Columnist.
Barack Obama has trouble telling the truth. This is the man who admitted his memoir "Dreams from My Father" was semifictional. "For the sake of compression, some of the characters that appear are composites of people I've known, and some events appear out of precise chronology." Translation: On some pages, I'm taking poetic license with the facts to burnish my image. The problem is, Obama's still using poetic license. So where are the reporters to point out when he doesn't tell the truth? Let's take just one typical Obama stump speech, on July 5 in Sandusky, Ohio, and look for the fibs and stretches. They're not hard to find.
Seth MacFarlane, whose $100 million contract with Fox makes him the highest paid TV writer in history, is now trying to take over the cineplex, with the same old shtick. You could pluck his oeuvre out of the summer movie-preview articles without any difficulty. His was the one where the teddy bear comes to life and becomes a profane slacker who practically lives inside a bong and hires hookers in groups. The movie's title is "Ted." It won its opening weekend with a $54 million gross at the box office. Clearly, MacFarlane's fans cannot consume enough of his pop-culture sewage. "Ted" is a fitting metaphor for MacFarlane himself. He is the magical creation everyone in Hollywood seems to find as cute as a furry stuffed animal. He's made his fortune by putting the crudest, most offensive utterances in the mouths of babies, dogs and completely idiotic man-children. Hollywood is never having to grow up.
Is anyone surprised that the ink wasn't dry on Chief Justice John Roberts' incoherent switcheroo before team Obama was *again* denying Obamacare is a tax? Why did he do it? There is no doubt that the left waged a war on the court's public image. Just as Obama lectured at the justices during his State of the Union address for the Citizens United decision, so Obama and his media minions prepared for this verdict with blatant mob pressure: Side with us or your image is ruined. For liberal journalists, repeal of Obamacare was tantamount to a deadly third strike. Strike one was Bush versus Gore, which caused a serious liberal scream-fest that continues in some quarters to this day. Strike two was the Citizens United campaign spending case, because in the leftist worldview all major tipping points of public policy should be controlled by the state.
HBO should really try a new slogan for its original programming. Indeed they already had one courtesy of Aaron Sorkin's acid pen in the debut of his ridiculous new series "The Newsroom." That slogan is "Speaking Truth to Stupid." It's an appropriate slogan for a pay-cable channel that insists only the really smart people pay the extra fee to join the television elite. But do Sorkin and HBO really deserve their lofty, arrogant position as the smart people? Let's count the ways this new show demolishes that proposition: 1. It's preposterous that this "Newsroom" is realistic. The first glaring indicator was disgraced CBS anchor Dan Rather insisting on his accuracy. He said the large number of TV critics who panned the show were wrong. "They've somehow missed the breadth, depth and 'got it right' qualities -- and importance - of Newsroom." Real news junkies had to laugh at the idea that this fictional news crew from "ACN" handling real-life stories managed to figure out within a couple of hours that the Deepwater Horizon oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico was going to lead to a massive oil spill. In real life, the networks took about four days to figure out the emerging story was a voluminous spill.
Though the Supreme Court overturned much of the Arizona law, just not the part the liberals and their media friends loathed the most, it wasn't hard to predict the networks would once again line up with the amnesty lobby. ABC's Diane Sawyer mourned "the most inflammatory part of the law" was upheld. Once again, those impartial network producers are making themselves the sob sisters of illegal aliens. ABC found a man who carries a document in his glove compartment insisting that if he's deported, his children shouldn't go into foster care. NBC put on a woman watching cartoons with her cute little kids, wearing a T-shirt saying, "Arrest (Sheriff Joe) Arpaio, Not the People." Reporter Savannah Guthrie predicted more lawsuits to repeal the one section the court upheld -- because liberals never accept defeat. It's so predictable. So predictable, in fact, that now there is no pretense of objectivity whatsoever. ABC's Diane Sawyer also turned to one of the most biased journalists in America, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, who just pounds the drum for amnesty at every opportunity. Yes, a news anchor. He lamented the Supreme Court decision, saying "the last hope is gone" and blamed both parties for failing to pass "major immigration reform." Sawyer asked him to tell the stories of Latinos, and he summarized, "It's fear, and fear of persecution in the future."
