I’m seeing so much biased bullcrap coming out of Politico these days, I thought it might be useful to revisit Journolist — the listserve of liberal journalists and leftist thinkers who work together to form a narrative and push it into the mainstream media. The ultimate goals: 1) Make conservatives look stupid and 2) help President Obama or the liberal du jour look fabulous. Read background here.

If you think their coordinated efforts are a thing of the past, think again. On Twitter, it’s very easy to follow the Genesis of a liberal meme and to see that coordination is necessary to elevate it. For example, when Markos Moulitas and Matthew Yglesias, and then, dull-witted useful idiot David Frum, pushed forth the outrageous and malignant idea that Sarah Palin was responsible for the Arizona shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, it caught like wildfire throughout the same old group of lefties. They were none too subtle.

Other talking points are coordinated. You’ll see the same phrases, probably focused grouped by the White House, in every piece about a topic. The current issue the White House is pushing: Green jobs. Expect all sorts of lavish praise for them.

The current negative issue: Get rid of Rick Perry. So, while Obama has made repeated promises about transparency and failed, you’ll be reading lots of pieces from different folks on Rick Perry’s transparency. The “transparency meme” takes the place of the old leftist meme about how Texas jobs aren’t real jobs, etc. And that story took the place of crazy religion wingerdoodles and creationism and, you get the idea.

The leftist press just doesn’t stop. You may be left scratching your head wondering why you even like these accomplished conservatives. That would be the point.

Meanwhile, what you won’t be hearing about: 9.1% unemployment, Obama’s horrible poll numbers, how Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, the double-dip recession, how consumer confidence has bottomed out, how President Obama would rather play golf or fundraise than lead, how manufacturing is leaving America, how the Obama administration is targeting political enemies, how it’s helping political friends. You won’t hear much of anything about these topics.

The goal is to Protect Obama At All Costs.

Some Republicans know how this mean leftist machine rolls, so they’ll feed their opposition research to the hack houses and let the liberals do their gleeful dirty work. And then, the same politicians will be shocked and appalled when those biased beasts turn on them. Exhibit “A”: John McCain.

Please know that when you read most of what passes for Journalism these days, it’s agenda-driven. These Gatekeepers at the Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, and elsewhere work together with the goal of making conservatives look stupid. They hate conservatives ideologically. They hate liberals only to the extent that liberals are ineffective.

The liberal press is not upset with Obama in substance — everything from Union malfeasance to project gunrunners serves a Machiavellian purpose — they’re just frustrated at the perception that Obama is weak and ineffectual. They want more liberalness from him. They want more autocracy! Thus, any displeasure at Obama they convey is for those reasons.

Some key Journolisters were (are, if it doesn’t exist in another form I’ll eat my shoe) [Full list here, some add-ons here]:

Paul Krugman — Moron Economist for the New York Times
Ezra Klein (Founder and keeper of Journolist) — Moron Economist blogger for the Washington Post
Mike Allen — POLITICO
Jonathan Chait — The New Republic
Eric Boehlert — Media Matters (SEIU hush money, Soros funded)
David Corn — Mother Jones
Brad De Long — Moron Economist at Berkley
Kevin Drum — Mother Jones, Washington Monthly
Dan Froomkin — HuffPo, Washington Post
James Fallows — The Atlantic
Chris Hayes — The Nation
Joe Klein — TIME
Robert Mackey — New York Times
Peter Orzag — Office of Management and Budget Director for President Obama
Michael Scherer — TIME
Nate Silver — 538, now, New York Times
Ben Smith — POLITICO
Jeffery Toobin — CNN, The New Yorker
Matthew Yglesias — Center for American Progress, The Atlantic Monthly

I just pulled some more well known names. There are at least 160 + known Journolisters.

Liberal scholars who get quoted in the aforementioned articles as impartial experts are on the list, too. Learn their names.

Nearly everything read at every one of these publications must be interpretted through the lens of bias and agenda. These folks are not truth-seekers. They are ideology pushers. Some are more subtle than others. Some, like Krugman, get more Out-Of-The-Closet flagrant as they get more comfy/old/senile.

Know that they are working with the White House. Remember, Rahm Emanuel (former White House aid, current Mayor of Chicago), James Carville (political strategist, Bill Clinton assistant, foreign elections consultant, commentator), Paul Begala (Clinton assistant, political strategist, CNN, Law professor) and George Stephanopoulos (former Bill Clinton comms director, ABC News This Week)have their daily phone-call confabs and they then pass orders to the Journolisters.

It’s an efficient system that benefits the whole. Like the Borg.

Journolist and the Leftist narrative machine is as strong as ever. As the election year rolls around, they’ll be out in force propping up President Obama and denigrating every single Republican hopeful. If they can undermine every Republican by using the opposition research fed to them by all the different campaigns, they’ll do it. It ultimately serves their goal, anyway — weaken all the Republicans so that none of them can beat Obama.

Don’t be duped.

Brandon Vidrine also joins me to discuss the evolution of news online and the new tools to keep people informed.

Finally, Levi Johnson’s …johnson. Sorry, couldn’t help it. I talk about the press’s Levi-erotica. It ain’t pretty. And then, there’s the Cougars. Growl….

Download MP3

To subscribe on iTunes, just click here!

When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.

– Also, don’t forget to check out our other shows on Take That! –

*** click here to grab the latest Out in Right Field show ***

What strikes me is that the Chicago mess demonstrates how remarkable Sarah Palin’s success has been.

