Brent Bozell's blog

I watch some commercials on television and am amazed that the corporate sponsor really signed off on the product.  Think about the expressions on the faces of the dark suits in the executive boardroom when they were presented with some of the commercials running on TV right now. 

Take Jack In The Box. “Jack Box,” the fast-food chain’s mascot – a man wearing what looks like a ping-pong-ball head or a snowman getup with a clown hat – is sitting playing a game much like Scrabble with a beautiful blonde. He lays out the non-word “swavory,” selling a waffle breakfast sandwich for having savory sausage and sweet maple waffles. The blonde then lays on the board letters reading “No Nookie.” Jack says, “What’s that supposed to....? Oh.” Is sexual slang really necessary to sell breakfast sandwiches during prime time? 

The Republican convention was delayed by a day on Monday. It’s not a problem: the national media’s pre-convention spin was timed perfectly, almost as if it was on automatic pilot. In Monday’s New York Times, longtime political writer Adam Nagourney regurgitated the same old, tired political spin that the Republican Party is too conservative and exclusionary on “social issues,” and that their divisive stands will hurt them with “mainstream” voters.

1976. 1980. 1984. 1988. 1992. 1996. 2000. 2004. 2008. Will they ever stop saying this?

As easy as it might be to forget them in the cobwebs of the AM radio dial, the liberal pretenders to the Rush Limbaugh throne are still broadcasting, and they're often utterly, shamelessly ridiculous. Case in point: Even Al Sharpton lamely used his radio show to defend Joe Biden's anti-Republican "they want to put y'all in chains" race baiting in front of a black audience.

Another case in point: Liberal radio hosts adore Harry Reid for making utterly unsubstantiated ugly charges that Mitt Romney evaded taxes for a decade. Bill Press has routinely declared his love for the tactic — even on CNN, where someone might have noticed. On "Reliable Sources," Press taunted the journalists who might want to play by the rules of evidence.

There’s no denying that what Rep. Todd Akin said was completely inappropriate, but for it to receive four times more coverage than the Vice President of the United States’ indefensibly racist gaffe is unconscionable. Todd Akin is a congressman. Joe Biden is one heartbeat from being the leader of the Free World. Once again, the media’s double standard is exposed for all to see.

If Ronald Reagan was the "Teflon President," then Joe Biden is the "Teflon Blowhard." He’s spent his entire career with his foot firmly lodged in his mouth, uttering an endless stream of impossibly stupid, vulgar, and insensitive things. And yet the media fall all over themselves to make excuses for blustery "Old Uncle Joe."

The only thing that will ever convince Comedy Central to stop perpetuating its disgusting celebrity roasts are poor ratings. Taste, decency, talent -- none of these has bearing on this network's decisions. Nor do they care about the damage they're inflicting on youngsters. They care only about the numbers. So the good news is that their August 12 roast of Roseanne Barr flopped, bringing in only 2.6 million viewers. That’s almost a million less than their roast of the day before yesterday's news, David Hasselhoff. It came in far below the 6.5 million they drew last fall for their wish-you-were-dead roast of Charlie Sheen, but that was just capturing Sheen’s lightning of insanity in a bottle.

Roseanne Barr was, is and forever will be a pig. The roast did her justice. Let's review the "highlights":

Floyd Corkins, a volunteer for the last six months at the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community, marched into the Family Research Center with a gun and serious ammunition, denounced FRC’s policy positions, and shot a security guard in the arm before being subdued. Another hate crime, but this time against perhaps the pre-eminent pro-family organization in America. CBS gave the story 20 seconds. NBC spent 17 seconds.

Imagine a volunteer for the Family Research Council marching into some gay group’s headquarters with a gun, and after shouting his opposition to the homosexual agenda, opened fire and wounded a guard before being subdued. Never mind evening news. This would be Breaking News! and for days there would be seemingly endless coverage of continued conservative hatred.

The liberal media have repeatedly and deliberately turned a blind eye to the violent, hateful culture of liberalism, particularly their vicious attacks against those who advocate traditional Christian values and conservative principles. We saw it during their deceptive, romanticized coverage of Occupy Wall Street. We saw it again during their sneering, anti-Christian coverage of the Chick-fil-A controversy. And now we’re seeing it through NBC’s and CBS’s dismissive coverage of this senseless shooting at the FRC, which the FBI has classified as an act of domestic terrorism.

