A meeting earlier this week between loudmouth Donald Trump and serial adulterer Newt Gingrich must have presented logistics problems equivalent to raising the dead—though come to think of it, the former House Speaker has been resurrected from the political graveyard. What puzzles me is how two massive egos like those of Gingrich and Trump fit into a single room? And presuming this was accomplished, what miraculous drug  was injected to shut-up these two blabbermouths long enough to stop them from interrupting each other? I can’t answer either of these questions. 

But I do have a theory about Newt’s resurrection that stems from my life in the same Deep South culture as the GOP presidential hopeful—the current frontrunner in several polls. My daddy and many other folks I knew were/are “yellow dog Democrats,” a term meaning they would vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for a Republican. These diehards probably comprised less than thirty percent of the population. But whatever the percentage, put a yellow dog as the sole Democrat candidate against a Republican in the old days and the mongrel would receive a lot of votes.

Newt is apparently taking advantage of the ancient Deep South political principle. After all, he is a historian and recognizes that a lot of GOP voters are saying, “I would vote for a rabid red cur dog before I would vote for Barack Obama.” Or for Mitt Romney, it seems.

In short, Newt has his 25 to 30 percent of non-thinking supporters—most likely viewers of Fox “News,” aka the Republican Propaganda Network, and a large segment of amnesiacs who have forgotten Gingrich is responsible for much of the divisiveness that now cripples the ability of Congress to solve the economic woes caused by eight years of George W. Bush.

If President Obama prays for votes, Newt Gingrich is the answer to his prayers. However, God has already disappointed Obama once by allowing Sarah Palin to fade into irrelavance and obscurity. Sadly—at least for the President—Gingrich will also fade. And Mitt Romney will eventually be the last GOP candidate standing. 

Like I’ve said in previous blog posts, the Republicans have decided to throw the election.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career. jblisscamp@aol.com

Here is a scary thought. At least one in five republicans we encounter in this are nuts. What other explanation is there for Newt Gingrich’s sudden surge in the polls, or pizza man Herman Cain’s brief time in the political limelight, or Texas Governor Rick Perry momentary fling as the Presidential choice of twenty-plus percent of potential GOP primary season voters.

I’m not complaining. The republican comedy troupe makes writing a blog easy—especially since I can occasionally post re-runs. This week’s disclosure that Newt Gingrich and/or his consulting firm collected more than a million and a half dollars for giving advice to Fannie Mae is the latest of the serial scandals involving the serial adulterer. The former Speaker of the House assured reporters that he was paid as an “historian,” not as a lobbyist.

Gingrich’s explanation is in the same league as his elucidation on Pat Robertson’s CBN about adultery in which he claimed he violated the Seventh Commandment because of his patriotism and love of country. Anyway, I offered my observations last May on the man who will not go away and it’s time for a repeat.

                     NEWT GINGRICH TO TEST HOW LOW GOP WILL GO

Like Donald Trump, the Presidential candidacy of Newt Gingrich is a sick joke—a bit of whimsy that provides comics with punchlines. Neither man has a chance of being nominated, much less being elected. Nonetheless, the two alleged candidacies provide an accurate measurement of the number of people who give will give stupid answers to pollsters.

What person in reasonable control of mental faculties would seriously consider voting for either man. Serial adulterer Newt Gingrich built his career on failure. He failed as as a husband, who hurried to the bedside of his cancer-stricken wife to announce he was divorcing her—and as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives before resigning because of the hypocrisy of lambasting President Clinton for sexual adventures in the Oval Office at the same time he was carrying on with a woman in a Catholic pew.

Gingrich’s Presidential aspirations have made it easy for news reporters searching for a low life worse than the Donald. It took only a few interminable weeks for Trump to display his  true stripes. And none were black. His racism is less subtle than that of Klan Kleagle and Nazi David Duke. But he is worse than Duke because the mainstream media gave him so much access. He is now gone, but sadly, not forgotten.

Everytime I think television news has bottomed out, another sinkhole takes broadcast journalism into deeper disgrace. What happens when Lindsey Lohan announces her candidacy? Will she be given unlimited interviews to accuse Barack Obama of being 51% white because he lacks real rhythm?

At least, Newt Gingrich’s access to the media has been pretty much restricted to the Republican Propaganda Network, aka, Fox “News.”  But in recent days, the network has purportedly cut ties with Newt and its stable of Presidential wannabes/commentators. However, Fox will undoubtedly give them plenty of interview time as the election cycle progresses.

