February 14, 2011
Cokie Roberts and Renee Montagne talking about Republicans on NPR.
The tone and inflection as they hit key words like "Gingrich" couldn't be more sarcastic and contemptuous. I mean, if they amped it up any more, the regular NPR listeners might start to find it inappropriate.
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Isn't Cokie Roberts the daughter of that courrpt Speaker of the House who was whacked by the New Orleans mob in a plane crash?
And the other guy's name sounds like he is a frog.
Who could give a shit what they think about anything?
Cokie Roberts: God's cruel little joke on all the rest of us, or what...?
It would be like listening to Mets fans talk about baseball.
I mean they follow the sport but they don't know what the hell they are talking about.
How often does a "regular" NPR listener take a dump? I'm betting quite often as the shit they listen to must top them off "regularly".
Yeah listening to that is better than Jamie Lee Curtiss's yogurt.
They're probably about as contemptuous as I would be talking about "Dodd" or "Frank" or "Kerry" or "Pelosi" or "Reid" or "Obama" or... The main difference is that I wouldn't be putting on a faux pose of nonpartisan impartiality. Now THAT'S something to be contemptuous of!
Played the clip, sounded like the same old NPR I quit listening to years ago. Didn't hear anything particularly venomous, or inisightful either. What caught your ear Ann?
But partisanship is WHY people listen to NPR. And fine for them, what I hate is that I pay for it. Let NPR listeners pay for it like Rush and Shawn and Michael and Michael listeners do.
Our way grows jobs!!!!!!
Their way is the job killer!
Trey
Cokie Roberts! Jeez and we were just talking about layabouts being on the govt gravy train.
Humiliating herself publicly once again, a mere two months ago:
ABC’s Cokie Roberts [...] Calls Tax Cuts ‘Giving Something Away’
Seriously. That's hardcore, weapons grade Biden-level stupidity, right there, y'know...?
These girls are like the bigoted relatives you only see at Thanksgiving and funerals. Nice people, pretty easy to take until the inevitable point that their conversation starts to include condescending remarks about "those" people.
Small minds with a big megaphone. That's all it is.
I would rather listen to Corky.
Just sayn'
Wait was that too mean?
Can't wait till their taxpayer funding is yanked. Let them propagandize on Soro's dime, not mine.
You can't run for President by agreeing with the current office-holder, so should anyone be surprised that those with an eye for the job disagree with Obama? So how is it news that they do?
What's Gingrich supposed to say? Vote for me -- I'm just like Obama, but White? I don't think that will work.
I didn't listen to the whole clip, but I don't hear the same things althouse does.
That is okay, I know Cokie and Renee are tools, but mention Gingrich and say Dede Scozzafava in the same sentance and you will hear lots of inflection about Gingrich from true conservatives.
Did I mention Newt is dead to me?
And when is Congress going to cut all federal funding from NPR?
NPR is still trying to pretend it didn't start out as Pacifica?
I didn't hear too much contempt, but she does have to go back to that nest of true believers and all her friends and prove her loyalty.
It will be interesting to watch if Obama is attacked, or losing, that they argue principles and not indulge in their obvious shared principles with Obama and support of him.
If they can pull that off I'd be impressed.
For an NPR palate cleanser here is the Gene Simmons interview by Terry Gross.
They are afraid of being run off NPR and unlike Juan Williams are not qualified for another gig.
(The Crypto Jew)
I don’t mind it if people speak contemptuously of Gingrich, I know I DO, and I don’t have any connection to NPR.
"Did I mention Newt is dead to me?"
I had a reasonably good opinion of Gingrich, but his recent defense of ethanol subsidies really turned me off.
Sad. Cokie was always the sane one on the liberal side in the 1980s and 90s when she was paired with Sam Donaldson against George Will on the Sunday morning "This Week" panel. Too bad she's decided pandering to the Kos wing of NPR's listenership is the way to remain relevent.
I suppose if I look hard enough I could find a reason that Cokie Roberts' opinion matters, but its never been very obvious.
"The tone and inflection as they hit key words..."
Ever notice how many NPR on-air voices speak like they have clothespins on their noses?
