What Do You Do With a Washed-up Scandal?

Through May and June, the beltway media and blogosphere have done their level best to pound us over the head with Scandal! Scandal! Scandal! Mostly, though the President's approval ratings have taken a hit, none of the various controversies has landed directly at his feet. The closest is probably the Edward Snowden leaker/whistleblower thing, but even that is more about bringing legal things (that should maybe be made illegal) to light, than it is about wrongdoing. The focus seems to be on sorting out whether Snowden is a bad guy or a good guy. Unless I'm missing something. I mean, when you've got Michael Moore and Glenn Beck coming down on the same side of an issue, you know the narrative is seriously loopy on that one.

But some of the scandal-ettes have pretty much fizzled. That doesn't stop the right-wing from flogging them at any opportunity. They have a reflexive "Benghazi!" retort to almost anything political, but Benghazi hasn't yielded any scalps. The IRS/Tea Party thing is pretty much a dead end, though FOX "News" and the rest of Right Wing World doesn't seem to know it yet. If that one ends as it should, all 501(c)(4) groups--on the right or on the left--that are political, will have their tax exempt status pulled. That would get a lot of applause.

But what do you do with scandals on life support? How long can the right squawk about them before they look (more) ridiculous?

[Excerpt]

IRSgate joins Solyndragate and Benghazigate in Fake Scandal Heaven


In addition to being a cosmic turd straight from Satan’s bunghole, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is now just a laughing stock on Capitol Hill. If anyone anywhere takes this clown seriously in the future, we will be shocked. How has Issa managed to make himself an even bigger fool, the kind of ass that everyone, even small children, stop to point and laugh at?  It all goes back to the IRS, and this non-scandal that Issa bet his entire reputation as Chair of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee upon. . .

Read more at: Wonkette.com

Republican Talking Point: The Sun is an Obama Crony!

Duffy, the voice guy on The Randi Rhodes Show has an amazing voice, and some pretty funny schtick. I don't know if he writes his own material, but he is a definite talent.

Rachel Maddow Straight Up Calls Mitt Romney a Liar

It's one thing to have a gibbering, screechy right-wing radio host like Mark Levin calling President Obama a liar. He's a reeking ball of negativity. But outside of people like that, it's rare to hear pundits and commentators actually use the "lie" word. There are lots of euphemisms for lying, like misspoke, misconstrued, obfuscated, muddied the waters, played fast and loose and the phrase "to limbaugh." So, when somebody like Rachel Maddow--generally polite, amiable, respectful--calls Mitt Romney a liar. . .my ears perk up.

And she wouldn't do it without evidence. Here's the clip that gets right to the heart of the matter, followed by her lead-in clip with copious lead-in and build-up. They're out of order, because though I'm a fan, not everybody appreciates Rachel's patter. I don't know what's wrong with such people, but there you go.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Poutrage! The 10 Most Ridiculous Right Wing Outrages of 2011

The entire New Black Panther Party. Image from source.

I don't know for certain that there is someone out there drawing up talking points, and distributing them daily to FOX "News," Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the other 448 right-wing talkers. But it sure seems that way. When you start hearing something from different people that sounds weird--you know, like outrage about the "Cash for Clunkers" program, months after it ended--you can bet it lit right wing world on fire recently.

You can almost always be sure that the story is at best over hyped.  At worst an outright lie. But even if the story has been utterly and thoroughly debunked (see: Obama's Birth Certificate), it will live on in right wing world forever. It will be repeated in the future as surely as Obama's "57 states" gaffe from 2008. And it will be recalled with righteous anger. These manufactured outrages are so plentiful, I'm surprised they can be narrowed down to just ten.

[Excerpt]


The 10 Most Ridiculous Right-Wing Outrages of 2011

Call them nontroversies, poutrages or pseudo-scandals. Since the 2008 elections, the conservative media have peddled a seemingly endless series of trumped-up non-stories, pitched as scandals rivaling Watergate, to their loyal rubes in an attempt to paint liberals, the media, scientists, Democrats and Obama – and other enemies of the Wingnut State – as perfidious, dishonest or downright treasonous. . .

Read more at: AlterNet

So, Could All the Noise About Solyndra be Just Noise?

Whenever a story or scandal seems to only be getting play on right-wing talk radio, blogs and FOX "News", my antennae go up. Especially when said outlets are whining that "nobody" in the "mainstream media" is covering the story. When this happens, it is usually something like the "new Black Panthers" non-story. Or one of Breitbart's or his lackeys' "sting" operations. But the Solyndra "scandal" actually turned up on a reliable (if comedic) source, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.


So was there something to this scandal after all? Well, maybe not.

[Excerpt]


Chris Hayes Explains Why Solyndra Bankruptcy Is Not A Scandal

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On Sunday’s sophomore edition of Up with Chris Hayes , freshly-minted host Chris Hayes took on the burgeoning Solyndra “scandal,” and made the case that it was, at worst, a case of bad optics. House Republicans have been trying to make a dollar out of this fifteen cents, and the conservative media have been peddling it like funnel cake, but despite Jon Stewart‘s credulous purchase of the “scandal,” it doesn’t really amount to much upon closer inspection. . .

Read more at: Mediaite