News
  • Washington Post
  • Daily Beast
  • Seattle Times
  • Hollywood Reporter
  • Huffington Post
  • National Journal
  • Baltimore Sun

One notoriously absent news bureau that failed to report on the matter was Fox News. In fact, there was no mention of the story from any Rupert Murdoch news division except for a reprint of an Associated Press story buried in the Wall Street Journal online.

Most notable, Fox & Friends had nothing to say about their embarrassing participation in this blatant political activism. Their program this morning completely ignored the matter, even though they had all gushed with effusive praise for the video yesterday when they ran it.

Fox’s response to the controversy was a tepid statement saying only that the matter had been “addressed” with the producers. There was no detail as to whether that meant there would be any disciplinary action. Contrast that with the response to inappropriate behavior a few weeks ago by NBC personnel who misleadingly edited an audio transcript of George Zimmerman. They were promptly terminated and public notice of such was given.

There can be no mistake that this was not the work of a rogue associate producer. The video required many hours of work on company time. It would have to have been approved by multiple people on its way to broadcast. The abundance of stock video and music in the piece required that someone with authority approve the expenditure. So the excuse that no senior level executive was aware of it simply does not ring true.

The fact that Fox is so embarrassed that they can’t even publish an honest account of what happened is evidence that they knew they were wrong and that they will go to great lengths to cover it up. It illustrates ever more conclusively that Fox News is not a credible news enterprise and should not be treated as one by their viewers or their peers.

Fox News Produces An Anti-Obama Video – Then Scrubs It, Sanitizes It, And Scrubs It Again

Posted by on May 30, 2012 at 5:32 pm. 2 Comments :

This morning on Fox & Friends, the program’s hosts, two couch potatoes and one couch tomato, introduced a video that purported to examine “Four Years of Hope and Change.” What it was in reality was a four-plus minute campaign video attacking President Obama that presented a variety of soundbites by the President accompanied by ominous graphics and eerie music that falsely implied that his campaign promises were unkept. The video addresses subjects such as…

  • The national debt (which ballooned as a result of Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, bailouts for banks, and two wars).
  • The unemployment rate (which Fox failed to note has fallen from 10.1 to 8.1, and which was the result of an economic collapse precipitated by Bush’s pandering to, and deregulation of, Wall Street).
  • The price of gas (which at $3.63 a gallon is still lower (and falling) than at the height of the Bush administration when it reached $4.12).
  • And a variety of statistics that one would expect in a recession that were caused by the economic mismanagement enumerated above.


The video (which Media Matters thoroughly debunks here) could not have been a more pro-Romney, anti-Obama attack had it been produced by the Republican National Committee. When critics observe that Fox News is the PR arm of the GOP, it is precisely because of brazenly biased political activism like this. If there were ever a time for Fox News to be investigated by the Federal Elections Commission for improper political contributions, it is now.

Apparently Fox News has also recognized the gross inappropriateness of their anti-Obama attack ad. Minutes after the video was posted online it was removed from every place it had been posted. On Fox Nation a reader would have been greeted by a “Lost at Sea” page indicating that the content was no longer at that address. On the Fox & Friends site the video was replaced by an error message saying that they “were unable to play the media you selected.” What could have prompted Fox to bury their own video that had already been broadcast on the air?

Approximately an hour later the video reappeared on Fox Nation. However, it had been edited to remove all of the footage of the Fox & Friends crew introducing it and summing up at the conclusion. It’s almost as if Fox were trying to destroy any evidence of their involvement with the video.

Unfortunately for the propagandists at Fox, the evidence persists. Media Matters captured the whole production and made it available for all to see:

It was nice of the Fox Friends to credit the video’s producer, Chris White, for the fine job of partisan obfuscation he had done. Steve Doocy beamed, “No kidding. He remembered everything everybody said over the last three and a half, four years.” Well, actually he only remembered to piece together random bits from Obama’s speeches juxtaposed with negative graphics and false conclusions.

This should put an end to any talk that Fox News has been trying to moderate their bias, as some pundits suggested last year. Fox hasn’t changed at all. They are just as committed to falsifying their reporting, promoting their far-right agenda, and making imbecilic drones of their audience, as they ever were. This video would be ample evidence of that all by itself, but add to the mix Fox’s attempt to surgically excise their responsibility for it and you know all you need to know about their deceitful and dangerous intent.

