"John Kerry can't even get a camera in the room." - TWEETY!

On Hardball tonight, Tweety was discussing Iraq with Kay Granger (R) Texas and he actually said, "John Kerry can't even get a camera in the room." I nearly fell over.

I never thought I'd hear him (or any other of the talking heads) admit that!

Unbelievable!

I can't believe he admitted that. It was in regard to how easy it is for the Administration to get their message out, that they can just hold a press conference. Then he said that about JK. It was pretty much an acknowledgment that the media has been ignoring JK. It almost sounded like Tweety was on JK's side.

That's a weird statement, because it's not entirely true. But very interesting.

been taking John Kerry seriously. The only coverage he's gotten has been through interviews and talking head shows (and he's done quite a few of these lately). But as hard news, his statements largely go ignored. You hear about all the other Democrats and their plans for Iraq, but Kerry rarely gets a mention by the media.

on orders from the WH.

Kerry has to make a statement that can be mischaracterized before they are allowed to give him coverage.

who control the media. Or maybe they just view him as "yesterday's news." It is pretty frustrating.

"Kerry has to make a statement that can be mischaracterized before they are allowed to give him coverage."

EXACTLY! This is so true. He is only NEWS when he does something they can criticize him over.

in those news breaks between Ed Schultz.

JK's not getting ignored, but the substance of what he's saying is.

Otherwise they would have to admit he's brilliant. Imagine what that would take. They didn't ignore the negatives about him. They pumped up the fake image of Bush while hyping the caricature of JK. Imagine what it would take for them to admit he was and is right. Then imagine what it would take for them to take the leap and actually admit he has the most visionary plan for America's role in the Arab world.

So media complicity forced an incompetent fool on us and now media egotist can't bring themselves, without snark, to rectify the situation by focusing on Kerry's brilliance. Look at his speech today. The last time I read anything resembling any of these points Kerry made today was in the NYT magazine article about Kerry, and even then they were shrouded in snarky remarks.

Who will be big enough, better yet responsible enough, in the media to acknowledge that what Kerry laid out today was a solid, well-thought out, much longer than 1,000 days (length of Bush's war) in the making, best plan for American-Arab-world relations.

JMO.

Sorry, my initial conceptualization of Tweety's statement was wrong - I imagined him saying this as though JK's actions didn't warrant any attention. (And I think I thought that because too many other media egotists are trying to make that idea the story.)

It's more of the same from those who are stuck in Bush-shill mode by default.

because he also said something tonight that sort of opened a door. His comment about Murtha's plan not being workable because the Administration won't do it and by the time the Administration starts to think it is time to get out, the time-frame for the Murtha plan will already have come and gone. He said that a workable plan would be somewhere in the middle ground between Murtha and the Administration.

THAT sounds like Kerry to me. Now, Matthews did not mention Kerry here, but I'm certain he will be going over Kerry's speech if he has not already done so. I'm just thinking he might be receptive to getting on board with Kerry.

Maybe I'm reading too much into tonight's show, but Matthews is very anti-war and to hear him say that Murtha's plan isn't going to fly was a huge step for him.

then Kerry's plan should appeal to him, but I would categorize it as falling somewhere between Murtha's plan and what Bush keeps touting, except if the reference is loosely based on just the time frames.

see JK get some long-overdue respect.

Like that Kerry is so boring he can't even get a camera in the room?

I know Tweety is usually pretty snarky.

He was saying that with all the coverage the WH has, * still can't convince people that he has a plan. Cited the latest polls where * is tanking. And to contrast that, he just used Kerry as an example of a Dem who doesn't get nearly as much coverage.

Overall he was really tough on the repubs tonight--the repub congresswoman got grilled pretty thoroughly. He did say that the Dems have no unified plan, though--and he's partially right on that. But I think they are getting it together more and more. It's totally normal for the party which is out of power to be divided.

President speaks, he gets full coverage, and then he used John Kerry as an example of the lack of media attention given the Democrats who are attempting to get their messages out. The use of Kerry as an example in this way almost indicated a pro-Kerry sentiment, but even more important, it validated that the media coverage is not equal. That was the shocker. A member of the media stating the coverage is not there for the Democrats as it is for the Republicans. And the fact that he used Kerry as an example seemed to be more than an arbitrary choice, possibly because Senator Kerry has particularly been marginalized by this selective approach to journalism.

Sure John Kerry gets to speak on any of the talking head shows he wants to: he will be interviewed because he can be tripped up in an interview. After the whole brouhaha over his use of the word "terrorizing" it is easy to understand why they are more than happy to interview him. Why does Bsh rarely do interviews or take questions from audience members or the press? The goal in letting Senator Kerry speak on television is to get him to say something that can be used against him. That's how I see it. Sure, they are going to let him keep talking in the hopes he'll give them some ammunition.

This is not the same as covering legislation he's proposed in a serious manner. This is not the same as covering his speeches as news, as opposed to taking a single line from the speech and reporting this to slant the context of the speech. It is sad when a United States Senator, a former Presidential nominee, has to resort to going on talk shows to get his message out. (Not that I'm complaining about seeing him on these shows. And he is doing a fantastic job.) There should be coverage of his speech because of who he is and because of his years of experience on the Foreign Relations Committee. If it were any other Senator with the same credentials, there would be serious coverage. How many times has Senator Kerry called for Rumsfeld to be replaced before someone noticed?