June is Gay Pride Month, which immediately begs two questions: 1. Says who? 2. How is it that we have become a nation of such compliant sheep that we accept this rubbish? The Viacom corporation, on the other hand, thinks it's the perfect opportunity for its MTV and gay Logo channels to announce they're creating a second "It Gets Better," anti-bullying special starring their favorite gay bully, Dan Savage. On the cusp of this news, Savage denounced the gay group GOProud for endorsing Mitt Romney for president: "The GOP's house faggots grab their ankles on this one." This F-bomb has destroyed careers in Hollywood -- see Isaiah Washington, the former star of "Grey's Anatomy." But Savage just signed with Creative Artists Agency to line up his business offers. One wonders if the reporters who cover television will ever dare to ask the Viacom brass how they square Savage's routine bullying bursts -- whether into a microphone or into a keyboard -- with the transparently false anti-bullying persona they're promoting to make themselves look community-minded.
Team Barack Obama knows they are in a heap of re-election trouble when pundits look at his shambles of an economic record. So what to do? Easy. The most shameless of our Obama-loving journalists are painting Obama as an action-movie superhero in the war on terror. Just open up Newsweek Magazine to an advertisement for a book by its own Daniel Klaidman called "Kill Or Capture." It begins by asking about Obama: "High-minded idealist or calculating killer?" They mean that in a positive way. Then comes this sales language: "How has President Obama waged the war on terror? With one hand tied behind his back -- and the other dealing death sentences to suspected terrorists around the world." Yes, this is the same Obama who refused to allow the term "war on terror" to be used.
Barack Obama keeps desperately pounding the entertainment industry's ATMs in Hollywood and Manhattan, while our manufacturers of make-believe have absolutely refused to expel their vicious hatred of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. You wonder if, on any level, Obama is upset or chagrined or even embarrassed. Two examples have shown their ugly heads -- one of them severed. HBO -- with Bill Maher as the face of their political analysis is a global leader in burning Bush-Cheney hatred -- expressed surprise and embarrassment when it was discovered their violence-drenched series "Game of Thrones" included a scene with a model of Bush's disembodied head on a spike. "We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste," HBO said in a statement. "We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed from any future DVD production."
Les Moonves, the president and CEO of CBS, took his wife, the former CBS news anchor Julie Chen, on a date on June 6 -- to a star-studded Beverly Hills Democratic Party fundraiser starring President Obama. He told a reporter for the Los Angeles Times of his respect for Obama, who he said "has shown great leadership" -- by bringing his support for gay marriage out of the closet. Did I mention he runs CBS News? Moonves tried to say, "I run a news division. I've given no money to any candidate." No, of course not. He merely donated between $2,500 and $25,000 to the Democratic National Committee's LGBT Leadership Council, which will helpfully pass it along to the candidates of their choosing. Then he acknowledged what many have worked decades to emphasize and which the likes of Moonves have steadfastly denied all along: "Ultimately, journalism has changed ... partisanship is very much a part of journalism now." Byron York of the Washington Examiner asked CBS spokesman Dana McClintock whether Moonves was referring to CBS News. McClintock sent back a four-word response: "No he was not." Of course not.
On the heels of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's latest stupid regulations commanding a shrinkage in the size of sugary drinks in restaurants, movie theaters and stadiums, the Walt Disney Co. has announced it will ban ads for products on its broadcast and online platforms that it has scientifically determined are "junk food" and do not meet the company's nutrition standards. Curiously, Disney announced that it would begin this new effort immediately -- wait, no, at some time in 2015. So why announce this now? It would seem so that Disney could be praised and honored by first lady Michelle Obama -- or the other way around. It just smells. It carries a distinct aroma of campaign 2012. Imagine that: Michelle Obama praised Disney to the skies because "As parents, we know that whatever is on TV is what our kids are going to want. I remember, as (Disney boss) Bob (Iger) has discussed, going to the grocery store with the kids, and the minute you walk down the aisle the kids are singing some jingle, or they're pulling on your leg begging you, pleading you for whatever they saw on TV."
