"The Protester" is Time's Person of the Year

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's a bit goofy, but, then, Time often goes goofy with this award. Remember when you -- yes, you -- were Time's Person of the Year? Maybe that made some sense, but it seemed pretty stupid at the time.

Well, 2011 was indeed a year of protests, particularly in the Middle East but also Occupy Wall Street. And whatever the outcomes of those protests (regime change here but not there, OWS protests forcibly shut down and the movement fading), there is no denying that they achieved a great deal (e.g., in Egypt and Libya) and effectively challenged a corrupt and unjust status quo (e.g., in Greece, as well as OWS generally), changing the content of political discourse and bringing much-needed attention not just to issues like income inequality but to those suffering under the weight of that status quo.

The question now is whether 2012 will see any sort of follow-through from these protests or whether the protesters and that for which they protested will be relegated to the dustbin of history. We can hope that it's the former, but we will all need to play our part in not letting the status quo prevail.

Assforwards, for Mark Halperin

By J. Thomas Duffy

It's a wonder that Time Magazine's Mark Halperin doesn't have, permanently, the imprint of ass on his face, for his obsequious kissing (and, often, at times, firmly planted up) the PartyofNoican's behinds.

He whines, incessantly, about Obama, and the Democrats, apparently, their existence so disrupts his reality-free airspace.



He all but inserted him himself as Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain's campaign manager, offering "Things McCain Can Do to Try to Beat Obama" include attacks on his race and name", and, as we wrote, back in August 2008, he was so over-the-top that "About the only thing missing for Time Magazine's Mark Halperin, during his appearance yesterday on 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos', was having "McCain 08" tattooed on his forehead, and the Dead Campaign Express bus parked on set, behind him."

After the losing campaign, Assboy Halperin blamed the media, for being Pro-Obama, his shrieking on it moved Bob Cesca to immediately nominate him as a "Hackery Hall of Fame Inductee".

Then he writes a book about the campaign, with John Heilemann ('Game Change'), which Glenn Greenwald noted;

"This reaction has nicely illuminated what our press corps is. The book is little more than royal court gossip, churned out by the leading practitioner of painfully sycophantic, Drudge-mimicking cattiness: Time's Mark Halperin ..."

[snip]

The real value of a book like this lies in the opportunity it presents for Washington's elite class to distract themselves and everyone else from the oozing corruption, destruction, decaying and pillaging going on -- that these same Washington denizens have long enabled. With some important exceptions, that is the primary purpose of establishment journalism generally. Even better, the book lets our media and political elite -- and then the public generally -- feel good about themselves by morally condemning the trashy exploits of Rielle Hunter and the egoistic hypocrisies of the irrelevant John and Elizabeth Edwards.

As The Nation's Chris Hayes so perfectly put it: "Just when you think the news cycle can't get any stupider, Mark Halperin publishes a book."

So, naturally, Assboy Halperin gets the A-List treatment as to bookings in the Cable Newsarama

Yesterday, with Tweety, Halperin was matched up with Salon Editor, Joan Walsh (Yeah, I know, with that stirring duo, advantage Walsh, right off the bat);

Mark Halperin: Obama must still chase GOP support

Halperin disagreed. "The biggest story in politics right now is the White House calculation, do they do things substantively and politically, to try to build bipartisan cooperation, or do they do, as Joan was suggesting, learn that they can ram things through on education, on economic development." Then things got strange; from my point of view, Halperin was describing Opposite Day reality: "They could make the choice -- rewriting the choice they made at the beginning of the administration, when they went another way, they went with an all Democratic solution -- to go for Republicans, and I think they will."

[snip]

Then Halperin asked me directly: "Would you like to see [Obama] work with Republicans -- on education, financial reform, on economic development -- or not?"

"You know what, Mark?" I answered. "Actually? 'Not.' Not for the sake of just working with Republicans." I explained how Obama worked hard to craft a bipartisan stimulus bill that was smaller than many Democrats wanted, and that was low on funding for infrastructure building programs as well as support for cities and states that were shedding cops, firefighters and teachers at the same time the stimulus money was coming down. Keeping people employed is an excellent unemployment program, I noted, but thanks to the president's efforts to win Republican votes, the Obama stimulus was too small to do more than a little of that.

Now, Mark, in the case that your computer is down, and your television has been on the fritz, it's been out there, for some time, that the PartyofNoicans, openly, have stated they will be obstructionists, that they will diss anything coming from Obama, and the Democrats.

I mean, that, just exhaustively, played out the past few months, with the Healthcare Reform bill.

