What country do we live in again???
Keith_Indy on Oct 28 2009 | Filed under: Around the Web
Archive for October, 2009
If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Keith_Indy on Oct 27 2009 | Filed under: Culture, Domestic Politics, Keith's Page, Media
What do tea parties, Glenn Beck, Fox News, and the US Chamber of Commerce have in common? All are demonized opponents of the Obama administration, and more popular then ever.
“If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
This seems to be the case, not only for Jedi Knights, but also opponents of the Obama administration (or at least those on their enemies list.)
Cases in point:
Tea party and the 9/12 DC Protest:
Does anyone think these would have had such widespread, and non-partisan support as they have if the Obama administration (and their MSM sycophants) hadn’t demonized and belittled the people attending them.
Beck’s indignant critiques of the Obama administration and gloomy outlook on the nation’s financial health have found near-instant resonance. His eponymous 2 p.m. PST program averaged nearly 2.2 million viewers last month — double the number the time slot attracted the previous February and a remarkable amount for the afternoon. That made “Glenn Beck” the third most-watched program in all of cable news for the month, after Bill O’Reilly’s and Sean Hannity’s evening shows.
“I look at the ratings every day shocked,” Beck said on a recent afternoon, sitting shoeless in his Midtown office as snow pelted the Manhattan skyline behind him.
But he believes he knows why viewers are tuning in: “People know in their gut that something’s not right. They’re not getting the truth.”
The August ratings are out, and once again, the ratings for the Fox News Channel are phenomenal.
Rather than throwing a million pieces of data that every channel is spinning into madness, I ask you to consider just this one: On Sunday night, the third episode of AMC’s highly-publicized and much-discussed series, “Mad Men,” drew an audience of 1.6 million viewers at 10 p.m. when it debuted. Throughout the month of August, Fox News Channel averaged an audience of 2.29 million viewers during every single hour of prime time. And some nights, Bill O’Reilly drew an audience twice as large as that of “Mad Men.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is on track to exceed last year’s fundraising by more than $10 million, thanks in part to the Obama administration’s decision to target the pro-business group, according to the organization’s president.
President Tom Donohue told Politico.com that even though a few companies have left the chamber over its opposition to President Obama’s domestic policies, the organization is actually benefiting from its place in the White House crosshairs.
“There are some longstanding members that wanted to step up and help more,” he told Politico.com. The public friction with the White House comes in the midst of a $100 million fundraising campaign for the chamber.
The White House, while claiming that it hasn’t tried to encourage any business to part ways with the chamber, has been cutting the business group out of the loop by dealing directly with member executives. Obama and his aides have criticized the group publicly for its opposition to legislation dealing with climate change, health care and financial regulation.
Another interesting point revealed in the above quote. Unions and community organizing are great, unless they oppose you, in which case it’s fine to just bypass them.
Update:
Don Surber notes that CNN’s numbers dropped 68% in prime time during the same period. President Obama’s polling numbers are showing a similar drop. Couldn’t be related, could it. (H/T instapundit)
Thanks for the instalanche… and welcome Instapundit readers.
Sphere: Related ContentNot evil, just wrong.
Synova on Oct 15 2009 | Filed under: Environment, Synova's Page, science
Brain-dead Conservatism?
Synova on Oct 03 2009 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Synova's Page
Ann Althouse linked this commentary from the Washington Post yesterday.
“During the glory days of the conservative movement, from its ascent in the 1960s and ’70s to its success in Ronald Reagan’s era, there was a balance between the intellectuals, such as Buckley and Milton Friedman, and the activists, such as Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Weyrich, the leader of the New Right. The conservative political movement, for all its infighting, has always drawn deeply from the conservative intellectual movement, and this mix of populism and elitism troubled neither side.”
Reading it I thought that the likely reason for an apparent lack of intellectual leadership in the conservative movement was because everyone was too busy trying to shut up the populists and remake the Republican Party or redefine conservative as something smarter by insisting that it shed the unwashed masses.
Which is what I was reminded of when I saw this about McCain. (And “compared to what?” was a laugh out loud moment, Bruce.)
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