Steve Schmidt (Game Change) “Sir, you’ve got to stop watching Keith Olbermann

[grantcart]

Last edited Sun Mar 11, 2012, 02:28 PM - Edit history (2)

edited to add the exact quotes;

http://blackhistory.com/cgi-bin/blog.cgi?blog_id=227677&cid=10


“Sir, you’ve got to stop watching Keith Olbermann or Fox for that matter. It’s all just bullsh*t.”

“F*ck CBS and f*ck their instant poll.”

“I can’t get [McCain] to stop watching MSNBC, which only makes him more miserable.”




Game Change was fascinating because it was obviously obsessed with not only general accuracy but details. Not only did Moore, Harrelson and give astonishing performances but all of the kids in the Palin family looked eerily like the real kids.

The most interesting inside details had to do with how the campaign got hit again and again with more details about Palin from the media, and most of the time it was watching the fact driven MSNBC with astonished looks of anguish on their faces. Again and again MSNBC delivered news, "Surprise Todd Palin was a long term member of the Alaska Independence Party".

At one point McCain is getting depressed about the general trend of the campaign and Woody Harrelson as Steve Schmidt yells in frustration "I have to get McCain to stop wathcing Keith Olbermann".

Just priceless.

[brewens]

1. Prepare for howls of indignation from Palin and her worshippers. More librul lies! n/t

[LostinRed]

6. I'm surprised that there is blowback from conservatives

Last edited Sun Mar 11, 2012, 06:33 AM - Edit history (1)

I actually thought the movie humanized her a bit. I don't like her at all but I did felt sympathy for her and her family in parts of the movie. It was a great movie.

[lob1]

2. I can't wait to see Olbermann monday.

He'll have to comment on it. Really good movie, and that line jumped out at me, too.

[unionworks]

3. it was a bit painful

To go there again, but well worth it.

[JitterbugPerfume]

4. on rare occasions I wish I had HBO

This is one----

It would be worth it for the Olbermann line alone

[tulsakatz]

5. it was good...

...but I have to say the book was much better! The book goes into much more detail about how she was so unresponsive in her briefings with Nicole. It really made the point that (mentally) she could be crazy or at the very least unhinged!

haha.......I loved it during the Couric interview when she was asked what papers, magazines she reads. Schmidt kept saying, "just name one!!" Any answer would've been much better than the one she gave!!

[brewens]

7. Just shows you what her journalism degree must be worth. I had three years of

journalism in high school. It was actually a program superior to most college journalism programs. My senior year we won the national scholastic acheivment award for the best high school newspaper in the country, for the 13th year in a row. It was taught by the smartest man I ever new, Ron Hayes. A real old school newspaper man.

It was unthinkable to me, that a journalism major couldn't name a few major papers. Had she faked it though, Couric may have followed up and made her look even worse. Still, you'd think she'd rattle off the major Alaskan paper/s, The Wall Street Journal and just about anything else.

Had she said the WSJ, Couric probably would have asked her about a recent relevant story from it. No doubt she would have had no clue, giving away she was lying. She may have realized she was screwed. She's the type that never reads anything.

[Atman]

8. Wow! You could be describing my HS journalism course!

We also competed in various competitions, and always won. I was the paper's designer and co-editor. I was the first freshman allowed in the program, and worked on the paper for four years. One of the best educational experiences of my life, and I agree; it seemed far more thorough than what passes for "journalism" these days.

[brewens]

10. In 1976, we broke the worlds record for the largest high school newspaper ever produced. It was

about like a Rolling Stone from that day. We worked on it all the fall semester. As well as the national bicentennial, it was also the 50th anniversary for the school paper I think. My main contribution was the history of our football program since I was also on the team. Later I ended up with my own column on music.

We sent a copy of the record paper to President Carter. The President, V.P. and entire Whitehouse staff signed it and sent it back.

http://www.klewtv.com/news/local/132676748.html

Impressive still.

[Atman]

11. Very cool! I graduated in 1977.

Last edited Sun Mar 11, 2012, 11:34 AM - Edit history (1)

It's possible we may have competed in the same events. School nearly ground to a halt on the days the paper came out. We broke into teams during home room and went from class to class selling the paper. Everybody spent the day searching for mentions of themselves, or talking about our latest expose (we frequently got in hot water for touchy subjects like teen pregnancy or cheating...but those are the stories that won us awards).

