In case you guys missed it Media Matters released a pretty telling video on how the conservative echo chamber is working over time to go after Obama:
Spotted the video via this report on HuffPost's Jason Linkins:
Mere hours after the Gridiron Dinner -- an annual gathering of the political press in which everyone soberly bonds over their concern for the state of the world and offers the plucky and trembling Ed Henry advice on being a newsman -- President Barack Obama appeared on 60 Minutes for an interview with Steve Kroft, and while the session, to the untrained eye, might have looked like a ranging and substantive interview, media figures with more discernment and savvy saw it for what it was: Obama laughing at the hardships of America, forever and ever.
And so, as the keepers of the public trust, they grimly went to work, warning America about Obama's reckless demonstration of "emotion" and "brief levity" and "humor," because HOW DARE HE. What sort of rat bastard President would force the cast of MSNBC's commedia dell'arte show Morning Joe suspend their pleasing lazzi, about sex toys -- the important issues of the day -- to discuss his loathesome laughter! In this new video by Media Matters, you can see just how this important topic was relentlessly pursued, like the icy grip of death.
Any guesses to where this non-story "story" originated from?
Echoing a March 22 Politico article that was hyped by the Drudge Report, the March 23 editions of several morning news shows featured segments on President Obama's laughter during a March 22 interview with Steve Kroft on CBS' 60 Minutes. The segments, which aired on NBC's Today, MSNBC's Morning Joe and MSNBC Live, and Fox News' Fox & Friends, are reminiscent of the media's echoing the Drudge Report, among others, by seizing on then-Sen. Hillary Clinton's laugh as a new subject of attention following Clinton's appearance on all five Sunday political talk shows in September 2007. Whereas commentators speculated whether Clinton's laughter -- which some described as a "cackle" -- was evidence of her "calculating" nature, according to the Politico article, Obama's "awkward laughter highlighted an issue Obama has faced dating back to the campaign, a sense that he sometimes is too 'cool' and detached to fully grasp the public anxiety over mounting job losses and economic worries." Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, however, challenged her co-hosts' fixation on the topic stating: "I don't care who's laughing. ... I want to look at the plan and really assess it fairly. Tone is one thing; we'll see what the action is."
These people are shameless.