Anderson Cooper, “It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging.” Here’s an exchange that will make civil Americans furious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64Ed5iLu4M
Our outrage continues to grow as we gain some perspective on the April 15th, Tax Day, “Tea Party” demonstrations and how those events have been reported and analyzed by the mainstream media, Democrats, and academic elite. There was a most unfortunate exchange between CNN’s hottest reporter, Anderson Cooper and the ultimate voice of the inside-the-Beltway Washington elite point of view, David Gergen, who despite their elite heritage, couldn’t keep themselves from stooping to oral sex sarcasm, speaking of “tea baggers.”
Is there a bigger asshole in the news business, at least outside NBC/MSNBC, than Anderson Cooper? No one has a more elite lineage than the prematurely gray 41 year old CNN top rotation news anchor. Cooper is the son of the epitome of self-styled American aristocracy, Gloria Vanderbilt, 4th generation upper crust heiress, the kind of high society notable famed much more for who she knows not what she knows.
Upon birth, silver spoon in mouth, little Anderson was in the spotlight long before he stopped wetting his diapers (though we have never confirmed he has, in fact, stopped doing that – we extend him the customary benefit of the doubt) was photographed still an infantby celebrity photographer Diane Arbus for Harper’s Bazaar. At three years old, he appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the company of his mother. As a preteen he modeled for the Ford model agency for clients including Macy’s, Ralph Lauren, and Calvin Klein. He was schooled at the ultra-elite Dalton School hovering way above the huddled masses atop the ultimate ivory tower life. From there, it was just a small step to the Ivy League, Yale University.
His first significant media gig was as a correspondent for ABC, briefly serving as co-anchor for its overnight “World News Now.” Apparently not glamorous enough, he’d move on to host ABC’s (non)reality show, “The Mole,” a show high on exploitation, low on substance.
Following the course of the Peter Principle elevating to his proper level of incompetence, CNN beckoned first appearing along side, downward spiraling anchor, Paula Zahn and then weekend prime time anchor before CNN saw the salty haired Cooper as someone to position against Fox news after years of decline where the original professionals who helped launch the network either left no longer finding a place in the new climate brought on by the Time-Warner control of the network or forced out by that same organization who sought to remove the original Ted Turner influence from the original cable news network. “Anderson Cooper 360” debuted in September, 2003 designed to present a fresh style to news coverage, but while becoming the toast of the chattering class of media insiders, almost six years later, “AC360” hasn’t put a dent in the continued rise of Fox News. Cooper articulated his notion of media anchor as reported by “Media Bistro” in 2007, indicating;
I think the notion of traditional anchor is fading away, the all-knowing, all-seeing person who speaks from on high. I don't think the audience really buys that anymore. As a viewer, I know I don't buy it. I think you have to be yourself, and you have to be real and you have to admit what you don't know, and talk about what you do know, and talk about what you don't know as long as you say you don't know it. I tend to relate more to people on television who are just themselves, for good or for bad, than I do to someone who I believe is putting on some sort of persona. The anchorman on The Simpsons is a reasonable facsimile of some anchors who have that problem.
OH REALLY!?!? Perhaps Anderson Cooper dispatches away from the anchor desk to provide sensationalistic on-the-scene news anchor coverage, but HELLO, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings had been doing that for years. However, Cooper’s style was less that of the formal journalist and more the “I feel your pain” kind of personality driven news figure much more akin to Geraldo Rivera without the mustache and slight Puerto Rican accent. Like Geraldo, AC skillfully worked his perceptions into editorializing while reporting confronting interview subjects with loaded “do you still beat your wife” kinds of questions as he clearly wanted to make a big issue of the government’s response to hurricane Katrina which he characterized in New York magazine, stating:
Yeah, I would prefer not to be emotional and I would prefer not to get upset, but it’s hard not to when you’re surrounded by brave people who are suffering and in need. (September, 2005)
So much for the traditional who, what, when, where foundation of journalism, but AC will surely offer his sense of how and why from his point of view. Media insider publication, Broadcasting and Cable Magazine, noted, “In its aftermath, Hurricane Katrina served to usher in a new breed of emo-journalism, skyrocketing CNN's Anderson Cooper to superstardom as CNN's golden boy and a darling of the media circles because of his impassioned coverage of the storm."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64Ed5iLu4M
Our outrage continues to grow as we gain some perspective on the April 15th, Tax Day, “Tea Party” demonstrations and how those events have been reported and analyzed by the mainstream media, Democrats, and academic elite. There was a most unfortunate exchange between CNN’s hottest reporter, Anderson Cooper and the ultimate voice of the inside-the-Beltway Washington elite point of view, David Gergen, who despite their elite heritage, couldn’t keep themselves from stooping to oral sex sarcasm, speaking of “tea baggers.”
