This week in FAIL

FAIL: Verb; to fall short of success or achievement in something expected,attempted, desired, or approved:

And this weeks first example is.....Laura Ingraham.

It all started when Mrs. Ingraham sent a newsletter to her subscribers that said this "The good news is that President Obama decided to sit down and discuss the Fiscal Cliff yesterday. The bad news is he didn't sit down with Republicans; he sat down with MSNBC hosts. Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Ed Schultz all stopped by the White House to discuss the President's fiscal cliff proposal. Can anyone even imagine how the press would have reacted if Fox News hosts and conservative personalities had stopped by the Bush White House to discuss policy? They would have been rightly outraged. Given MSNBC's history of blatantly promoting the DNC's talking points and spewing left-wing talking points, maybe its [sic] time they just become Obama's official mouthpiece."

And actually I gotta be honest, I kinda agree with her here. I mean the idea that the President of the United States feels the need to brief political commentators on his policy agenda is kinda ridiculous. He should honestly have much better things to do with his time. I mean its not like political commentators are supposed to be straight news people, they are paid specifically to have and give an opinion. So really if the President wants the facts out there, met with the straight news anchors if he feels the need to meet with anyone. Dont basically engage in what appears to be a transparent attempt to get the opinion makers on your side to sell your argument  Its not your roll or theirs.

So with that in mind, why does this end up as a fail? because of this little bit right here "Can anyone even imagine how the press would have reacted if Fox News hosts and conservative personalities had stopped by the Bush White House to discuss policy?"

Oddly I imagine it would look a little something like this:

Now I'm sure everyone recognizes the man in the chair, thats president Bush. The man to his left is FOX News / Conservative radio host Host Sean Hannity. The man next to Hannity is Fox News Commentator and Conservative radio host Michael Medved. The two men across from them are Fox News Contributor/ Conservative radio host Mike Gallagher, and Conservative radio host Neal Boortz.

Now you may have noticed I left somebody out. The blonde woman to President Bush's right. That's Laura Ingraham. Remember her? 

And what were all those Fox News people doing there? well quoting the New York Times article that accompanied that picture 

"For an hour and a half, Mr. Bush discussed his case for the war in Iraq, his immigration proposals and even the personality of his Scottish terrier Barney, who scratched on the door during the session until the president relented and let him into the office, according to several hosts who attended.

The meeting, which was not announced on the president’s public schedule, was part of an intensive Republican Party campaign to reclaim and re-energize a crucial army of supporters that is not as likely to walk in lockstep with the White House as it has in the past."

In otherwords they were at the "Bush White House to discuss policy". But lets be fair, I'm sure all of those people were, as Mrs. Ingraham put it, "rightly outraged" right?

Not so much actually. According to Mr. Gallagher "This was clearly, clearly an effort to kind of rally the troops when the troops need rallying, They know that we’ve got an audience of people who may or may not be on the political fence right now.” who also added that ALL the hosts there including Mrs. Ingraham talked about the meeting on their shows "for days and days and days.”

Sean Hannity said of his feelings on Bush following the meeting “I think he’d have an 80 percent approval rating if he could bring people into the Oval Office six people at a time and explain it all to them.”

So clearly this was an excited and big deal for the people involved. And while I stand by my earlier comments, I do understand how having the President to yourself for 90 minutes would be freaking awesome.....even if you cant remember it a few years later. 

to sum up; wondering how the media would cover it, if right wingers did the same thing, WHILE being one of the right wingers who ALREADY did do it, and not realizing it and/or lying to gin up a fake story but getting caught....FAIL.

And that brings up to example two: Wisconsin governor Scott Walker.

After the presidential election Governor Walker immediately set about making it harder to vote in 2016, because clearly the system didnt work in 2012 (and by didnt work, he means the democrat won the state of Wisconsin in the election) . And his excuse was he was doing it for the benifit of the poor poll workers, you see:

"States across the country that have same-day registration have real problems because the vast majority of their states have poll workers who are wonderful volunteers, who work 13-hour days and who in most cases are retirees, It's difficult for them to handle the volume of people who come at the last minute. It'd be much better if registration was done in advance of election day. It'd be easier for our clerks to handle that. All that needs to be done."

Now to be fair, push back from those same poll workers and clerks, claiming getting rid of same day voter registration would actually make there jobs harder, got the governor to do the full "run back" getting him to claim later that "This is a ridiculous issue. My priority is about jobs, creating jobs." But running away from the issue is NOT what got him into "this week in fail". No that actually has something to do with one of the thousands of people who availed themselves of same day voter registration in the last election.......Matt D. Walker, a freshman at Marquette University. And no thats not a coincidence that the last name is the same as the Governor, Matt is his son.

But look I get it fathers and sons can have different opinions right? Well see you know who took Matt to get registered on election day? his dad.

Yea thats right, his father took him to get registered on election day. What about the poor overworked poll workers Gov? What about making their job's easier? I guess thats only really an issue when it gives you an excuse to make it harder to vote next time.....FAIL.