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For Christie and MSNBC, a Messy Divorce Plays Out in Public View

j-mac

j-mac

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It was a match made in moderately minded Northeast Corridor heaven.Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey needed a TV network that would burnish his bipartisan bona fides and showcase his gleefully contrarian style. MSNBC craved a Republican who cut against the party grain and lit up the screen with his everyman-ish, Springsteen-loving spontaneity.
An on-air romance blossomed, forged over chummy strolls along the Jersey Shore and heart-to-hearts in the studio about everything from overeating to education, embodying the aisle-crossing aspirations of this partisan era.
Now, the improbable relationship between a governor with his eyes on the White House and a network determined to break into the top tier, up to now so beneficial to both, has curdled in a spectacularly public fashion.
[h=2]RELATED COVERAGE[/h]
Mr. Christie is confronting the worst crisis of his career, stemming from his aides’ role in shutting down approach lanes to the George Washington Bridge. The governor’s predicament is a ratings bonanza for MSNBC, whose left-leaning viewers are eating up every development in the sordid scandal.
Over the weekend, Mr. Christie, who has appeared on MSNBC many times since taking office, angrily denounced it as a “partisan network” that is “almost gleeful in their efforts attacking” him. Christie aides have called it a “feeding frenzy.”
“There is a difference between treating this matter seriously and seeking out the truth and irresponsibly using hearsay and conjecture without confirming the facts,” Colin Reed, a spokesman for Mr. Christie, said on Sunday. Feelings are frayed on both sides. Mika Brzezinski, a co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who makes no secret of her affection for Mr. Christie, seemed taken aback by the governor’s harsh critique.
“I was a little surprised when he took a jab at us,” she said in an interview on Sunday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/n...on&module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=N.Y. /%
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What? You mean that the liberals at MSLSD are not honest in their collaborative fake friendship to Christie? Who'd have thunk it.
 
j-mac said:
What? You mean that the liberals at MSLSD are not honest in their collaborative fake friendship to Christie? Who'd have thunk it.
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I'm sorry but do you have any evidence of MSNBC not being honest about this story?
 
GOP fog machine thread
 
Well, MSNBC doesn't do news they do partisan opinion shows - that's they're thing. Most cable news push their own ideology that's nothing new but MSNBC shills for Democrats. I think Christie may have started believing his own press and thought he can handle them. Now he knows.
 
Ockham said:
Well, MSNBC doesn't do news they do partisan opinion shows - that's they're thing. Most cable news push their own ideology that's nothing new but MSNBC shills for Democrats. I think Christie may have started believing his own press and thought he can handle them. Now he knows.
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Is it your contention that this story isn't a story worth covering?
 
Ockham said:
Well, MSNBC doesn't do news they do partisan opinion shows - that's they're thing. Most cable news push their own ideology that's nothing new but MSNBC shills for Democrats. I think Christie may have started believing his own press and thought he can handle them. Now he knows.
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McCain used to think the same thing before his run....
 
j-mac said:
Did I imply that?
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Who the hell knows what you were implying. But this is in the middle of your babble in the OP.

j-mac said:
You mean that the liberals at MSLSD are not honest...
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... so that's why I'm asking.
 
poweRob said:
Is it your contention that this story isn't a story worth covering?
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Why not make a comment about banana trees...they have as much to do with what I said as your comment.
 
Ockham said:
Why not make a comment about banana trees...they have as much to do with what I said as your comment.
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No. You seemed to be implying that MSNBC was reporting this story solely based on partisanship. So I asked, do you think it is a story worth covering or is it only a story that partisans do for the sake of partisanship?
 
j-mac said:
What? You mean that the liberals at MSLSD are not honest in their collaborative fake friendship to Christie? Who'd have thunk it.
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So your editorial is claiming what you want to hear...

Meanwhile, most of us are more interested in actual facts, not who has the best spin.
 
j-mac said:
Did you read the article?
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I read the part of the story what you posted. You are definitely a republican. Instead of just answering a simple question, you stay on offense by constantly answering questions with a question.

It's the eternal dodge tactic.
 
poweRob said:
No. You seemed to be implying that MSNBC was reporting this story solely based on partisanship. So I asked, do you think it is a story worth covering or is it only a story that partisans do for the sake of partisanship?
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No implication was made - any such notion was completely of your own making. The story of MSNBC's messy break up with Christie as a news story is not very compelling to me as it is real life embodiment of the scorpion and the frog.
 
j-mac said:
What? You mean that the liberals at MSLSD are not honest in their collaborative fake friendship to Christie? Who'd have thunk it.
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With the possible exception of Morning Joe, MSNBC is the Democratic National Committee Network. MSNBC plays to their viewers which are highly Democratic and liberal. Unless MSNBC has changed, only between the hours of 11AM-1PM is there any thing on that network that would be considered straight news reporting. The rest is talk shows, not news. Talk shows are free to say what ever they want and you can bet they will play to their audience. If one separates regular news reporting from political talk shows with an agenda of electing and/or re-electing Democrats this should be of no surprise.
 
