April 5, 2017

"You know, everybody's lying and the news is now about how everybody's lying."

That's what I said out loud after glancing at the front page of The Washington Post, which looked like this at the time.

(Click image to make it larger and clearer.) 



And now I'm looking at that one headline — "Don Lemon to Bill O’Reilly: 'I did cover your sexual harassment allegations. Did you?'" — and noticing the double and contradictory meanings to the word "cover." It can mean both to expose and to cloak.

ADDED SONG LYRIC: "This whole world is out there just trying to score/I've seen enough I don't want to see any more...."

AND:Sexual meaning of the word noted.

27 comments:

rhhardin said...

Advertisers cleve.

They did the same thing to Limbaugh on the Sandra Fluke slut remark.

Some advertisers fled and replacements came in. The old ones wanted back and Rush gave them the finger.

O'Reilly is a huge amount of Fox's revenue, so it's actually an attack on Fox.

traditionalguy said...

Ask CNN if they are lying. I suspect they are proud of their skills.

You can see the smirks on their faces ,as they spew passionate whoppers. And then Jeffrey Lord speaks and makes them all look like bad clowns.

David Begley said...

CNN is unwatchable. It just bashes Trump 24/7. Full blown advocates.

Birkel said...

Have advertisers fled Beyonce's social media presence because of her support of BLM.

Have advertisers fled "Hollywood mainstream" (i.e. Leftist) personalities who caused controversy? Which ones?

rhhardin said...

Remember that news is a business and audience is their product.

They do the best they can under that constraint.

They're not there to inform you.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Fox News has become quite a ratings success and very profitable in just 20 years or so. The MSM has mostly avoided reporting on that success and only focuses on negative stuff like this.

Yet they will spend barrels of ink writing about less successful networks and their talking heads like Al Gore's failed network, MSNBC, NPR etc. It is a joke.

Laslo Spatula said...

You're sixty-seven years old, you worked yourself into a position of Power and Prestige, and you now are not supposed to use that Power and Prestige to get laid?

This is not the America I know.

I am Laslo.

Kevin said...

"It can mean both to expose and to cloak."

Yes, the NYT "covered" the Susan Rice story yesterday with 15 pages of news before readers could find it, and a headline to make it appear the issue was really about Trump and Russia.

AllenS said...

"Cover" as in covering a news item, can simply mean covering the story with a pillow until it isn't alive anymore.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Hard to know what's really going on, too. You've got women who have been paid-off, (supposedly )- Then we enjoy an unrelenting Stalinist Leftwing Machine who will use any coordinated smear to take down a political foe.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Susan Rice is a known liar with no credibility.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

CNN is an arm to the democrat party and will cover for the D's and lie about Trump and Russia all day long.

Laslo Spatula said...

Criticize the Pence Alone-With-Women Method.

Criticize the O'Reilly Alone-With-Women Method.

Women in the workplace are a Slalom Course.

I am Laslo.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

I am no fan of O'Reilly, whose "I'm just a plain talkin' guy with a Harvard degree and I'm looking out for you, little person" schtick has always annoyed me. That said, the Left is doing to him what it has done with Milo - kill the messenger, so the message will not be heard.

I imagine they're doing their best to dig up dirt on Tucker Carlson.

Michael K said...

Fox has been the beneficiary of the MSM's leftist obsession since Reagan. The internet has been the alternate, along with Fox, for those who want less "screening" of news. Murdoch has done very well but, like most things, Fox is now in the hands of another generation that obeys Conquest's second law. " Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left wing."

The left thought Fox was Right Wing. It wasn't, just neutral, but Murdoch's sons want to be be invited to the best NYC cocktail parties and the network is edging left. Shep Smith is one but there are others I can't name because I don't watch it much.

Tucker Carlson is good and I do watch him sometimes. I think Megyn Kelly made a disastrous career decision.

Sprezzatura said...

"Women in the workplace are a Slalom Course."

Those examples don't prove this point. There's a simple solution to those two situations. Treat the gals the same way you would a dude. Not hard to do.

But, it can be a legit problem when gals (especially insanely hot and brilliant ones) come on to a dude above them. Strong willpower/restraint is the solution (imho), but in some situations the feeling of missed Fing can be hard (impossible?) to fully shake, even w/ all the other figurative fish.

Sprezzatura said...

