http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/us/politics/mitt-romney-and-benjamin-netanyahu-are-old-friends.html?pagewanted=allThe ties between Mr. Romney and Mr. Netanyahu stand out because there is little precedent for two politicians of their stature to have such a history together that predates their entry into government. And that history could well influence decision-making at a time when the United States may face crucial questions about whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities or support Israel in such an action.
The separation of church and state refines a notch: we really should divide and separate business and the 4th Estate. As we are reminded via countless emails soliciting our contributions, the Presidential Candidates are "raising" billions in cash contributions earmarked for the television commercial industry. These same entities who have scaled back their news operations to Rip-And-Re post tweets and blogger quips, rake in advertising revenues from political campaigns that would "make" any retailer's year. The pricks could - literally - go on vacation for the next two years with the cash flow the campaigns guarantee them. In the process, they make - what I have come to recognize - every effort to obscure the facts and misrepresent the opponents.
As a consumer of news, I expect the news divisions of television broadcast media to know the difference between celebrating personalities and scrutinizing them. For the screaming lust to explode the cost to the American People of having their elections covered, the media (which I pointedly deny capitalizing) might, at the very least, grow in their professional substance. So frequently have I been "challenged" by my fauxgressive critics as fascist, that I have, ultimately, disengaged from political discourse except here, where my comments stand for the reviewer to judge.
Witnessing Laura O'Donnell's performance on this morning's CBS network morning offering, my perspective crystallized. As Romney surrogate, Ohio Senator Rob Portman spoke to the response by the candidate to the Embassy apology, the anchor, supposedly chosen to replace Erica Hill for the ratings boost her White House Credentials carry, instead, did the OAF Campaign dirty work on the air O'Donnell Carries Graft Water.
Filibustering the question should be the expected and managed job of the reporter. Instead, the "Journalist" herself, did the filibuster. She stepped on Portman's reply with not only an interruption by defending the White House response with the flimsiest interpretation of the "timeline," she proceeded to READ WORD FOR WORD the Bologna served up by her "fellow talking heads" in reaction - not response - to the facts. To Portman's credit, he remained a steadfast gentleman, not unlike the Candidate he is training, and was respectful but knowing toward the CBS fool. O'Donnell considers Americans mooches sucking up everything dispensed by the media. She considers it her job, as does Chris Matthews, to ensure the success of the obama presidency (capitalizing deliberately withheld.)
Despite crass moves, the needle on CBS morning news show ratings sticks squarely off the radar. The broadcast companies are so jazzed by the cash they rake in from the political campaigns that they are inured to the truth about why their ratings lag. Truth in Broadcasting. They pulled O'Donnell's predecessor from CNN and O'Donnell herself from MSNBC. Both these concerns began losing viewers when their transparent adoration of the Cult of Personality, Indonesian-reared, Communist grandson of a non-Hilo Banker became an issue with Viewers.
Americans who "pay" with their attention, who lend Eye and Ear to the tube lest a grain of truth emerge to flag the course-realignment of our politics, expect as much for "Paying Attention" as they might for money they would have paid in better times. Reporters, like teachers, have traditionally been professional bastions of uprightness despite their subsistence-level incomes. In the News Business, traditionally, the Editors, Publishers and Ad Executives were flush from their compensation. The 'talent' was on the street, hungry for the IS. The consumer understands that. First Bush appealed to them to go out and spend ourselves out of depression over the September 11 paradigm tectonic shift of the ground underfoot. Next he unleashed predatory credit card companies to arbitrarily change their agreements with card holders, yanking the rug out from under them with adjusted maximums, fees and percentage hikes. Overnight, a card-holder whose credit limit was $5,000, was downgraded to $2,500 with a balance somewhere north of that. Immediately, the creditor was now hit with $40 over-limit-fees, doubled minimum payments that caused unavoidable late fees such that, in mere weeks, despite having made no transactions, the card-holder saw his balance mushroomed.
O'Donnell now joins the Sorority of Women who, obama's 'you didn't do that all by yourself,' taunts not-with-standing, believe that they, uniquely, achieved their status. More about her hair and make-up and her moving in circles with the elite media chums, my "sister" Norah leaves me insulted as a consumer of news. I know the difference, now, in large part due to her, between a journalist and an Agent-represented News Personality. The ground-breaking precedent for this condition was Barbara Walters when she turned to a professional media agent to shift her out of the status of grunt nigger on the Today Show set to appropriately compensated workhorse of the News Room. Those of us who grew up watching Walters' rise in the News Universe also recognize that she set and maintained a standard of performance and integrity that made her stand out among her peers. So solid was her reporting and the obvious support she received from those who chose to sit for her interviews, that her million dollar demands were echoed by her viewers. Of course, I now recognize, a fellow Cult Hero grows in stature as his tide-riding craft colleagues rise. The further the likes of O'Donnell, Pelosi and Oprah go, the further they can carry their little prince. Unfortunately for them, the cad is a bad boyfriend, racking them up as his latest conquest, neither unique nor respected by either colleagues or voters.
Game Over, Sistahs. Guess what's likely to happen to the CBS Morning viewers. They'll find a link to a Fox News item and will learn a number of points that would have never come from the mouths of any CBS rip-n-reader. The types of statements made on Fox are so foreign to consumers of network news that they are stunned with the level of disparity between the respective news "camps." Out of initial curiosity, they stay "tuned" and find themselves satieted, for the first time in longer than they can remember, by something other than obama worship.
Like the ecumenicals of the sixties, the "catholics" of the network news air are suddenly aware that they are not alone in heaven. The shock of discovering intelligent, beautiful women of all races and nationalities, accomplished prosecutors, investigators, clerks and researchers on camera throughout the day, SPEAKING THEIR MIND, unfettered by management, uncensored and unrelenting in their derision of the colluding flunkies of the press corpse, is riveting. The once-dyed-in-the-blood bot is so close to "artificial intelligence" that electronic mirroring is inescapable. The "yes, we canners" are possessed of tuning forks now struck with a resonnant chorde previously jamned by the network quacks. Universal truthiness rings clarion. Revielle summons the citizen to get out of bed with the failing, propped-up pretense for leadership and take up the call to duty and service.
So ground into subordination to the moneyed pursuits fighting like putbulls to control every last drop of spit have we become, that the Spirit of American dna is unable to resist the tune. We needn't "Pay Attention," we are stricken, as though by a chorde from the pipe organ, with the sounding of the opening blast of the Show Tune Overture. The music's about to change, Americans. The Pop Hit of 2008 is as unceremoniously shoved off his perch as any playground bully when his victim's mother shows up to defend the security of her "play nice" kid. Under Mitt Romney's sound guidance, this bully's translucency is exposed for what it is: the tip of the greed iceburg, no longer to be fed by our $3.00 raised to $5 or $10 reflex response to his appeal for protection from meanies. 
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