Perotista said:
With the possible exception of Morning Joe, MSNBC is the Democratic National Committee Network. MSNBC plays to their viewers which are highly Democratic and liberal. Unless MSNBC has changed, only between the hours of 11AM-1PM is there any thing on that network that would be considered straight news reporting. The rest is talk shows, not news. Talk shows are free to say what ever they want and you can bet they will play to their audience. If one separates regular news reporting from political talk shows with an agenda of electing and/or re-electing Democrats this should be of no surprise.
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There is no doubt about that, and I would say that FNC is the same in the inverse. But with that said, there is a certain thought among republican moderates like Christie, like McCain, like Graham that think that they can court liberal partisans on these networks by bucking their own party, and platforms. Liberals love that until the politician in question starts to gain traction in running against a liberal opponent, then they turn on a dime and start attacking the republican.

This is where liberals excel, they understand that conservative media outlets are not ever going to portray them in a favorable light when the chips are down, and they approach those outlets in an appropriate fashion. So, what I was actually saying in addition to MSLSD being harsh on Christie, was really as much Christie's fault for thinking that these people would fairly report on him, or his faux scandal.
 
rocket88 said:
And there we see the real story - bias doesn't bother you as much as which way it goes.
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Maybe not as much, but the move by big media journalism over the last 20 years has been to overtly move toward letting their own personal political biases seep through to the point where we no longer have objective journalism. We get OpEd journalism, and agitprop spewed by some of the worst offenders, rather than serious reporting.

Think about it this way, and I hate using the long overused Bush v Obama paradigm, but let's say that Bush was in office, and there were these scandals popping up, and in fact there was absolutely a hostile press during that time, where the coverage was non stop about the dumbest of things that were inflated to nightly coverage. In today's media with an Obama administration, one that the large bulk of media largely ideologically agrees with, there is little coverage of the the scandals that come out of this administration, an in fact they carry the talking point water for this administration, something they just wouldn't do for a repub administration. That is clear when a local story about the GW bridge being backed up gets 17 times the coverage from a national outlet over over a report of Benghazi security being inadequate resulting in the death of 4 american's, or an IRS targeting political opponents in an election year to aid the incumbent administration regain the white house.

There is something inherently wrong with that fundamentally and you know it.
 
j-mac said:
There is no doubt about that, and I would say that FNC is the same in the inverse. But with that said, there is a certain thought among republican moderates like Christie, like McCain, like Graham that think that they can court liberal partisans on these networks by bucking their own party, and platforms. Liberals love that until the politician in question starts to gain traction in running against a liberal opponent, then they turn on a dime and start attacking the republican.

This is where liberals excel, they understand that conservative media outlets are not ever going to portray them in a favorable light when the chips are down, and they approach those outlets in an appropriate fashion. So, what I was actually saying in addition to MSLSD being harsh on Christie, was really as much Christie's fault for thinking that these people would fairly report on him, or his faux scandal.
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Fox is not that bad. Fox has straight news from 9AM till 5PM and then again from 6-7PM. Granted Fox slants right during their straight news, but their talk shows really do not start until 7PM with Gretta although the FIve is there at 5PM. Courting liberal media outlets usually does not work and always backfires it seems. It does seems most Republicans have remained quiet about bridgegate and have not come out to defend him as Democrats would have if he were from their party. Guilliani, Romney, McCain and the RNC head along with Rove are the only ones I have heard come out in his defense. Two has beens, a senator headed for retirement, a talking head and one who job is to defend every republican regardless. Not a strong list for sure.

But this whole thing was of his or his underlings makings, so we will see where the chips fall.
 
Perotista said:
Fox is not that bad. Fox has straight news from 9AM till 5PM and then again from 6-7PM. Granted Fox slants right during their straight news, but their talk shows really do not start until 7PM with Gretta although the FIve is there at 5PM. Courting liberal media outlets usually does not work and always backfires it seems. It does seems most Republicans have remained quiet about bridgegate and have not come out to defend him as Democrats would have if he were from their party. Guilliani, Romney, McCain and the RNC head along with Rove are the only ones I have heard come out in his defense. Two has beens, a senator headed for retirement, a talking head and one who job is to defend every republican regardless. Not a strong list for sure.

But this whole thing was of his or his underlings makings, so we will see where the chips fall.
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If I had to guess, I'd say that the usual party players will diminish seriousness of any sort of "scandal" being attached to this, but only in guarded ways, largely because of how divisive political climate is today. Most will caveat their support with "If he's telling the truth", because outright support will turn out to be used against them by liberals if it turns out that Christie knew. But as scandals go this one is weak, and liberals are inflating it to pre emptively take out the one GOP hopeful that has already polled to beat Hillary.

Also, I'll just say that because liberals hammered repubs so hard during the Bush years, then promised to change the way things are done in DC, when all we got is ramped up corruption, and when questioned, usually a reply of 'sit down and shut up' by liberals who just ram through like a bull in a china shop, and then say if you don't like TFB!
 
j-mac said:
If I had to guess, I'd say that the usual party players will diminish seriousness of any sort of "scandal" being attached to this, but only in guarded ways, largely because of how divisive political climate is today. Most will caveat their support with "If he's telling the truth", because outright support will turn out to be used against them by liberals if it turns out that Christie knew. But as scandals go this one is weak, and liberals are inflating it to pre emptively take out the one GOP hopeful that has already polled to beat Hillary.

