The Irony of Television
Because A(ll) B(arack) C(hannel) had been shoving down our throats–for what felt like a week–that Oblahblahblahblahblahma was going to be giving a press conference last night on their channel, my wife and I ended up watching–ironically–The Biggest Loser on NBC.
I don’t think we missed anything huge, other than that Teh One appeared to have said he supports a Flat Tax (h/t HotAir). If he had actually gone on there with the agenda that Frank (IMAO) suggested, I might have considered watching it. Unfortunately, I’m betting that it was basically like what Frank said:
“I’m going to spend trillions of dollars on wacky crazy crap and you can’t stop me. Plus, I’m not going to let you watch TV; instead you have to watch me! Ha ha ha ha!”
I did pay attention this morning when GMA did a fast recap, as well as read Michelle’s report this morning. Sounded like a few hard-hitting questions that he dodged–like ‘why is Andrew Cuomo [reporter on Good Morning America] doing more/getting more answers than you and Geithner, who were slow on the uptake?’–as well as several softball questions such as Ann Compton’s asking about race still playing a part in the presidency.
In reading Jake Tapper’s question, it sounds like The Messiah doesn’t like hard-hitting questions (surprise! surprise!), as he sidestepped most–if, not all–of them. The question Jake asked was if our PotUS would sign off on the Budget that Senate Democrats are working on. (I find it interesting that it’s only the Democrats who are working on this!) Jake went deeper and said that the Dems are getting rid of the middle-class tax cut, as well as cap-and-trade.
Don’t know what cap-and-trade is? No biggie. It’s basically the idiotic idea that we should tax… Well, let me just blockquote it for you so you can hear it from the horse’s mouth:
When it comes to cap-and-trade, the broader principle is that we’ve got to move to a new energy era. And that means moving away from polluting energy sources towards cleaner energy sources.
That is a potential engine for economic growth. I think cap-and-trade is the best way, from my perspective, to achieve some of those gains, because what it does is it starts pricing the pollution that’s being sent into the atmosphere. The way it’s structured, it has to take into account regional differences. It has to protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices. So there are a — a lot of technical issues that are going to have to be sorted through.
heh. heheheheheheheheheh. Sorry. Giggling here. The highlighted text was my doing, but it’s the part that I wanted you to see. He wants to take an energy company–say your electric company–and, for every ounce of emissions it sends into the atmosphere, charge that company for it. Yet at the same time, it ‘has to protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices.’ Excuse me while I ROFLMBO!
Electric companies can soooo easily get around that one. Take a look at your electric bill sometime. If it’s like mine, there is a line for electricity usage, and then there are lines that are various fees and taxes. Things like “Branch Fee” and “Plant Fee” and such. It’ll be easy enough to add another fee in there. “Emissions Fee” or “Government Fee” or something along those lines. Whatever it takes for them to get the money to pay for the air pollution.
And if my electric company goes to hydroelectric, we’ll still get charged those fees even after the dams are built. Why? When you build a hydroelectric plant, it tends to kill plant life in the area (not to mention has other ecological impacts). When you kill plant life by turning the area into a lake to feed your hydroelectric plant, it produces methane and carbon dioxide. Greenhouse gases. So the gov’t will continue to charge them for it. w00t.
Yes, I think he was right when he said it’s a potential engine for economic growth. But what he didn’t do was finish the sentence. It’s a potential engine for the economic growth of the government. Yea, us.
Howard Kurtz (Washington Post) claims that there were several hard-hitting questions, as well as stated that President Hopenchange ignored the big media (Washington Post, NYT, LAT, Chicago Tribune, WSJ, and USA Today) for smaller ones (Ebony, Stars and Stripes, Univision, and Agence France-Presse). That’s an odd assortment, but he probably just wanted to make sure that all the minorites were covered, the military, and include a (largely) European (although there is an office in Washington) media outlet belonging to a country we haven’t dissed yet. At least, that’s what I would hope he was doing. But you never can tell.
But the answers to those “hard hitting” questions were evasive at best. Some were just flat-out ignored. The softball questions (like the one that Ann Compton asked) were the only ones really answered straight-out.
I did find it quite….umm….interesting that he had a teleprompter at the press conference. Can he go nowhere without it?
So, based on everything that I’ve read, I would say that it wouldn’t have mattered which channel I was watching last night–ABC or NBC–I would have still been watching…well, you get the idea.
