MSNBC as Mean and Dishonest as ever

The Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann shows on MSNBC contain all of the information necessary for any mature and thoughtful viewer to be able to deduce that Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann are intentionally mean and dishonest. One reason every viewer has all the information needed to deduce that MSNBC lies to us is because their conclusions are based on logical fallacies – usually because their conclusions are leaps of logic that are simply not substantiated by their premises. Another reason every viewer has all the information needed to deduce that MSNBC lies to us is because they contradict themselves.

The logical fallacies and self contradictions of MSNBC are often so obvious that they cannot be accidental. Consider that Rachel Maddow is a Rhodes Scholar and thus she is smart enough to avoid such obvious fallacies. Therefore, we know that the lies of MSNBC are intentional.

We will look at several examples.

Also, if any viewers watch FOX News or attend the Tea Parties, then those viewers will know that the MSNBC frequently commits slander against FOX and the Tea Parties, but I don’t need to ask you to believe that MSNBC is dishonest for these reasons because we can deduce examples of how MSNBC is intentionally mean and dishonest by simply watching MSNBC.

Also, any viewers could do independent research and discover that MSNBC coverage contradicts other coverage of the same event and that the other coverage seems more honest, but I don’t need to ask you to believe that MSNBC is dishonest for these reasons because we can deduce examples of how MSNBC is intentionally mean and dishonest by simply watching MSNBC.

What I would really like to know is why MSNBC is intentionally mean and dishonest – but that will have to be a future article.

Pretty much all media outlets are biased, and although few are as biased as MSNBC, almost all are biased in the same direction as MSNBC, so another thing I would really like to know is why the media are so biased in the same direction– but that will have to be a future article.

The audience of MSNBC contains some smart people whom I’ve met personally, so another future article will have to be about why the MSNBC audience is blind to the intentionally mean and dishonest nature of MSNBC. An interesting clue is that when Olbermann bashed Hillary Clinton in support of Obama, Hillary supporters thought Olbermann was being mean and dishonest! – but only that one time!

The first time I can recall watching MSNBC was around January 2008 while I was flipping around looking for news on the Presidential primaries. I switched over to MSNBC and saw this guy with slicked back white hair in the middle of a rant. In just 30 seconds, I could see that he had masterfully honed an image as the most sanctimonious and self righteous guy in America – more than any televangelist. Then after about a minute, I realized that his rant primarily targeted George Bush, so I kept watching out of curiosity because George Bush was not even one of the candidates. After 10 minutes of ranting, he finally finished. I had never seen anything like that on TV before. I couldn’t believe there was an audience for such a mean and dishonest show. He had ranted for 10 minutes without giving me any useful or factual information – just opinionated rants! – about a man who wasn’t even one of the candidates!

I learned later that day that I had been watching the epitome of douchebaggery known as Keith Olbermann.  Nevertheless, throughout the campaigns of 2008, I watched about an hour a day of MSNBC (mostly Dan Abrams) because it is valuable to know what every side is thinking, and although Keith Olbermann was their most popular host, I quickly stopped watching Olbermann because he was the meanest and least honest of any persons having their own TV show. Then MSNBC replaced Dan Abrams with Rachel Maddow because Abrams wasn't mean enough and he wasn't biased enough. I then stopped watching  Maddow because she seemed to be competing with Olbermann for the title of meanest and least honest person having their own show.

Consider that within days after Sarah Palin became the vice presidential candidate, I watched Olbermann respond to a viewer from Alaska. Apparently Olbermann had belittled Palin on a previous show for installing a tanning bed in the Governor’s mansion, and the helpful viewer explained to Olbermann that it was not a shallow vanity thing at all, and that tanning beds are very important in Alaska to counter the lack of sunlight, which can lead to mood disorders. I then honestly thought that Olbermann was about to apologize and thank the viewer, but instead, I witnessed quite possibly the most douchey thing I have ever seen on TV. Olbermann ranted about how Sarah Palin should resign given that that she has mood disorders, and then he ranted about how stupid the viewer was, and THEN he announced in a booming reverberating voice that this viewer was THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD!

Every few weeks, I check back in to evaluate MSNBC, partly to see if they have improved, but mostly to learn what the enemies of freedom are thinking.  Today, I watched Maddow enthusiastically spew another series of nasty logical fallacies that constitute a good enough example to warrant this – my first article about MSNBC.

First, note that MSNBC is obsessed with Fox News. Whereas, MSNBC bashes FOX News constantly, FOX News rarely mentions MSNBC other than to brag about having superior ratings.

Second, note that MSNBC also hates the Tea Parties, Sarah Palin, Republicans, and anyone who embarrasses or effectively opposes the authoritarian left.  Although, Dan Abrams primarily supported the authoritarian left, he would occasionally expose corruption on the left – and now he’s gone.

As much as MSNBC unfairly bashes opponents of the authoritarian left, they unfairly support the left by ignoring evidence, fabricating evidence, and making excuses for them.

The first 10 minutes of what I saw was a revisionist telling of the ACORN scandal exposed by James O'Keefe starting seven months ago. Of course, if you don't watch FOX News regularly, then you probably know very little about this ACORN scandal because all other news outlets did their best to bury the story, and some even bashed O’Keefe and the news outlets that broke the story. Democratic Party Attorneys General in multiple states threatened to prosecute – not ACORN – but O’Keefe!

You see, ACORN has millions of dollars and hundreds of powerful friends, such as the President of the United States and Andy Stern, President of SEIU, who meets regularly with the President of the United States.