Is there a bigger asshole in the news business, at least outside NBC/MSNBC, than Anderson Cooper? No one has a more elite lineage than the prematurely gray 41 year old CNN top rotation news anchor. Cooper is the son of the epitome of self-styled American aristocracy, Gloria Vanderbilt, 4th generation upper crust heiress, the kind of high society notable famed much more for who she knows not what she knows.
Upon birth, silver spoon in mouth, little Anderson was in the spotlight long before he stopped wetting his diapers (though we have never confirmed he has, in fact, stopped doing that – we extend him the customary benefit of the doubt) was photographed still an infantby celebrity photographer Diane Arbus for Harper’s Bazaar. At three years old, he appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the company of his mother. As a preteen he modeled for the Ford model agency for clients including Macy’s, Ralph Lauren, and Calvin Klein. He was schooled at the ultra-elite Dalton School hovering way above the huddled masses atop the ultimate ivory tower life. From there, it was just a small step to the Ivy League, Yale University.
His first significant media gig was as a correspondent for ABC, briefly serving as co-anchor for its overnight “World News Now.” Apparently not glamorous enough, he’d move on to host ABC’s (non)reality show, “The Mole,” a show high on exploitation, low on substance.
Following the course of the Peter Principle elevating to his proper level of incompetence, CNN beckoned first appearing along side, downward spiraling anchor, Paula Zahn and then weekend prime time anchor before CNN saw the salty haired Cooper as someone to position against Fox news after years of decline where the original professionals who helped launch the network either left no longer finding a place in the new climate brought on by the Time-Warner control of the network or forced out by that same organization who sought to remove the original Ted Turner influence from the original cable news network. “Anderson Cooper 360” debuted in September, 2003 designed to present a fresh style to news coverage, but while becoming the toast of the chattering class of media insiders, almost six years later, “AC360” hasn’t put a dent in the continued rise of Fox News. Cooper articulated his notion of media anchor as reported by “Media Bistro” in 2007, indicating;
I think the notion of traditional anchor is fading away, the all-knowing, all-seeing person who speaks from on high. I don't think the audience really buys that anymore. As a viewer, I know I don't buy it. I think you have to be yourself, and you have to be real and you have to admit what you don't know, and talk about what you do know, and talk about what you don't know as long as you say you don't know it. I tend to relate more to people on television who are just themselves, for good or for bad, than I do to someone who I believe is putting on some sort of persona. The anchorman on The Simpsons is a reasonable facsimile of some anchors who have that problem.
OH REALLY!?!? Perhaps Anderson Cooper dispatches away from the anchor desk to provide sensationalistic on-the-scene news anchor coverage, but HELLO, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings had been doing that for years. However, Cooper’s style was less that of the formal journalist and more the “I feel your pain” kind of personality driven news figure much more akin to Geraldo Rivera without the mustache and slight Puerto Rican accent. Like Geraldo, AC skillfully worked his perceptions into editorializing while reporting confronting interview subjects with loaded “do you still beat your wife” kinds of questions as he clearly wanted to make a big issue of the government’s response to hurricane Katrina which he characterized in New York magazine, stating:
Yeah, I would prefer not to be emotional and I would prefer not to get upset, but it’s hard not to when you’re surrounded by brave people who are suffering and in need. (September, 2005)
So much for the traditional who, what, when, where foundation of journalism, but AC will surely offer his sense of how and why from his point of view. Media insider publication, Broadcasting and Cable Magazine, noted, “In its aftermath, Hurricane Katrina served to usher in a new breed of emo-journalism, skyrocketing CNN's Anderson Cooper to superstardom as CNN's golden boy and a darling of the media circles because of his impassioned coverage of the storm."
Isn't this the same time period CNN's prime time ratings have been in a freefall downward?
