Whore of The Week Nomination
Greetings, MWO
I love your website and read it every day. It's biting, cogent,
and full of good info.
And, naturally, I agree: most of the news media as we know it today
makes its living
pandering to Bush and the far right.
Hence, my nomination for Whore of The Week: once again, Brian Williams
on MSNBC,
for last night's two-hour special on the Bush family, called "The Bush
Family Business."
This program can best be described as a "love-fest"......... spanning
four generations and
containing endless interviews with Poppy, Barbara, Laura, W., Jebbie,
and George P.,
as well as clips of Senator Prescott Bush, there wasn't a single critiscism
in the whole program,
nor a single suggestion of any controversy. Start to finish,
this program was an adoration
piece for The Bush family and everything they (supposedly) stand for.
Running during Prime Time only 36 hours before a critical mid-term election,
it was MSNBC
at it's lapdogging best. Beginning to end, it brimmed over with
supersized pap: modest, tearful
interviews with Poppy about his pride; obsequious paens to Bush "family
values"; charming quips
from W. about the wonders of Mom; comparisons of George P. to latino
hunk and superstar,
Ricky Martin; and wifely stand-by-your-man grittiness from Babs and
Laura.
Interestingly, not a single mention was paid to Neil Bush (he of the
Federal Savings and Loan
indictments), showing family portraits without Neil's presence and
repeatedly referring to
Poppy and Babs "two sons."
Also curious was the treatment of Poppy's defeat at the hands of Bill
Clinton, with Williams
clearly saying that Clinton "robbed" Poppy of a second term, mentioning
only in passing that
this was Poppy's personal opinion of his loss in 1992. In itself,
this could be overlooked
as a small distortion.
But, given that the only mention of Florida in 2000 was an interview
with W. and Jeb
taken before the election, so that the program conveniently sidesteps
ANY mention of
controversy surrounding W's ascent to the Presidency, this jab at Bill
Clinton becomes
just another well-disguised low-blow, an MSNBC bone tossed to the right
wing.
In short, Brian Williams and MSNBC proved themselves to be, yet once
again, whores of
the worst sort. Slick, tepid, glowing, and oh so personal, it
was the Republican Media
unabashedly kissing their Bushian heros' cheeks, hands, feet, and ass.
Glowing with nostalgia, aching with ah-shucks hominess, this piece was
perfectly timed to
grab the heartstrings of the inattentive, the emotional, and the uninformed
voter, by painting
the Bushes as America's Own Family: simple, down-to-earth, lovable,
and destined by hard
work and good values to be just the rock America can believe in during
these troubled times.
Whore of the Week? Look no further than Brian Williams and MSNBC.
Erik Wood