It's clear David Limbaugh isn't writing books with the goal of being honored in the salons of the liberal media. He doesn't mince words with the media. His devastating new book on Barack Obama is titled "The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic." It's a bracing antidote to the intoxicated oozing of the "mainstream" press. There is so much withering artillery fire against Obama's damaging presidency in this book, you hardly know where to begin. I probably enjoyed most the chapter on "The War on the Dignity of His Office." As I write, Obama's preparing yet another gathering of New York and Hollywood celebrities lining up to donate to America's ultimate celebrity. Ronald Reagan used to praise the worker in the checkout line. For this president, everyone is a resident of Beverly Hills. Limbaugh piles on the proof that Obama has an enormous ego he needs stroked daily.
Ed Schultz is the kind of shameless liberal hack who can go on air standing in front of screaming labor-union crowds in Madison, Wisc., calling for Gov. Scott Walker's head on a platter, and then turn around and announce that "Fox News is an arm of the Republican Party." Let's put this canard to rest. In coverage of the leftist effort to drain the taxpayers of Wisconsin for an unnecessary and doomed recall election, Fox looks much more objective than Ed Schultz. There is no question about that.
In Ottawa, the nation's capital of Canada, the Museum of Science and Technology has decided to provide school children with answers in a scientific field where "reliable and comprehensive sources of information are rare or little-known." I don't know if you're familiar with it. That field is called "sex." As always, society's experts believe parents either faint at the thought of discussing sex with their children or worse, spread ignorance based on allegedly outdated religious texts. But wait until you hear what the Canadian government's subsidized version of "science" looks like.
You'd think the largest legal action in American history in defense of religious liberty would be a major news story. But ABC, CBS and NBC don't judge news events by their inherent importance as relates to the future of our freedoms. They deliver the news according to a simple formula: Does it or doesn't it advance the re-election of Barack Obama? If it doesn't, it isn't news.
Howard Stern has not been missed since he took his smutty shtick off the airwaves and onto the unregulated Sirius satellite radio. His super fans -- the brainiacs still playing their VHS tapes of a Stern show called "Butt Bongo Fiesta" -- have made the satellite radio chiefs happy, but Stern has almost vanished as an icon of pop culture. He even scaled back his radio schedule to three days a week, semi-retiring.
When it comes to opposition research, there is often only one difference between a candidate's vicious negative ad and an "investigative" news report: the undeserved patina of media "objectivity" and respectability.
So Barack Obama declared he's all for "gay marriage." Really, was anyone surprised? Did anyone doubt it? Still, it's official, and Obama is now the rental property of Hollywood. Obama's doing all sorts of fundraisers with Hollywood and Manhattan millionaires and billionaires to get re-elected, the latest at George Clooney's mansion. One of every 6 of his "bundlers" is openly homosexual. At the start of this drama, Vice President Joe Biden openly declared (accidentally or not) he was entirely comfortable with men marrying men and women marrying women and credited Hollywood. "When things really began to change is when the social culture changes," Biden syntax-garbled on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The New York Times really loathes Rupert Murdoch. The Gray Lady almost achieved nirvana on the front page the other day when a group of laborites in the British Parliament asserted in a "damning report" that Murdoch was "not fit" for major media ownership. Bill Keller, recently the paper's executive editor, devoted his latest column to Fox News with the headline "Murdoch's Pride Is America's Poison." The man who edited The New York Times is blunt: "I would argue that -- at least for Americans -- Fox News is Murdoch's most toxic legacy." If that's not ridiculous enough, try this: He claims the problem is not that Fox is conservative, but because ... wait for it ... Fox pretends to be objective instead of openly admitting it's partisan. Unlike, say, The New York Times.
The new frontier just keeps arriving. New York magazine reports NBC programming chief Robert Greenblatt has given the go-ahead for a new sitcom called "The New Normal." NBC's new normal is about two gay men who start a family using a surrogate. Greenblatt is apparently so enamored with the concept that he's strongly considering having the 20th Century Fox TV-produced sitcom launch by August, following NBC's broadcast of the summer Olympics. The show comes from Ryan Murphy, the gay creator of "Glee," "American Horror Story," and "Nip/Tuck." This is only part of a growing Comcast/NBC Universal campaign promoting homosexuality.
