The Same Old Jokes (And That’s Just The Presenters).

A regular reader of Skip’s articles, Bill Hallbert, commented that the use of the term ‘Lame Stream Media’ is too polite… that ‘Pravda West’ would be more appropriate. A good point, Bill… one that, along with some events the last couple of days, has inspired me to write this article while sitting in for Skip.



It was my misfortune to catch Bill Maher in conversation with Letterman last night. Naturally, it descended to the depths of old, worn-out attacks on anything right-of-center in a feeble attempt at humor. Donald Trump’s hair, Sarah Palin’s mind, George W. Bush’s presidency and the Tea Party were all precursors to the stage-prompted bouts of applause and laughter.

Letterman was in his element… he could let his guest gush with spiel that reflected his own views and not even have to think about asking any questions… probably a good thing, given the question put to Cote de Pablo (Ziva David) later in the show… “Is there a real NCIS?” Yes, Dave, there’s a real FBI too. And a real US government… or what’s left of it!

After mocking The Donald and Sarah Palin’s brief tenure in a state where “no one lives” (I’m sure that endeared them to the folks in Alaska!), blaming Bush (what’s new?) for the debt crisis (while conveniently omitting the fact that Obama is racking up more debt than all of his 43 predecessors combined), they turned their attention to the Tea Party.

It may have been my imagination, but I got the feeling that a large portion of the audience were not so keen to commit to the prompts for applause and laughter… to the point where discernible groans and grunts of disapproval could be heard. Maher said that he would refrain from using the word ‘Teabagger’ if the Tea Party stopped calling it ‘Obamacare’. Why, Bill? Wasn’t it Obama that pushed so hard to get it passed, to the detriment of all else? You wouldn’t be distancing yourself from it, knowing that it, along with the federal debt, will finish both Obama and the Democrats in 2012? If you were really smart, you’d put the blame for the health care disaster at the feet of Bush, just as you did with federal debt… call it ‘Bushcare’!

One thing that Maher said resonated with me, amongst all the stereotypical trash that he regurgitated. It was something about the Tea Party actually doing something, and the fact that we spend our time on internet forums complaining about deficit levels. Could that partly be because the alphabet networks are vehicles for the likes of Maher and Letterman? “Corporate America’s useful idiots”? I think I’d rather be a useful idiot than a useless know-it-all.

Tomorrow, I’ll be looking at some other aspects of the left’s control of the media.

(Due to IT problems, Editor Dee is in for Skip today)