Monday, October 12, 2009

Grind that Axel


Finally (for the day), we chuckled a little about Obama White House guru David Axelrod's kvetching about the "new media" while in Lincoln the other day:
New media, including cable TV news and the Internet, have distorted the public debate on health care and stoked the personal vitriol, Axelrod said.

"Instead of attacks being filtered through the perspective of a thoughtful news media, things go out unfiltered through cable TV and the Internet," he said.

"That amplifies the angry voices beyond what they deserve or the numbers they reflect."
So you got that, new-mediaites? (Cable?)

If you're not one of the networks, why, you're just filling the air with noise that could otherwise be filled with The Truth from The One!

Ignore those thousands who protested at the town halls, wouldja?
Turn off the internets.
Yank that cord going from the wall to the TV.

Adjust those rabbit ears. And listen while the White House via Katie Couric tells you how it all should be.

Oh, and this was a message to students.

(Change!)

36 comments:

macdaddy said...

I seem to remember the heady days of the early 90s where we got to log onto the computer and watch as Compuserve tried to load it's green-fonted content. Where we had Windows 0.1 and there was this new-fangled cable news program called CNN. And Hillarycare still got nixed with extreme prejudice. Typical liberal: it must be the message, there's nothing wrong with our brilliant product. Consumers are so stupid.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone seen Lee Terry's campaign manager lately?

Where is David "Pepe" Boomer?

I heard he was underground working in his lab mixing up a fresh batch of negative attack ads against Tom White.

Anonymous said...

Boomer must first figure out how to stop a parade float from taking Lee in the primary

Anonymous said...

Is Boomer living in Nebraska yet? He permanently lives on the East Coast, but just comes back here for campaign season to try and help bail Lee out. I bet he won't be back here until oh, January or February probably.

Anonymous said...

He was working for Jon Bruning this summer. Has he transitioned to the Terry campaign yet?

Solomon Kleinsmith said...

There's been an aweful lot of crazy talk on both sides... death panels, cost overlays, forcing people to give their plan, slowing down is code for trying to stop reform, SOCIALISM!!! yadda yadda yadda

Anonymous said...

He's right, you know.

Cable news sucks. (Not that network news is that much better, but at least they have only 30 minutes a night rather than 24 hours a day).

The "debate" on CNN is often two guys screaming at each other, with a host who doesn't seem interested in verifying the claims that one side or the other makes. You have an entire business model built on speculation, hearsay, and outlandish rhetoric.

It's something, and it's often entertaining. But it's hardly "news."

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure Axelrod was refering to Fox News and Rush, not CNN given that either one of them pull more viewers than their respective combined competitors.

Boomer fan said...

Well all you sore loser Eshies still can't take the fact is that Obama won the 2nd district and Mr. Boomer still kicked your democrat butt. This election will be no different. In some ways Tom White is a lot like Michael Scott!!!

Anonymous said...

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but Michael Scott had a problem with scripts and non scripts and lots of girls.

Are you implying something or just hoping someone else does?

Anonymous said...

Is Tom White Jamacian?

Anonymous said...

He does have kind of "bulky hair" :)

Anonymous said...

SS, I like the old format, read it all at once, then comment on what you like. A bunch of little posts all day long takes up too much of my time and yours.

BTW, I still checked L St just as frequently as before, it just took more of my time. Since, I think, you get paid by the hit, multiple posts don't seem to matter.

More frequent posts are much appreciated.

macdaddy said...

Cable news is awesome, guys. Especially CNN. There you get Larry "The Fossil" King where every show you keep wondering, is this the one where he keels over? Then you have Wolf Blitzer fact-checking SNL, which, BTW, was just about funnier than anything I've seen on SNL, not that I've watched it in about 20 years. You get the constant pleas from the anchors to help them fill air time, for free, of course. And then there's Anderson Cooper who just make sme laugh every time I see him. Oh, wait. CNN is a news show?

Street Sweeper said...

7:29,
Thanks for the input. That's kind of the way I feel, but we'll see how it works. Odds are we'll go back to the old format.

And I WISH I was paid by the hit. As it turns out, instead I have to keep a regular job! Can you believe it?

Uncle Wiggily said...

A few observations concerning blog configuration, blog commenters, cabbages and kings - mostly engendered by Sweeper's recent world-jangling format changes:

1. Judging solely from the number of comments associated with the first 4 posts utilizing the new look, it appears that folks are the most exercised about Obama sycophant David Axelrod, with Hagel and Ricketts coming in next in a virtual tie ... and Cosmic Bob down there in the ratings with toe-jam and acid indigestion.

2. Judging from the historical record of L-Street, the number of comments on the 4 posts of 10/12/09 (something like 40 as of the time of this writing) is about the same as I would expect had the information been posted in a single blast - the question is, does that signify a level of viewership greater, lesser or the same as before. I don't know ....

3. I have long noticed that,overwhelmingly, the largest number of comments on L-Street (and most other blogs) tend to come during business hours. Hmmm ... does this mean that people are "surfing" while at work? GASP!!