I'm with Dr Squid here. Sounded like pretty banal usual NPR SOP to me. I've been a long-time inverterate listener to NPR (know your enemy) since the Iranian hostage crises, so perhaps have become inured to it all. NPR usually does a fairly good straight-down-the-middle job on their "slice of life" segments on American figures of all stripes and cultural/tech/economic/financial changes & trends.; it's only when they get to the overtly political stuff that their leftist DNA rises to the fore like a starved 90lb Muskie hitting the hook full-tilt boogie.
But DrSquid is right, pretty tame stuff to me. Damn, somebody is more spring-loaded to despise NPR than ME!?
Normal, Normal.
Regards — Cliff
From the Village Voice, 11 MAR 08
David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'
"I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.
As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.
These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me.
We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."
This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong."
With you all the way, EDH. And notice how they almost ALWAYS end the conversation/report with a clipped, foreshortened almost schoolmarmish abrupt tailing off of the voice...e.g.,"...THankyourenee.."
I often wondered how many invitations and friends Mamet lost after that piece.
He describes what I imagine it must be like to live in Madison, WI.
Actually, he describes what it's like to live in my little town.
Confession:
I listen to The Current for great new music.
And I never ever donate.
Last week they were intoning about the demise of their little project should the GOP plan to defund NPR actually occur, so we should all call/write our representatives blah blah blah.
Yet last fall, NPR was claiming they get very little federal funding at all, just a few percent.
Well, which is it?
Can't be both a small number and a catastrophic death blow.
Ever since Newt did the global warming PSA holding hands with Pelosi Galore, his currency among Conservatives is about the same as Romney's.
I don't know. I've heard Cokie Roberts many times and she has that chronic sarcastic inflection in her voice with any subject.
Aside from that wouldn't you expect Presidential hopefuls speaking at a CPAC convention to speak poorly of a liberal Democratic President? So essentially, a non-news event.
Pogo: "And I never ever donate."
You may not donate but you do contribute. Hopefully not for long, hopefully Cokie and Renee can be slogging around to potential advertisers and signing them up to pay their pay.
Newt Gingrich deserves contempt. He's a RINO and betrayer of Tea Party principles.
NPR would hook a lot more of the backwoods rubes if their news readers took the Monster Truck announcer approach.
Demo SMACKdoowwwwnnnnn -down -down!
Cokie's name at birth ..... Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs. Say what?
"Ever since Newt did the global warming PSA holding hands with Pelosi Galore"
I missed that. Ugh.
Driving back from South Dakota yesterday I heard multiple appeals from Minnesota Public Radio, to the effect that all listeners needed to write Congress *now* to prevent the neanderthals from defunding NPR. They were using a government-supported facility to lobby for more government support.
It is like a state government employee being allowed to put political and employment solicitations in official government communications. Or, say, putting "Support AFSCME Now" on the back of your driver's license.
I think a lot of people like Cokie Roberts at NPR give themselves a pass on such ethical niceties and express their sense of entitlement and genius via such snark.
edutcher said...
Ever since Newt did the global warming PSA holding hands with Pelosi Galore, his currency among Conservatives is about the same as Romney's
================
People like Romney, Christie, Jeb Bush, Pawlenty are centrist-conservatives. Because they had/have to govern outside Alaska or the Deep South. And even someone from the Deep South in a governors seat or heading national Republicans - Hailey Barbour - has said and done things that "taint his True Believer Purity Test".
People that haven't had to govern whole states can afford the luxury of being a Santorum of the Right or a Pelosi of the Left.
Romney did things governing Massachusetts that wouldn't fly in Mississippi. Go figure. Smarter conservatives understand this. Governors answer to the voters of their state, not "The Cause". Even Reagan, who signed into law some pretty liberal, welfare state law as Gov.
Gingrich, on the other hand, is an opportunist and a motor mouth that says different things to different audiences.
Conservatives True Believers face their own "test". Is it better to lose with "purity" and only carry 5-8 States in 2012. Or is it better to nominate and run a national candidate who can win? An Obama win means he likely will veto anything the Republicans do to try and change what Obama-Pelosi-Reid did from 2009-2011. An Obama win means he gets to replace Scalia, Ginsburg, possibly Kennedy and perhaps Thomas.
Religious Right purity tests come with a cost.
The tone and inflection as they hit key words like "Gingrich" couldn't be more sarcastic and contemptuous.
After carefully listening to that story twice, I don't know what the professor is talking about. The only thing out of the ordinary was the chirpy inflection on "John Boehner."
It's true Cokie Roberts does appear to have a clothespin on her nose, but that affects every word out of her mouth.
