Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Cleaning Their Hands Pt II

As Part II of cleaning up their act, Rosie O'Donnell is now overboard. Not immediately, but certainly before the elections. The payoff? A show of her own in 2009. Or other options. as the Associated Press noted.
Options discussed include another syndicated, celeb-focused show; a game show; a late-night network program; or a cable show, where her colorful language could be less inhibited.
Amidst boycott threats against Disney and ABC for comments she made about Sept. 11, O'Donnell was said to be weighing offers from bidders, including CBS television Television Distribution, to do another show of her own.

In other words, she's being rewarded for - going away.

What's amazing is that the MSM thinks that out of sight is out of mind. O'Donnell is still a loose cannon and Imus will likely get a satellite radio program. Neither is likely to go away anytime soon as they both represent the cultural elite attitude. The only problem is that the cultural elites want a much lower profile.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Cleaning their hands

I've been waiting for Don Imus to be fired to comment on the manufactured outrage of the MSM. Manufactured because they've adored him for years. More so than the public. In 2005, David Kiley of Business Week wrote about Imus' rating.
Book sellers, Senators, Congressmen, media personalities and even clergy are always after the same audience as Imus’s advertisers: affluent, educated and influential men, many of whom not only buy books, but count as swing voters.

Imus’s show, while politically charged, skews neither right nor left, which makes it a refreshing switch from the wing-nut harangue of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or the Air America Crew. “I don’t know anyone in Washington who doesn’t listen to Imus or watch him on TV,” says CBS News and Face The Nation anchor Bob Schieffer, a frequent guest, who politely admitted to me the show has become a more valued outlet for many DC elite than either of his programs.
The show was big bucks.
Imus’s influence is transcending the size of his audience. Imus In The Morning, reaches about 3.25 million radio listeners a week, according to industry trade journal Talkers Magazine (plus another 335,000 an hour on TV).

His radio audience is about a quarter of Limbaugh's weekly following and less than half of Stern's. But blue-chip and family-oriented advertisers like Chrysler, Bigelow Tea and The New York Stock Exchange are prepared to pay top dollar to flog their brands on Imus; his show commands advertising rates of $1,333-$1,500 per thousand listeners versus about $1,000 for Limbaugh and Stern, according to industry sources.
What you note about the article is that Rush Limbaugh is a wing-nut but Air America is a crew and the audience size is miniscule compared to Limbaugh's.

These are your cultural elites. The people who never criticize the filth of rap lyrics, or complain about the depiction of black women as "hos." These are your white collar bigots who knew Imus' rants were often dispicable and they liked to kid themselves that it was just wry humor. Just as the lyrics of rap records are authentic urban music. Well they are if you think black women are whores.

Nothing about Imus was particularly funny except to these elites. He was raunchy and rude and outright mean. His talk show was rated 20th nationally, according to Brent Baker of NewsBusters. Talkers Magazine shows him tied with Kim Komando, a computer show host. But she doesn't make an estimated $31 million a year.

Imus was a media celebrity who said what the guests wanted to say and snicker at.

So why all the outrage? It would be cynical to suggest that it's the 2008 elections and posturing for the black vote, but that's likely the reason. The Democrats and their friends in the media are starting to shed their traditional allies as they seek to redefine themselves and regain the black vote. Hence, the stories about racism in South Carolina as a white female teacher had sex with four or five black boys. Nevermind that teachers of both sexes are having sex all across the U.S. with school children.

The media and the Democrat party are cleaning their hands. The offhand 3:00 am comment by Imus was convenient excuse to close the door and cut a losing show at the same time. It helped that he had hit the rating skid before the recent ill-considered, off-the-cuff remark. If Imus referred to the women as "hos' it's because the media, his audience, and black rappers have called black women 'hos" for decades with no outcry.

His biggest sponsors, Procter & Gamble Co. General Motors. Sprint. Staples. American Express, have overlooked his crassness. That's because they have media buyers buy the time for them and care little what happens on the show.

It's like being anti-pornography when you're caught coming out of an XXX rated theatre. You can look like an avenging angel at the same time if you posture as a reformer. But you still stink of raunchy sex.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Nancy Pelosi - Poliskirt

Thought: We don't have a federal government anymore; we have a Republican government or a Democrat one.

Increasingly, however, the Democrats who spend more time out of the White House than in, think it doesn't matter what the electorate says. Who voted for Nancy Pelosi to conduct our foreign policy?

It sounds like a dumb move, and having watched Pelosi for years and coming from a state that elected the woman, it is dumb. But also marginal politics. Pelosi is as American as San Francisco. At a guess, Nancy was trying to assure foreign leaders that they can feel free to contribute to Democrats for the 2008 election. Democrats can be counted upon to conduct a foreign policy much different than the current White House.

It's an excellent tactic to encourage campaign donations, but it also undermines our government's authority. Don't want to negotiate? Wait a year or so and maybe you won't have to release prisoners, refrain from conducting nuclear tests, reform your own government because of international pressure, cooperate in a UN investigation into the assassination of a Lebanese politician. If you just contribute enough, all your worries will disappear.

As the most public face of the Democrat party, Pelosi is a poliskirt. From my own Lexicon of Politics:

What, I wondered, do you call a political party who hides behind women elected for the reason that other men are generally too polite to treat them as badly as they deserve? Democraducks. (In the case of Canada, they are Libducks.)

The women they hide behind are Poliskirts, a reference not to their attire but the skirts the Democraducks hide behind.