For the time being, Newt Gingrich can make more money soliciting campaign contributions than working as a pundit. Although he must account for a good portion of the money, it provides him a bankroll for a rather elegant lifestyle in the best hotels and restaurants while running for the nation’s highest office.

Gingrich is a smart guy. He will tell you so. Over and over and over, ad nauseum. He lies awake at night devising polysylballic words and phrases to attack his opponents. And that is where he may be useful to the Republican Party.

With Gingrich’s lack of conscience and his propensity for distortion, he could become an attack dog when and if a viable GOP Presidential candidate emerges. Meantime, Republican voters with big bank accounts and small brains can contribute to the Gingrich anti-poverty fund.

Others can simply write and tell the bastard to get a real job.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career. jblisscamp@aol.com.

Is Texas Governor Rick Perry receiving campaign contributions from some sort of comedy writers organization? I know Stephen Colbert’s satirical campaign SuperPac ran Iowa television ads on behalf of Rick “Parry.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/stephen-colberts-first-super-pac-commercial-rick-parry_n_923678.html

Colbert’s modest Iowa investment in exposing  the ridiculous rules of the Federal Election Commission seems insufficient to cause other Republican  candidates to compete for contributions from the Comedy Channel’s faux political commentator. Still, the hilarious gang of eight get Colbert’s attention by going on stage to do outrageous gigs nearly every week. The only things missing from their performances are pies and tiny cars.

I’m a liberal Democrat. However, my comedy preferences are non-partisan. So I always look forward to the 2010 Republican debates. There can’t be too many of them—that is unless Rick Perry drops out. 

I keep asking myself questions about Perry like, ”How did he manage to graduate in the top ten of his thirteen student senior class in Paint Creek, Texas?”  I would like to know the grade point averages of classmates eleven, twelve and thirteen? If elected President, would Perry remember the name of Vice President Bobby Jindal? His selection with balance the I.Q. of the ticket.

Louisiana Governor Smarty Pants. an Ivy League educated Rhodes Scholar announced his support almost before Perry could even finish declaring himself a presidential candidate. Jindal should have been tipped off at Perry’s shortcomings when the Texas asked him, “Where did you say Louisiana was located?” Did Jindal say, “Oops, I screwed up” after Perry’s memory loss Wednesday night?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNN7vy7aQOE   

Compared to Perry’s debate gaffes, Jindal’s 2009 GOP State of the Union response—excerpts of which are on the Internet—seems like one of the great speeches of Ronald Reagan and JFK. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-eBqthOvi0

Another GOP debate is set for Saturday evening, this one focusing on international affairs. It should be quite entertaining—especially when Herman Cain is questioned about the names of foreign leaders, assuming he’s still around. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/1969/12/31/_n_1033233.html

Like former half-term Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin’s foreign policy expertise that was honed by visions of Russia from her front porch, Rick Perry can claim to peer into Mexico from anywhere along Texas’s two-thousand mile border with the country. I hope he remembers our neighbor to the north is Canada. Come to think of it, I hope he shows up Saturday. Given past performances, he may be the first to bow out. Other candidates are sure to follow.

Maybe former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer—the phantom Republican hopeful—will be the last man standing. So far, though, he has not been given an opportunity to stand on the debate stage, which gives him an edge. But whatever happens, Buddy is having fun. The Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart audiences love him. 

At this point in the campaign season, Roemer makes the most sense—a commentary on the sad state of the Republican Party.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career. jblisscamp@aol.com.

The Republican comedy troupe has no joint appearances until next week. But individually during the interim, several of the clowns are performing in various venues. The most popular act in recent days is Herman Cain’s constantly changing explanation of one of his 1990’s “jokes” while President of the National Restaurant Association—a costly witticism that resulted in sexual harrassment allegations by two women, who failed to appreciate Cain’s Clarence Thomas impression.

The restaurant association paid the women tens of thousands of dollars to keep quiet about the incidents. However, a confidentiality clause may soon be waived. As the GOP’s leading comedian to date, it will probably be something like, “I got your pizza right here, baby. Just kidding.”

Apathy was my initial reaction to the sexual harrassment story, which was first disclosed by Politico. Cain’s campaign is based on gaffes and stumbles. But as CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin points out, the guy is a viable presidential candidate and there is no such thing as overkill. At least in the collective eyes of the media and CNN in particular. My former employers should adopt the slogan, “We never let go of anybody’s tale.”