Update: 2:30: The video has mysteriously disappeared again from the Fox web sites.
Update: 3:40: Now information is emerging that Fox News has been taking considerable heat for their bad behavior. It appears that the video has been disappeared by Fox. A weaselly statement was issued by Fox EVP Bill Shine who said…

“The package that aired on FOX & Friends was created by an associate producer and was not authorized at the senior executive level of the network. This has been addressed with the show’s producers.”

One has to wonder what happened to Fox’s “Zero Tolerance” policy that was instituted after a series of stupid mistakes. Now it seems that Fox is merely scapegoating an underling despite the glowing treatment that the Fox Friends gave the video and their effusive praise for the producer. The New York Times is reporting that Fox CEO Roger Ailes “was not aware of the video” even though he has previously taken a keen interest in the program. However, a lot of people were aware of this video because it was not only broadcast on air, it was posted to several sites online.

Fox News

A few weeks ago a couple of NBC employees misleadingly edited an audio tape of George Zimmerman’s call to 911. NBC fired them and announced it publicly. Don’t expect the same from Fox. They don’t bother with trivialities like journalistic ethics. All they will do is say that it’s been addressed and then probably give the producer a bonus. That’s how Roger Ailes can make the ludicrous claim that “in 15 years we have never taken a story down because it was wrong.”

There is no way that Fox can avoid responsibility for this atrociously unethical affair. By now it is so obvious that Fox exists to promote Republicans and bash Democrats that this video fits squarely within their mission. The only difference this time is that they got caught crossing a line that they obviously weren’t worried about. That’s because they are so comfortable wandering across it that they’ve lost all cognizance of the line’s existence.

Mitt Romney – Mexican Anchor Baby – Releases Fake Birth Certificate

Posted by on May 30, 2012 at 2:57 am. 20 Comments :

For the past week Donald Trump has been bringing new verve to the birther babble as only he can. His revival of this nonsense corresponded to an upswing in his duties as a surrogate for Mitt Romney. For his part, Romney has pretended to distance himself from Trump’s birtherism even as he embraced Trump personally and leaned on his ability to pander to the mental deficients who still think that President Obama is a Manchurian alien sent from Kenya to hand America over to godless Muslim socialists.

Today, even though Romney has been fiercely denying that birtherism will play any role in his campaign, Romney released a copy of his own birth certificate:

Romney Birth Certificate

The question is, why would Romney do this at this time? Has anyone asked him for his birth certificate (well, besides me)? If he isn’t interested in the issue, why would he raise it again by doing this? And clearly he has had time to consider the matter. Note that the certificate has a “date issued” on it of January 18, 2012. So Romney has been sitting on this for five months waiting for the right time – which must have come today as Trump was still beating the drums of this conspiracy.

However, it needs to be noted that the document that Romney provided is not an authentic birth certificate. It is a “certificate of live birth.” When Obama released a similar document it was dismissed by birthers as insufficient and evidence that he was trying to hide something. So what is Romney trying to hide? Could it have something to do with his father’s citizenship. This document states that Mitt’s father was born in Mexico making Mitt an anchor baby at best. Therefore, Mitt cannot be eligible to be president because, according to birthers, he is not a natural born citizen of two citizen parents.

Amidst this foolishness there is a far more serious matter that also concerns the release of documents. That’s because Romney still refuses to release more than a single year of his tax returns. Obama has already released twelve years of his tax returns. Romney’s father, George, also released twelve years of returns when he ran for president in 1968. Romney has plenty to hide because many of those years will contain information about his investments and potential conflicts of interest.

It would be nice if the media would devote some of the time they waste on Trump to asking why Romney fears being more forthcoming with regard to his finances – an issue that he has placed at the top of his justifications for being president.

Non-News Of The Week: Donald Trump Makes Ass Of Himself

Posted by on May 29, 2012 at 9:59 pm. 7 Comments :

Perhaps the most insignificant news on this or any day is that Donald Trump made an ass of himself. It would be like reporting that the sun came up. But Trump’s appearance today on CNN is notable mainly for its comedy value. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Trump revealed himself to be an arrogant, ignorant, egotistical, moron with delusions of grandeur. Again, that’s not exactly news – except for the part that it was Wolf Blitzer, CNN’s resident potted plant and icon of blandness who exposed Trump. It doesn’t really take much.

The interview began with Blitzer welcoming Trump to the program. That led to Trump launching into a defensive rant without even saying hello.

