We don’t know how they do it, but they do, and it. Is. Fucking. Astonishing.
The maniacs at Fox News somehow put together an earnest segment in which giggly hack Laura Ingraham talks to ACTOR Stephen Baldwin about just why the heck these loudmouth celebrities think they can go around expressing their opinions. We’re pretty good at sensing irony, and there is NONE in either of their voices. Not even when Stephen, who, by the way, is the one not as smart as Alec, not as handsome as Billy and not as rugged as Daniel, says, “Here’s what’s freaky to me: The media and Hollywood is so convinced that mainstream America cares what it thinks.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
God, we hope this guy’s not kidding when he says he’s leaving if Obama wins.
Remember last month when Tila Tequila claimed credit for California’s legalization of same-sex marriage, because her groundbreaking reality television show put sexualities other than the hetero variety on the map? Or something ridiculous? Now tell us if you heard the one about 24 actor Dennis Haysbert, who played President David Palmer, taking credit for the possibility of a black man becoming president. CONTINUED »
Noble public official forgiver Keith Olbermann delivered one of his Digg-bait “Special Comments” last night, except this time he wasn’t devoting 10 minutes to assailing President Bush — he was extending an olive branch, and a “second chance to make a first impression,” to Sen. Barack Obama, who suddenly decided to vote for FISA, the federal wiretapping-without-warrants law that the Bush administration has so long wanted on the books, as well as blanket immunity for the telecom industry who’s been cooperating with officials who may or may not be violating Americans’ Fourth Amendment.
Nevermind that Olbermann was championing Obama just last week for “refusing to cower even to the left on the subject of warrantless wiretapping” — signaling a flip-flop of his own, since Olbermann was championing Obama when he was anti-FISA back when this campaign started — and got thrown to the lions by Glenn Greenwald, who pointed out the discrepancies in Olbermann’s logic. Video below. CONTINUED »
Glenn Greenwald, the Salon columnist, is usually scribbling down attacks on the GOP. But not always. Greenwald, who often gets trashed talked in pundit circles and at media parties, has a history of taking a break from Bush mudslinging to go on a tear against one media outlet or another.
Last year he did it to Time columnist Joe Klein (”For the sake of its own credibility, Time Magazine needs immediately to prohibit Joe Klein from uttering another word about the eavesdropping and FISA controversy.”). He’s also spit blood with Politico, criticizing its overly cozy relationship with the Drudge Report (perhaps because he covets it?) and effectively labeled it a “gossip rag masquerading as news organization.” (Us too!)
To be sure, Greenwald’s media crits are often based on his original premise: Playing nice with the right-wing makes you the devil. So anytime a media outlet violates this treatise, they’re fair targets.
And so too, then, is Greenwald’s latest victim: Keith Olbermann. The MSNBC host who was once a liberal hero is now — to Greenwald at least, though also to many others we’ve spoke with inside the industry — a double-talking liar. Worse: a centrist! And Greenwald has some pretty damning evidence. CONTINUED »
On Wednesday, Fox News popinjay Greta Van Susteren picked a fight with on-air foe Al Sharpton over the reverend’s supposed ditching of her show Tuesday night, less than two hours before he was supposed to appear, to go on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 because Barack Obama’s campaign supposedly asked him to. Now, because we paid attention the first time around, we must also chronicle what happened next. Namely, a round of he-said-she-said. CONTINUED »
Two excellent casting projects going on at Jossip HQ.
The first comes from Stereohyped, which has put together the all-star roster of actors who will be needed in the movie of Barack Obama’s life. Hint: Will Smith is the lead. Check it out
And second comes from Mollygood, where editor Cord Jefferson, who’s been likened to Niko Bellic, casts somebody other than himself as the lead in the Grand Theft Auto movie, along with a score of other lowlifes. Spoiler: Ivanka Trump’s agent will be getting a call. Check it out
This week MTV announced it was repealing its policy against accepting political advertisements, with the stipulation any spots they accept must come from candidates or their parties, and not those sleazy 527 groups. Barack Obama is said to be first in line with an ad buy — but a report from 2006 says another senator already beat him to it. CONTINUED »
You see Barack Obama’s touch everywhere — in the new generation of voters he’s moved to register to vote and support his candidacy, in the smiling faces of elderly blacks, in the starry-eyed gazes of political pundits, and in the message boards on white supremacist sites. Wait, what?
Seven hundred sixty-five comments later, it’s still unclear whether, ahem, Barack Obama’s campaign is booking for CNN. That’s what Fox News host Greta Van Susteren was asking on her blog GretaWire yesterday when the Rev. Al Sharpton pulled out of a 10pm appearance on her show less than two hours before he was supposed to go on, so he could instead pop up on Anderson Cooper 360. His excuse? The senator’s campaign asked him to appear on CNN on his behalf.
Nevermind that this is sort of a non-item — guests cancel segments all the time (bookers do too!) for one reason or another, and a phone call from Obama’s camp, which Sharpton vehemently supports, isn’t a light request. But our favorite part of Greta’s complaint is the set up, where she gets away with planting an item out of her duty to viewers: “I debated whether to tell you this or not…but I did promise behind the scenes information here on GretaWire….so here it is.” (Not that we’re complaining about any addition to a gossip war.)
Let’s not forget, however, than Ms. Susteren and Mr. Sharpton haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. CONTINUED »
Since 1981, MTV has refused to allow political advertisements on its airwaves. Rather than accept cash from our nation’s most diseased industry, the network embarked on its own “Choose or Lose” campaign, a glorified get out the vote effort encouraging viewers to register and cast their ballots like a good American should. But all that is changing, effective immediately.
