Textbook definition of cowardice
Swamp wisdom
I promise that I won't do this often, but this is definitely worth it. Please read this commentary. If you do, gentle reader, I will only post links when absolutely vital.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15004160/
posted by The sane one @ 9:38 PM
10 Comments:
thank you... i love links... and i've been waiting for this one... i saw the faux telecast of the clinton debacle with mr. walrus and knew that keith olbermann wouldn't be able to resist making a special commentary... this is great!!!
p.s. i've been tremendously dismayed by the coverage of the wallace/clinton interview... i expect such garbage from faux news but certainly not from main stream media... while others may cower, olberman never disappoints
wonderful! keith is my man! articualte, honest, gritty! that's the way a commentary should be!
according to cbs news today: when asked to comment on clinton's remarks at a white house news conference, president bush declined saying that he doesn't "have time to point fingers". imagine that! seems to me that's all he and his administration have had time to do since their occupation of the white house commenced... and before as well.
Hey, Dubbya has been quite consistent on that point. How many times have you heard him say he wasn't going to play "the blame game"?
Like after Katrina, or when the WMD's didn't turn up, or when his tax cuts caused a huge deficit, or when it turned out we were torturing prisoners at Abu Grehb, or... well you get the idea.
oh yeah, you're right... he doesn't play the blame game at all... just let's his flunkies do it for him
There were some good moments of truth and clarity in the Olberman clip, but in general I think the tone was too harsh and aggressive to play well in Peoria.
I can understand the sentiment behind Olberman's performance, but the tone would not cause a single wavering Republican to vote for the Democrats.
The way to attract wavering Republicans is to try to reach out for common ground. Olberman didn't even try for that, his delivery bordered on rabid.
This was good to fire up the Democrat base, but not much help in reaching across the aisle.
Blaine, you mention that this was a rabid attack, and won't help sway wavering republicans. Well, I guess I have two reactions to that.
First, I don't think it was calculated in that way. I think it was a genuine heartfelt bit of anger. Where as Keith is obviously a Dem, electoral politics and strategy is not his bag. He doesn't work for Fox. He said what he felt like saying.
Second, What in the world WILL sway wavering GOPers???? The Dems have tried being nice, they have tried appealing only to reason. (I know a solid proposal of what they would do would be nice, but we both know what happens then... the GOP starts up the "cut and run coward" machine, and they don't get a fair hearing.) As a Dem, we needed a little bit of red meat. It was refreshing to know that we are being heard someplace by somebody. If it helps solidify Democratic action, good. There are more of us in the country, and Bush is hovering in the 40's anyway. If this chases people to the presidend who were not there before... well... they are not reachable because they can't think for themselves. If it fires up the Bush-base, well, that can't be helped. They are not reachable either. If this helps a few Republicans to see that even if they are conservative that this president is terrible, well that's just a bonus.
I honestly don't know what can get to those who are supporting this president. I don't want to get to name-calling but, my God, this idiot has screwed up EVERYTHING he has done. His policies are a mockery of everything it means to be an AMERICAN. If people are too stuborn or irrational to do anything but follow this pied piper over the cliff like oh so many lemmings, I don't know what to say.
I defy anybody (and this is NOT at all a swipe at you or any of my other loyal readers) to give reasonable rational defenses to this administration's policies. This is a faith based presidency that holds up to debate about as well as the French defended Paris in WWII. That is why they smother debate, and denegrate the loyal opposition. They know they only win with a whipped up frenzy of god, guns and gays.
Sorry to flip out here, but just like Keith, I am frustrated. A little left wing venting is a good thing. WE can atleast defend it with reason. MAybe a little passion would do us good.
You may be right about Mr. and Mrs. American out there though... Any suggestions of how to reach them?
My problem with Olberman was that he was trying to fight fire with fire. My complaint is not with the content (although I think he gets carried away in a few places) but rather the tone. The Bush crowd has shamefully politicized the war on terror. Olberman and the Dems aren't going to save the country by playing politics right back at the White House. Olberman used every tactic from the Karl Rove playbook. Here are some examples.
