Media Matters: The Media's Deliberate Stupidity

[Hissyspit]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200903130027?f=h_column

Fri, Mar 13, 2009 6:36pm ET

Media Matters: The media's deliberate stupidity
by Jamison Foser

For weeks, the news media have been buzzing about earmarks in the recently signed omnibus spending bill. We've been told over and over that the bill is "loaded," "filled," and "stuffed" with earmarks. Since earmarks made up less than 2 percent of the bill's total spending, this is a little like saying Alaska is "filled" with people.

But John McCain doesn't like earmarks, so that's where the media have focused their attention. (OK, there's more to it than that, but not much.) Unfortunately, they've done so in the most juvenile way possible. Following McCain's lead, the media's assessment of the earmarks consists of nothing more than sarcastically listing them, as though they are self-evidently a waste of money. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently described the approach McCain and the Republicans have adopted:

The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.

And the media have gone right along with it, producing news reports about the spending bill that are no more substantive than an adolescent chortle: Heh, heh, he said "pig waste." Heh.

Consider, for example, the honeybee. If you have watched television news or picked up a newspaper in the past several weeks, you've probably heard about federal funding for honeybees.

The assault on the honeybee began with the stimulus package, when CNN and other news organizations dutifully repeated GOP attacks on the inclusion of $150 million for "honeybee insurance." Columnist Charles Krauthammer went so far as to call the bill an "abomination" for including the honeybee insurance.

Now, there are a few things you need to know about the honeybee insurance. First, there was no such funding, according to Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik. Second, if the funding did exist, it would have amounted to somewhere around two one-hundredths of 1 percent of the stimulus package. Third, if the funding existed, it might well have been a wise use of money. We'll come back to that part.

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[Cha]

1. Oh yeah..the so called "media" is willfully

dumber than a bag of 2 inch nails.

Problem for them is.. the American public has wised up since they gave us 8 years of bush and the War On Iraq.

And, that's great news for us..that and Al Gore inventing the internet.

[rvablue]

2. Don't these idiots realize that if there are no more bees that we'll all starve?

:banghead:

[babylonsister]

3. He can say that again; I'm glad Foser keeps after them. Rec'd. nt