The Daily Background
| As seen on TV (some stupid quotes from the last few days)
by Arlen Parsa
Man, what is it with people saying awful stuff over the last couple of days on air? Here’s a couple of things I’ve heard over the last few days, each with videos.
NBC “Today Show” co-host Campbell Brown:
It’s difficult to say that you’re against the war and at the same time not say that you’re against the troops.
(Video of this incident can be found here.) Brown’s repetition of Republican talking points could not be more wrong or transparently biased.
Retired NBA star Tim Hardaway as heard on a local CBS affiliate and radio station:
I hate gay people.
Video of this incident can be found here.
Fox’s Brit Hume, on Barack Obama’s weekend:
The weekend proved a rough one, for two leading Democratic presidential candidates.
(Video of this incident can be found here.) The Fox News report that followed was about the “controversy” caused by Senator Obama saying that 3,000 American lives have been wasted in Iraq- a word that Republicans find infuriating. Fox has been running the same clip of Obama making the statement for nearly 48 hours straight now- literally again and again and again, without reporting that Obama has since apologized twice for his wording and most of the press has already moved on. Find me anybody not working for Fox News who would describe Obama’s announcement weekend as “rough” and I’ll be shocked.
In fact, here’s how non-partisan political analysts Chuck Todd and John Mercurio of the National Journal discussed Obama’s weekend on today’s episode of HotlineTV:
Mercurio: Barack Obama had a nice little weekend–
Todd: Oh my gosh, unbelievable
Mercurio: he had a nice little weekend, a nice little rollout.
Todd: He got everything he wanted, the media played it up
Mercurio: And he even got a dose of something he probably wasn’t expecting, which was a middle of the night attack all the way from across the globe, from Australia, which only made him look presidential.
Todd: Prime Minister John Howard.
Mercurio: Which made him look like he was- the leader of the free world
Todd: Absolutely, oh!
Mercurio: And it allowed him to come back at John Howard and at the sort of pro-war–
Todd: And at the Bush Administration… oh my god…
Mercurio: Everybody in America I think agrees, whether you’re supporting the war or you’re opposed to it, that other countries should be doing more, and that allowed Obama to go back to John Howard with a great line, which was ‘look, put up or shut up.’
Todd: Yeah, it was unbelievable…
Mercurio: Which, I think won him a hundred points with everyone.
That’s the same reaction that virtually everybody else has had. (Video of this conversation can be found here.)
