Why doesn't Moveon.com put the spot on Fox News?

Posted by: w | Jan 28, 2004 10:43:30 PM

Seeing what the Exec's have done to the anti-Bush ad for the Superbow, I can see why for year's & year's in the past, you have always been my least favorite network!!!!! Your producer's have "NO EDGE TO ANYTHING THEY DO-THE NETWORK IS AS PITTIFUL AS MOST OF IT'S PROGRAMMING"!!!!! Im really surprised that you even had the revenue to host the Superbowl!!!!! Im actually surprised that you still have the Late Show with David Letterman & 60 Minute's!!!!!! Isn't that a bit cutting edge programming???????

Posted by: Stuart Borman | Jan 30, 2004 8:35:05 PM

I think your web sight is wrong. If you think its all the presidents fault you've been miss informed.And if you think gore would have done better your wrong.

Posted by: crissie cunningham | Feb 3, 2004 11:20:05 AM

Hi Chrissie,

I'm not sure I understand your complaint -- I didn't mention anytihng about the President -- I excerpted the Ad Age article, and discussed the market cap of the companies' which 5 largest networks.

What are you talking about?

Posted by: Barry Ritholtz | Feb 3, 2004 2:54:14 PM

It appears that Joan Walsh of Salon.com thought she was a pretty smart cookie, parading her Scholastic Aptitude Test score of 1200 as proof. Like many of her media colleagues she considered President Bush’s intellectual level far below her own.

It came as something of a shock for her to learn that the 17-year-old Bush’s SAT score was the same as hers – 1200 – and scored at a time when that was a very hard level to reach.

In his new book, "Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane," widely acclaimed New York Post columnist John Podheretz uses this story to hammer away at the common liberal misconception that this man who learned to fly a complicated and dangerous piece of machinery – the F-102 fighter – was rated as a superior pilot, got an MBA, ran a Major League Baseball team and made millions for his partners, and won two terms as governor of Texas is really quite stupid.

Podheretz demolishes this Bush-is-a-moron myth, which he calls "Crazy Liberal Idea #1," and goes on to dismember seven other Crazy Liberal Ideas, doing so with a razor-sharp wit and driving his points home with the obvious relish that comes from skewering a very skewerable left.

George W. Bush, he writes, came into office believing he was put on Earth to do two things: to lead the United States into the third millenium with all its terrifying challenges and wondrous opportunities, and to drive liberals insane.

Bush, he adds, "is succeeding brilliantly at both."

His claim that Bush is one of the nation’s greatest presidents is bound to drive liberals mad, but he lays out a stunning profusion of the president’s accomplishments as proof of his contention.

In just three years, Bush has led the nation into two wars, ousted two of the world's most barbaric regimes, redirected U.S. foreign policy to confront the threat of rogue states possessing weapons of mass destruction, daringly embarked on a campaign to introduce democracy into the Middle East, and reconstructed both the military and the executive branch of government.

Moreover, as Podheretz notes, he shoved two huge tax cuts down the throats of a Congress that traditionally has preferred to spend the people’s money rather than permit then to spend it themselves, and in the process revived an economy that began to slump at the end of the Clinton administration.

The List Goes On

Bush has run circles around the Democrats, co-opting many of their pet programs in such fields as education and health care. He has been deft in dealing with hot-button issues, seeking new ways to handle those that previously have defied all efforts of compromise between right and left.

"Taken together, all of Bush’s presidential qualities mark him as a genuine leader and a transformative figure on the American and world stages," Podheretz insists. "Love him or hate him, respect him or revile him, George W. Bush has made extraordinary use of the powers of the presidency and has changed the United States, its government and the world in ways that have made an indelible mark on the new century."

We are indeed, he writes, "living in Bush Country."

Having dealt with Bush’s extraordinary record, Podheretz now begins to enjoy himself chopping away at those eight crazy liberal ideas.

The first, that Bush is a moron, seems rooted in the president’s tendency to mangle the mother tongue. He believes that the "chattering classes" look down on Bush because he does not "accord with the reigning cultural affect. ..."

An Age of Cleverness

"We pride ourselves on self-aware displays of cleverness, constant references to popular culture and the latest trends and a hunger for sharing the trivia we know with others," he writes.

Bush, it seems, is simply not au fait with the things that really matter, such as the latest trends in culinary consumption, cinema and up-to-date slang. He recalls with satisfaction Bush's rejoinder to Chris Matthews when it was suggested that he claimed an abiding interest in the life of Winston Churchill simply to impress Churchill fan Matthews:

"Do you think that I’d take time out of my life to research what the hell you like?" he asked.

Podheretz also reminds us that Democrats automatically label Republican presidents as dunces – Ike and Reagan especially were seen by the chatterers as less than bright.

He is unrelenting in demolishing those Crazy Liberal Ideas. He shows how asinine is idea #2 – that Bush is a puppet – and demonstrates convincingly that Bush is his own man.

What really controls W, in Podheretz’s view, is a determination to put America back on the road to the shining city on the hill paved by Ronald Reagan. The author devotes a chapter to showing how W has worked to bring back Reaganism and explains that the two presidents have much in common.

The primary project of the Bush presidency is the completion of the political reconstruction of national politics, government and policy begun by Ronald Reagan in 1981. And this, he writes, is "doubtless what his partisan enemies fear most about him."

Crazy Liberal Idea #3: "Bush is a fanatic."

Podheretz notes that W’s foes say he "is a reactionary both politically and theologically and that he is effecting a religious takeover of the United States and imposing his doctrinal fanaticism on the rest of the world."

Man of Faith

Nonsense, says Podheretz. Bush is "an elected politician who happens to be religious," and as a man of faith he is informed by a powerful sense of right and wrong and good and evil." That, of course, is what upsets his paganistic critics, who believe there are no such categories as right and wrong or good and evil; everything is relative.

Crazy Liberal Idea #4: Bush is another Hitler, but not as talented.

The real insult here is that if Bush is Hitler, the United States is Nazi Germany. And that idea, he writes, is born from Europe’s "blind and unreasoning, ugly and unjust, foul and fetid hatred of America" and picked up by the Europhile chattering classes.

Podheretz deals with other such provably idiotic charges as Crazy Liberal Idea # 5: Bush isn’t protecting the American people, #6: Bush wants to bankrupt the government, #7: Bush is a cowboy and #8: Bush is a liar.

As we head into the election, Podheretz has shown us exactly how to deal with all the Crazy Liberal Ideas that constitute the Democratic Party’s real platform. All Democarats have in their political arsenal is a hodgepodge of crazy ideas, distortions and lies – and Podheretz shows us how to disarm them easily.

Posted by: Kris | Feb 29, 2004 7:04:36 PM

I've told many of my Democratic friends (I'm an independent) who think Bush
is an idiot that they are vastly (mis)underestimating him.

Not only is he a bright guy, but he is utterly charming and charismatic.

Check out the video "Journeys with George" -- it was a videologue
created by a member of the working press, Alexandra Pelosi, -- who's
mother is the House Minority Leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

I suspect the main reason the Press went easy on W. in 2000 is that he
had utterly charmed them -- this documentary supports that view.

Posted by: Barry Ritholtz | Feb 29, 2004 8:22:17 PM