Also, I'll just say that because liberals hammered repubs so hard during the Bush years, then promised to change the way things are done in DC, when all we got is ramped up corruption, and when questioned, usually a reply of 'sit down and shut up' by liberals who just ram through like a bull in a china shop, and then say if you don't like TFB!
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That makes sense to me. I can't say I blame most of the GOP.
 
j-mac said:
If I had to guess, I'd say that the usual party players will diminish seriousness of any sort of "scandal" being attached to this, but only in guarded ways, largely because of how divisive political climate is today. Most will caveat their support with "If he's telling the truth", because outright support will turn out to be used against them by liberals if it turns out that Christie knew. But as scandals go this one is weak, and liberals are inflating it to pre emptively take out the one GOP hopeful that has already polled to beat Hillary.

Also, I'll just say that because liberals hammered repubs so hard during the Bush years, then promised to change the way things are done in DC, when all we got is ramped up corruption, and when questioned, usually a reply of 'sit down and shut up' by liberals who just ram through like a bull in a china shop, and then say if you don't like TFB!
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A rather common tactic used in today's world - When you are doing wrong, accuse the opposition of doing that of which you are actually the guilty one(s)
 
from the NYTimes linked page

It appears to be playing well with viewers: For the week of Jan. 6, when the story began to gain national attention, Rachel Maddow, who had pursued the story for more than a month, scored a rare weekly win, beating the perennial ratings leader Fox News among the coveted 25 to 54 viewer category. It was the first time Ms. Maddow, the network’s star host, had won a ratings week in more than a year; the momentum continued last week, though final numbers are not available.

The network started featuring the story in early December, when Ms. Maddow introduced what she called a tale “just too crazy to believe.” Her colleagues joined her, and, once damning emails from Mr. Christie’s aides became public, they were ready to pounce: Lawrence O’Donnell created a hypothetical campaign commercial that could be used to skewer Mr. Christie over the matter. “You can do this at home” he declared, seemingly urging Christie foes to attack the governor. “It’s easy.”
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more from Rachel
“The question of why matters,” Maddow said. “Governor Christie’s office has tried to shame people for asking what the reason might plausibly have been. But they have offered zero explanation of their own.”
<snip>
“Yes, it is pure speculation,” Maddow acknowledged. “It has always been presented as such by us, and by me. We presented that theory as a way to get at the most important and, as yet, totally unexplained question still at the center of this unfolding scandal which is, Why? What is the plausible explanation for this? Why did whoever ordered those lanes closed order those lanes closed?”
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and if you hold to an irrational hatred of a very intelligent person, you can always read NewsMax - Poll: Most New Jersey Voters Believe Christie Knew About Lane Closures, Should Resign if Proven
 
Somerville said:
A rather common tactic used in today's world - When you are doing wrong, accuse the opposition of doing that of which you are actually the guilty one(s)
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Oh, so you are saying that the progressive manufactured story of a traffic jam, is actually the type of corruption that exists on a larger scale in DC....I agree.

from the NYTimes linked page

It appears to be playing well with viewers: For the week of Jan. 6, when the story began to gain national attention, Rachel Maddow, who had pursued the story for more than a month, scored a rare weekly win, beating the perennial ratings leader Fox News among the coveted 25 to 54 viewer category. It was the first time Ms. Maddow, the network’s star host, had won a ratings week in more than a year; the momentum continued last week, though final numbers are not available.

The network started featuring the story in early December, when Ms. Maddow introduced what she called a tale “just too crazy to believe.” Her colleagues joined her, and, once damning emails from Mr. Christie’s aides became public, they were ready to pounce: Lawrence O’Donnell created a hypothetical campaign commercial that could be used to skewer Mr. Christie over the matter. “You can do this at home” he declared, seemingly urging Christie foes to attack the governor. “It’s easy.”
more from Rachel
“The question of why matters,” Maddow said. “Governor Christie’s office has tried to shame people for asking what the reason might plausibly have been. But they have offered zero explanation of their own.”
<snip>
“Yes, it is pure speculation,” Maddow acknowledged. “It has always been presented as such by us, and by me. We presented that theory as a way to get at the most important and, as yet, totally unexplained question still at the center of this unfolding scandal which is, Why? What is the plausible explanation for this? Why did whoever ordered those lanes closed order those lanes closed?”

and if you hold to an irrational hatred of a very intelligent person, you can always read NewsMax - Poll: Most New Jersey Voters Believe Christie Knew About Lane Closures, Should Resign if Proven
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Where was Maddow on any of the scandals in the Obama administration? Oh, that's right, she was furthering the WH narrative that there was nothing there...Yet with Christie, it is just shocking scandal....:roll: Please.

As for the NewsMax reporting of a Rasmussen poll, I find nothing shocking there...NJ is a blue state, with rough and tumble politics that is routine there. That many of its residents believe Maddow as much as you do is nothing buy expected, after all even if they voted for him, liberals voting for a republican Gov. are not known for their unwavering support.
 
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