We need more interviews like this.

The BBQ Pit
#1

While I fully admit that I got a little extra pleasure in that Anderson Cooper makes the guy from MoveOn.org look like an ass, I do like it when reporters are prepared like Anderson is here and don’t allow a guest to simply spout their usual bullshit and call it fact.

Here’s the clip.

My favorite part is at about 3:04 when the guy, obviously annoyed and flustered says, “We shouldn’t be having this conversation. Why are we having this conversation.” (Or something close to that.)

Well, since is the Pit, guess I should pit someone. Okay, MoveOn.org guy, I pit you. And all the bad interviewers that allow whoever it is on their show to simply use it as a megaphone.

#2

Ahhh, right-wing gloating. They have so little to be proud of, it’s nice that they can have the occasional moment.

#3

Based on the list Cooper gave of what is getting slashed, I would say the GOP also need pitting.

#4

At least it’s a little more polite than “Kiss my ass” or “Shove it”

#5

Yeah, cutting funding for AIDS prevention…even Jesse Helms would have frowned on that.

If we survive the next 30 years as a species, it will be in spite of people like the Koch brothers, Michelle Bachman, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh.

Seriously, cutting funding for AIDS prevention?!!!

Preventing AIDS helps us all. Of course, ultra-religious right-wing rural gun nuts living in Idaho don’t see that, because they don’t know any minorities, or openly-gay men.

And that’s the group of people most likely to not see the value of AIDS prevention.

Yay GOP. Pander to your base, baby, pander to your base.

#6

Why just the GOP? Cooper pointed out that both sides had proposed cuts that would reduce services overall.

#7

I agree with the OP. We need more interviewers that are willing to engage and challenge, regardless of where they come from on the political spectrum.

Hey, Jon Stewart can’t be the only one…

#8

My favourite part of the interview - “It’s my job to report on the facts, not serve your agenda.” (or something very close to that).

#9

Always fun to watch some liberal blowhard splutter when having his nose rubbed in his own hypocrisy.

Regards,
Shodan

#10

Someone mind offering a brief text summary for the currently video-challenged?

#11

Based on my viewing…

Cooper was interviewing a guy from Moveon.org. Moveon is running an ad somewhere saying that the GOP is on a crusade against women because the GOP is slashing a particular program that partially benefits women.

Cooper points out two things repeatedly:

  1. That women are NOT the sole, or even majority beneficiaries of the program being cut
  2. That Obama did the same thing and Moveon.org did not call Obama out for being on an anti-women crusade.

It was a moment of real journalism from a talking head whom, I assume, was thought to be in the safe camp for a left-leaning group to talk to. While some might just delight in seeing Moveon get slapped, I get more delight in knowing that AC is another person I can trust to actually push hard with real questions at both sides of the aisle.

#12

Some MoveOn guy comes on Anderson Cooper’s show to rant about how the GOP is against women’s health, by citing some proposed cuts in spending. Cooper challenges him, asking 1) how can he say that the cuts are against women when they go to the overall chunk of spending, which mostly goes to heart disease and diabetes (I think it was) and 2) Obama and the Dems suggested cuts to the same chunk of spending and MoveOn never said boo about it. The guy starts sputtering, apparently confused. What I saw in his eyes, and almost comes out in full in the part I quoted is, “But Anderson, we’re on the same side. You’re not supposed to ask me tough questions like that that reveal I’m completely full of shit. You’re supposed to help me. after all we both want Obama to be re-elected…(gulp)…Don’t we?”

#13

Dude from MoveOn.org claiming that it’s the GOP’s agenda to cut funding for government-funded women’s health-care, but the things actually on the butcher’s block are things that affect men, women and children alike: tobacco prevention, obesity, HIV screenings, hiring doctors, immunizations, etc.

Cooper cuts to the bone saying it’s not true that it’s exclusive to just Women. Then he throws ninja stars of journalism at his face with stuff like the facts from factcheck.org that agrees this isn’t a Women’s health thing, and that Obama is looking to chop away at such funding as well.

MoveOn.org guy looks like a huge, double-standard, GOP-blaming, hypocritical stoopid face, lit by the Silver Light of Trooth™ that is Anderson Cooper’s hair.

#14

Thank you all. If only Rashomon had offered such remarkably congruent takes on the same event.

Oh well. Maybe in the Hollywood remake.

#15

What’s sad about this is that it really is noteworthy: we’ve gotten so far from what used to be standard journalism, i.e. actually looking into a subject and not just letting whoever you interview say whatever they want about it. It really is damaging to our electoral process when completely fabricated stories get traction because all the media outlets are too lazy to do anything but echo the bullshit they get handed.

#16

Do you think this has anything to do with his coming-out?

“Yeah, I’m gay now, but I’m still fair to conservatives”?

Seems a good way to pre-empt accusations of bias.

#17

Yes it’s depressing, but I’m simply going to be glad it happened at all. I’d had myself good and convinced that journalism was just a pile of celebutards with stentorian voices and serious hair styles. In the case of Fox news, that should read “blonde hair and nice legs and/or tits.”

This? I’ll call this the hope airing before the commercial break on Pandora’s 24/7 News Box. It ain’t much considering, but it’s still something.

#18

Which is why Fox News is superior.

#19

That bimbo on Fox and Friends, her boobs are smarter than she is.

#20

Also, for many media outlets, the definition of “balance” seems to consist of letting substance-free blowhards from either side make their points, and then leaving it there, without providing any critique or analysis at all.

If someone says “This policy will have X result,” and X is not true, the good journalist should know that X is not true, and should be willing to make that clear in the interview. Instead, what we so often get is little more than reporters acting as conduits for the talking points on each side, with nothing approaching a critical examination of the issues to determine whether one side might, in fact, be more correct than the other.

Good to know that you’re still in the mind-reading game. The guy looked bad enough without you making shit up.