Trump: I thought your reporter was very inaccurate in his description. And I thought the introduction was totally inappropriate and was actually very dishonest.

Blitzer then gave Trump an opportunity to explain specifically what troubled him about the report that preceded the interview. Trump declined and just repeated that he thought the reporter was “wrong” and was shilling for President Obama. Blitzer gave Trump another chance to explain himself, and Trump weaved and dodged and finally failed to describe a single thing that was wrong with the report.

From there the conversation devolved into name calling. Blitzer observed that Trump’s defensiveness and evasion was making him sound ridiculous. So Trump responded with a very literal “I know you are but what am I?” Trump repeatedly commented on Blitzer’s ratings, as if that had anything to do with the substance of his reporting. He rattled off some false assertions that Obama had told a former publisher that he was born in Kenya. And several times he dismissed the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate saying that “a lot of people don’t agree with that birth certificate.” That’s true – a lot of really stupid people. But when Blitzer asked him to provide a single name, Trump harrumphed that “I don’t give names.”

I have been waiting for someone to ask Trump what became of the investigators that he had sent to Hawaii and Blitzer finally did so. Blitzer played video of Trump saying that “I have people that actually have been studying it and they cannot believe what they’re finding.” So Blitzer asked Trump to reveal what they had found. Trump’s response: “We don’t have to go into old news.” Except that Trump has NEVER revealed what his alleged investigators found, and didn’t do so today either. The truth is most likely that he never had any investigators. This was another stunt from a reality show clown.

Fox NationContributing to the hilarity is Fox Nation who posted an item about Trump’s visit with Blitzer with this headline: “Trump Knocks Wolf Blitzer Into Next Week.” For the Fox Nationalists it literally doesn’t matter what happens in the real world. They will just slap their headline to the top of it and pretend that everything went their way. It doesn’t matter that Trump couldn’t answer a single question and acted like a jerk while desperately trying to avoid any substantive responses. Fox knows that their audience will devour whole whatever Fox tells them. By making up phony headlines they can comfort their glassy-eyed audience who simply can’t handle the truth.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Reviving Trump Birther Charges To Attack Romney

Posted by on May 29, 2012 at 2:09 pm. 5 Comments :

Talk about desperate…

Fox Nation - Trump

The Fox Nationalists have posted this article asserting that a desperate Obama campaign is “Reviving Trump’s Birther Charges.” And it is a devious strategy that Obama is plotting by somehow managing to get Donald Trump to reiterate his lunatic position on Obama’s citizenship. Last week, without any noticeable provocation from the Obama camp, Trump volunteered that “It’s very simple. He said [Obama] was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia.” Imagine the sophistication of the Obama Machine that can revive the Trump Birther charges straight from the mouth of Trump without anyone, including Trump, catching on.

And now that the charges have been revived, Obama can use Trump’s delusional extremism to attack Mitt Romney. This is also evidence of just how complex the Obama strategy is. After successfully manipulating Trump into making idiotic statements, Obama’s team has somehow maneuvered Romney into embracing Trump and forcefully declining to repudiate Trump as his chief surrogate. Romney responded to criticism of his association with Trump by saying…

“You know, I don’t agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don’t all agree with everything I believe in. But I need to get 50.1% or more and I’m appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.” [Note that Fox Nation excised the part in bold from their article]

How on earth did Obama get Romney to say publicly that he is willing to abandon his principles in order to get a majority and win the election? Then again, perhaps that wasn’t the hardest part of the plan since Romney’s principles are fairly malleable to begin with. It’s true that Romney may not agree with all of his supporters. On most issues he has taken positions in stark disagreement with himself.

Trump, it should be noted, has not been cowed by this controversy. He tweeted today that…

“@BarackObama is practically begging @MittRomney to disavow the place of birth movement, he is afraid of it and for good reason. He keeps using @SenJohnMcCain as an example, however, @SenJohnMcCain lost the election. Don’t let it happen again.”

Jeremiah WrightIf directing criticism at Romney for his connection to the birther movement is evidence that Obama is afraid of it, then Romney’s criticism of Obama’s campaign for raising Bain Capital as an issue is evidence that Romney is scared Mittless of that. The difference is that Bain Capital is real and birtherism is a manifestation of acute mental decay. And that makes it all the more remarkable that Trump believes the reason McCain lost in 2008 was that he didn’t latch onto birtherism. While everyone else knows that the real reason Mccain lost was because he wouldn’t hit harder on Rev. Wright.