One of our claims to fame was advertising sales. We were totally self-funded and even turned a profit. Everyone who joined the staff was assigned a section of town and had to pound the pavement and sell ads -- and look for stories, too! LOL! Kind of ahead of our time, as journalism these days seems to be more about advertising space than news.

[brewens]

13. We were self funding too. A matter of pride four our ad staff and adviser. I never was

involved in that or management. They would have liked me to, but I had too many other things going. I ended up being lineman of the year on our football team as well as class parliamentarian my senior year. All that along with my other classes, assigned stories and column actually made high school a real grind. It's amazing I found time to party on the weekends!

[Atman]

14. It was the seventies...we always seemed to find time to party.

In addition to two periods a day of journalism and one period of reduced day, I was Senior Class President. I think the biggest event I organized was our Senior Skip Day party. But me and the student government president didn't even attend the party...we went deep sea fishing instead. The administration told us only two seniors showed up for class that day, making it the most "successful" skip day ever! Ah...what a legacy! LOL!

[brewens]

15. We had or priorities right back then. But we could handle it. I suppose the kids

today could too if they had things the way we did. Good luck gettng kegs for a senior skip these days! They want to treat you like a real criminal for stuff we routinely did now. God help an adult that assists getting beer.

[tulsakatz]

19. exactly!!!

...& that's why it looked like a lie! No one reads every paper ever written!

It's like the time when a journalist asked Cain about Obama's actions related to Libya. We all knew that he didn't really have an answer & that's why he couldn't come up with anything for several minutes! Even though he claimed to have many things swirling in his mind, he couldn't name a single one!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

12. Thanks. Had to search a while to find you - the one person I agree with. The book far

exceeds this work - which I guess is always true.

They made a point that she refused to prepare for that interview with Couric....but you know, even
if she had, they probably wouldn't have anticipated that reading question, do you think?

Perhaps, we can look at that one event as poetic justice. They not preparing her or anticipating
that question led to her looking stupid which led to enough people deciding not to vote for her which
led to Obama's win.

[tulsakatz]

20. yes, books are usually better than films...

...mostly because there is more time in a book to explain details but even so, I still felt that the film downplayed that aspect of it.

At least if Palin had tried to prepare, I'm sure they could have said something that may have helped with that question. I mean, it was a pretty obvious question. She was running for a position on a national campaign, certainly voters might want to know which national publications she reads, if any.

[MiniMe]

9. I thought he said MSNBC, didn't mention a person

But I picked up on that line too.

[grantcart]

16. Actually he said both

some quotes

http://blackhistory.com/cgi-bin/blog.cgi?blog_id=227677&cid=10


“Sir, you’ve got to stop watching Keith Olbermann or Fox for that matter. It’s all just bullsh*t.”

“F*ck CBS and f*ck their instant poll.”

“I can’t get [McCain] to stop watching MSNBC, which only makes him more miserable.”

[MiniMe]

18. Thanks, thought I was going crazy for a minute

I missed the Olberman reference

[grantcart]

17. kicked for the edit

[jsmirman]

21. I hated it - as I said in Drunken Irishman's thread

sorry to be grumpy, but these were my thoughts:

I am stunned that there are people on this board who found this anything other than even more of a rehash than the book was.

There was ONE SINGLE THING that was interesting and new to me in the movie - I didn't know that/didn't recall that Nicole Wallace didn't vote. That was interesting in a "human interest" sort of way.

Otherwise, is this movie really going to be anything other than a political Rorschach test? Pretty much any of the Tina Fey skits were more incisive than this movie about a bunch of shit we already knew.

This movie seems to hit a real sweet spot of political self-indulgence - I find it hard to believe that any part of the public that hasn't realized Palin is an unqualified horror show is not going to be convinced by this film. And for those of us already convinced, is this really much more than two hours of skillful impersonations?

Mostly, I feel much the same as I felt about the book - the campaign - from the first primary to election night - was fascinating - I can't believe they couldn't wring more excitement out of such an amazing story. The campaign - even without elaboration - unfolded like a great work of fiction, with a cast of singular characters, self-contained chapters, as a period of weeks with one narrative would yield to the next, an enormously rich backdrop, as landmark external events played out over the course of 2008, and a series of dramatic moments that you simply couldn't top if you were making the stuff up.

I know that what I lived was way more exciting, harrowing, hilarious, frustrating and poignant than either the book or the film. And my experiences amounted to a tiny slice of the campaign.