and have enforcers to get what you want.
In the days before President Obama’s last news conference, as the networks weighed whether to give up a chunk of their precious prime time, Rahm Emanuel went straight to the top.Rather than calling ABC, the White House chief of staff phoned Bob Iger, chief executive of parent company Disney. Instead of contacting NBC, Emanuel went to Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric. He also spoke with Les Moonves, the chief executive of CBS Corp., the company spun off from Viacom.
Whether this amounted to undue pressure or plain old Chicago arm-twisting, Emanuel got results: the fourth hour of lucrative network time for his boss in six months. But network executives have been privately complaining to White House officials that they cannot afford to keep airing these sessions in the economic downturn.
(h/t Michelle Malkin)
Excuse me if I find I can’t squeeze a couple of tears out for the MSM, since they willingly and eagerly whored themselves to the Democrats in order to drag The Messiah over the finish line. Lie down with dogs get up with fleas … yadda yadda.
Other ratbastards.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/3 @ 8:01 am #
This is a lie. There’s no question at all of the network homos having any obligation whatsoever. Howard established that fact earlier in the article.
The lingering question is whether douchebag piece of shit Howard can use his Washington Post column to pressure networks to not carry Obama so much so that Obama’s dirty socialist propaganda stunts have more news value for the cocksuckers at CNN.
Comment by SBP on 8/3 @ 8:24 am #
So these guys expected to be Pravda without dancing to the Party’s tune?
Comment by Joe on 8/3 @ 8:41 am #
Rahm can only go to that well so many times.
Comment by Bender Bending Rodriguez on 8/3 @ 8:56 am #
What — Rahm didn’t try Rupert? I guess he didn’t feel like getting his monthly ration of “Shut The Fuck Up!”
Comment by cranky-d on 8/3 @ 9:09 am #
The FCC can screw the networks if Rahm wants them to. Rahm can go to that well over and over again.
Comment by Salt Lick on 8/3 @ 9:15 am #
“It’s an enormous financial cost when the president replaces one of those prime-time hours. The news divisions also have mixed feelings about whether they are being used.”
Other pimps just punch their bitch in the mouth for that stuff.
Comment by geoffb on 8/3 @ 9:21 am #
I love a self-fisking article. Oh yeah.
Comment by Bob Reed on 8/3 @ 9:26 am #
Rahm can go to that well as often as he wants…
The MSM effectively crowned Obama “King” when they pulled out all the stops, and discard all their ethics, to drag him successfully accross the finish line. So, whether they publicly admit it like that twit Chris Tingle, they are all heavily invested in making this Presidency succeed; especially GE, a company that has staked much of it’s prospective future profits on the success of the cap-n-tax bill-they are literally “invested” in Obama…
So having crowned him king, and essentially establishing the doctrine of Obama’s infalibility, they have to grant him network time whenever he asks for it; to do any less would be Racist! of course. And, when the king’s prime minister calls, you can’t refuse him-or tell your secretary to take a message…
Of course, this never happened for Booooosh!, but there seems to be a whole new respect for the Presidency among those in the media these days…
Imagine that!
Comment by KingShamus on 8/3 @ 10:07 am #
Will the media figure out their mistakes when the next douchedrinker politicians with a Messiah complex shows up? Doubtful, because on some level they believe the hype. Chrissy Matthews wasn’t just foolin’ around when he felt that tingle up his leg when St. Barack opened his beer-hole.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/3 @ 10:07 am #
geoff! nails it again
Comment by geoffb on 8/3 @ 10:33 am #
I wouldn’t have even read it all except for your #1 comment that had a take I’d not considered.
Comment by Kresh on 8/3 @ 12:19 pm #
It is to laugh when the dog complains about the tightness of the leash, especially when the dog showed no indication of thoughts about the future ramification of voluntarily placing said yoke around his own neck.
Comment by plainslow on 8/3 @ 3:10 pm #
If you want something special, like this, you go to the head. Just like Dodd did with Angelo. You only go to the big cheese when you really want something. This shows why Dodd went to Angelo.
Comment by dicentra on 8/3 @ 3:40 pm #
The MSM effectively crowned Obama “King” when they pulled out all the stops, and discard all their ethics
That sentence unfortunately assumes that they had ethics to discard. :D
Because the networks lose big bank on these little self-aggrandizement ops, eventually they’ll say NO WAY, because the bottom line, evil as it is, also pays the rent.
Comment by Makewi on 8/3 @ 3:55 pm #
re: the ratbastards – It seems unlikely that a jury is going to give them a better deal, so silver linings and all.
Comment by geoffb on 8/3 @ 4:01 pm #
True but they have a lot of line to lose before they finally reach that bottom.
Comment by B Moe on 8/3 @ 4:09 pm #
They really think the White House cares about that? They go bankrupt Obama will just take them over and none of this will be an issue any more.