Only Fox Nation could look at this situation and come to the conclusion that it was Obama’s campaign that revived Trump’s inane attack. But that’s the purpose of Fox Nation – twisting reality into unrecognizable pretzel bits in order to to keep their audience as ignorant as possible. How else could their candidates win?

THE VETTING: Mitt Romney Is A War Mongering Draft-Dodger

Posted by on May 29, 2012 at 12:31 pm. 10 Comments :

Breitbart News has been running a series of articles purporting to “vet” President Obama. They contend that the so-called “liberal” media never properly examined Obama’s past and the events of his youth that formed his character.

For the most part, the Breibrats vetting has been a circus that uncovered silly trivialities or outright lies. For instance, with no evidence whatsoever, they alleged that Obama’s college grades were lower than George W. Bush (They weren’t. Obama graduated magna cum laude, while Bush squeaked by with a C- average). They furthered the Birther conspiracy by claiming to have discovered documents that prove Obama was born in Kenya (He wasn’t. The documents were in error and the person responsible admitted it). They accused Obama of having anti-white, Marxist views associated with his Harvard law professor (He didn’t. Neither Obama nor Prof. Derrick Bell held those views).

However, in the spirit of vetting, and fully informing the public about the histories of our presidential aspirants, Here is a factual account of Mitt Romney’s past that you probably won’t see on Breibart News:

Mitt Romney At Stanford

In 1966 Mitt Romney briefly attended Stanford University in California. It was a tumultuous time when the Vietnam war was stirring up dissent among America’s youth and a vibrant peace movement was growing. Mitt Romney, however, would have none of that. He was a staunch defender of the war. The photo above shows Romney (far right) at a counter-protest to a sit-in at the office of Stanford president Wallace Sterling organized by peace activists who opposed Sterling’s plans to assist in the drafting of students. Doesn’t Romney look dapper in his white slacks and sport coat?

Despite Romney’s steadfast support for the war, he still secured a deferral that kept him from serving in the military. And even though he claimed that his deferral was due to his position as a missionary on behalf of his Mormon church (and later a student deferment), he nevertheless found time to attend rallies in favor of sending other young men to war.

Romney BoysLike many Republican hypocrites, Romney is a chickenhawk who advocates the glory of battle only for other people’s sons. As for his own family, he once responded to a question concerning why none of his five boys were serving in Iraq or Afghanistan by saying that “one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected.” That’s a typically Romulan statement that illustrates what an elitist he is, who considers himself exempt from the rules by which the rest of the peasant hordes must abide.

The Breitbrats will surely ignore this new and revealing photo of Romney. Because even while they pursue their mission of vetting the President, they oppose and ridicule any examination of Romney’s past. Earlier this month Breitbrat Ben Shapiro castigated the Washington Post for publishing an article about Romney’s high school bullying of a classmate. Shapiro made it all too clear that, in his opinion, the Post was outside the bounds of ethical reporting by digging up dirt from Romney’s high school days. However, on the same day, Shapiro himself posted an article about Obama’s alleged drugs use when he was in high school.

Breibart News

That’s how brazenly hypocritical these right-wing pseudo-journalists are. They aren’t interested in vetting anyone, They are only interested in disseminating propaganda and character assassination.

Bonus Bit: In further vetting of Romney, Buzzfeed discovered an old news item about a visit Romney made to a veteran’s homeless shelter in Massachusetts in 1994, during his losing campaign for the senate against Ted Kennedy. Before leaving Romney asked the shelter’s director what the biggest problem at the shelter was. The director said that it was getting enough milk on the meager allowances the shelter received from the state. Romney responded, “Well, maybe you can teach the vets to milk cows.” Good one, Mitt. And maybe they can just eat cake. The Breitbrats have already posted an item complaining about Milk-Gate.

Etch-a-Sketch Update: Apparently Romney was for the Vietnam war before he was against it. Despite his activism in support of the war in 1966, by 1970 he had turned against it saying that it was a “political blunder” and that “I think we were brainwashed.” Another outright flip-flop.

Donald Trump Is A Bloviating Ignoramus Says George Will

Posted by on May 27, 2012 at 3:44 pm. 2 Comments :

Just in time for the Memorial Day premiere of the History Channel’s Hatfields & McCoys, right-wing Nutlandia is erupting into their own epic feud.

