Dear Mr. Bunch:
On a recent web-surfing expedition, we came across a page for GE Media Relations. The page, located in an area of the site reserved for business news and press releases, includes contact information for you -- including your business and home telephone numbers in Connecticut.
Now that is pretty gutsy -- allowing your home phone number on a web page so that any nutcase can call you at all hours, whether or not you screen your calls.
In fact, the APJ staff debated whether or not to call you this weekend, preferably at as inconvenient a time as possible for you: the middle of the barrage of GE commercials during The McLaughlin Group.
Thankfully, we were spared The McLaughlin Group this weekend. Unfortunately, this was a result of the coverage surrounding the disappearance of Mr. and Mrs. JFK Jr. in their Piper Saratoga -- and therefore you were spared our call.
Which brings us to the reason for this letter: about the only nice thing we can say about The McLaughlin Group, whose exclusive sponsor is General Electric, is that the bellowing, self-important John McLaughlin probably did not have anything to say this week about the horror that has befallen the Bessette and Kennedy families -- because he tapes his show well in advance of Sunday morning, when the local NBC affiliate broadcasts it.
Otherwise, McLaughlin -- whose show we refer to as "McLaugh-In" in our online magazine -- is one of the most dishonest and disreputable political "pundits" on television, with possibly one exception (see below).
McLaughlin's idea of erudite analysis is to bellow obnoxious, hateful and deceptive commentary at the top of his lungs, shouting down the guests in his "Group" -- even the ones that agree with him -- in the most surly, chest-beating manner imaginable.
McLaughlin is a frequent liar. For example, just over a week ago, in a ludicrous tirade against the "Clinton Doctrine" (the use of the military for humanitarian reasons -- as if other Presidents had never done such a thing), McLaughlin claimed that President Clinton "caused" Slobodan Milosevic to commit genocide in Kosovo. To give you yet another example, McLaughlin, who is fond of quoting "cooked" polls and statistics, incorrectly claimed that the "average" doctor earns $200,000 a year -- when, in fact, the average doctor earns only a bit over $125,000 a year and spent 12 years in school to do it, usually at massive expense.
McLaughlin also makes ridiculous and grandiose predictions -- that almost inevitably never come true. In a typical recent example, he claimed that Rudy Giuliani -- by depriving Tina Brown the right to hold a party at the Brooklyn Navy Yard -- "picked up 500,000 votes from that move," when in fact:
Rudy may not even make it past the GOP primary, and
the entire world has forgotten about the incident already.
Let me ask you -- is GE really "proud to sponsor The McLaughlin Group" and the ludicrous, borderline crazy behavior of its seemingly psychotic, definitely reactionary host? Are they "proud" to propagate hard right-wing views that are so far out of the American mainstream that their most notorious supporters, from Senator Bob Smith to Gary Bauer to Pat Buchanan, who used to be a panelist on the Group, have left or are talking about fleeing the Republican Party -- and the GOP actually is celebrating these defections? Are they "proud" to foist lies on American viewers who want a fair and balanced perspective on issues facing the nation but instead get pelted with unintentionally comical neo-fascist blather?
And let me also ask you -- are you proud of being a media rep for a company that has hijacked formerly outstanding shows such as Meet the Press to use them as a propaganda tool of the ultra-right? GE is a key sponsor of -- hell, they own the network that broadcasts -- Meet the Press, on which host and "immoderator" Tim Russert spends week after week badmouthing President Clinton, not to highlight issues but instead to continually embarrass and demean the man for conduct that most married men are guilty of at one time or another in their lives. Russert regularly ran roughshod over the truth during the now-dead Lewinsky flap-turned-impeachment farce, and was even forced to retract a report nearly one year ago that he had not even bothered to vet before rushing onto NBC's Today show to once again try to "take down" Bill Clinton. His muttered retraction lasted a few seconds -- and was seen by an audience only a fraction of that of Today's.
Russert, like McLaughlin, has done his level best to marginalize any views or perspective even slightly left of center.
And we have done our best to document the dishonesty of these two stooges sponsored by GE (who we feel should change their company slogan to "We bring good things to lies") in our weekly analysis of the Sunday political talk shows, Pundit Pap. We can tell you that our readership, which represents a well-read and well-informed segment of that part of the public interested in politics and good government, have agreed overwhelmingly with our views in thousands of e-mails -- and have shared their extremely negative opinion of Russert and McLaughlin in recent surveys conducted by our online magazine.
They, like most Americans, are too smart to be hoodwinked -- in fact, some have said that this attempt to foist the opinions of GE's Board of Ultra-Conservative Directors on viewers by sponsoring the likes of McLaughlin, Russert and others (including Brit Hume, Tony Snow, Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts and George Will) has backfired badly, with the hard right constantly tipping its hand on issues they are attempting to shove down the throats of Americans using illogical arguments and faked-up "facts" even a schoolchild can see through.
Now, we are sure you are probably well compensated by GE, and are well able to defend your employer. We cannot begrudge you doing your job. But we feel that your company's conduct in undermining political opinion is inexcusable.
Therefore, we are asking all of our readers to boycott GE products until such time as they discontinue all sponsorship of Sunday morning political talk shows.
We have already done so -- in fact, we have already discovered that Philips, among others, makes a pretty darn good light bulb!
Very truly yours,
The Editors of American Politics Journal