As usual, Cain apologists are blaming the liberal media, though he is getting beat up badly by Fox “News,” aka the Republican Propaganda Network. Pillhead Rush Limbaugh must have popped a few extra Oxycontin causing him to go off on a rant comparing Cain’s problems to the attacks on Clarence Thomas. Careful, Rush.  The small balls of then Senator Joe Biden is the only reason Justice Thomas escaped with his Supreme Court robe assured. As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden refused to call witnesses who would have reinforced Anita Hill’s claim of being harrassed by Thomas when he headed a federal agency.

It’s hard to predict the overall impact of the sexual harrassment allegations on Cain’s campaign. He claims money is flowing in. Maybe the tea partiers will present him with a medal. And for sure, Rick Perry will say something stupid to divert attention from Cain. In reality, neither Cain, Perry, nor the other fringe candidates have much of a chance of being nominated. Congratulations, Mitt.

Although fringe candidates have been around for most of our country’s history, there have never been so many with so many problems and so little prospects. Serial adulter Newt Gingrich is the show-off of the crowd. Michele Bachmann plays the role of dumb brunete. Rick Santorum likes to bare his teeth, but doesn’t bite. Ron Paul is the crazy uncle from the basement and John Huntsman tells fart jokes. We need to have GOP debates nightly.

I’ve had my own experience with the fringe—directly and indirectly. In 1981, a Lyndon Larouche “newspaper” compared me to Edward R. Murrow and I was tempted to the publication—not that I have anything against the legendary CBS newsman. But praise from Larouche was the equivalent of libel. Like having Osama Bin Laden include me in his Will and last testament. I earned plaudits from the Larouche folks for an ABC documentary in which I exposed their worst enemy—the law.

More precisely, an ABC Close Up report titled When Crime Pays criticized federal and state prosecutors, who make corrupt deals with witnesses by promising excessive inducements in return for testimony. It is supposed to be a system of the bad testifying against the badder. But sometimes, it’s vice versa. The worst get sentences cut or receive other incentives as a reward.

For readers who don’t have the time or inclination to google Lyndon Larouche, I offer a quickie. He was a seven time fringe candidate for the presidential nomination, running as a Democrat. Republicans can take solace in the fact that their party does not hold an exclusive franchise on nutty candidates. However, Sarah Palin in 2008 and Herman Cain, et al, in the current cycle gives the GOP a leg up on nuttiness. Although Cain’s 999 is a simplistic and regressive policy, it falls short of Larouche’s economic proposal to colonize Mars by 2027—a plan he outlined in a thirty minute network political commercial during one of his pre-prison campaigns.

I won’t bore readers by repeating my experiences with Ross Perot. Suffice to say that spending time with the billionaire Texan was more painful than multiple root canals performed from the rear by a proctologist.

Anyway, my metaphors are becoming too graphic. I leave you now to celebrate by birthday by joining my daughers for lunch.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career. jblisscamp@aol.com.

Lawmen in Zanesville, Ohio are tracking and shooting  exotic animals. My advice to Republican presidential candidates is avoid being anywhere near Zanesville for the next several days. Being a card-carrying political masochist, I watched the GOP debate televised from Las Vegas Tuesday night and saw some pretty exotic creatures.

Mitt Romney must have felt like a character in one of those old movies in which an airplane crashes in the jungle and survivors find themselves surrounded by wild beasts and weird threatening tribes. Not even Romney’s protective Mormon underwear could protect him from the onslaught of the oddball animals surrounding him. Granted, the former Massachussets Governor has a strange affliction causing him to speak double-talk. But he was the only viable candidate on the stage.  

Indeed, I had to keep reminding myself during the debate that these creatures aspire to be leaders of the free world—or so they say. Herman Cain is simply trying out new comedy materia. He doesn’t even have a campaign organization. Rick Santorum is trying to raise money to buy a revival tent and build a following as a Catholic Jimmy Swaggart (watch out for shady ladies, Rick). Serial adulterer Newt Gingrich just likes to show people how smart he think he is. Ron Paul’s presence is evidence that people at the home allow him out at night. And Michele Bachmann is auditioning to become the spokeswoman for a toothpaste commercial.

Now, who does that leave to oppose Mitt Romney? Oh, yeah, that guy from Texas with the corn cob posture, Governor Rick Perry. He’s the dude offering an answer to the economic crisis. If everybody would run outside and dig a hole in the ground, oil will come flowing out. End of crisis.