Donald Trump

Today on ABC’s This Week, the conversation turned to the upcoming meeting of the remedial minds in New York between Mitt Romney and Donald Trump. When the panel came around to their most staunchly conservative member, George Will, there was a moment of honesty in political punditry that is rarely seen. Here is what Will had to say about Romney and his top surrogate Trump:

“I do not understand the cost benefit here. The costs are clear. The benefit — what voter is gonna vote for him because he is seen with Donald Trump? The cost of appearing with this bloviating ignoramus is obvious it seems to me.

“Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high enough, your IQ can be very low and you can still intrude into American politics. Again, I don’t understand the benefit. What is Romney seeking?”

Actually, it’s obvious what Romney is seeking. He’s seeking to pander to the mental deficients who still think that President Obama is a Manchurian alien sent from Kenya to hand America over to godless Muslim socialists. He’s seeking to bask in the reflected glow of a television reality show celebrity to raise his abysmal favorability ratings. He’s seeking to bond with another member of the out-of-touch elitists who like to fire people. And he’s seeking campaign contributions from high income, low IQ donors.

Will’s slap at Trump is not the first shot fired in this feud. Last year Trump hit Will as “third rate,” and a couple of months ago Trump called the Pulitzer prize winning Will a hack and worse…

“I think he’s a totally overrated fool. I think this guy is so overrated. I don’t think he’s very smart. He looks smart with the little glasses and the hair slicked to the side.”

Trump made those statements to the overrated fools at Fox and Friends. It was typical of the Trump style of verbal assault that relies mainly on juvenile insults. Trump has previously directed his childish taunts at fellow Fox contributors Charles Krauthammer and Karl Rove, who he also called hacks.

Some of Trump’s ire may have been in response to the near universal dismissal of Trump’s aborted attempt to produce and moderate a Republican presidential primary debate. The debate, which Trump promised would get record ratings, never took place because the only candidates that agreed to participate were Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Romney, the man Trump has now endorsed, was one of those who declined to play in Trump’s sandbox. Will addressed the matter calling Trump an “entrepreneurial charlatan” and saying that…

“Now we have a December 27th debate proposed that would be moderated by Donald Trump. Surely it is time for these candidates to do something presidential. Stand up and say, we’re not going to be hijacked and participate in this.”

Last April, when Trump was still pretending to be considering running for president, Will fired off some brutal rounds at him and his alleged candidacy:

He can make a shambles of the Republican debates. Just by being there, he can hurt the Republican party. He is what’s called a ‘blatherskite’… that’s someone who blathers promiscuously.

And a month later, when asked what Trump’s political future would be. Will Responded that Trump “has no future in politics. He’s a buffoon, he’s a political sociopath.”

Trump’s response to the latest broadside from Will has yet to be published, but you can expect that it is forthcoming. Trump is as predictable as Old Faithful, particularly where his ego is involved. And when he is punched he punches back, though usually with far less force or intellect.

Where’s The Birth Certificate? Mitt Romney’s, That Is.

Posted by on May 25, 2012 at 10:42 am. 7 Comments :

Next month Mitt Romney will host a fundraiser with his “most significant surrogate,” Donald Trump. The event will be held in Manhattan at one of Trump’s luxurious hotels, an environment in which Romney will feel right at home. And one lucky donor to Romney’s campaign will be selected by lottery to join the pair of upper-crusters for dinner.

Trumpney

The close association between Romney and Trump ought to be raising questions about Trump’s relentless promotion of Birtherism. Trump has been a persistent skeptic of President Obama’s citizenship for months. His most recent foray into this delusional nonsense occurred today in an interview with the Daily Beast where he said that…

“A book publisher came out three days ago and said that in his written synopsis of his book … he said he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia.”

Not one to bother with pesky trivialities like truth, Trump invented the assertion that Obama told his publisher that he was born in Kenya. In a twenty year old promotional pamphlet that Obama never saw, an erroneous entry made reference to Obama as having been born in Kenya. The person responsible for the error issued a statement saying that…

“This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me — an agency assistant at the time. There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii.”

The fact that Romney continues to cling to Trump without making any statement about Trump’s idiotic embrace of the Birther conspiracy says a great deal about Romney’s character (or lack thereof) and his desperation for latching onto whatever support he can scrape off the barrel’s slimy bottom. Trump is cartoon quack who hosts a goofy reality show where he gets to fire people – which happens to be something that Romney likes to do as well.

