Mad Bitch

A few weeks back Dana Milbank was complaining about Huffington Post blogger Nico Pitney getting a question at a Presidential press conference and even went so far as to call him a dick. This was of course all in the name of "journalistic integrity".

Today Milbank and his partner in crime Chris Cilliza released a video joking that our current Secretary of State and former first lady, Hillary Clinton, is a "Mad Bitch".



Hardy fuckin har.

Honestly I don't even want them to be fired or suspended. I want Milbank and Cilliza to be the straw that broke the Washington Post's back and brings them to full on financial ruin and collapse. That's what would happen in a just world.

Village VS The Blogosphere

Nico Pitney and Dana Milbank squared off today on David Kurtz's "Reliable Sources" show on CNN.



Notice as I mentioned last week, Dana Milbank still won't actually tell the audience what the question was because he knew that it would undermine his whole argument. And it looked like he wanted to gag when he had to admit that it was in fact a legitimate question. I can't say for sure that the audience would say Pitney got the better of the exchange because Milbank did what Villagers are most famous for, as soon as someone calls them out they point to another shiny object in the room. It went from being about the question and the process by which it came to be asked, to Milbank taking issue with what someone else on HuffPo which literally publishes hundreds if not thousands of columns every day, said to criticize him. And then he comes with a bullshit false equivalence hypothetical question. So maybe people at home watching thought it was a draw but for people who really are into politics and political writing I think Milbank just got exposed as a jealous hypcrite. At least from where I am sitting.

(h/t John Cole.

Update: Milbank made my point for me better than I ever could.

Per Nico Pitney:

The only thing that surprised me was when Dana turned to me after our initial sparring and called me a "dick" in a whispered tone (the specific phrase was, I believe, "You're such a dick").

Conspicuously Absent

As shitty a job as our mainstream media is doing at actually bringing us the news, its amazing the sense of entitlement and territorialism they still harbor towards anyone who they see as below them.

Such is the case with the media's faux poutrage over President Obama calling on Huffington Post blogger Nico Pitney at Tuesday's presser. Nevermind that President Obama did nothing to hide the fact of WHY he was calling on Pitney.

THE PRESIDENT: Nico, I know that you, and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?

You can't get much more transparent than that.

Yet and still the masters of the universe, in their own minds at least, were mortally offended that President Obama would dare pick a lowly blogger (who just so happened to have been changing the game with his coverage of the situation/revolution in Iran with new media) rather one of the their annointed bretheren. So they decide to make it into some kind of a faux outrage full of false equivalences. They want to make this situations some how akin to President George W. Bush's ACTUAL long term White House Press Core plant "Jeff Gannon"

James Dale Guckert (born 1957) posed as a conservative columnist under the pseudonym Jeff Gannon and was given credentials as a White House reporter between 2003 and 2005, eventually being employed by the news organization Talon News during the latter part of this period. Gannon first gained national attention during a presidential press conference on January 26, 2005, when he asked United States President George W. Bush a question that some in the press corps considered "so friendly it might have been planted."[1] Gannon routinely obtained daily passes to White House briefings, attending four Bush press conferences and appearing regularly at White House press briefings. Although he did not qualify for a Congressional press pass, Gannon was given daily passes to White House press briefings "after supplying his real name, date of birth and Social Security number."[2] Gannon came under public scrutiny for his lack of a journalistic background prior to his work with Talon[3][4] and his involvement with various homosexual escort service websites using the professional name "Bulldog". Gannon resigned from Talon News on February 8, 2005. Continuing to use the name Gannon, he has since created his own official homepage and worked for a time as a columnist for the Washington Blade newspaper, where he confirmed he was gay after he was outed as a homosexual prostitute.[5]

Now so far I have seen at least 3 columns in major MSM newspapers framing this situations as some kind of scandal or bad idea for the White House. I won't excerpt from them but you can read CBS's Mark Knoller's offering here, The Washington Post's Dana Millbank's offering here, and the New York Times' Kate Phillips offering here. They have two things in common.

