FAIR on McClellan and the media

Here.  This in particular was a good catch:

But many journalists seemed to express bewilderment, if not contempt, at McClellan's switch from water-carrier to whistleblower. Current CNN reporter Ed Henry (5/28/08) asked:

So, you do have to wonder...just who is the real Scott McClellan, the one who was constantly pushing back on the media back then, and doing a lot of the White House talking points, or the one who now thinks that those talking points were not true?

Boy, that's a puzzler: Was McClellan expressing his real views when he was paid to represent the Bush administration, or when he wrote a book under his own name? Posing the question at all seems to suggest an unfamiliarity with what press secretaries do, which is repeat their bosses' talking points, true or not. Reporters are supposed to treat such talking points with skepticism, as one would any official government source. The fact that some reporters seem confused by this is a significant concern--evidence that this White House, or any other, will have little trouble misleading the corporate press.

You've got to love that last sentence.  One of my favorite things about FAIR is reading the careful, measured formulations they have to use in order to maintain an air of unbiased professional detachment, because you can practically feel the author doing everything in their power to restrain themselves from writing something like, "HOLY FUCKING JEHOVAH! HAVE THESE TOE-SNIFFING TURDS EVER EVEN CONSIDERED DOING JOURNALISM FOR ONCE IN THEIR LIVES INSTEAD OF KISSING GOVERNMENT ASS 24 HOURS A DAY? GYYYAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"  And that's why you should give lots of money to FAIR: so they can pay for the megadoses of Valium it takes to keep from going insane as they immerse themselves in this dreck day after day.

Comments

[Mike Meyer]

FORCE CONGRESS TO IMPEACH GEORGE BUSH AND DICK CHENEY, call Nancy Pelosi @1-202-225-0100 and DEMAND IMPEACHMENT. DC business hours only, call often, and spread it around.

[Thomas Daulton]

Hey lookitthis!

Dean Baker actually prints the "Arrrggggghhhhhhh" in his article today!

The Remedy Is Simple -- Raise Wages

Perhaps what makes economics so different from other 'sciences' is the degree of willful blindness to concrete evidence which its practitioners can adopt when the evidence contradicts their pet theories. I mean, tobacco scientists can deny a link between tobacco and cancer, but they can't just deny that all the lung cancer victims exist. A typical economist tends to just dismiss contrary evidence as a fluke. (Global warming deniers come in a close second, though.)

[John Caruso]

Yeah, I'm sure he feels that kind of pain as often as the fine folks at FAIR. It just goes to show that being sane isn't good for your sanity.