At the 30 second mark, Olberman declared that the administration was as big a threat to the country as Al Qaeda. Equating the political opposition with the terrorists works, when the President did this in 2002 and 2004 elections, the GOP won, but at what price? Do the Dems regain power by being just as nasty and dirty as the GOP under Bush? Is that really winning?
Next, around the 2:27 mark, Olberman questions the President's masculinity. "That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the executive." As we discussed on the phone earlier, the fad of questioning ones masculinity is silly and not much more than name calling. Again, this is a tactic that the Bush supporters have engaged in, the most recent traget has been John Murtha.
Next, around the 3:00 minute mark, Olberman launches into another right wing standard attack which is to declare that any journalists that deviate from their approved viewpoint is a stooge and tool of the administration. All through the Clinton years, the right wingers targeted the likes of the New York Times, Eleanor Clift, Juan Williams, and so forth as administration apologists, for no other reason than they disagreed with the GOP line.
Olberman gladly embraces the playbook and goes after Chris Wallace (we can debate the Wallace interview of Clinton seperately, but there are certainly a variety of opinions about who ambushed who on that). Specifically, Olberman is factually wrong that the interview was only about talking about Clinton's charity efforts. This discarding of the truth to make his point is troubling, and again puts him in league with the Rove machine.
And then at 4:50, we get to the most annoying (to me) and hypocritical attack line. Olberman complains that the notion (advanced by the right) that Clinton failed to deal with Bin Laden because he was distracted by the Lewinsky business is infuriating.
The distraction charge seems without merit, but rather than just discrediting it, Olberman employs the same attack: the Republicans are actually responsible for Clinton's affair and subsequent impeachable offenses and subsequent impeachement and subsequent Senate trial and they are the ones that kept the country from focusing on terror. The GOP congress, therefore, is responsible for the 911 attacks. He has completely adopted the style and tactics of those he is opposed to.
Note that it is during this discussion of the Lewinsky business that Olberman is at his most rabid (during this segment, he was Bill O'Reilly).
The Democrats and the liberals do not win if they adopt the strategy of the right wingers. Sure it might be fun to yell and scream and call names, but if that's all that happens, then the country loses.
Even if the Democrats take back both houses of Congress, there are still going to be a LOT of Republicans around.
Any investigative hearings that will be launched with a new Congress will need principled Republican members to give any findings credibility, otherwise we're just back to Al D'Amato running the Whitewater Hearings.
The best way to nail President Bush is by remaining calm, appealing to the better side of the American people and to those Republicans that can be reached (there are some) and rejecting the Rove tactics of demonization and distortion.
I am all in favor of passion, but that was not passion I saw in Olberman but rage.
I completely understand your point about rage and sinking to the same level as Karl Rove.
(And, might I point out that this damn reply is taking me forever to formulate because you make some very very good points.)
This was rage, you're right. And you are right about the country being the big loser if everything turns to name-calling.
Appealing only to the rage of our base is not the way for our party or our nation to win. But a little bit of it can be theraputic.
It is a terrible dilema for us.
However, I respectfully disagree with some of your analysis in the distraction section.
Clinton boffed Monica then lied about it. The GOP did not make him do it. We can have an honest disagreement about whether that is an impeachable offense or not.
However, Gingrich and company created the setting where this could occur. They created the "Clinton as liar" myth from day one. All those accusations that they had been running on before Monica entered the picture (whitewater, vince foster, travel gate etc.), all of them were pure partisan hackery.
The GOP created the environment that reached its perfection with Rove.
The critique Mr. Olbermann is making in regards to distraction is not that the GOP caused 911. The critique is that Gingrich and company had a plan to cripple the Clinton White House from day one with endless groundless investigations. They finally "hit a winner" with 2 years left, but until then it was all balloney.
They WANTED to distract Clinton so that he be distroyed. They failed.
The GOP did not cause 911, bin Ladin did. Olbermann and I would not ever say anything else.
You are of course right about the need for civility, but Keith speaks for a lot of people on the left who feel like civility has utterly failed us.
Maybe our prime objection should be with a lazy citizenry who is unworthy of our legacy of liberty. The people have let the scoundrels get away with it for so long that eventually we too erupt in rage.
When the people at large fail to hold anybody accountable, it is all too easy to sucumb to rage.
Post a Comment
<< Home