Fox, CNN propaganda talking point: Harp on 'deficits,' don't mention GWBush Wall Street bailout
 --Simple tactics, corporate media
It's simple, it works, it's dishonest: Talk through your multi-billion media megaphone about Washington in a "sea of red ink," talk about having bailed out Wall Street but not Main Street, talk about "job creation"--but never, never, under any circumstances mention that the unlidded, virtually unmonitored, tumorous financial-sector-bonanza  $350 billion Wall Street bailout came in fall of 2008 under the GWBush administration and was entirely the notion of the Bush circle.

We are not off to a good start for this week. Two of the morning (Sunday, October 11, 2009) talk shows so far are discussing the U.S. economy and economic distress, Fox News Sunday and CNN's show with John King. Chris Wallace on Fox hosts two Repubs--casino mogul Steve Wynn, mouthing pieties about "jobs," which is interesting--and former GWBush budget director Mitch Daniels, who was able to parlay his administration position into the governorship of Indiana.

Inveighing against deficits and "health care and all that other stuff"--Wynn's words--neither Wynn, Daniels, nor Wallace MENTIONS that the unregulated, unmonitored, now-much-disappeared Wall Street bailout of September-October 2008 came entirely under Bush-GOP auspices and was entirely the production of the Bush administration.

This statement is not exaggeration. Literally, none of the three men has mentioned the fact.

Channel-switching to CNN, which on Sunday morning is not much of a switch, one finds John King interviewing Sen. John McCain. The topic of the economy comes up--and McCain says--follow this closely: "What we've done unfortunately is we bailed out Wall Street." We told them they're too big to fail, McCain goes on--rightly--and we then told small businesses they're too small to help.

Admittedly, he's got a point. BUT what happened back in fall 2008, when John McCain was--along with Sarah Palin--the standard-bearer for the Republican Party in the presidential election? Did he say "$350 billion? To the people who got us into this mess? Are you kidding?" Did he direct his VP pick, Sarah Palin, to say "Thanks, but no thanks?"

No.

McCain, like Barack Obama, went under the wave of financial-sector shock and awe. Both of them as presidential candidates were overwhelmed by the corporate media outlets--speaking to reporters with (relatively) good jobs, pens in hand, laptops at the ready to lump them both in with "outliers" and other losers while not coincidentally watching their own 401Ks drop daily in value. N.b. as I have pointed out in previous writing on this topic, no major media outlet required its journalists, editors and producers to disclose any financial stake of their own.

The kicker now is that--predictably--John McCain is going on national television presenting himself by implication at least as a fiscal conservative and budget hawk, WITHOUT MENTIONING that he was the most prominent supporter of the unwarranted and undisciplined Wall Street bailout of fall 2008.

More to come, unfortunately . . .

btw on a different topic regarding the news media: It was a sardonic hoot to see how sour CBS correspondent and commentator Bob Schieffer was in discussing the Nobel Peace Prize. Sourly, Schieffer called it a prize for "not being Bush." There is more than a grain of truth in that assessment, of course--given the tragic realities of a war of aggression in Iraq, another Vietnam in Afghanistan ("Pipeline-istan"), torture, "rendition" flights, indefinite detention, illegal surveillance and on and on, there ought to be.

One fact Schieffer never mentions is that his brother Tom was a GWBush appointee in a plummy post as ambassador to Austria. Thomas Schieffer is now running for governor of Texas as a Democrat with some uncertainty as to how much a Democrat he is, small d or big D. My take on Schieffer's spiteful and ill-natured comments, assuming they were not simply envy, is that he resents the ongoing tarnishing of the 'Bush brand' and is apprehensive that it will tarnish the Schieffer brand.

Well, lie down with pigs . . . Or as they used to put it somewhat more loftily in the English Renaissance, pitch defileth.