4. Non-bloggers (i.e., commenters) have many ... uhh ... erroneous notions about the inner intricacies of maintaining a blog ... like bloggers make a lot of cash from ads (to which I respond - bwahahahahahahaha). Most also think (when they think about it at all) that knocking out an interesting, well-written, current and relevant post, political or otherwise, is a piece a cake and why in the hell can't these lazy bloggers post more often?

I continue to believe that L-Street is the premier political blog in this part of the galaxy, and I suspect that Sweeper could post by writing it on toilet paper and hanging it out his bedroom window and his following wouldn't diminish that much. And no, this is not a shameless suck-up ... I don't much care whether he (or any other of the zillions of non-corporeal digital ghosts out there) likes me or not - L-Street is fun, and I hope it continues ... in whatever format.

By the way - I was just kidding about the cabbages and kings.

Street Sweeper said...

Now I'm trying to figure out if I should be pursuing a literary reference beyond "Alice..."

Btw, you can go to Uncle Wiggly's Heartland Notebook blog if you would like to read some of the best prose -- political and otherwise -- in the state. If you want to know why newspapers are declining, one reason is because someone like UW hasn't been hired by them.

Thanks UW.

Now do all yourselves a favor and click over to his site.

One Out In The Third said...

Damn Wiggily...don't concede to the Sweeper...You are #1 in these here parts.

Unknown said...

Sweeper-Sweetie, old format please. If only for the simple reason that the tallies of number of comments for one post makes it easy to see if one has reviewed all comments or whether a new comment has been posted since the last read. Whereas with multiple posts, it is difficult to remember how many comments there were for each, and thus one has to check back into each and every post to see if there is a new comment since the last read. Hope my meaning is decipherable. Keep up the good work in either format. Thanks for what you do.

L

Unknown said...

Follow up to 11:14:

OR, if possible, maybe add a feature that shows the time of last comment as it shows for the time of the posting?

Solomon Kleinsmith said...

I've done a bit of blogging in a few places, and all the above is true regarding blog ad payouts being chump change (unless you're getting tens of thousands of hits)... and I don't see ads splashed all over so SS sure aint in this for the moolah, heheh.

Another option would be to post a catch all post and a couple posts a day that you think merit their own discussion. I wasn't expecting so many. Just my two cents though.

I've got some (friendly) competition for you in the works, so maybe I'm just trying to screw the good thing you've got going here up? haha

Actually, if I had to make one big suggestion, it would be get your own .com. NNN is pretty ugly, but at least its not a xxx.blogspot.com anymore. There are so many pretty sharp wordpress themes out there that are free and easy to modify. Yadda yadda yadda. End of two+ cents.

One Out In The Third said...

Uncle...

They could be shift workers. It amazes me that with the meaningful dialogue floating through L-Street there are those that are to lazy to scroll down a 100 or so posts.

Sweeper...maybe you should reverse the order of posts to make the most recent first like J. Random does over at the Weird Hair-Oiled.

Anonymous said...

Earlier Anons--if you want to see/talk to Boomer, you should have attended the Founder's Day dinner Friday night and the NEGOP central cmtee meeting Sat. He was there--I gather you weren't and you just missed all the fun!

Solomon Kleinsmith said...

I work in chunks and take a few short breaks a day. Checking the blogs, reading a bit of news, freshens my brain up a bit and improves my productivity... that and another cuppa joe sometimes, heheh.

Since most sites have their comments track downward, it could confuse people if you do it the other way. Kind of makes more sense, if you think about it, though.

Anonymous said...

Did Mr. Axelrod discuss the off-year Gov races w/Don Walton?

VA----> McConnell leads Deeds 50-43.

NJ----> Close! Christie 40, Corzine 39.


And what about Harry Reid? He is losing to both announced opponents. (That's what 9.8% unemployment will do to you.)

Anonymous said...

Speaking of where campaign staffers are... where's Jim Rogers? Apparently he's not going out in the field to recruit candidates since Covalt now says they probably won't field any in the May 2010 primary. Hmmm...

Anonymous said...

And where's Ian? Working on the public's dime while at White's 'law office'?

Anonymous said...

Are we sure that Commisar Terry is following his own privacy policy on his campaign website?

Anonymous said...

The 'Specter' of trouble ...

Arlan Specter's reelect ###s are "fatal" according to one pollster.

Toomey is tied w/him right now--41%each. Could be another GOP pick-up next year in the Senate.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Street Sweeper said...

Try again.
-Ed.

Anonymous said...

I would try again, but I can't seem to put my finger on the naughty part except wondering how many taxpayers are paying for tom White's Congressional Campaign today?

Anonymous said...

South Dakota....

Nat'l press are picking up on the at large race in S.D. Herseth could be in very tough shape--two excellent R's are running, including the SoS.

Anonymous said...

Meant Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin

Anonymous said...

Another day's in full swing . . . so how's that candidate recruitment going Vic and Jim?

Anonymous said...

Kyle's got it right for once!

"It's prettty damn hard to cheer for a team that isn't putting players on the field and doesn't even come ready to play the game."

(Recent NNN post by Vile Kyle)