Governor Perry is a living example of every dumb Texas A&M joke. And in Louisana alone, there are tens of thousands of such witticisms. His campaign advisors made a horrible mistake at the outset of Perry’s campaign. They have allowed him to speak. He would have been more effective if aides told him to be the strong silent type by nodding his head knowingly and saying in Texas style, “Let’s step outside, boys, and settle this argument like real men.”

Rick Perry has plummetted so fast in the polls that he is down to one supporter, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal—one of the nation’s leading advocates of stupidity. The Ivy League educated Rhodes scholar wants to make certain that everyone in Louisana is dumber than he is. Hence, he has reduced spending for education, refused to apply for federal grants for pre-kindegarten school programs and has taken other steps to ensure his state remains near the bottom of scholastic achievement in state rankings. 

Blinded by ambition to hold higher office and his eagerness to get the hell out of Louisiana before people realize the damage he has done to the state , Governor Smarty Pants was the first in line to endorse the presidential candidacy of Rick Perry. A day after the endorsement, Jindal was attending the presidential debates in Florida doing his favorite thing—stalking television cameras, a Jindal addiction that got out of control during the BP oil spill crisis.  

Presumably, Governor Smarty Pants now knows he will not be Vice President in the Perry Administration. In fact, the more I watch the GOP debates, the more I believe the Party has only one man running for office who is qualified and voters outside my home state have heard of him—unless they watch Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and/or the Colbert Report.

So all you Republicans better start sending former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer $100.00, the maximum he will accept.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career. jblisscamp@aol.com.

I would not cast a ballot for Texas Governor Rick Perry for President if a gun was held to my head in the voting booth—an easy thing to say since the likelihood of him winning the Republican nomination is about the same as me being asked to take over a network anchor desk. 

So as the Texan prepares to mount his steed and ride of into the political sunset, I will defend him against the cheap shots being taken by journalists as a result of a racial epithet–”Niggerhead”—on a flat rock many years ago at the entrance of his daddy’s hunting camp. According to the Washington Post, the offensive term was obscured by white paint but remained visible for an indefinite period of time. The newspaper is vague on when that occurred, if it still exists, or more importantly, who their sources were for the story.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rick-perry-familys-hunting-camp-still-known-to-many-by-old-racially-charged-name/2011/10/01/gIQAOhY5DL

Like most people—those who don’t wear KKK hoods or have retired their sheets with eye-holes, or belong to the Tea Party—I find the racially charged word offensive. As a journalist, albeit semi-retired, I find the Washington Post story and all the attendant furor strange.  Earlier this week, Comedy Central put the scandal in perspective.

http://blog.videosift.com/video/Wyatt-Cenac-on-Perrys-Niggerhead-Ranch-Amazing-Racism

The New York Times also weighed in on the issue of racially-inflammatory words, but omitted mentioning “Nigger Lake” in upstate New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/us/perrys-hunting-camp-puts-focus-on-us-maps-race-based-names.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

The Time’s omission of one of its own seems curious. Maybe it was because state got around to changing the name a couple of months ago, which is a few years after the epithet was obscured on the Perry property. 

I grew up in the deep south.  Born in Nashville, Tennessee, I came of age—whatever the hell that means—in the 1940’s and fifties in two Alabama towns, Mobile and Tuscaloosa. Sad to say, the “N” word was used by my parents, friends and, yes, by me. “Colored” was the usual alternative to the then political proper term, ”negro,” which was sometimes pronounced “nigra” by my fellow southerners.

I don’t remember my age when I first became sensitive to the “N” word. As I wrote in my memoir, Jackie Robinson may have helped educate me.

I was thirteen years old and working as “roof boy” for the minor league Mobile Bears, retrieving foul balls that landed on top of the grandstand. A screen at the rear of the roof prevented them from going into the parking lot. Before and after games, I ran errands for players. I was paid fifty cents a night, plus tips, to watch baseball games and hang around professional athletes. It was great.

On trips north from Florida spring training in those days, major league teams played exhibition games in the cities of minor league farm clubs. The Bears were affiliated with the old Brooklyn Dodgers. When the team bus arrived at Mobile’s Hartwell Field in 1949, I helped the Major League’s first black player carry his equipment bag to the clubhouse. Daddy was not impressed.

“Hey, Marie,” he called to mother. “Come and listen to Johnny brag about carrying a nigger’s suitcase.”  It was supposed to be a joke―a symptom of culturally ingrained Southern prejudices.