Like Kerry said, Washington is broken. The majority party isn't doing its job, but still the minority are made invisible. That's not government working right. The only thing the minority party can do is make a lot of noise, hoping that the media sees a story and covers them. So sad that it has come to this.

You are absolutely right: someone with Kerry's stature should be covered and his views taken seriously. What are they so afraid of, the cowards?
They are afraid that if given an honest choice, people would not choose them!

Think Progress, Bush couldn't get any people in the room.

Via Firedoglake http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_firedoglake_archive.html#113406631734627301:

Makes it all even more shameful.

Anyone got a link on how well-attended Kerry's speech was today??

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2300036

what the turnout for JK's speech today was like. Does anyone have any idea?

I think the media ignoring Kerry goes back to before the '04 campaign when the MSM wanted Dean to be the Democratic candidate. (I'm sure it actually goes back before that.) They bent over backwards to avoid him then, and they continue to do so now. (Possibly because they did push Dean so hard that it made them look rather foolish when he came up a wee bit short in the primaries.) That's why alternative sources for Kerry news (on the internets, etc.) are so important IMO.

President in history, as well as the worst.

War on terrorism needs broad Mideast change-Kerry
Thu Dec 8, 2005 5:47 PM ET

NEW YORK, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Winning the war on terrorism will require not just military success, but a broad transformation of the Middle East and a reduction in the U.S. dependence on oil, Senator John Kerry said on Thursday.

Kerry, who challenged President George W. Bush in the 2004 election, said the United States had been drawn into a battle over "the heart and soul of Islam" and the administration had failed to grasp the nature and scope of the fight.

"The president and his advisers have shown time and time again that they conceive the war on terror as almost exclusively a military operation," the Massachusetts senator said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

"The real war on terror is an even bigger challenge. It is a war that has drawn us smack into the middle of an internal struggle in the Islamic world. It is fundamentally a war within Islam for the heart and soul of Islam," he said.


snip...

Kerry, a leading Democratic critic of Bush's security policies since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said Bush had failed to recognize the challenges of the war on terror and had created a new front with the "mismanaged occupation" of Iraq.


more...


http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=271227+08-Dec-2005+RTRS&srch=kerry

First the ridiculously misleading headline:

Dean says Democrats have united plan
Party chairman and Kerry offer specific withdrawal proposals

Thursday, December 8, 2005; Posted: 9:21 p.m. EST (02:21 GMT)

Howard Dean was criticized for saying the idea that the U.S. can win in Iraq is "just plain wrong."



After some info about Kerry's plan, they spend the rest of the article spewing Rumsfeldisms:


snip...

The proposals by Dean and Kerry appeared to be similar in part to what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday night was the Pentagon's plan to bring home nearly 20,000 troops following the elections.

Rumsfeld said military officials will consider reducing troop strength further if the "conditions permit."

American troop levels, once as high as 160,000, now stand at 155,000, Rumsfeld said on PBS's "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Troop levels were increased by about 20,000 in anticipation of election violence by insurgents.


http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/08/democrats.iraq/index.html?section=cnn_latest


Dean has a proposal? Kerry and Rumsfeld on the same page? Are they kidding me?

Since when is it Dean's job to relay a plan. And, to insult Kerry, by claiming what he proposes is what Rums field has aleady proposed earlier. Maybe the Dem's need their own media like the Republican's seen to have.

As the 2 plans are the same and Kerry's is written as legislation - why not pass it? Then Bush would have a plan and if he's behind it - it should pass.

would it matter? Kerry could always point to the original floor speech introducing it.

But I think if CNN really looks at it they will find that it is nothing like Bush's plan.

With the piece from Sen Kerry's Georgetown speech re the 20K and the date. Either they didn't do their homework, or it was intentional.
Hmmmm...

We shouldn't have to do their work for them, but we are going to have to or they will continue to think no one cares about the Dem's or John Kerry and they won't make changes to the current situation. I also think they take their cues from others and some of the others don't want to give Kerry the time of day, figuring he's not newsworthy anymore. Add to that the push from Rove and corporate leaders and there you have it. We get no publicity unless it is negative mention.
Thanks for contacting them, I did too.

Remember they buried the announcement about his "major" speech.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=273&topic_id=57394&mesg_id=57394

So how do you report the following, then write the Rummy crap?

While Frist is talking in Washington about a potential plague, Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) will deliver his second "major" address on Iraq and broaden his remarks to winning the war on terror at a 1 pm speech before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Kerry, who is also considering a 2008 presidential campaign, will criticize President Bush's efforts to win the war on terror and emphasize it is imperative for the U.S. to not only "destroy the terrorist cells," but also win the "war of ideas."

"This war has drawn us smack into the middle of an internal struggle in the Islamic World," Kerry will say, according to excerpts of his speech released by his office. "A struggle ultimately for the transformation of the greater Middle East into a region that is no longer isolated from the global economy, no longer dependent on despotism for stability, no longer fearful of freedom, and no longer content to feed restive and rising populations of unemployed young people a diet of illusions and excuses."


http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/08/sr.thurs/index.html?section=cnn_latest