Would this publication say the same of Geraldo Rivera’s highly dramatic demonstrative reporting of Katrina the same way? How about Fox anchor, Shepherd Smith’s coverage where he spoke passionately about his outrage on the suffering of the New Orleans’ citizens struggling to survive after the storm? Shepherd Smith, of course, was the initial target CNN aimed its AC360 media Scud missile at to beat in the ratings chase.
After Katrina, the media insiders felt Anderson Cooper was their star on the rise, their new foxy anti-Fox celebrity “info-tainer” headline purveyor. His star with CNN continues to rise as his program becomes more blatantly agenda and anchor driven, the truth be damned especially if it makes traditional American values seem outmoded. Never let the facts ruin a good story.
David Gergen is the ultimate Washington DC intellectual whore. If there ever was a figure who triumphs on who he knows not what he knows, Gergen is the man. For Gergen, the outmost boundary of his professional world is the Capital Beltway aside from long distance messages to the highest elitist perches in New York, Los Angeles, and the inner circles of the Ivy League.
Born in real America, Durham, North Carolina, establishing the elitist pedigree began as an undergraduate graduating from Yale University in 1963. Four years later, David Gergen received his law degree from Harvard, 1967. The first poll of his life was secure, the northern pillars of the Yale and Harvard ivory towers. After less than four years in the the Navy, it was on to Washington, DC where he has served in a number of “advisor” capacities for the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton administrations and as a campaign staff member for George H.W. Bush. Bouncing back and forth between administrative rolls and stints in journalism, primarily with US News & World Report but situated as a supposed conservative voice opposite Mark Shields on the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, and providing a convenient talking head analyst on a myriad of issues oriented news programs finding regular work with Anderson Cooper 360 and Chris Matthews. Adding to his credentials as one of the deans of the “Inside the Beltway” chattering class is his membership with the Council or Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.
To call Gergen conservative would essentially be a matter of guilt by association given his service to four Republican presidents. David Gergen is not known for being a strong advocate of any particular positions or agendas other than being a major proponent of mandatory national service hardly a position welcomed by defenders of personal liberty but truly an extension of an ever broadening notion of big government playing a larger roll in every citizen’s private life.
Gergen describes himself as an independent as if he is establishing that as some kind of moral high ground above partisanship. In truth, as the ultimate Washington insider, Gergen is a true DC weathervane ready to move in what direction the prevailing winds in DC are blowing. Since his tenure with the Clinton administration, it would be a long stretch to consider anything Gergen asserts as positioned any further right than the ambiguous zone of the dead center. One need not move too far in the direction of “centrist” to be conservative compared to today’s major figures in the mainstream media or the Democratic party.
If viewed from the “what have you done for me lately” point of view, Gergen was a harsh critic of George W. Bush, but not for his roll in facilitating the roll of big government but more for the former president’s assertive stance on foreign policy and the war on terrorism. Ever the voice for nuanced consensus solutions to the nation’s issues, the unmistakable clearly defined stance and moral conviction that characterized the administration’s war on terror did not sit well with Gergen’s inside-the-Beltway approach. That the administration had little use for playing up to the long standing insiders in DC further made President Bush a subject of Gergen’s criticism.
Put all this together, Gergen is the perfect stooge for the far left media. That the media positions him as former “high level” or “senior” official with several Republican presidents, they revel in his every word that rebukes the policies and actions of Republicans and conservatives they are anxious to paint in the most negative light. Gergen provides the perfect set up for the Liberal elite pundits to point to him and scream, “See even major conservative voices disagree with …..”
That David Gergen would be highly critical of the “Tea Party” movement should come as no surprise. Given major concerns of the movement are the continued growth and intrusion of big government, unrestrained spending, and inside the Washington Beltway being the only place solutions for main street America can originate, Gergen’s condescension and contempt for those who represent the little people in his world is obvious.