The Robinson remark is the first time I can recall feeling embarrassed by the word. In dad’s defense, his racial attitudes gradually changed over the years. And when I took up the civil rights banner years in the 1960’s, he bragged to friends about my support of the cause.

I guess my so-called “enlightened” racial attitudes took root in the military. In Okinawa in 1954, I was the first airman in my barracks to choose a black roommate. My friend’s name was Jesse James (J.J.) White and we took great pleasure in our roles as barracks racial pioneers.

My point is that people change—even culturally ignorant redneck boys from the deep south. From all I can discern, Texas Governor Rick Perry has made a genuine effort to be racially inclusive in his appointments to key government posts. So give the guy a break.

There are plenty of Perry missteps to report. Race is not one. According to the Internet news site, Slate, 174 geographic locations in the United States bear the “N” word name or some variation. Add to that number scores of other racial, ethnic and nationality insults. Who are the politicians represented these areas? Who cares?

Unfortunately, the Washington Post story on Perry is symptomatic of cheap-shot journalism. Reporters—especially those covering national politics—are either too lazy or too incompetent to uncover real news.

No wonder the media has lost its credibility. 

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career. jblisscamp@aol.com.

Contemporary television news spews from a toilet filled with misinformation, exaggeration and plain old distortion—a crude metaphor, but I’m a crude dude. Actually, I don’t qualify as a dude. I’m more of a dirty old man, or a whining old codger when it comes to  journalism critiques.

Take, for example, the recent mini-scandal referred to as “Muffingate.” The Inspector General released an audit accusing the U.S. Department of Justice of paying sixteen dollars each for muffins at a hotel conference. Outrageous! But inaccurate. 

The hotel chain pointed out that muffins were only a fraction of a continental style array of pastries, fruits and beverages. In fact, the cost amounted to $14.74 per person, including tip and taxes—a sum two cents higher than allotted for such conferences. 

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/22/2420516/16-muffins-no-says-hilton.html

One does not have to read the Miami Herald to get their facts correct about “Muffingate.” The story was distributed nationwide by Associated Press.  Based on my experience of having stayed in scores of upscale hotels when spending network money during my muckraking career, I believe the justice department got a helluva bargain. 

But sadly, television news and the vast majority of newspapers are not going to allow facts to get in the way of a good story. A glaring example is CBS Nightly News. In the weeks since Scott Pelley replaced Katie Couric as anchor, the network has bragged about its “original reporting.” Obviously, Pelley and his producers failed to do any ”original reporting” relating to “Muffingate.” Or even bother to fact check story.

The day after Associated Press corrected the erroneus interpretation of the audit, Pelley repeated the sixteen-dollar distortion as an established fact—a reminder of the journalistic laziness of inaccurately reporting that former Vice President Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet, a myth that is still repeated by so-called journalists.

 Much of the slipshod journalism we see today can be traced back nearly two decades to the presidency of Bill Clinton. I think it was syndicated columnist Gene Lyons, who coined the term, “Clinton Rules.” It described the shoddy and superficial reporting of the Whitewater “scandal.” 

As I wrote in my non-best selling memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, the use of Lyon’s term encompassed television, newspapers and magazines.

The “Clinton Rules” exempted journalists from asking questions and providing context that would have exposed Whitewater as a hoax in its early stages. Instead, the bogus scandal increased the influence of the extreme right-wing by adding momentum to Newt Gingrich’s ongoing “Republican revolution” in Congress. The low journalistic standards in covering the story also contributed to the early growth of Fox “News,” and ultimately led to the election of George W. Bush.

Throughout Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s sex-obsessed, hatchet job investigation of Bill Clinton, cheer-leading journalists lost sight of context and proportion. Dozens of reporters on temporary assignment in Little Rock were expected to quickly develop stories. And nearly all relied on a highly inaccurate New York Times article that was the genesis of the Starr charade.

Very few news people assigned to the Whitewater beat tried to substantiate the reporting of Times “investigative reporter” Jeff Gerth, the man most responsible for launching a Republican-inspired waste of more than seventy-million taxpayer dollars in an investigation of Monica Lewinksy’s knee calluses. Instead, reporters―especially television correspondents— wrote stories built around trivial tidbits interwoven with recaps of the Times stories and subsequent inaccurate reporting by the Washington Post. 

