NationStates Jolt Archive


Rightys are waging a smear campaign against MSNBC reporter

MKULTRA
19-11-2004, 02:03
Conservatives rail against MSNBC's Olbermann for reporting election irregularities

Media conservatives have labeled MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann a "voice of paranoia" and accused him of perpetuating "idiotic conspiracy theories" for his sustained spotlight on the numerous local news reports of voting irregularities during the November 2 presidential election. Olbermann's emphasis during Countdown with Keith Olbermann on voting irregularities has been part of a critique of what he has called the "Rube Goldberg voting process of ours" -- as well as a criticism of the major media outlets' failure to report on the irregularities.

In her November 11 nationally syndicated column, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter falsely asserted that Olbermann has been "peddling the theory that Bush stole the election" and referred to "Olbermann's idiotic conspiracy theory." A November 14 column by associate editor Bill Steigerwald in the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (owned by right-wing financier Richard Mellon Scaife) claimed Olbermann "really made a Dan Rather of himself" by focusing a segment of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann on allegations of voter fraud. And in his November 10 "Inside Politics" column, Washington Times columnist Greg Pierce quoted the conservative Media Research Center's analysis of Olbermann's coverage:

"With 'Did Your Vote Count? The Plot Thickens' as his on-screen header, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Monday night led his 'Countdown' program with more than 15 straight minutes of paranoid and meaningless claims about voting irregularities in states won by President Bush," the Media Research Center reports at www.mediaresearch.org.

But Olbermann has not suggested that the election was stolen. Discussing the possible causes of the bevy of reported voting irregularities from around the country, Olbermann offered this analysis on the November 10 edition of Countdown:

There are really only three possible explanations for all of this. The first is hoped for virtually unanimously by supporters of every candidate and every party -- namely, that all those elected last Tuesday got in because that's the way the people voted. The second is that some of them got in through manipulation of a series of insufficiently sophisticated, insufficiently secure computer voting machines that might be hacked into by the nearest 9-year-old. But the third possibility is actually more heart-stopping still, one that threatens the democracy in the way 100 terrorist rings could not -- that the president or the District 90 dog catcher or other Republicans or other Democrats were elected because a series of insufficiently sophisticated, insufficiently secure computer voting machines was affected by bad design, bad use, damp ballots, power surges, and/or static cling.

Olbermann's commitment to addressing voting irregularities has been coupled with commentary on the lack of media coverage they have received, which Media Matters for America has also noted. "Even assuming there's nothing nefarious about the national election," Olbermann asked Newsweek senior editor and columnist Jonathan Alter, "why has the cascade of irregularities around this country occurred virtually in a news blackout?" Alter responded by saying that "I'm not justifying this, but by way of explanation, I think it is that there's no sense that, with a three-and-a-half-million vote difference [between President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry], that this would affect the outcome, even if there were widespread irregularities found." On the November 11 edition of Countdown, Congressional Quarterly columnist and MSNBC political analyst Craig Crawford offered another perspective: "The glib answer, which is part of the truth, is I think everybody was tired after that election. ... [W]e're often wimps in the media. And we wait for other people to make charges, one political party or another, and then we investigate it."

In a November 14 entry on his MSNBC.com weblog, Olbermann responded to the attacks on him by citing the gradual increase in attention the voting irregularities issue is receiving among the mainstream press:

On Friday, [NBC News correspondent] David Shuster, who has already done some excellent research at Hardblogger [the MSNBC.com weblog associated with MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews], did a piece on the mess for Hardball, and Chris followed up with a discussion with Joe Trippi and Susan Molinari. There was a cogent, reasoned, unexcited piece about the mechanics of possible tampering and/or machine failure on CNN's "Next" yesterday, and Saturday alone there were serious news pieces in the Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Los Angeles Times, Salt Lake Tribune, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. NPR did a segment of its "On The Media" on the topic (with said blogger as the guest).

And today the New York Times continues its series of "Making Vote Counts" editorials with a pretty solid stance on the necessity of journalistic and governmental proof that the elections weren't tampered with. ... I suspect the coverage is going to go through the roof as the news spreads that [presidential candidate Ralph] Nader has gotten his recount in New Hampshire, and that the Greens and Libertarians are actually going to get their Ohio recount. When reporters discover what Jonathan Turley pointed out to us on Tuesday's show, namely that 70% of Ohio's votes were done with punch cards and as Florida proved in 2000, in court, a lot of those punch cards -- as Jon put it -- "turn over," I suspect there will be long-form television on the process.
mediamatters.org
Tuesday Heights
19-11-2004, 02:29
Um, who cares?
Right-Wing America
19-11-2004, 02:30
Um, who cares?

yea seriously :confused:
MKULTRA
19-11-2004, 02:31
Im showing how the rights war against democracy in America is waged thru the media
Tuesday Heights
19-11-2004, 02:43
Im showing how the rights war against democracy in America is waged thru the media

Well, then, you need to do a bit of a better job, because so far, all I'm seeing is the biased of the right-wing to the left-wing rather than a rights war against democracy via the media.
Mauiwowee
19-11-2004, 02:58
Well, then, you need to do a bit of a better job, because so far, all I'm seeing is the biased of the right-wing to the left-wing rather than a rights war against democracy via the media.

ditto
Violets and Kitties
19-11-2004, 03:51
Well, then, you need to do a bit of a better job, because so far, all I'm seeing is the biased of the right-wing to the left-wing rather than a rights war against democracy via the media.