Even that old ass you sucked for so long, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain has said not to expect GOP cooperation on legislation for the rest of this year.

So really, step back out into reality, or get some professional help.

We don't want to see the day, where the bosses at Time have to hire someone to walk around with you, shadow you with a crowbar, to pry your face out of the PartyofNoican asses.




(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

Person? Of the year?

By Carl

Ben Bernanke?

A bald man with a gray beard and tired eyes is sitting in his oversize Washington office, talking about the economy. He doesn't have a commanding presence. He isn't a mesmerizing speaker. He has none of the look-at-me swagger or listen-to-me charisma so common among men with oversize Washington offices. His arguments aren't partisan or ideological; they're methodical, grounded in data and the latest academic literature. When he doesn't know something, he doesn't bluster or bluff. He's professorial, which makes sense, because he spent most of his career as a professor.

He is not, in other words, a typical Beltway power broker. He's shy. He doesn't do the D.C. dinner-party circuit; he prefers to eat at home with his wife, who still makes him do the dishes and take out the trash. Then they do crosswords or read. Because Ben Bernanke is a nerd.

He just happens to be the most powerful nerd on the planet.

Now, look, I'm a nerd, so I suppose I should have some support for this news.

And it cannot be doubted that Bernanke has been front and center of the news this entire year. Or rather, his policies and oversight have. Too, I have nothing against a guy who hasn't married a DC pundit and whirls around the DC cocktail party circuit like a banshee. In fact, I rather like that about Bernanke.

But seriously... person of the year? This presumes that Bernanke's policies will have far-reaching effects throughout the economy for a period of time extending beyond this year, and that's up for grabs, as far as I'm concerned.

Indeed, from what I've seen, Bernanke has both been a factor creating the problems we've encountered and acted as a bandaid now that those chickens have roosted.

If maintaining the status quo is the most newsworthy thing a person can do in this "Year of No," then perhaps the real person of the year should be Joe Lieberman, whose insistence on being a slave to the corporatocracy while millions of Americans sicken and die under his thumb will have a far greater impact on American and by extension world culture than the few dribs and drabs and wrist-slaps of the Fed chairman.

A better choice: how about rewarding the courage of Olympia Snowe for getting on board the healthcare reform bandwagon and insisting that, come what may of the bill, it should be subject to serious debate and discussion in the halls of the Senate? I get the title is for the person who has made the most news this year, but it seems to me that means bucking the partisan trends of political thought to actually get something done. Without her, there is no healthcare discussion much less the pitiful reform we're seeing take shape.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Instant Ignorant Dolts: Rick Stengel and Time magazine

By J. Thomas Duffy

I haven't done much on Glenn Beck here.

It's already satire, as soon as he opens his mouth, and we don't want to get into the daily "Look what Beck Said Now" circus.

His prodigious lunacy long ago granted him being grandfather in The Garlic's "Ignorant Dolt" roster.



It would be one thing if a major news periodical, like, say, Time, decided to look into the smegma that is Glen Beck, the lies, the racism, the fomenting of anarchy, and report on that, even acknowledging that the Flying Monkeys of the Right Wing Freak Show eat it up like happy soup.

But no.

Editor Rick Stengel has decided to do a puff, cheerleading piece that gives credibility to Beck's ranting lunacy by using the "straw man" argument that the liberal left is just as bad.

Funny, I don't remember the liberal left foaming at the mouth that The Commander Guy wasn't a U.S. Citizen, or continually depicting him in offensive racial caricatures.

If someone has a tape of "The Cheeseburger That Sweats" (aka Rush Limbaugh - (H/T Barry Crimmins)), singing "Bush, The Hapless Honkie", get it posted asap.

Time's cover story this week, written by David Von Drehle, is "Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?"

You can go read it, and it take some time, as you will have to gather yourself up off the floor, having fallen down laughing so many times, you may end up with some bruises.

Or, you can read Greg Mitchell's deconstruction of it:

New TIME Cover on Glenn Beck Ignores Facts, and Worse

I have no quarrel with TIME magazine devoting a cover to Glenn Beck -- so long as the accompanying story sticks to hard facts and harsh truths. The issue coming tomorrow, online today, sadly fails to do so in an apparent effort to woo the rightwing with a ludicrously "balanced" treatment of equally dangerous and wacko "ranting" coming from left and right.

It starts right away with a first paragraph that claims that only "liberal sources" estimated the protest crowd in D.C. last weekend as about 70,000, while conservatives say up to a million or more. Actually, virtually all mainstream media sources, along with nonpartisan factchecking organizations such as PolitiFact, cite the lower number.