While covering Whitewater as CNN’s Senior Investigative Correspondent, I tried to provide context to the investigation, and ongoing abuses by Starr and his little band of voyeurs. My effort earned me an Emmy nomination. But it also earned me the label of Clinton apologist—facts be damned.

Unfortunately, the 1990’s tradition of journalistic irresponsiblity continues today—only it’s considerably worse because of the Internet,  Fox “News,” and the popularity of right-wing radio nuts  like Rush Limbaugh and the looney dwarfs—Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and all the other Limbaugh wannabes.

No wonder we now have a Tea Party and a group of GOP Presidential candidates who make comedy writers wet their britches in excitement over the abundance of material these clowns provide.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career. jblisscamp@aol.com.

A recent telephone survey involving 1,18o respondents ranked Fox “News” as the best television news network, eight percentage points ahead of CNN. 

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/whats-the-best-tv-news-network_b85551

I find the results of the poll discouraging, not because of loyalty to my former employer, but rather because it reveals that a larger percentage of television viewers are more stupid than I imagined. Fox “News” is what it is—the Republican Propaganda Network. It is not a news network.

Granted, Rupert Murdoch’s cable toy tries to foist itself off as a “fair and balanced” network, but “fair and balanced” is a joke and news is incidental to the marketing of right-wing lunatics, promotion of the Tea Party and the distortion of issues deemed to be the work of progressives.

Fox “News” is the child of a culture that is guilty of creating the biggest scandal in the history of British journalism. Indeed, lies and distortions are part of the network’s genetic makeup. To that end, it has provided a forum for Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and a cast of characters that reads like a who’s who in the lock-down ward of a mental hospital.

Glenn Beck, the self-professed rodeo clown who makes Rush Limbaugh seem sane, has taken his massive ego to new ventures—namely his own start-up cable network. Beck’s departure was, no doubt, hastened by the large number of sponsors he chased away from Fox. It will be interesting to see which advertisers will support the deranged ex-disc jockey in a new venue. Maybe he will get a helping hand from the Koch brothers—benefactors of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and drooling oil billionaires of the far, far right. 

The absence of Beck does not greatly diminish Fox’s epidemic of egomania. In fact, Harvard trained asshole Bill O’Reilly has stepped in to fill the void by declaring that he has more power than anybody other than the President. 

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/bill-oreilly-i-have-more-power-than-anybody-other-than-the-president_b85491

Hopefully, O’Reilly was making a joke and forgot the punchline. Otherwise, he is crazier than Glenn Beck, an achievement that would have pyschiatrists offering to pay him huge sums to spend a few hours on their couches.

If I seem overly critical of Fox “News,” I’m not. In fact, I can’t conceive of being to0 critical of the network that has done so much to undermine democracy in this country and create a breed of politicians, who are committed to defeating President Obama by leading the country into another recession, or worse. 

Most disturbing is the network’s reliance on lies and misinformation to exploit the fears, ignorance and laziness of its viewers. When people touch the remote to turn to Fox, their brains obviously shrink.

What other explanation is there for poll results declaring Fox the best “news” network. A sizeable segment of our society has become too lazy to read newspapers, magazines and indulge in the arduous task of thinking for themselves.

As someone who spent thirty years as an equal opportunity muckraker bashing Republicans, Democrats and all colors and creeds, I am saddened by the state of American journalism at all levels—network and local television news in particular.

I cringe now while watching the newscasts on Baton Rouge’s WBRZ, once among the top local news operations in the country and a station where I added to my collection of Peabody awards and other prestigious national journalism prizes prior to departing for CNN. Twice in recent weeks, the six o’clock news was interrupted by “breaking news” banners reporting stories that aired moments before on a competing station that also falls far short of journalistic competence.

An even worse sin by the station I use to take pride in was a tease promoting an exclusive interview with the suspended star quaterback of the LSU Tigers, a kid facing felony battery charges stemming from a bar brawl. The interview amount to no more than ten words. The football player said he hoped to be cleared of the charges and return to the team. A real exclusive!

Sure, I’m an old codger complaining that it ain’t like it used to be. But what it is today ain’t how it ought to be. Nor do I expect journalism to get any better in the future. Jeopardy whiz Ken Jennings recently released a book, Maphead, that offers a startling statistic about the nation’s 18 to 24 age group. Thirty-three percent failed to find Louisiana on a map, 48 percent could not locate Mississippi and 63 percent had no idea where Iraq is located.

Mr. Murdoch, you’ve got a lot of Fox “News” viewers headed your way.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.  jblisscamp@aol.com.