Bruce
12-15-2010, 09:50 PM
Please allow me to vent my frustration.
As many of you are well aware, various individuals over the last few years have tried their utmost to ridicule Ron Paul in various disingenuous ways.
For me the latest example of this kind of disgusting conduct was from CNN's Suzanne Malveaux (http://edition.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/malveaux.suzanne.html), primary substitute anchor for Wolf Blitzer, who on The Situation Room of the 14th conducted an interview with Ron Paul about his appointment as chairman for the Domestic Monetary Policy Subcommittee.
You can watch the entire interview here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecDef_mewSA).
I'm extremely dissatisfied with the entire way the interview was conducted but I'm especially frustrated with the way Suzanne decided to confront Ron Paul using some particulary mean-spirited comments from Megan McArdle.
In the interview Suzanne, after interrupting Ron Paul, quoted Megan McArdle, a business and economics editor for The Atlantic, who she described as a "prominent libertarian blogger / economics editor at The Atlanic" as having said:
"Republicans stashed him in this job because they don't want him making more important decisions... He cares passionately about monetary policy, which most Republicans don't care about. But when you look at his speeches, he doesn't understand anything about monetary policy. He might actually understand it less than the average member of Congress. My personal opinion is that he wastes all of his time on the House Financial Services Committee ranting crazily."
After reading this disrespectful commentary to Paul she asked "Do you think Republican leadership is essentially trying to marginalize you in this role?" and after Ron Paul's response "Nah, I don't think so, they wouldn't have made me chairman. And I think somebody that spouts off like that, they should look at the evidence rather than just sorta name calling, I don't think that kind of an accusation makes very much sense" she asked "She's saying she doesn't believe you can get very much done, what do you think you can accomplish?".
The comments by Megan McArdle appeared in an article at Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2277521) by David Weigel and it is worth mentioning that Mark Calabria, who was also quoted in Weigel's article and described as "director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute and a six-year veteran of the Senate Banking Committee", later responded with disappointment (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/is-ron-paul-good-for-monetary-policy/) that Weigel didn't bother to mention some of his optimism about Paul in the story (also see this link (http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2010/12/13/who-s-afraid-of-ron-paul.aspx)).
So, here I am, both angry, sad and frustrated and left wondering what exactly motivated the folks from The Situation Room, who advertise themselves as the "Best Political Team on Television", to go with the negative and quite frankly distasteful remarks brought forward by Megan McArdle.
To that we can only guess.
Let's not forget that we've had much more fair interviews on the exact same issues by CNBC's "Closing Bell" host Maria Barteroma (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CNYG9mqUyo) and RT's Dina Gusovsky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36UGFOeJVww).
If you would like to, it seems one can send feedback to CNN using the following form (http://edition.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?65), though I am sure this feedback will simply be redirected to /dev/null (for the non-techies among us, read: thrown in the garbage bin). Against better judgment, I myself have used the form.
I've also left a comment at Megan McArdle's blog (http://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2010/12/am-i-a-government-agent-set-up-to-attack-ron-paul/68061/#comment-112576614). Feel free to "Like" it.
Stay strong Dr. Paul!
As many of you are well aware, various individuals over the last few years have tried their utmost to ridicule Ron Paul in various disingenuous ways.
For me the latest example of this kind of disgusting conduct was from CNN's Suzanne Malveaux (http://edition.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/malveaux.suzanne.html), primary substitute anchor for Wolf Blitzer, who on The Situation Room of the 14th conducted an interview with Ron Paul about his appointment as chairman for the Domestic Monetary Policy Subcommittee.
You can watch the entire interview here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecDef_mewSA).
I'm extremely dissatisfied with the entire way the interview was conducted but I'm especially frustrated with the way Suzanne decided to confront Ron Paul using some particulary mean-spirited comments from Megan McArdle.
In the interview Suzanne, after interrupting Ron Paul, quoted Megan McArdle, a business and economics editor for The Atlantic, who she described as a "prominent libertarian blogger / economics editor at The Atlanic" as having said:
"Republicans stashed him in this job because they don't want him making more important decisions... He cares passionately about monetary policy, which most Republicans don't care about. But when you look at his speeches, he doesn't understand anything about monetary policy. He might actually understand it less than the average member of Congress. My personal opinion is that he wastes all of his time on the House Financial Services Committee ranting crazily."
After reading this disrespectful commentary to Paul she asked "Do you think Republican leadership is essentially trying to marginalize you in this role?" and after Ron Paul's response "Nah, I don't think so, they wouldn't have made me chairman. And I think somebody that spouts off like that, they should look at the evidence rather than just sorta name calling, I don't think that kind of an accusation makes very much sense" she asked "She's saying she doesn't believe you can get very much done, what do you think you can accomplish?".
The comments by Megan McArdle appeared in an article at Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2277521) by David Weigel and it is worth mentioning that Mark Calabria, who was also quoted in Weigel's article and described as "director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute and a six-year veteran of the Senate Banking Committee", later responded with disappointment (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/is-ron-paul-good-for-monetary-policy/) that Weigel didn't bother to mention some of his optimism about Paul in the story (also see this link (http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2010/12/13/who-s-afraid-of-ron-paul.aspx)).
So, here I am, both angry, sad and frustrated and left wondering what exactly motivated the folks from The Situation Room, who advertise themselves as the "Best Political Team on Television", to go with the negative and quite frankly distasteful remarks brought forward by Megan McArdle.
To that we can only guess.
Let's not forget that we've had much more fair interviews on the exact same issues by CNBC's "Closing Bell" host Maria Barteroma (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CNYG9mqUyo) and RT's Dina Gusovsky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36UGFOeJVww).
If you would like to, it seems one can send feedback to CNN using the following form (http://edition.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?65), though I am sure this feedback will simply be redirected to /dev/null (for the non-techies among us, read: thrown in the garbage bin). Against better judgment, I myself have used the form.
I've also left a comment at Megan McArdle's blog (http://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2010/12/am-i-a-government-agent-set-up-to-attack-ron-paul/68061/#comment-112576614). Feel free to "Like" it.
Stay strong Dr. Paul!