Given the background and record of what Anderson Cooper and David Gergen represents, no one should be surprised with Cooper in the anchor chair and Gergen in the pendant seat, their attempts to trivialize and demonize the Tea Party participants served as a clear picture of both how biased toward the radical left and big government they are but also their contempt and clear sense of moral and intellectual superiority over main street America. Make no mistake about it, neither Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street, Hollywood Boulevard or Madison Avenue could be considered “main street” by most Americans. While their arrogance is bad enough, that such self-fashioned men of sophistication would giggle about taunts involving oral sex, “tea bagging” where the male scrotum is considered the tea bag is insulting, dismissive, and demeaning beyond what anyone should tolerate in polite society, the kind of world they would swear to uphold. Can anyone imagine the outcry if Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter used Barney Frank’s sexuality to demean him by calling him a “fudge packer?”
The attitude of the forces of the media, Washington insiders, the Obama administration, the Democratic party, and socially active members of the entertainment industry could never be clearer than they are now beginning with the Homeland Security confidential report to law enforcement which painted with a broad brush almost any conceivable opponent to the Obama administration is a potential terror threat, to CNN’s on the scene reporter, Susan Roesgen, belittling and lecturing a demonstration participant, to the incendiary comments from Janeane Garafolo loathingly slamming demonstrators and Obama critics as racists up to the highest level of CNN with their most visible anchor utilizing the services of David Gergen to discredit the movement and members of the protests, if a person does not embrace the media propaganda and at least passively accept Obama’s attempt to fashion as socialistic big government makeover on American society, there’s something seriously wrong with that person. Nowhere can any notion of civil respect be seen that there is a legitimate opposition to the radical left and that at least their right to dissent should be welcome.
There is a harsh climate of intellectual fascism flowing out of the nations’ most elite universities and institutions of government being amplified and passed on as gospel by the mainstream media. Accuracy and honesty be damned, the media now exists as an advocacy profession for the scrapping of our constitutional republic and free enterprise system in favor of the world vision of transatlantic elites from Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Ottawa and Toronto on this side of the Atlantic to London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, and Amsterdam across the sea.
The “conservative” Fox News Network’s account of the Cooper/Gergen segment:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/16/cable-anchors-guests-use-tea-parties-platform-frat-house-humor/
For good measure we can’t resist including this report from soon after the inauguration. Was ol’ AC360 exhausted from all the inaugural celebrations? We’re civil enough we won’t suggest he might be intoxicated! As Fox News would say, “we’ll report, you decide!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-UiJbPN4fM&NR=1
Would this publication say the same of Geraldo Rivera’s highly dramatic demonstrative reporting of Katrina the same way? How about Fox anchor, Shepherd Smith’s coverage where he spoke passionately about his outrage on the suffering of the New Orleans’ citizens struggling to survive after the storm? Shepherd Smith, of course, was the initial target CNN aimed its AC360 media Scud missile at to beat in the ratings chase.
After Katrina, the media insiders felt Anderson Cooper was their star on the rise, their new foxy anti-Fox celebrity “info-tainer” headline purveyor. His star with CNN continues to rise as his program becomes more blatantly agenda and anchor driven, the truth be damned especially if it makes traditional American values seem outmoded. Never let the facts ruin a good story.
David Gergen is the ultimate Washington DC intellectual whore. If there ever was a figure who triumphs on who he knows not what he knows, Gergen is the man. For Gergen, the outmost boundary of his professional world is the Capital Beltway aside from long distance messages to the highest elitist perches in New York, Los Angeles, and the inner circles of the Ivy League.
Born in real America, Durham, North Carolina, establishing the elitist pedigree began as an undergraduate graduating from Yale University in 1963. Four years later, David Gergen received his law degree from Harvard, 1967. The first poll of his life was secure, the northern pillars of the Yale and Harvard ivory towers. After less than four years in the the Navy, it was on to Washington, DC where he has served in a number of “advisor” capacities for the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton administrations and as a campaign staff member for George H.W. Bush. Bouncing back and forth between administrative rolls and stints in journalism, primarily with US News & World Report but situated as a supposed conservative voice opposite Mark Shields on the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, and providing a convenient talking head analyst on a myriad of issues oriented news programs finding regular work with Anderson Cooper 360 and Chris Matthews. Adding to his credentials as one of the deans of the “Inside the Beltway” chattering class is his membership with the Council or Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.
To call Gergen conservative would essentially be a matter of guilt by association given his service to four Republican presidents. David Gergen is not known for being a strong advocate of any particular positions or agendas other than being a major proponent of mandatory national service hardly a position welcomed by defenders of personal liberty but truly an extension of an ever broadening notion of big government playing a larger roll in every citizen’s private life.