NPR must have a crappy retirement plan, because their commentators hang on long after they've ceased to be interesting.
Cokie is aiming to be the new Daniel Schorr, I guess. At a certain point the debilities of age make it too difficult to talk without pulling off the mask of impartiality
I remember when Cokie and the others at NPR referred to Newt as House Minority Leader, or former House minority Leader for six months after he was elected Speaker of the House--a constitutional office. I also remember the whole bunch at NPR being absolutely giddy at the re-election of Clinton. I still listen, but I notice the tone and make allowances.
FLS: If everyone but you hears something that you do not hear what should you do? If it is a matter of tone, since you are clearly not deaf, then it could be a matter of familiarity. You are accustomed to hearing these topics discussed in these tones and hear nothing out of the ordinary because I assume you live in a world of like minded people, people like Cokie and Renee who cloak their disdain, barely, with those hideously reasoned inflections
I only ever tune in to NPR anymore to count the seconds before they say something intolerant and provincial. Cokie used to be a reliable source for the left perspective . . . and she still is. This is what the left is today - snide, false, tactical, angry, and ugly.
Madison Man wrote: "What's Gingrich supposed to say? Vote for me -- I'm just like Obama, but White? I don't think that will work."
Well, it would get all us racist tea party types to vote for him.
Trey
"Can't wait till their taxpayer funding is yanked."
Really?
Do you honestly believe that the Republicans will cease funding for NPR?
As much as I'd like them to, I do not believe they will actually do it.
If they don't, we'll know that we have to get rid of the Republican Party.
If Republicans can't stop funding Democrat Party propoganda within our own government ... then what use do we have for Republicans any more?
My prediction is that Republicans will continue funding of NPR.
I'd be willing to bet on it.
Any takers?
Any takers?
Call it 50% to absolute cut-off and you've got yourself a $5 bet.
"Romney did things governing Massachusetts that wouldn't fly in Mississippi. Go figure. Smarter conservatives understand this. Governors answer to the voters of their state, not "The Cause"."
That's a funny perspective. Romney signed ObamaCare into law in Massachusetts and then did not even try to run for re-election. He left the state.
Now, we're bankrupt because of it, according to the Boston Globe and have the highest health insurance rates in the country.
http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/08/22/bay_state_health_insurance_premiums_highest_in_country/
"Call it 50% to absolute cut-off and you've got yourself a $5 bet."
Done. I'll gladly forward to your PayPal acct. Won't happen.
But the larger question is why would Republicans want to fund Democrat Party propoganda with our tax dollars? Is there a quid pro quo?
Doesn't make any strategic sense to me unless they've made agreements we know nothing about.
If everyone but you hears something that you do not hear what should you do?
I'd like to see some validation of "everyone," first. Till then, I'm going with Simon and Garfunkel:
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
NPR: Give us your money, you stupid fucking flyover hillbilly shitheads, becasue we're better than you are.
wv: sessess -- If you're gonna have a hissy fit, that's the word to use
I'm not particularly admiring of Mamet. Knowing the bankruptcy of the-only-view-you-can-espouse-if-you-want-to-be-in he went on espousing for twenty years. Now, a safe icon, he admits, reluctantly, that what he espoused was bankrupt? Of course it's much worse than that, the beautiful people NPR line ASSAULTS decency. And why? Decency isn't am-u-u-u-sing. No, I don't admire Mamet at all. Too little too late.
And Barbour did things governing Mississippi that wouldn't fly in Massachusetts.
Isn't federalism beautiful?
I guess we could kill PBS & NPR by agreeing to fund them for one more year only. That could buy them a little time to see if they could find buyers or private investors for their stations and assets.
It would be interesting to see if the for-profit networks would bid on for shows like Fresh Air and All Things Considered.
True Believers face their own "test". Is it better to lose with "purity" and only carry 5-8 States in 2012.
You mean like this
or
like this
In that clip, Roberts is speaking the way she always has. The listener can tell when Roberts is supportive or when she's minimizing whatever topic or person she's talking about. In this clip, the characteristic emphasis and intonation isn't on the people's names so much, though. And it isn't on "Gingrich" at all. Her intention is to blunt Republican criticism of a Democratic president and she's doing it the same way she always has. There's nothing new here.
Gingrich is neither electable nor particularly committed to cutting government spending.
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