There’s an old joke about how the pundit spectrum in corporate media debates goes from GE all the way to GM. On Sunday‘s Meet the Press, viewers got a chance to see that joke come to life.
On the panel was conservative former GE CEO Jack Welch, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks and NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell. The left end of the spectrum must have been former Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr., best known for his time leading the center-right Democratic Leadership Council. Nowadays Ford is a TV pundit (the “liberal” who advises Democrats to move further right) and works as a managing director at Morgan Stanley–a move from his previous gig at Bank of America.
As for the actual debate, Welch praised Herman Cain’s tax plan, called for more domestic oil drilling and complained about the White House’s anti-business regulatory policies. Ford, as the TV liberal, pointed out that the administration thankfully did not pursue progressive policy goals like card check, and that the White House deserves credit for reining in some EPA regulation. Ford also included a slam of Occupy Wall Street:
We Democrats can’t criticize Republicans for catering to the Tea Party and not say to our Democratic Party you got to look beyond Occupy and be willing to do what’s in the best interest of the country.
Given his current job, this is not surprising–though NBC viewers may have wanted to know that the “liberal” in the debate has been working for several banks. Or maybe David Brooks was the liberal here…
Meet the Press’s panel for October 25 was truly frightening: David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell sitting around with the nation’s new bloviator-in-chief, David Brooks, plus a Morgan Stanley exec and no less than Jack Welch himself.
Was this supposed to be a balanced discussion of current issues?
Over the years, Neutron Jack Welch (who eliminated employees but kept the buildings) has long had a remarkable appeal in the media. While he was CEO of General Electric, the company acquired RCA, including NBC. He then moved to 30 Rock and sold off other RCA properties to fund his financial services acquisitions. The human attrition was brutal, but the more he cut jobs and made scatter-shot acquisitions to improve short-term earnings, the more the financial reporters of the time just adored him for it. Business Week gave him a glowing cover story in 1998; in 1999 he became Fortune’s â┚¬Ã…“Manager of the Century.â┚¬Ã‚ Manager of the Century?????
His column in Business Week during the publication’s declining McGraw Hill years praised Reagan for union-busting, categorically dismissed government-sponsored health care and supported Dick Cheney’s right to waterboard. On a July, 2008, segment of NBC’s Morning Joe program, the media’s favorite billionaire agreed with Pat Buchanan that global warming is a Marxist plot.
Jack Welch will be 76 next month, retired and rolling in billions, and yet the media continue to trot him out as if his views might somehow be pertinent to the issues of the day. He has long held that any claims whatever of excessive executive pay are defacto â┚¬Ã…“outrageousâ┚¬Ã‚ and has vehemently opposed all SEC regulations affecting executive compensation, including backdating stock options, golden parachutes for nonperformance and extravagant retirement packages such as his own.
But too much is never enough for the media, so Meet the Press affords its old boss yet another opportunity to express his absurd opposition the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which provides desperately needed corporate and criminal fraud accountability.
And David Gregory sits there in rapt adulation, politely asking soft-ball questions.
Did I mention? General Electric earned $14.2 billion in worldwide profits last year, including $5.1 billion in the United States, and the company paid absolutely no U.S. federal taxes whatever.
Looks like “Meet the Press” is just going back to their roots…like in the 60’s, when they repeatedly accused Martin Luther King Jr. of being a communist.
Has Meet the Press ever been any different? It’s an establishment program on an establishment network with an establishment host and always has been, to my knowledge. It’s one of the reasons, I’m guessing, that we are where we are. Occupy Meet the Press!
If NBC had put Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell or even Ron Reagan as host of Meet The Press, you’d get some REAL questioning and no nonsense like dancing around a question with the same old ‘talking points’ … never giving a direct answer. Dick Cheney had that down to a science and was allowed to get away with it. Use up as much time as possible and never answer the question. Does ANYONE do background checks on that show before inviting guests? Where was the balance in that line-up? Very, very disappointing show. And Gregory should have Rachel Maddow as a regular panelist, but I think he’s afraid she’d outshine him. Also, I don’t believe Lawrence O’Donnell or Ron Reagan have ever been on his show. They all do their homework and they KNOW what’s truth and what’s propaganda. Even Melissa Harris-Perry would contribute a great deal as a panelist.
What’s with the “drill, baby, drill” crowd? Oil, even ours, goes on a world market and there is no guarantee that what is drilled here, stays here. So, drill away!
What’s with the same “no regulations” folks? Should we go back to the days,( before the E.P.A.), when a river, for example, spontaneously caught fire because it was so polluted? How about no banking regulations so that we can have another meltdown? What policies are so anti-business (besides hatred for Sarbanes-Oxley) that some in the corporate world and their lobbyists can’t stand them, even as they sit on two trillion dollars and refuse to hire?
Meet the Press is propaganda, pure and simple. A program for the financially elite, by the financially elite. CBS clearly thinks that the rest of us are not smart enough to see this.
Please…the last person to be wished for on Meet the Press is Melissa Harris-Perry.
She has become the number one Obama apologist on MSNBC. Any credibility that she might once have had was lost with her ugly attack on Dr. Cornel West.
What a tool she is!
I hav not watched “Meet the Press” since Lawrence Spivak was the host back in the 50’s and early 60’s. The poggram then was LIVE – not on tape like today’s version.
Sorry, that’s program!
Carol’s right–it’s time to start applying pressure to the media that slavishly supports the status quo. I say march on their studios, including FOX (a protest out side of Bill O’Reilly’s house would be great fun, with some really rude signs) and all the other majors. Single out Meet The Press and other truly offensive shows for special handling–extended stays, non-negotiable demands for good guests, ridicule and abuse for cretins like all the above. Let’s roll!
I wish Laurence O’ Donnell had been brought on board for that but it would never happen. GE can stand them on MSNBC but not on their prime news talking heads show. Now Rachael Maddow had been on at least once and asked uncomfortable questions. I doubt she will be on again. Like what happened with Dr. Noam Chomsky his one and only appearance on the News Hour. Also the one time the show wasn’t repeated later that night.
Do we consider GM or GE as conservative companies?I don’t.Both their election donations went heavily to Obama.Both benefited massively from being on team Obama.