"Fox has been the beneficiary of the MSM's leftist obsession since Reagan. The internet has been the alternate, along with Fox, for those who want less "screening" of news."

Presumably this means that cons have been the beneficiary of the post-Regan creation of Fox and con tubes.

That's why you had Reagan before such, and now you have DJT. Winning!

Hagar said...

Isn't O'Reilly a bit old for all that libido?
I mean, propositioning the ladies is one thing, but what if they accept?

Bob Ellison said...

"...noticing the double and contradictory meanings to the word "cover." It can mean both to expose and to cloak." I think "cover" doesn't mean "cloak" unless you use it with something like "up", as in "Nixon covered up his team's violations."

Worse than that is "to table", as in "We should table Obamacare repeal and replace." That usage is all over the news on many items. According to the Interwebs,the verb "to table" can mean either to postpone consideration of something or to propose it for consideration. The latter (propose) is, I think, the proper meaning; the former (postpone) is bogus and comes from people who don't know the term "to shelve", which means to postpone consideration.

Birkel said...

@ PB&J

Another solution, a la Pence, is to stop temptation from materializing before willpower must be exercised. Never shop while hungry. And if you surround yourself with tempting food, no amount of willpower will keep it in your cupboard, forever uneaten.

Nonapod said...

I've never particularly liked Bill "@W#$! it! We're doing it live!" O'Reilly. He's just too much of a charmless overbearing blowhard. He doesn't seem to have enough self-awareness to have much of a sense of humor, unlike some other conservative pundits. I doubt this latest fiasco will be his undoing though.

Michael K said...

Peanut is unaware that libertarians exist and are annoyed by leftist spin on everything.

That's one reason I am pleased to see Rand Paul gaining in influence on Trump since Ryan failed in his basic responsibility to keep campaign promises.

Unlike Ryan, Paul has had a real job.

buwaya said...

Its a propaganda war between factions of the US polity. This is as usual, but its been growing more intense. Its not just politics, but that the stakes have grown with the extension of the state to a degree that it is now a fight between entire subcultures, like the Tamil-Sinhalese conflict, or more aptly the prelude to the Spanish Civil War, as both sides are themselves fragmented coalitions.

Words are weapons, in such a war even the truth is simply an enhancer to firepower, increasing the velocity of your shots.

Some people are upset because of the ambiguity of it all, or the inability to extract a useful truth out of all this. It is easily resolved however by understanding the situation as a war. They hate you, you hate them, they will do you down any chance they get, and if you know whats good for you you will do the same to them. This wont end until you have your foot on their necks, or they you.

John henry said...

I've found O'reilly unwatchable for years. Part of the reason is that Liberty Cable does not carry Fox News unless I pay extra and I'm not willing.

But back when I did get Fox, O'Reilly annoyed me to no end. I used to watch him, sort of, while my wife did and I was generally doing something on my laptop.

I think the single biggest annoyance, like fingernalis on a blackboard was when he would tell someone he disagreed with "You know that is not true".

If someone says something that they know is not true, doesn't that make them a liar? If they are lying, why not be honest and call them out on it?

It always seemed petty and small to me.

As someone else said above: Don't worry about resisting temptation. Just stay away from it. I agree 100%. I am horrible at resisting temptation when it is within reach. I stay away from it and it is much easier to resist.



John Henry

buwaya said...

Anyway, re Pence, Catholic teaching (down to the elementary cathechism-class level) isnt simply that one must resist temptation, but that one must consciously avoid temptation. Pence is sound there according to my tradition.

In any case Pence and all like him are also prudent in a worldly way, as it has been SOP for the press to imply immorality at every opportunity, and public figures have been pursued by photographers since the 1940s. The lesson is clear, do not give the papparazzi the opportunity to take such pictures. BTW, I think this is why mistresses have become unpopular where once they were ubiquitous.

FullMoon said...

Three women are suing Fox for discrimination because a lower level, off air manager type hurt their feelings . They are making the TV rounds. No doubt whatever in my mind, this O'Rielly/Fox story is co-ordinated.

Anthony said...

Two observations:

1) As Iowahawk once sagely tweeted: "Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving."

2) This has become the standard playbook for the Left: Find someone to make "sexual harassment" allegations, allow the MSM to run with the allegations, and hope the target can become radioactive. This, of course, only applies to conservatives.