Imagine if, God forbid, this exact same thing had happened at a Planned Parenthood or the Southern Law Poverty Center, which labeled both Chick-fil-A and FRC hate groups. We’d be hearing an endless loop of stories about the danger of militant, hate-filled right wing wackos.

Mitt Romney made a smart executive decision selecting Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate. Ryan’s genial personality, serious policy wonkery, and political courage have dazzled conservatives and won respect even in a  few liberal circles. Romney scores points for political courage as well. He knew liberal politicians and journalists would talk in punishing terms about Ryan’s budget ideas.

They did not disappoint. It took only minutes for the onslaught to begin. At the same time liberal media outlets acknowledge the country now faces two opposing visions of government, why is only the Romney-Ryan vision “polarizing” and “extreme”?

On August 6, that pseudo-conservative satirist Stephen Colbert utterly failed to pretend to play a right-winger on TV. Colbert invited on "legendary" radical-left folk singer Pete Seeger and treated him with deep reverence.

"It's an honor to have you on. You are a living legend. You are a giant. It's like having Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed on," he oozed. This is the same sultan of snark that exudes zero reverence for his allegedly Catholic beliefs, calling himself the "Pope of basic cable" as he has rudely joked that Cardinal Timothy Dolan uses Viagra and mocked Pope Benedict for having "the face of an angel...that got caught in a food dehydrator."

Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters might as well be located in a sewer. The content of the Priorities USA Obama Super PAC ad blaming a woman's death from cancer on Mitt Romney is almost impossible to believe. The only thing more impossible to believe is that the so-called “news” networks can go two full days pretending that it doesn’t exist.

And even then, only ABC has mentioned it during their evening news broadcast. There’s still nothing from NBC Nightly News or CBS Evening News on this. The networks shouldn’t have to be dragged kicking and screaming into reporting the news.

On August 5, Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post announced he was playing with a “somewhat controversial idea” that Mitt Romney should be the favorite to win the presidential election. Debatable, maybe. But controversial? Well, yes. It violates the pro-Obama mandate of our national press corps.

The usual political measures look terrible for Obama, he noted. “The unemployment rate has been over 8 percent for 42 straight months, a streak unparalleled in American history.” Obama must win despite the crippled economy – the most important issue for the voters.

From our seats in front of the television, it certainly feels like the TV network programmers have all the power to entertain us. But the press gatherings of the Television Critics Association in Tinseltown suggest that others audaciously think they should be in the driver’s seat, and they’re not shy about saying so.

The latest TCA press tour showed off the intimidating power of the television critics flailing away at young, shy Bristol Palin, who’s returning to ABC for an all-star version of “Dancing With the Stars.”

The Media Research Center has released a new analysis of the 21 ABC, CBS and NBC evening news stories about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's trip to London, Israel and Poland between July 25 and July 31. The report’s findings are absolutely staggering. 18 of the 21 stories emphasized Romney’s perceived gaffes. That’s 86 percent!

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the media took this opportunity to thoroughly trash Obama’s rival, but the near unanimous negativity of their coverage is as outrageous as it is transparent. MRC’s analysis also found:

Mitt Romney might have thought it was eminently sensible in an NBC interview in London to repeat exactly what the TV networks had already reported on security at the London Olympics, namely, that there was room for concern.

Romney succeeded only in demonstrating how unbelievably shameless and partisan our “objective” media can be. The networks and national newspapers aggressively declared Romney had committed a diplomatic fiasco overseas and repeated London tabloid headlines heckling Romney with insults, such as “Mitt the Twit.”

The latest solid proof that Hollywood really can’t stand traditional Christianity has arrived in an unfolding boycott of Chick-fil-A, a Georgia-based fast-food chain that’s rapidly spreading franchises across America.

Chick-fil-A demonstrates a public faith by closing all its stores on Sundays and on Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s something the Left ridicules, but something anyone of any faith respects.

In an unprecedented move, the Media Research Center believes that the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) recent call to action is not extreme enough.
 