Last year Trump said that he had sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to get to the bottom of the controversy and that their report would be shocking. No report was ever issued. Where’s the report, Donald? What’s more, why hasn’t Trump, or anyone else, ever asked Romney to produce his birth certificate? We know that Romney’s family fled the United States for Mexico when laws against polygamy prevented them from collecting numerous wives. But apparently only black candidates for president are required to show documentation of their citizenship.

America’s Barack: Get A T-Shirt That Celebrates The Obama Recovery

Posted by on May 24, 2012 at 5:31 pm. 1 Comments :

America's BarackWould you like to wear your heart on your sleeve? Crass Commerce, the eShop for News Corpse, has this original design on T-Shirts and stickers. America’s Barack!

Your purchases will help to maintain this web site and it’s mission to expose right-wing bias in the media.

Our nation has been struggling to recover from the economic calamity that a conservative philosophy thrust upon us. Tax cuts for the wealthy and dangerous deregulation led directly to the Great Recession of 2008. Now we are beginning to dig our way out of that hole, and it is due to an agenda of stimulus and investment in the American middle class. We need to stay on this path and that means staying with a forward-looking administration that understands that prosperity is the byproduct of a financially healthy middle class that has money to spend in their communities.

The Constitution begins “We the People” not “We the Corporations.” (And no, corporations are not people). We are America, and America’s Barack!

Mitt Romney Still Trying To Kill Big Bird And PBS

Posted by on May 24, 2012 at 1:15 pm. NO Comments :

Big BirdIn Mitt Romney’s recent interview with Time’s Mark Halperin, he reprised his attack on one of his favorite targets: PBS. Romney listed public television as one of the first cuts that would come during a Romney administration. In his remarks he even managed to insinuate a commie angle to continued support for the network of Sesame Street.

“I like PBS. I’d like my grandkids to be able to watch PBS. But I’m not willing to borrow money from China, and make my kids have to pay the interest on that, and my grandkids, over generations, as opposed to saying to PBS, look, you’re going to have to raise more money from charitable contributions or from advertising.”

What Romney didn’t say is how that cut would impact the federal deficit. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is the agency that receives congressional funding for a variety of projects of which PBS is just a part. The entire allocation to the CPB represents about 0.00014 percent of the federal budget. That’s not going to make much a dent in the deficit. But it will have a severe impact on public broadcasting.

This is not the first time that Romney has taken swipes at PBS. Last year he said that he would stop all subsidies to PBS. Here is how I responded at the time:

When Romney says that he wants to “stop certain programs…even some you like,” he is referring to programs that are of significant value to average Americans, but that he can live without because his quarter of a billion dollar net worth enables him to acquire whatever he wants. Romney demonstrates how pitifully out of touch he is by proposing to eliminate funding for PBS, a network that provides educational programming that is not available anywhere else, certainly not in commercial television. He is explicit in what he plans to do:

“We subsidize PBS. Look, I’m gonna stop that. I’m gonna say that PBS is gonna have to have advertisements. We’re not gonna kill Big Bird, but Big Bird’s gonna have advertisements.”

Despite his denials, killing off Big Bird is precisely what his plan would accomplish. There is a reason that commercial TV does not produce the sort of programming seen on PBS. For-profit networks have to cater to advertisers in order to stay in business. By necessity they are more concerned with generating profit than with quality programming. Take a look at tonight’s primetime schedules of the cable nets that were supposed to compete with public television:

  • Bravo: 8:00pm Top Chef: Texas; 9:00pm Top Chef: Texas; 10:00pm Top Chef: Texas
  • Discovery: 8:00pm Sons of Guns; 9:00pm Sons of Guns; 10:00pm Moonshiners
  • Learning Channel: 8:00pm Toddlers & Tiaras; 9:00pm Cheapskates; 10:00pm Toddlers & Tiaras

That’s not exactly entertainment designed to enrich America’s children. It’s a jumble of insipid reality programs that repeat ad nauseum. It’s Real Housewives, Swamp Loggers, Hoarders, and info-mercials. If Big Bird were required to rely on advertisers for funding it would not be long before Sesame Street was just another avenue on the Jersey Shore.

That’s the free market model for public broadcasting that Romney and the right advocate. It’s a model that would replace Bert and Ernie with Kim and Chloe. Is that really the example we want to set for our kids?

And is that really the kind of leadership we want for America?