MSNBC’s Cred Crisis

Posted on 08/01/2009 at 12:31 pm by Bob Cesca

MSNBC has a penchant for repeatedly hosting wingnuts who have been previously exposed as frauds — exposed as frauds by MSNBC. The list begins with guys like Chuck Grassley and continues on with various talk radio wingnuts and various other “strategists.”

And then there’s Mike Pence who was debunked on healthcare by Andrea Mitchell this week, but then turned up on MSNBC again the next day spreading the same crap — only to be debunked again by Carlos Watson.

Now MSNBC might argue that exposing the big lie is the whole point, but perception doesn’t really work like that. Mike Pence never admits to lying about taxes, so it’s a judgment call by the viewer as to whether or not he’s full of shit. Meanwhile, Pence has been allowed an open forum to inject his disingenuous wingnut/Luntz/Castellanos talking points into the discourse even though he was debunked the day before.

So the serious question regarding MSNBC’s credibility as a news outfit is this: What level of insanity will get a wingnut banned from MSNBC? How far off the rails does a remark or lie have to be in order to not be invited back?

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  • El Mystico

    This is way o/t but I’m at a Promise Keepers thing right now (cos it’s at the building where I work) and there’s a preppy Asian kid singing a cheesy American Idol ballad about God’s love, and I am about to lose my shit.

  • http://nanotyrnns.blogspot.com/ Nanotyrannus

    “How far off the rails does a remark or lie have to be in order to not be invited back?”There is nothing they could, save for throwing down the N word three or four times. There’s too much time to fill during the 28 Hour continuous “news” cycle and these crazies probably have agents that work the phones continuously to get their wingnuts as much airtime as possible.I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find that Andrea Mitchell, et al feel the same way you do. They spend a lot of time working a story about a crazy only to find that the crazy’s been invited back to lend credibility to whatever they spent so much time debunking.Oh Mystico… go kick that kid in his jesusey nuts.

  • El Mystico

    The chick on stage now keeps saying ‘come.’ As in to God, but um if your refrain is ‘come’ you should probably avoid double entendres but… ‘if you need to scream because the pain is so bad’ or ‘there’s nothing that’s too big’… Our Lord is a Dirty Lord…Controverty=ratings, and it doesn’t matter how damaging giving wingnuts a constant platform is to the discourse in this country. Because it’s become morally reprehensible in this country to think about anything but money.

  • http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=65905268&ref=profile Mike H.
  • roxsteady

    Sadly, I just read a long, but very informative article on Salon.com by Glenn Greenwald exposing the fact the fact that GE and MSNBC has already silenced Olbermann. I hadn’t actually noticed that since June 1, Keith hasn’t slammed Bill O. PLEASE LOG ONTO SALON AND READ THIS ARTICLE. IT’S BOTH STUNNING AND DISTURBING!

  • roxsteady

    I will say this much about the article. I’ve lost all respect for Charlie Rose.

  • mary from TN

    It would be a good idea to have the lying liars back on, only if every time they lie they are called out on it. That would sure as hell bring their ratings up, everybody likes a good cat fight.It boggles the mind that television journalists let them get away with all their lies. Calling them out will not only help the questioner and the viewer, but also the country.