According to the Daily Caller, CAIR is upset with President Obama for refusing to produce campaign swag specifically designed for Muslims. He has catered to many niche groups by creating "Jewish Americans for Obama" bumper stickers, "LGBT for Obama" pins, "African Americans for Obama" and "Latinos for Obama" t-shirts and even "My Two Dads Support Obama" baby onesies.  But no "Muslims for Obama" offerings exist and CAIR objects to their exclusion.  

The so-called prestige media have built this arrogant sense of professionalism around themselves.  They are not just fair and objective, they’re also accurate. The great amateurish unwashed shouldn’t sit at keyboards in their pajamas and attempt the marvelous feats that only they perform.

But when these reporters see an opportunity to discredit conservatives, all that goes out the window.

Network television is a pretty dreary place in the summer time. It’s somehow the perfect time for Hollywood executives to throw millions of dollars at ever-dumber sexualized content. It’s hard to tell what offends more, the raunch or the sheer stupidity of it all.

The network calling itself “The CW” is barely noticed at any time of the year, if quality were a determinant. So instead they seem to be competing for some kind of Nobel Sleaze Prize this summer with a Miami-based “reality” show called “The Catalina.”

Back in 2007 and 2008, it was remarkable watching Barack Obama treated to one puffball interview after another courtesy of Steve Kroft on “60 Minutes.” Kroft compared him to Abe Lincoln and oozed about his “political poetry.” But it’s simply irresponsible, after three and a half years of President Obama wrecking the economy, that CBS -- now with anchor Charlie Rose -- is still in Puffery Mode.

There's a certain level of contempt on the part of CBS. It could, and should focus its attention on the plight of every family struggling with unemployment or a house that’s underwater financially, or facing its loss of religious liberties with a federal government drunk with power. CBS chose instead to waste most of the interview asking the Obamas about summer vacations, where they’d like to travel in the world, and whether there’s still mystery in their marriage.

Microsoft’s ill-advised marriage of convenience to NBC News has finally landed in divorce court, and it couldn’t have happened soon enough. Like any marriage built on a lie – in this case that MSNBC would be a legitimate news organization – it was doomed to fail.

The MSNBC brand is a tumor, corrupting everything it touches, and it’s good to see that Microsoft is finally cutting it off. Even though Microsoft untethered itself from MSNBC TV in 2005, MSNBC.com was still a stain on one of the most valuable, respected corporations in American history.

On July 9, Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi composed a puff piece to honor Stephen Colbert, “fake news” commentator and satirical fake conservative. It turns out Colbert is becoming an “obsession in academia,” with a new collegiate submersion in “Truthiness-ology.”

Let us agree that he can be very funny. Let's also agree that his satire being taken seriously by academia says something about the state of academia.

America’s confidence in TV news has hit a new low, but should anyone be surprised? According to Gallup’s analysis of their annual Confidence in Institutions survey, only 21 percent of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in TV news. Newspapers don’t fare much better with only 25 percent of respondents expressing confidence.  Gallup’s survey, which was conducted from June 7-10, was released last month and was predictably ignored by pretty much everyone except Newsbusters’ own Tim Graham who reported on its findings here. Confidence in TV news has seen a seven point drop since last year alone (down from a still-embarrassing 28 percent in 2011). And this survey was conducted before two major cable news networks botched their initial reports on the outcome of the Supreme Court’s ObamaCare decision on June 28.

So what could possibly account for this drop? The answer is simple: the networks refuse to Tell the Truth, and the American people are sick and tired of it. Even liberals (19 percent) and moderates (20 percent) have lost faith in TV news, although, not surprisingly, self-identified Democrats have the highest confidence at 34 percent compared to 17 percent for Republicans and 17 percent for Independents. This shouldn’t come as any shock given the media’s torrid love affair with Democrat superhero Barack Obama.

Barack Obama has trouble telling the truth.

This is the man who admitted his memoir "Dreams of My Father" was semi-fictional. “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.

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.

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. 

HBO should really try a new slogan for its original programming, and it came right from 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, which insists that only the really smart people pay the extra fee to join the television elite. But do Sorkin and HBO really deserve their lofty position of arrogance as the Smart People? No. Let’s count the ways this new show is preposterous:

Though the Supreme Court overturned much of the Arizona law, but 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.

June is “Gay Pride Month,” which immediately begs two questions: Says who? and, 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."

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."