In every state of the union, a cobweb of power networks string together. Money, influence and elections are all tied. Oh, it’s not as horrible as it sounds. Networking happens in all businesses. We tend to trust friends of friends based on our friend’s judgment, etc. The only problem is that the circle can become insular, exclusionary, closed minded, paranoid and entitled. People start doing immoral and then illegal things to get and retain power.

This happens in every state. It happens within the national political parties. It can happen wherever two or more are gathered and form a group. In Alaska, Ted Stevens and a bunch of other guys controlled the state, the gas companies and the policy. There are these “machines” just about everywhere.

Sarah Palin managed to find a way around this system and speak right to the people. No wonder the powers that be are terrified of her. She is inspiring the same sort of hate Ronald Reagan endured and that ought to tell you something. From Front Page News:

After recently reading a remarkably unfair Newsweek hit on Sarah Palin, I thought of a piece in Time magazine in December 1986, titled “How Reagan Stays Out of Touch,” by reporter Richard Stengel—a product of a leak by one of the “pragmatists” in the Reagan White House. Stengel wrote this on the dawdling old fool in the Oval Office:

Reagan’s] briefing with his senior staff, which mainly concerns his daily schedule, lasts only about 30 minutes, and Reagan usually remains quiet, except for his trademark [bantering. It is followed by a briefing from his National Security Council staff that is usually even shorter. When National Security Council staffers prepare Reagan for a full-fledged meeting of the NSC, the president typically does not ask any questions about the topic at hand; instead he inquires, “What do I have to say?”….

Reagan’s reading is not heavy…Old friends and cronies have access to a special private White House post office box number and they can send him clippings that they think might strike his fancy. That box number is the source of many of Reagan’s familiar “factoids,” snippets clipped from obscure publications.

Reagan is not notably curious. His aides say he rarely calls them with a question and that he knows in only a vague way what they actually do. He does not sit down with his advisers to hammer out policy decisions. He is happiest when his aides form a consensus, something they try awfully hard to do….

[Reagan] can work only if he is supported by a competent and active staff. During his first term, Chief of Staff James Baker protected Reagan from his woollier notions and helped put many of his ideals into practice.

The article added that when a suffering, heroic James Baker tried to save the Reagan administration by reshuffling the Cabinet, the “typically detached Reagan look[ed] on like a bemused bystander.” The president was confused.

This story was a leak by a moderate Republican, a Reagan aide, trying to impress liberal journalists by embarrassing his president.

Conservatives nostalgic for Reagan have forgotten the problem their favorite president faced with leaks. Judge Bill Clark was brought into the White House in January 1982 in part to try to stem what Reagan called “a virtual hemorrhage of leaks,” which had become “a problem of major proportions,” particularly in foreign and defense policy.

Sarah Palin inspires the same sort of fear and loathing and will have to manage the shark-infested waters of the political hierarchy. The only thing: money talks and the woman can bring in money. Even the good old boys have to pay attention to that.

Sarah Palin’s rise in Alaska and now nationally is nothing short of remarkable. She is a woman who came to power through her ideas and effective communication and with all the power systems working against her.

Barack Obama, for all his talk of being a “new” politician, got his jobs the old-fashioned way. Sarah Palin has been a new politician. No spouse coattails. No press adulation. No machine power brokers. She got her job by hard work.

Cross-posted at RightWingNews

Here’s my two cents: Sarah Palin is already over-handled. If there is one thing needed during this economic crisis, it’s someone who is in touch with average Americans and speaks the language. Sarah Palin is not stupid, she’s unaccustomed to the blood-sport that is DC politics. It is almost impossible to convey the depths the press and the opposition, and even “friends” will go to destroy a person for having “imperfect” ideology (any ideas that clash with ones own.)

And how do you integrate an ability to talk with awareness without sounding defensive? How do you not sound defensive when the person sitting across from you wants you destroyed? Sarah Palin is still a real person. DC is an unreal realm. I want her to stay real.

Staying real means that people can teach her the history and the geography and the policy, but don’t do it at the expense of her true self. I feel that George W. Bush has been overhandled. When allowed to speak freely, he speaks the best. He reaches the people. I love his Q&A sessions with the press where he instinctively answers questions. He speaks the people’s language.

For Sarah Palin, more polish will come. Or not. Hells bells, Joe Biden isn’t polished and no one gives him a hard time. He’s an outright liar and that seems charming when coming from his mouth, evidently. Sarah Palin has integrity, at least. And don’t give me garbage about her time in Alaska. A politician doesn’t get an 85% approval rating state-wide by being dirty and stupid.

So, I’m not worried about Sarah Palin. I’m worried about a country where a politician like her can’t make it. If all we get are bland, handled, “intelligent”, worldly, cut-throat elites like Obama, I don’t want any part of it. When average people desiring to influence politics for the better have no place in America, we’re in trouble. Sarah Palin gives a lot of people hope–not because she’s the smartest, most polished, most worldly, but because she seem really concerned about how policy affects average Americans and puts their needs first.

Sarah Palin threatens all DC holds dear and that’s why they want to destroy her. Those who ostensibly support her can destroy her too: by making her something she’s not. Let Sarah Palin be. She’s good enough for America. I’m not sure DC is good enough for her.

Cross-posted at RightWingNews