How is it a right vs left wing when no one is contesting the actual election itself - they are just questioning the processes. Once a candidate conceeds the race is over - a candidate in the lead could theoretically conceed and the other one win. This isn't a question about outcome.

Maybe "war" in the sense that it denotes an organized effort is hyberbolic. Maybe. Perhaps the news thinks it would be less profitable. Perhaps they think they are promoting unity. But ignoring problems just gets people accoustomed to them. Whatever the motive, the results will not be good.
Many machines used in the election are questionable in regards to safety. The news needs to cover this, because there are so many people out there who either will not know or who will think it is no big deal otherwise (as in they think that if it is not on the news it is not newsworthy be default).

This isn't a partisan issue. It is about the safety of future elections, the right for all people to be secure in the vote they cast regardless of who they cast it for.
MKULTRA
19-11-2004, 03:54
How is it a right vs left wing when no one is contesting the actual election itself - they are just questioning the processes. Once a candidate conceeds the race is over - a candidate in the lead could theoretically conceed and the other one win. This isn't a question about outcome.

Maybe "war" in the sense that it denotes an organized effort is hyberbolic. Maybe. Perhaps the news thinks it would be less profitable. Perhaps they think they are promoting unity. But ignoring problems just gets people accoustomed to them. Whatever the motive, the results will not be good.
Many machines used in the election are questionable in regards to safety. The news needs to cover this, because there are so many people out there who either will not know or who will think it is no big deal otherwise (as in they think that if it is not on the news it is not newsworthy be default).

This isn't a partisan issue. It is about the safety of future elections, the right for all people to be secure in the vote they cast regardless of who they cast it for.
if theyre allowed to steal our elections so blatent like this time around then elections themselfs become a farce
Tuesday Heights
19-11-2004, 04:35
This isn't a partisan issue. It is about the safety of future elections, the right for all people to be secure in the vote they cast regardless of who they cast it for.

I'm not questioning the validity of the investigation; I'm questioning the validity of only posting one side's take on things rather than both. The initial post is clearly saying the right-wing is attacking the lefties.
Steel Butterfly
19-11-2004, 04:38
Just ignore MKULTRA and his fanatical, biased, anti-republican wet dreams. It makes life so much more...intelligent.
Incertonia
19-11-2004, 04:40
How is it a right vs left wing when no one is contesting the actual election itself - they are just questioning the processes. Once a candidate conceeds the race is over - a candidate in the lead could theoretically conceed and the other one win. This isn't a question about outcome.

Maybe "war" in the sense that it denotes an organized effort is hyberbolic. Maybe. Perhaps the news thinks it would be less profitable. Perhaps they think they are promoting unity. But ignoring problems just gets people accoustomed to them. Whatever the motive, the results will not be good.
Many machines used in the election are questionable in regards to safety. The news needs to cover this, because there are so many people out there who either will not know or who will think it is no big deal otherwise (as in they think that if it is not on the news it is not newsworthy be default).

This isn't a partisan issue. It is about the safety of future elections, the right for all people to be secure in the vote they cast regardless of who they cast it for.I agree with your last point--although I would say "accuracy" instead of "safety" but your first point is incorrect. A concession is not legally binding, and if, for instance, the recount effort by Badnarik and Cobb in Ohio were to cause a rather unlikely turnaround in the vote count and Kerry won, he would be the President after the electoral college met and voted, concession or no.
Diamond Mind
19-11-2004, 04:45
Read what they're saying about Oberman. It's just nasty, hateful rhetoric. And what about the local impact of all those irregularities? Even if the presidential election is not contested, those irregularities had a major impact locally. Then there is the illegal re-districting in Texas that resulted in I believe 4 seats lost by the democrats. There's a lot of nonsense going on in elections and it should be brought to light and stopped. Unless, as it seems, some of you seem to be argueing for a system that resembles a dictatorship where elections are completely meaningless, rather than the democratic republic that is the greatest nation in history.
MKULTRA
20-11-2004, 00:05
Blind hatred and powerlust is the engine that drives the neocon agenda
Mauiwowee
20-11-2004, 02:59
Blind hatred and powerlust is the engine that drives the neocon agenda

Ditto for the libs. They're alike in this completely. It is just a difference in what they blindly hate that affects things and drives the agenda.