On today’s BradCast, it’s starting to feel like the 2000 campaign all over again. Last night’s “Commander-in-Chief Forum” as well as a comparison of corporate media coverage of “scandals” by both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both serve to underscore that point. [Audio link to full show posted below.]
First, the back-to-back town halls on national security issues with Clinton and then Trump on NBC on Wednesday night provided another disturbing example of the corporate media seemingly working hard to help level an unlevel playing field between the Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates. Moderator Matt Lauer held Clinton to account with tough questioning while giving a pass to all manner of dishonesty from Trump in response to fairly softball questions. Almost none of it went challenged by Lauer. In the bargain, as I argue on today’s program, Trump won the night, which should be another note of great concern to Democrats as the polls continue to tighten in advance of the Presidential debates beginning later this month.
Then, speaking of media-aided false equivalence, Martin Longman, founder of Booman Tribune and Web Editor at Washington Monthly, joins us to discuss the very different ways in which the corporate media has been covering Clinton “scandals” concerning her email server and the Clintons’ charitable foundation, versus actual criminal acts committed by Trump and his own foundation regarding illegal pay-offs to state Attorneys General.
Longman details the timeline of the Trump charity’s illegal $25,000 payment to the political committee of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, after she had announced an investigation of his Trump University scam, after she had sought a donation from him, and before she finally decided to drop the case. Once caught, Trump paid a fine to the IRS for the illegal donation. But imagine if the Clinton’s had done anything as blatant.
There are “all kinds of double standards” at play here, Longman explains. “Part of it is that the Right does a better job of working the refs.” He goes on to cite one way in which Trump seems to avoid accountability in much the same way that the George W. Bush Administration had also managed to game the media.
“Before you can run down the problem with one story, [Trump’s] created five more for you to run down,” he tells me. “When you look at the variety of factors involved, some of it is bias against the Clintons, some of it is advantages that the right has, and some of it is just unique to Trump. You add it all up, and you’ve got this situation where you have one clearly — in my mind — crazy person who’s getting fairly close to the Presidency, and people are treating it as though this is a normal choice between two candidates, and it’s just not.”
Yes, we’ve seen this pattern before in the recent past — the 2000 Bush/Gore campaign comes to mind for good reason — and it could result in an equally troubling outcome for the nation this November.
Finally, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, and then one last story on a man who really, REALLY, can’t stand living with his wife…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_CICForum_MartinLongman_TrumpBondi_090816.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Ummm Clinton has without question committed numerous criminal acts, just because she keeps getting away with it doesn’t make her innocent.
Neither of these nutbags should be allowed to run for president.
Nunyabiz1 –
What are those “numerous criminal acts”, Nunya? Please feel free to be specific.
Thanks in advance!
Keep seeing all these lies but no specifics. When Fox hammers home Clinton lies 24/7 Obama lies 24/7 but they don’t give specific you know propaganda works. Reminds me back in the middle of the IRAQ war we were getting all these reports on how well we were doing by these reporters out in the war zone only to find out the reporters were in a motel and the generals were feeding them information. Remember when it came out that the Bush administration was paying this one reporter $50,000 to hype up how well the Bush/Cheney was doing. Ah those God loving republicans.
Remember hen they went after Cheney for his records and all of a sudden there was a fire that burned them up. E-mail Benganzi IRS deflect deflect deflect
AMY GOODMAN: A study of the two weeks around Colin Powell giving his address at the U.N. for war looked at the four major nightly news casts ABC, CBS, and NBC and the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Of the 393 interviews done around war, only three were with anti-war representatives. Now this was at a time when about half of the population was opposed to the invasion wanting more inspections and diplomacy. So that did not reflect mainstream America at all.
TED KOPPEL: No, but I, you know, where is it written that it is a journalist’s responsibility to go check the polls every day and see what mainstream America wants them to do?
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/7/29/abcs_ted_koppel_refuses_to_apologize
OMFG. I’ll just make that period (2003-2004) and listening to clueless military industrial conformists like Ted Koppel the final nail in the corporate media coffin for me.
Jim Spriggs:
And there you have it: the difference between corporate television and public television which used to be publicly funded and has been compromised by corporate donations from the Koch’s and the McDonalds’s lately.
Wonderful moment provided by Amy Goodman there, questioning the man who dogged Jimmy Carter as being weak, every single damn day on his “Nightline” program, but failing to see what the Bush’s were up to.
Another PBS program which illuminated the problem with corporate television, and is still very relevant is this Bill Moyers treatment from 2007, “Buying The War“.
Perhaps it would be best if Clinton’s and Trump’s retired generals – you know – retired!
Cardinals and bishops kiss the Pope’s ring. But do members of the press have to prostrate themselves before the gentleman from New York?
Ever since “the businessman” came down the steps and called people south of the border criminals and rapists, he has continued moving in the same direction. The only thing that has changed is that he has added other people, who do not look like him, to the list.
The gentleman from New York is himself an insult. How can a major party candidate for the Presidency not have a platform, proposals to which he can refer with ease? Well, it helps when journalists of the self-styled “mainstream” press are on their knees.
Last week’s forum brought us another indication of climate change with journalists warming up to being muzzled, as if they are rabid dogs terrifying politicians who are afraid of the sharp teeth of truth. Heaven forbid they should get infected and become enlightened!
The Commander in Chief is not a homecoming king or prom queen. During the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy sent Dean Acheson to France. The former Secretary of State offered to show President De Gaulle photographic evidence. At first he refused, saying, if Kennedy said there were missiles, that was enough for him. And if the gentleman from New York says that he opposed the invasion of Iraq, that is enough for Matt Lauer.