1. They all come off look like whiny little bitches.

2. They do not include the text of the question which is the subject of the columns.

How in the hell can you try to call out the President for having a "media plant" asking him a question without including the actual question? Isn't that, like, a major part of the story? And are we supposed to believe its a coincidence that none of these three columns included the text of the question?

Sorry, not buying it.

Lets look at the question itself.

Q: Yes, I did, I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions last night from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online, and one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working towards?

Now that my friends is what you call the OPPOSITE of a softball question. Add in the fact that it was a question offered from an Iranian suffering through the government's crackdown in Iran and you would have to say it was at least one of, if not THE, most important question of the presser. Yet the mainstream media prima donas don't even think the question was worth referring to.

One has to wonder why.

Is it because they know that if a reader were to actually see the question and realize that it wasn't a softball and that it was legitimate that they would quickly lose interest in these assholes' hurt feelings?

I know my answer to the question, you are welcome to weigh in with your own.

Here is how Mark Knoller responded to my queries about it on Twitter.

his question wasn't the story. the WH arrangements for him to ask his question was the story.

Now what did those arrangements consist of? Did they fly him cross country? Did they give him an alias and a cover story as Bush did with gay male prostitute/media plant James Guckert/Jeff Gannon?

Nope. They just called him and said they "might" call on him for a question.

The sad thing is I normally enjoy Knoller's work. But this is what we call where I am from, a bitch move.

And no matter how they try to make it into something else it all comes down to Pitney getting an opportunity that they didn't get. Shame on President Obama for recognizing a person who was doing the job of reporting on Iran better than the rest of the establishment bums.

Nah, shame on the haters for giving up their journalistic integrity to lash out at the White House because they feel "disrespected".

If you don't like it I have a solution for you.

DO YOUR DAMN JOB BETTER.

That is all.

I'M the President, Bitches!

It was great to hear President Obama clap back on the right wing stooges which now inhabit the White House press core at today's press conference. It was particularly satisfying to hear him absolutely destroy some of the meme's put out there by Republicans in Congress who are opposing his agenda. All in all I thought he brought it today and got the messaging back.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Some highlights from the New York Times transcript:

First here is an exchange between the President and Niko Pitney of HuffPo whom has been doing a grat job basically live blogging the Iranian revolution and who set of a bunch of faux outrage by Villagers and right wingers because he was given a question:

Since we're on Iran, I know Niko Pitney (ph) is here from the Huffington Post.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

MR. OBAMA: Niko (ph), I know that you and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?

QUESTION: Yes, I did, but I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions on tonight from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online. And one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of -- of what the demonstrators there are working to achieve?

MR. OBAMA: Well, look, we didn't have international observers on the ground. We can't say definitively what exactly happened at polling places throughout the country.

What we know is that a sizable percentage of the Iranian people themselves, spanning Iranian society, consider this election illegitimate. It's not an isolated instance, a little grumbling here or there. There is significant questions about the legitimacy of the election.

And so, ultimately, the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, not in the eyes of the United States.

And that's why I've been very clear, ultimately, this is up to the Iranian people to decide who their leadership is going to be and the structure of their government.

What we can do is to say, unequivocally, that there are sets of international norms and principles about violence, about dealing with the peaceful dissent, that -- that spans cultures, spans borders.

And what we've been seeing over the Internet and what we've been seeing in news reports violates those norms and violates those principles.

I think it is not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that -- that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the Iranian people. We hope they take it.

Next up we have Major Garrett channelling his inner asshole and trying to make news whom instead comes away looking foolish after President Obama corrects the record.

Major Garrett? Where's Major?

QUESTION: Right here, sir.

In your opening remarks, sir, you said about Iran that you were appalled and outraged. What took you so long?

(CROSSTALK)

MR. OBAMA: I don't think that's accurate. Track what I've been saying. Right after the election I said that we had profound concerns about the nature of the election, but that it was not up to us to determine what the outcome was.

As soon as violence broke out -- in fact, in anticipation of potential violence -- we were very clear in saying that violence was unacceptable, that that was not how governments operate with respect to their people.

So we've been entirely consistent, Major, in terms of how we've approached this. My role has been to say the United States is not going to be a foil for the Iranian government to try to blame what's happening on the streets of Tehran on the CIA or on the White House, that this is an issue that is led by and given voice to the frustrations of the Iranian people.