Gergen describes himself as an independent as if he is establishing that as some kind of moral high ground above partisanship. In truth, as the ultimate Washington insider, Gergen is a true DC weathervane ready to move in what direction the prevailing winds in DC are blowing. Since his tenure with the Clinton administration, it would be a long stretch to consider anything Gergen asserts as positioned any further right than the ambiguous zone of the dead center. One need not move too far in the direction of “centrist” to be conservative compared to today’s major figures in the mainstream media or the Democratic party.
If viewed from the “what have you done for me lately” point of view, Gergen was a harsh critic of George W. Bush, but not for his roll in facilitating the roll of big government but more for the former president’s assertive stance on foreign policy and the war on terrorism. Ever the voice for nuanced consensus solutions to the nation’s issues, the unmistakable clearly defined stance and moral conviction that characterized the administration’s war on terror did not sit well with Gergen’s inside-the-Beltway approach. That the administration had little use for playing up to the long standing insiders in DC further made President Bush a subject of Gergen’s criticism.
Put all this together, Gergen is the perfect stooge for the far left media. That the media positions him as former “high level” or “senior” official with several Republican presidents, they revel in his every word that rebukes the policies and actions of Republicans and conservatives they are anxious to paint in the most negative light. Gergen provides the perfect set up for the Liberal elite pundits to point to him and scream, “See even major conservative voices disagree with …..”
That David Gergen would be highly critical of the “Tea Party” movement should come as no surprise. Given major concerns of the movement are the continued growth and intrusion of big government, unrestrained spending, and inside the Washington Beltway being the only place solutions for main street America can originate, Gergen’s condescension and contempt for those who represent the little people in his world is obvious.
Given the background and record of what Anderson Cooper and David Gergen represents, no one should be surprised with Cooper in the anchor chair and Gergen in the pendant seat, their attempts to trivialize and demonize the Tea Party participants served as a clear picture of both how biased toward the radical left and big government they are but also their contempt and clear sense of moral and intellectual superiority over main street America. Make no mistake about it, neither Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street, Hollywood Boulevard or Madison Avenue could be considered “main street” by most Americans. While their arrogance is bad enough, that such self-fashioned men of sophistication would giggle about taunts involving oral sex, “tea bagging” where the male scrotum is considered the tea bag is insulting, dismissive, and demeaning beyond what anyone should tolerate in polite society, the kind of world they would swear to uphold. Can anyone imagine the outcry if Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter used Barney Frank’s sexuality to demean him by calling him a “fudge packer?”
The attitude of the forces of the media, Washington insiders, the Obama administration, the Democratic party, and socially active members of the entertainment industry could never be clearer than they are now beginning with the Homeland Security confidential report to law enforcement which painted with a broad brush almost any conceivable opponent to the Obama administration is a potential terror threat, to CNN’s on the scene reporter, Susan Roesgen, belittling and lecturing a demonstration participant, to the incendiary comments from Janeane Garafolo loathingly slamming demonstrators and Obama critics as racists up to the highest level of CNN with their most visible anchor utilizing the services of David Gergen to discredit the movement and members of the protests, if a person does not embrace the media propaganda and at least passively accept Obama’s attempt to fashion as socialistic big government makeover on American society, there’s something seriously wrong with that person. Nowhere can any notion of civil respect be seen that there is a legitimate opposition to the radical left and that at least their right to dissent should be welcome.
There is a harsh climate of intellectual fascism flowing out of the nations’ most elite universities and institutions of government being amplified and passed on as gospel by the mainstream media. Accuracy and honesty be damned, the media now exists as an advocacy profession for the scrapping of our constitutional republic and free enterprise system in favor of the world vision of transatlantic elites from Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Ottawa and Toronto on this side of the Atlantic to London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, and Amsterdam across the sea.
The “conservative” Fox News Network’s account of the Cooper/Gergen segment:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/16/cable-anchors-guests-use-tea-parties-platform-frat-house-humor/
For good measure we can’t resist including this report from soon after the inauguration. Was ol’ AC360 exhausted from all the inaugural celebrations? We’re civil enough we won’t suggest he might be intoxicated! As Fox News would say, “we’ll report, you decide!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-UiJbPN4fM&NR=1
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