Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Ron Fournier and the Rule of Mules


There's an old story about the farmer who buys a new mule, and the mule won't do a damn thing.  Won't pull a plow.  Won't carry.  Won't even go into the barn.

So the farmer hires an old mule-skinner to teach him the subtle art of mule motivation.

The mule-skinner arrives, picks up a 2x4 and wallops the mule upside the head.  This makes the mule angry.  The farmer is stunned.  The mule-skinner then smacks the mule even harder, right between the eyes knocking the mule to its knees.  Now the farmer is angry and the mule is stunned. The mule-skinner then kicks the mule in the rump.

"Stop it," the farmer yells. "I hired you to teach him, not kill him."

The mule-skinner shrugs, grabs the mule's halter and leads it calmly into the barn.

"Thing about mules is this," said the mule-skinner.  "They're smart and you can teach 'em, but the first thing you have to do is get their attention.

Longtime readers remember that during and after the 2016 election, Matthew Dowd and Ron Fournier were the ubiquitous pundit Frick and Frack of False Equivalence -- both constantly on teevee, radically lowering the bar for Donald Trump and radically raising the bar for Hillary Clinton so they could preach the Holy Beltway Media Gospel of Both Siderism and sell millions of credulous viewers on the lie that there really wasn't a dime's worth of difference between Trump and Clinton, and that the entire system needed to be overthrown (Disrupt!) because the  K'rupt Duopoly was the real problem.

Here was Ron Fournier in July of 2018:




And here is Ron Fournier today:

Turns out, all it took was a global pandemic during the reign of a pathologically lying madman to finally get Ron Fournier's attention.


Behold, a Tip Jar!

4 comments:

Pagan in repose said...

Well, you know the old saying about a stopped watch...

Anonymous said...

The question is: How exactly do we get the main stream media to reform?

I have a serious question, and it opens a "can of worms".

We have "freedom of speech", but you cannot falsely yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Because "freedom of speech" only applies to political speech.

News media of all kinds, print, TV, etc. are given wide protections in the US Constitution - "freedom of the press". I am absolutely in favor of it.

Yet, there have been deaths - probably many - and there will be more, because of the actions of certain "news" outlets.

My questions are:

What or who qualifies for the "freedom of the press" Constitutional protection?

Are there any limits, standards, guidelines, or definitions of who or what a "press" is?

Is merely self-describing yourself as "news" enough?

Allowing any government - anywhere, at any time - to allow or disallow the "press" from operating freely, is a recipe for disaster.

And there is the "can of worms".

------

Stay at home. Wash your hands. Wear a mask. Don't touch your face, or a Republican, or a Libertarian, or an evangelist, or a both-sider.
Touching dogs is recommended.

Pagan in repose said...

Anonymous:

My understanding, limited though it may be, is the the "Framers" of the constitution expected the "fourth estate" to inform and educate the public.

And this: https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/fourth-estate-final-check

Robt said...

Someone sometime should do something? Whenever both sider doesn't fit for Ron.

Just like Republican Speaker Denny Hastert and his pedophile escapades tuner the Both sider rules of engagement.. Ron is and Denny both, engage in the Pedophilia follies.

See how that works , Ron.