Barack Obama has a long history with ACORN. He helped funnel money to them when he was on the board of a more respectable non profit organization which was thus able to attract donors who wouldn’t have knowingly given directly to a less respectable organization like ACORN. Obama also helped train ACORN to use the Community Reinvestment Act to force banks to give more subprime loans to minorities who could not afford those loans. When Obama was campaigning, he told an audience of mostly ACORN and SEIU members that they would be helping him make policy when he became the President. An interesting side note is that in some locations, ACORN and SEIU are basically the same organization.

Now let’s get to the true story, which is pretty amazing. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles dressed as a pimp and a prostitute and went into five ACORN offices explaining that they wanted ACORN to help them buy a house and file their taxes by helping them to hide the fact that they would be using the house to run their prostitution business. They also requested help from ACORN to bring 13 year old girls from El Salvador to work in this prostitution business. Every ACORN office agreed to help them in every way and suggested ways to achieve all of their illegal goals. One employee even admitted to murder, although to be fair, there was one employee who finally decided that he would not help them if they insisted on using 13 year old girls from El Salvador.

We know this because O’Keefe had a hidden camera, and we saw much longer clips of these videos much sooner on FOX News than on any other media outlet. O’Keefe said that we could watch the entire unedited videos, which were about four hours each, on Andrew Breitbart’s website.

One of the most amazing things is that anyone at ACORN believed O’Keefe and Giles were a pimp and prostitute. You can clearly see them in the ACORN offices on the video dressed like two preppy college students going to a fraternity party where the theme was “pimps and ho’s”. Also, Hannah looked like she has never been sick or used a drug a single time in her entire life, which is astronomically unlikely for a prostitute.

O’Keefe initially released only one video, and ACORN said it was a fluke and that they immediately fired those employees. ACORN also said that O’Keefe and Giles had approached other ACORN offices and been turned away. Then a few days later, O’Keefe released a second video, which prompted more lies and firings from ACORN. Every few days after that, this pattern repeated itself until five ACORN offices had been exposed on video.

One employee admitted to murder, and another said his contacts in Tijuana could help get the 13 year old girls across the border.

First, consider that all other news organizations tried their best to protect ACORN, that ACORN has hundreds of powerful friends including the President of the United States, and that ACORN has millions of dollars. Therefore, ANY news that could be used to defend ACORN would have been distributed as quickly and as widely as possible, and yet no news in ACORN's defense came out – until today.

When the scandal first broke seven months ago, James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart, whose website hosted the videos, claimed on FOX News that the entire unedited videos were online for anyone to view. Therefore, if those videos were NOT available online, we would have heard about it, and yet Rachel Maddow is just now saying (seven months later) that the full unedited video was not available until now.

Maddow then goes on to claim that O'Keefe wasn't really dressed like a pimp while he was inside the California ACORN office because as he walked out and we see his sleeve, and he is no longer wearing a fur coat, which proves that he didn’t have it inside with him! (Maddow didn’t think of the possibility that it was folded over his arm.) Maddow then explains that O'’Keefe’s  shirt appears to be white with stripes like a business casual shirt, and that a real pimp would never wear such a shirt. Therefore, she claims that he must have been dressed like a businessman, and that he must have therefore not not been trying to pretend he was a pimp after all. (Maddow did not consider the fact that O’Keefe is not a real pimp, and that he was probably just improvising a stereotypical pimp costume.) Maddow also threw in many jabs at FOX for promoting a false story. All that from a blurry sleeve!

Then Maddow shows video where O'Keefe claims he wants help to bring under age girls across the border to work as prostitutes, which directly contradicts Maddow's previous claim that O'Keefe and Hannah Giles were not really presenting themselves as a pimp and prostitute. Although Maddow showed the video where the CA ACORN employee says they should bring the underage girls across the border in Tijuana because he has contacts there, Maddow then explains that the ACORN employee was only pretending to go along with them because he actually called a particular policeman right after that and reported them. Now IF he called that policeman, and if that is WHY he called that policeman, then why did ACORN fire him immediately, and why are we just now hearing about this call that could have exonerated him as well as the CA ACORN office? Also, if the CA ACORN office is not guilty, then why did it exhibit the same pattern of corruption as the other four ACORN offices?

Maddow kept bashing FOX and implying that the other ACORN videos were similarly edited to frame ACORN. Of course, her viewers wouldn’t suspect otherwise unless they regularly watched FOX News. Then again, even die hard MSNBC fans could have observed the speculative nature of the blurry sleeve defense as well as the Maddow’s self contradiction about them not claiming to be a pimp and prostitute.

Maddow also showed a video that was actually from another ACORN office where O'Keefe and Giles were trying to get help buying a house, and Maddow explained that there is nothing wrong with buying a house even if you are pimp and a prostitute and that it only seemed like ACORN was helping them to commit a crime because of video editing. However, if you watch FOX News, then you know that in every ACORN office, O'Keefe explained clearly and repeatedly that they wanted to buy a house to run their prostitution business out of it, and that they wanted ACORN to help them buy the house, to help them hide the nature of their business from the IRS, and to help them bring 13 year old girls in from El Salvador to be prostitutes. Consider that FOX aired about 20 times more video footage of the ACORN scandals than did MSNBC.

After the ACORN story, Maddow dedicated about one minute to a new story where Maddow said that the government bailouts have actually turned a profit. Perhaps she doesn’t know that the hundreds of billions given to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, GM, and many banks … may never be recovered. Nor was she at all curious how it is possible during a recession for a handful of financial institutions that were failing last year to suddenly be so profitable that they could replay their bailout with a dividend. Apparently, the only thing Maddow did know in this one minute story was how to bash capitalists, Republicans, FOX News, etc.

Of course, Maddow doesn't know the truth because she is not that well informed – because she doesn't watch FOX News.