The Decline and Fall of Big Media Journalism

If this isn’t one of the great Big Media stupidities of recent times — in a class of much Judy Miller’s late work at the Times — nothing is. This idiot reports essentially on himself and gets the story terribly wrong.

Greenwald:

Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein has spent the week insisting that only gross ignorance could account for opposition to the Paulson bailout. After the House rejected the bailout plan on Monday, he wrote a column – entitled “They Just Don’t Get It” — arguing that bailout opponents simply “don’t understand the seriousness of the situation.” He scoffed at the idea that any well-informed person could question — let alone oppose — the specific Paulson bailout plan Steve Pearlstein favors.

Sad but True….

 

(Click to enlarge.)

Our Allies

The president of Pakistan apparently believes an Internet hoax alleging that Oliver L. North warned of the dangers posed by Osama bin Laden 20 years ago.

Straight Talk about John McCain

Link.

From the “No Comment” Dept.

The Denver police union is selling T-shirts that poke fun at protesters at last month’s Democratic National Convention, but the main target isn’t laughing. 

The back of the shirts reads, “We get up early to beat the crowds” and “2008 DNC,” and has a caricature of a police officer holding a baton. 

The front has the number 68 with a slash through it, a reference to the Recreate 68 Coalition, which organized several demonstrations during the convention. 

Recreate 68 organizer Glenn Spagnuolo called the shirt appalling and tasteless. 

Spagnuolo released a written statement Thursday saying members of the police union “clearly have no respect for the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.” 

Detective Nick Rogers, a member of the Police Protective Association board, said police often issue T-shirts to commemorate big events. 

Rogers said each Denver officer was given one of the shirts free and others are on sale for $10 each at police union offices. 

He said the union expects to sell about 2,000 of them. 

Rogers said he hadn’t received any previous complaints about the shirts. 

Police arrested 154 people before and during the Democratic convention. There were few reports of violence. 

In once incident, an officer was videotaped pushing a protester to the ground with his baton and telling her, “Back up, b—-.” 

The district attorney declined to prosecute the officer, saying the woman had disobeyed warnings to back away and had grabbed the officer’s baton.

Link.

11 Truths about Sarah Palin Contrasted with the Spread Lies

"Click on me to see eleven of my lies exposed!"

 

Boom! There He Goes!

More here.

About the Bailout

Interesting anti-bailout insights from behind Barron’s’ sub-only wall. Makes it look more and more that the original bill was more GOP cynical bull: a show of doing something while doing nothing good or helpful other than to get as much public money to their cronies….

 

Fed as Treasury’s Handmaiden 
Helicopter Hank by Cumberland Advisors 
614 Landis Ave., Vineland, N.J. 08360

Sept. 24: The independence and role of the Federal Reserve has been significantly changed in ways that may…have repealed the 1951 Fed-Treasury Accord. The Treasury is…using both its balance sheet and [the Fed's] to pump resources into the system and take in bad assets. …The Fed’s ability to fight inflation will be conflicted, because each increase in interest rates will impose capital losses on those holdings, making it more difficult to sell them back into the marketplace.

– Bob Eisenbeis

 

Unintended Consequences 
Bailout City by Miller Tabak 
331 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017

Sept. 24: The unintended consequence of this bailout will be a much lower U.S. dollar and a selloff in the U.S. bond market, which will leave us with higher interest rates; higher mortgage rates [will] throw the intentions of the Paulson plan out the window. Who will bail out the aftermath of this bailout? At some point, please let the economic cycle run its natural course. We’d all be better off.

– Peter Boockvar

That’s Our $700 Billion 
Growth Report by Big Idea Investor 
611 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C. 20003

Sept. 23: I suspect the “Paulson Asset Management” stake in AIG could be worth a decent sum in a few years….It seems that since PAM is using taxpayer money to fund its investments, the American people should be considered shareholders. And PAM can change rules: Stock price going down? No problem. Just make it illegal to short. …Meanwhile, the government’s bailout plan doesn’t mention…[a] slap on the wrist for the offenders or deal with homeowners’ problems….

If [Fed chief Ben] Bernanke and [Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson] buy impaired assets at a premium with no realistic plan of how to monetize them, they’re simply seeking to recapitalize failing banks at taxpayers’ expense. Why not expand the powers of the FHA, and let Americans with mortgage problems refinance to a lower rate?

– Ian Wyatt

 

Put Bailout $$ in Infrastructure 
The Option Queen Letter 
Box 1952, 1 North End Ave., New York, N.Y. 10282

Sept. 21: As to our growing unemployment rate, we should take some of this “free” government money and use it to fix this country’s bridges, tunnels and roads and employ our citizens to do the work. They’ll perhaps be able to pay down some of their looming debt.

 

 

– Jeanette Schwarz Young

Truth!

My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.
  - Vladimir Nabokov