And so we've been very consistent the first day, and we're going to continue to be consistent in saying this is not an issue about the United States, this is about an issue of the Iranian people.

What we've also been consistent about is saying that there are some universal principles, including freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, making sure that governments are not using coercion and violence and repression in terms of how they interact with peaceful demonstrators. And we have been speaking out very clearly about that fact.

Classic PWNAGE Aimed at Chip Saltsman's right wing framed question.

MR. OBAMA: Chip?

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

Following up on Major's question, some Republicans on Capitol Hill, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, for example, have said that up to this point your response on Iran has been timid and weak.

Today it sounded a lot stronger. It sounded like the kind of speech John McCain has been urging you to give, saying that those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history, referring to an iron fist in Iran, deplore, appalled, outraged.

Were you influenced at all by John McCain and Lindsey Graham accusing you of being timid and weak?

MR. OBAMA: What do you think?

(LAUGHTER)

Look, the -- you know, I think John McCain has genuine passion about many of these international issues. And, you know, I think that all of us share a belief that we want justice to prevail.

But only I'm the president of the United States. And I've got responsibilities in making certain that we are continually advancing our national security interests and that we are not used as a tool to be exploited by other countries.

snip

QUESTION: By speaking so strongly today, aren't you giving the leadership in Iran the fodder to make those arguments...

MR. OBAMA: You know...

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... that it is about the United States?

MR. OBAMA: Look, I mean, I think that we can parse this as much as we want. I think if you look at the statements that I've made, they've been very consistent. I just made a statement on Saturday in which we said we deplored the violence.

And so I think that in the hothouse of Washington, there may be all kinds of stuff going back and forth in terms of Republican critics versus the administration.

That's not what is relevant to the Iranian people. What's relevant to them right now is are they going to have their voices heard. And, you know, frankly, a lot of them aren't paying a lot of attention to what's being said on Capitol Hill and probably aren't spending a lot of time thinking about what's being said here.

They're trying to figure out how can they make sure justice is served in Iran.

Here is what might have been the most imporatant answer of the presser for progressives though and that was President Obama's pushback on the right wing talking points about a public plan option in health care reform.

QUESTION: Wouldn't that drive private insurance out of business?

MR. OBAMA: Why would it drive private insurance out of business? If -- if private -- if private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical.

Now, the -- I think that there's going to be some healthy debates in Congress about the shape that this takes. I think there can be some legitimate concerns on the part of private insurers that if any public plan is simply being subsidized by taxpayers endlessly that over time they can't compete with the government just printing money, so there are going to be some I think legitimate debates to be had about how this private plan takes shape.

But just conceptually, the notion that all these insurance companies who say they're giving consumers the best possible deal, if they can't compete against a public plan as one option, with consumers making the decision what's the best deal, that defies logic, which is why I think you've seen in the polling data overwhelming support for a public plan.

And this was an absolute ass kicking handed out to Chuck Todd. It looked like a Principal disciplining a kindergartener.

MR. OBAMA: Chuck Todd?

QUESTION: Mr. President, I want to follow up on Iran. You have avoided, twice, spelling out consequences. You've hinted that there would be from the international community, if they continue to violate -- and you said "violate these norms." You seemed to hint that there -- there are human rights violations taking place.

MR. OBAMA: I'm not hinting. I think that when a young woman gets shot on the street when she gets out of her car, that's a problem.

QUESTION: Then why won't you spell out the consequences that the Iranian people...

MR. OBAMA: Because I think that we don't know yet how this thing is going to play out. I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I'm not. OK?

QUESTION: Shouldn't -- I mean, shouldn't the world...

(CROSSTALK)

MR. OBAMA: I answered -- I answered...

QUESTION: ... present regime know that there are consequences?

MR. OBAMA: I answered your question, which is that we don't yet know how this is going to play out. OK?

I will be the first to admit that President Obama hasn't been perfect so far, but he is a HELL of a lot better than any of the alternatives. Sometimes it takes days like today to remind all of us of that.