The Viacom network will begin cashing politically-tainted cheques, but only those written by candidates themselves or their parties, not the 527 groups that produce the slickest, and most offensive, attack ads YouTube has ever seen. (Previously, the more interesting MTV properties VH1, Comedy Channel, and Spike TV all took political dollars.)
So what does the about face mean for Election ‘08? CONTINUED »
Barack Obama has had some pretty gay moments over the past few years. And by that we mean he has consistently mentioned queer communities in his stump speeches. Some excited voter - or crazed fan - has collected Obama’s greatest same-sex hits into a meaty nine-minute video.
During the 1970 Alabama governor’s race between famed segregationist and former governor George Wallace and Albert Brewer, the incumbent, Wallace’s camp circulated ads feature a white girl surrounded by seven black boys with the slogan “Wake up Alabama! Blacks vow to take over Alabama.” They also spread rumors that Brewer was a “sissy,” that his two daughters had been impregnated by black men, and flamed fears of a “negro bloc” vote. The election, which Wallace eventually won, has been called one of the most negative campaigns in history and the “last openly racist” American political campaign.
As openly racist and nasty that race seemed, it’s not like we have reached some higher level of positive campaigning and colorblind voting. We’ve traded in openly-uttered slurs and clearly racist language with “coded” appeals to the sorts of people who vote based on that sort of thing. Since Wallace went no-hold-barred back in 1970, a more subtle racially-charged theme has run through governor, senatorial, congressional, and presidential races.
Merging the Web 2.0 mantras of “user-generated content” and “don’t pay your writers,” Slate is proud to announce the June 24 release of Obamamania! The English Language, Barackafied, which is composed of submissions some 800 of you submitted to their Encyclopedia Baracktannica since February. All your hard work and due diligence has finally paid off, and you didn’t even need to put together a manuscript, find a literary agent, and shop it to a publisher. See you at your book party! [Slate]
Surprise, surprise: Barack Obama was one of Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani’s inspirations when she decided to dedicate July’s issue of her magazine to black models. Of course, he wasn’t the only inspiration. Sozzani was well aware of the problem of the rapidly-disappearing black model.
Fearful that some Republican 527 group, or Michelle Malkin, might grab an image of Barack Obama with two Muslim women wearing headscarves in the background, Barack’s campaign volunteers barred a pair of his supporters from sitting behind the podium at a rally in Detroit, where Al Gore officially endorsed him.
This is mean, because it’s, uh, kinda racist, and Obama is supposed to be the candidate that transcends the buzz phrase known as “identity politics.”
This is also a very calculated move, because Obama has a Muslim “problem,” in the sense that many of the voters he’s trying to reach actually think he’s Muslim, which isn’t inherently bad, but isn’t, sadly, the best thing to be for a presidential candidate. (Obama, meanwhile, has gone to great lengths to shoot down rumors that he’s Muslim. And you know where that got him.)
And lest you think there was some other reason for why the two women were not seated within Obama’s camera range – beside the campaign issuing an official denial – there’s the pair of first-person tales. CONTINUED »
Though Us Weekly’s attention to Barack and Hillary made headlines in the media industry, it’s unclear whether the coverage – Hillary’s fashion, Barack is “Just Like Us” – actually helped sell magazines. This week, the first true test: Michelle and Barack are on the cover.
This is a very interesting departure for Janice Min’s celeb weekly, and a risky one; when In Touch tried going the “serious” route last April with a cover on the Virgina Tech massacre, the issue bombed at newsstands. Only People has successfully tackled celebrities and real-life folks each week with commercial success, though it’s been part of the brand since the beginning.
So how come this non-celeb cover might just work? CONTINUED »
Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee member Fred Hobbs thought Barack Obama might have terrorist ties because he heard it on Fox News. [Hot Air]
In this clip from The Daily Show, Jon Stewart examines the news media’s case of Baracknophobia, described as the “irrational fear of hope.” He seems like he wants journalists to focus on the news instead of adding fuel to baseless internet smears. Requesting that these guys and gals actually do their jobs might, unfortunately, be too much to ask.
As a special bonus, check out Fox contributer Cal Thomas weighing in on “angry black women” after the jump.
Oh this is just delicious. In an interview on Friday, Sen. John McCain insisted that every candidate’s wife “should be treated with respect, and if there’s any disrespectful conduct on the part of anyone, those people should be rejected.” He was talking about Michelle Obama, who he was “the greatest respect for,” who’s been on the receiving end of harsh criticism for her abrasive ways. But his comments are more readily applied to his own marriage. You know, what with his vows to wife Cindy and all, one might think he always treats her with respect, and without any disrespectful conduct. If somebody could tell him where, exactly, on the Venn Diagram Of Respect that calling your wife a cunt falls, it would be much appreciated.
FCC chairman Kevin Martin will back the merger of satellite radio operators XM and Sirius, and only because Mel Karmazin & Co. agreed to a number of promises that’ll keep subscriber fees from skyrocketing once the two services join, and open up the technology to all manufacturers.
At least two of the FCC’s other four commissioners must agree with Martin to push the deal through.
But ya know who probably wouldn’t side with Martin? Barack Obama. In a new interview with Broadcasting & Cable, the senator, when asked about the merger, said that he’s “waiting for final resolution by the regulatory agencies and would want to ensure that the merger does not give the new firm excessive market power or unduly limit the choices consumers have for satellite-radio content.”
Given the concessions XM and Sirius are supposedly willing to make to push the merger through, it might sound like Obama could be on their side. But then he’s got this to say about Mr. Martin and, in particular, his goal to dismantle media ownership regulations: CONTINUED »
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