Quotable, PIGMAN: Presidential Debate Hosts Are "Far Left Liberal Democrats"

JIM LEHRER, BOB SCHIEFFER, CANDY CROWLEY, MARTHA RADDATZ. Patent nonsense from Limbaugh, since at least two, maybe more of these Corporate Media Establishment figures are, behaviorally at least, Republicans. Shortly before he retired, JIM LEHRER showed an uncharacteristic antipathy (given the pretend image of lofty neutrality he has cultivated on his PBS corporate ass-kissing "news" hour) toward unions, being decimated in Ohio and Wisconsin; ( there's a reason PBS's only good journalism is their foreign coverage ... d'oh); BOB SCHIEFFER may be a "dinosaur" as Limbaugh puts it, but these days that's a sign of quality and integrity; CANDY CROWLEY, who Limbaugh called a “far, far left-wing liberal Democrat momma,” does recall 'Mama Cass' of the Mamas and Papas, and that's where the resemblance ends; and MARTHA RADDATZ as the ultimate BELTWAY insider who was, naturally, ANDREA MITCHELL's shadow, when both were privileged foreign correspondents for ABC and NBC, one once married to WaPo's slushy crusading editor and the other still married to the ÜBER powerful and influential objectivist jazz hornblower-cum-"economist" who fucked us all over.

Yeah, it is a ROGUES GALLERY of BELTWAY power connectivites and HACKISHNESS as Rush 'POT-belly PORK ROAST meet KETTLE' Limbaugh has insinuated. But the PIGMAN is in on the joke, ensuring a Romneyesque corporate, sanitized debate format, in which differences and conflicts are glossed over, to the extent the hosts have anything to say about it. He's only trying to influence the general tenor of the debates even more in Romney's favor, a priori, by implying there's all that much daylight between himself and the hosts, where the rubber meets the road. The ridiculous charge of not only "far" but "far far left liberal democrat" is widely held, even today given its importance to the FAKE BELTWAY NARRATIVE of misinforming Americans, which will doubtless be perpetuated in the debates. It was a canard even the simpatico but gullible Chris Matthews repeated, though we've made some modest progress disabusing him of such useful nonsense.

Correcting Lawrence on Video Cafe, when he plays the loyalty game to his colleagues, we don't begrudge him so much, just a little: "While I agree with him on why Limbaugh is doing this, I disagree with his characterization of the moderators. They're not neutral. They're corporate, inside the beltway Villagers. And I haven't watched a lot of Lehrer or Raddatz on the air, but I do catch Crowley and Schieffer on a regular basis and they're both neither fair or balanced and are always more hostile to Democrats than they are to Republicans and both are pretty useless when it comes to addressing issues or matters that actually have any real impact on most voters' lives."