I was talking about the callers.(nice comments on your link about VP Cheney's injury )

The editors of Air head should heed to words of the new President
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

Also idiots like Tom Brokejaw of the discredited NBC network ;who compared Obama's inauguration to the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic that overthrew a dictatorial Communist regime;should heed President Obama's words .

And how about that Chris "thrill up my leg" Matthews?

An amazing thing . People in a crowd saying hello to each other!!

Now that's a pivotal change from the past!!

LOL, I live in an area where people still give a wave, a nod, a hello to strangers... where men still open a door for the ladies and get a sincere thank you in return. Is that coming to a neighborhood near you soon?

In the real America "red "and "blue "(the America not inhabitted by myopic loons like Matthews and Olberman) I find people to be generally cordial... even in New York. My community ;just a short drive from NYC ; resembles Mayberry RFD as much as the small towns I lived in Kansas.

Hello tom:

Discredited by who? Fox? O'Reilly? Hannity? Well, there you go.

Bwa, ha ha ha.

excon

Exactly.

I get it, it doesn't matter if "Fox? O'Reilly? Hannity?" are right.

Hello again, Steve:

It would matter IF they were right, but they're not...

In fact, your Fox Dudes wallow in the same slime that NBC does. They're ALL apologists for the status quo, instead of being actual reporters. In fact, NBC made their CHIEF apologist the moderator of Meet the Press.

Bush could NOT have gotten away with what he did WITHOUT a compliant press corp.

excon

Ex, they're all worthless in many respects - but I have to laugh at the thought of NBC being part of a compliant press corps for Bush, and David Gregory being the chief apologist.

I have a outside perspective growing up in Canada with regard to American television media.

Most Canadian's can't believe how dumbed down media reporting and commentary is here.

Like the post above which quotes the comment by Obermann "You heard other people say hello to each other". Is an example of how the American people are talked to. It's like they are still on the farm in Iowa, uneducated and have just bought their first television.

Why is it that the American media seems to talk at a Grade 6 level?

What is it about the major networks who make a big deal about the simple kindness that exists in the real world all the time?

I doubt any of you have seen Canadian news broadcasts, but I would say they are more like the BBC which tend to be a little deeper, and the audience is talked to like they at least have a high school education.

I know most of you right leaners don't like MSNBC, but in my experience this type of nonsense is true of all the major networks.

My question is why? Why do the media talk to American's like they are simple folk?

Canadian's at least and I'm sure many other countries see America through the eyes of your media, is there any wonder why the average American is viewed as none too bright?

I can tell you from personal experience from talking to many American's from all different states that they are anything but simple; quite the opposite really. So why does the media continue to 'talk' to American's in this way?

Hello again, Steve:

From his own mouth as Gregory himself put it during his dismissal of leftist ideologue Scott McClellan's complaints that the press was overly deferential to Bush:

"I think there are a lot of critics who think that . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role.".

I disagree, and NOT respectfully either. In fact, that IS their role. Investigatory questions are NOT confrontational, as Gregory seems to think.

Here's a little more:

Steven Colbert nailed it when he interviewed Gregory: "Are you proud of the questions the press asked of the administration? Because I'm proud of the questions you didn't ask."

Gregory: "I do think the right questions were asked, and I think people view our job through their own ideological prism, and they've made some judgments along those lines."

In other words, only a leftist ideologue such as ME thinks that the press should actually report when government statements are false and baseless.

excon

I don’t know where I must have been the past 8 years because I certainly haven’t been privy to the same media coverage of Bush that you have. Was there a time when the media was deferential to Bush? Probably to an extent in the aftermath of 9/11, but I certainly haven’t seen anything like that for the majority of his administration. He was kicked around before he took office, jeered on the way out and took a phenomenal number of blows in between. Did you miss that?

I’m often tempted to cancel my newspaper because I’m sick of being told how I should interpret the ‘news.’ That’s where the mainstream media has lost its way, it doesn’t report, it manipulates (which I believe explains much of what TexasParent questions). Gregory was just ticked off at the idea that HE got manipulated because he thinks that’s the job of the press.

Did you miss "lowest approval rating"? :)

Sometimes you actually swerve into the point. How could I miss it? The media repeated it a gazillion times. There are 15,405 hits Google News hits at this moment for Bush approval rating and 423,000 for a web search.

That many people can't be wrong! I guess the media was indeed reporting the news correctly.

And like so many you fail to question what impact 8 years of extremely negative reporting has on the public.

Well you enter into a cause and effect debate: is it the negative reporting that fueled the approval rating or is it the actual actions/decisions of the president that fueled the approval rating?

I have no doubt that it was some of both, I just don't discount the effect on the public of a constant pummeling of someone in the media.