[snip]

There's a scattering of extreme Beck quotes lost in many paragraphs on the money deals. And groups like Media Matters are accused of "cherry picking" the bad ones. But then, they are just part of the "rant industry" on the left. There's a long, long graf quoting Beck on 9/11 and the Freedom Towers but no mention of his attack on the 9/11 widows. It notes his assault on the Obama "czars" and "he has some radical-sounding sound bites to back it up."

Ignorance and possible racism are never raised, despite polls showing that frightening numbers of conservatives believe that Obama was born in Kenya or may, in fact, be the "anti-Christ."

There's more that Mitchell has, and also Glen Greenwald, taking Stengel and Time to task in his "Time Magazine: the liberal bias of facts".

It is also rather odd that Stengel would opt to puff up Beck in this week's Time, considering, just yesterday, Salon ran an excellent expose on Beck -- "Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck's life: Cleon Skousen was a right-wing crank whom even conservatives despised. Then Beck discovered him".

Beck is idolizing, and preaching the word of, a man whom both the Republican Conservatives AND the Mormons booted out, not wanting any part of him.

If you can't cut it with either of those two, man, you gotta be so far off-the-planet, the Hubbell Telescope couldn't find you.

Mitchell offers an update in his post:

Just got the print edition. In editor's note, Richard Stengel actually writes, "One of our jobs as journalists is to be the referee, the honest broker who sorts through the accusations and says, This is fact, and this is fantasy." Then explains that's why they put Von Drehle on Beck.

I guess Stengel hasn't gotten around to reading the Salon piece, or anything much else on Beck, and just ran with the "fantasy" stuff.

Rick, how about being that "honest broker" next week, and place on your cover The Garlic awarding you the Ignorant Dolt Crown and Sceptre.

You, Rick Stengel, are today's Instant Ignorant Dolt.


Bonus Links

Jamison Foser: How Time magazine enables Glenn Beck's lies

John Cook: Leftist 'Terrorizer' of Children Is Now Glenn Beck's Official Portraitist

David Weigel: Time Magazine Disputes Time Magazine’s Reporting

Steve Krakauer: MSNBC Forced To Talk About Glenn Beck

Will Bunch: UPDATED: Where Glenn Beck gets his ideas




(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Reflections on Time's people of the year

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you've probably heard by now, Time's Person of the Year for 2008 is, as was fully expected and as is richly deserved, Barack Obama. Seriously, did anyone even come close this year?

The runners-up are an interesting bunch: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Chinese film director Zhang Yimou, and someone named Sarah Palin.

It's far too early to assess Paulson's impact, though there's no denying his influence on the political and economic landscape not just of the U.S. but of the world. I'm not sure who this "Sarah Palin" is (for some reason, if I think back through the year that was, what comes to mind is a nagging cold sore), but Sarkozy certainly deserves to be on the list, having emerged, perhaps improbably, as Europe's leading statesman, and Zhang, the artist behind the spectacular Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, is a suitably ecclectic selection. (The piece at Time on Zhang is by Spielberg.)

On Zhang, I must admit that I'm not as much of a fan anymore. Once upon a time, back in the early '90s, when he was making Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern (which I would put on my list of the greatest films of all time -- a chillingly powerful masterpiece), The Story of Qiu Ju, and To Live (a brilliant journey through modern China), I thought he was one of cinema's finest directors, a bold and courageous voice speaking out, often through historical parable to avoid the censors, against tyranny and brutality, and specifically against the tyranny and brutality of his country's totalitarian regime.

But then he started making more crowd-pleasing epic entertainments like Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Curse of the Golden Flower. All three are magnificently beautiful movies, and all three are profoundly engaging, but, somewhere, the voice of protest and resistance was lost. Hero, like his earlier films, can be read as a defence of the individual against the state, but, ultimately, the message is that the glory of China, the glory so celebrated at the Olympics this year, requires the sacrifice of the individual to and/or by the state. The Curse of the Golden Flower, a fascinating mixture of Machiavelli and Shakespeare that may be too gorgeous for its own good (in a way, the movie equivalent of the gorgeous Gong Li, Zhang's frequent leading lady), ends on a similar note, with resistance utterly defeated by a brutal tyrant. Are there parables in there? Sure. But whatever parables there are are overwhelmed by the sheer spectacle of it all, the old Zhang vanquished by the new one, the protest replaced by unabashed nationalism, a celebration of the past, present, and future glory of China, with Zhang become one of its leading artistic cheerleaders -- for what was the opening ceremony in Beijing but nationalist cheerleading?