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The Media deserves the admonishment they got if even from posers
Anyone who watched the Republican debate had to be exasperated. To be clear, rarely do the Presidential candidates answer the questions being asked. They simply use it as an opportunity to say their piece. It is the responsibility of the moderator to hone in on the answer and call out the candidate for non-answers. Of course this is rarely done.
The Republican Presidential candidates made minced meat out of the moderators. They used every opportunity to call them out for their questions. It did not help that instead of asking serious questions in a fact based manner, they sometimes asked leading questions a la Fox News.
Ted Cruz had one of the longest and most effective outbursts against the media as he played the aggrieved in perfect form. “Senator Cruz, congressional Republicans, Democrats, and the White House are about to strike a compromise that would raise the debt limit, prevent a government shutdown, and calm financial markets that fear another Washington created crisis is on the way,” said CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla. “Does your opposition to it show that you are not the kind of problem solver American voters want?”
Cruz was prepared for an attack on the media. “You know, let me say something right at the outset,” Ted Cruz said. “The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. This is not a cage match. And you look at the questions, — ‘Donald Trump are you a comic book villain,’ ‘Ben Carson can you do math,’ ‘John Kasich will you insult two people over here,’ ‘Marco Rubio why don’t you resign,’ ‘Jeb Bush why are your numbers falling.’ How about talking about the substantive issues people care about. … The questions that are being asked shouldn’t be trying to get people to tear into each other. It should be what are your substantive solutions to people who are hurting.”
One can love the leading question as a partisan. However, the question was more drama than probing. The question should have been something to the effect of why oppose or threaten a shutdown when past experience was a failure that cost American taxpayers billions. Instead Quintanilla’s framing left the door open for Ted Cruz to grandstand. He did that effectively because all night the questions were amateurish. Then again, CNBC has become the bastion of misleading financial information and as such this type of questioning should be expected.
The traditional mainstream media has become nothing but a joke. Ironically the party that has complained the most about the state of the media is the party complicit in dumbing it down.
The traditional mainstream media was derelict as it gave plausibility to Ronald Reagan’s voodoo economics. The impossibility of dramatically lowering taxes, dramatically increasing military spending, and not substantially cutting major programs was never examined and presented to the American people effectively.
The traditional mainstream media allowed the Bush administration to use them as their propaganda arm. Had they done the job of journalists as opposed to allowing unfettered influence from the neocons, Americans would have never allowed the war in Iraq.
The traditional mainstream media did not effectively challenge Bill Clinton’s repeal of Glass Steagal in the 1999 Financial Modernization Act. Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan did and was correct in his prediction that came to pass with the 2008 Great Recession.
The traditional media allowed Right Wing lies to weaken what the Affordable Care Act should have been by being the cheerleaders of nonsensical statements like ‘throw grandma under the bus,’ ‘death panels,’ and much more. They allowed Republicans to get on air and lie about healthcare systems in other countries that are much more effective than ours. Had Americans heard the truth, they would have forced their politicians’ hands.
Ted Cruz and the rest of his cast on the debate stage were correct. The moderators were asked leading questions. The candidates were not asked enough necessarily probative questions. In fact many times they were asked silly questions.
While Republicans complain the most about the traditional mainstream media, it is they who effectively made the Fox News method the American media template. Their righteous indignation is nothing but grandstanding. It is they who provide the traditional mainstream media channels with a non-ending abundance of misinformation the media is too happy to present to Americans.
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