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Frontline: Divided States of America

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sneakypete:
Frontline:Divided States of America

Just watched the 2 hour part one of this series,and it was both very balanced and very interesting. The producers interviewed many of the movers and shakers behind what went on behind the scenes from the time Obama left the Illinois Senate to the US Senate,and how he was talked into running for president "Now,before you have a record of votes that makes it harder (or maybe impossible.Operating from memory here.) for you to run and win in the future. IIRC,it was Tom Daschle that revealed this.

It goes on to discuss his early days,the push for Obama Care and the dirty deals done in the background that splintered the alleged (MY adjective) Republican Party and resulted in the rise of the Tea Party.

It also did an excellent job of detailing how McLunatic brain farts and how he dealt with Sarah Palin and defended Obama during the election cycle was Ground Zero for that splintering and the creation of the Tea Party that led to the Republicans taking over control of Congress despite being vastly outnumbered at the start. It even highlights how after Ted Kennedy died his Senate seat in Mass went Republican for the first time in over 40 years.

All of which ended up step by step leading to "outsiders" taking the Republican Party away from the professional deal-makers,and ended up resulting in the election of Donald Trump,the final verdict on the presidency of Obama,and the probable end of his ONLY accomplishment while President,Obama Care. Which in itself should go a long ways towards revealing why he is planning on remaining in DC and operating as a "shadow president" to try to prevent this from happening.

This is just an overview that hits some of the high (low?) spots. They revealed some things I didn't know,and reminded me of other events I had forgotten about.

Getting ready to view the 2 hour final in a few minutes. I highly recommend viewing this two-part series to everyone who even has a casual interest in big-league politics.

If  you can't find it on your local PBS station,you can stream it by going to PBS.COM and using Frontline:Divided States of America as the keywords.

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Attention mods,there were NO Semites harmed during the typing or posting of this thread.

TomSea:
@sneakypete

I'm going to watch it this weekend, everyone recommends it.

sneakypete:

--- Quote from: TomSea on January 27, 2017, 02:09:26 am ---@sneakypete

I'm going to watch it this weekend, everyone recommends it.

--- End quote ---

@TomSea

Good for you! I was a little surprised at all the stuff that had never even occurred to me. It's well-worth the time spent.

Sanguine:
Sounds good.  I'll have to look for it.

Hondo69:

--- Quote from: sneakypete on January 20, 2017, 01:09:31 am ---Frontline:Divided States of America

Just watched the 2 hour part one of this series,and it was both very balanced and very interesting. The producers interviewed many of the movers and shakers behind what went on behind the scenes from the time Obama left the Illinois Senate to the US Senate . . .

--- End quote ---

It seems to me Frontline does a relatively good job of offering some "inside baseball" tidbits in their stories.  This serves several purposes, but primarily implies they've dug deep by doing some good old fashioned investigative journalism.  And almost always they do an excellent job of piecing together a chronological story line.  If it were not for "A" then "B" would have never been possible.  This leaves the viewer walking away after an hour thinking, "wow, nice job, we need more hard hitting pieces like this".

But . . .

There's always a but.  I haven't seen this particular piece yet but I'll bet good money they conveniently omitted the key factors of Obama's Senate run.  The movers and shakers behind the scenes managed to get sealed records magically unsealed - twice.

It happened once in the Democratic primary where Obama trailed in the polls, and again in the general election where Obama trailed in the polls.  But after the records were unsealed the dirt hit the fan on his opponents then Obama eventually won his Senate seat.  Now I fully understand a defender of Frontline would argue these are insignificant points but I know better - they are in fact they are the most significant points.  Inconvenient truth is conveniently omitted from the story line.

I noticed the same in a story on the financial meltdown.  And I noticed it again in a full hour story about the creation of ObamaCare.  Sure there is plenty of "inside baseball" stuff but they stop short of laying it all bare.  Which is why I rarely watch Frontline.

Unless the viewer has previous knowledge and done his homework before seeing the show they really have no way of knowing what conveniently was left on the cutting room floor.  So in my opinion Frontline is nothing but a formulaic hustle.

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