And our tribe gets more like theirs: The NRA is one of the dumbest and least constructive of all major lobbying groups.
It also has a large membership. It adopts positions its members don’t share. Almost surely, many of its members don’t understand how absurd its conduct is.
NRA president Wayne LaPierre is pretty much out of his mind at this point—or at least he’s prepared to pretend. But then again, so is Lawrence O’Donnell. Lawrence made this all too clear on Wednesday evening's program.
Lawrence began to tease a certain segment midway through the program. His first tease went like this:
O’DONNELL (2/13/13): In The Rewrite, more readings from the NRA’s enemies list. And why does the NRA’s enemies list have so many Jewish organizations on itSay what? The NRA has an enemies list? And there are a lot of Jewish groups on its enemies list?
Lawrence seemed to be making a very serious charge. But how odd! When he returned from break, he teased the segment again, but in a different way:
O’DONNELL: What does the Anti-Defamation League have in common with the YWCA, the Young Women’s Christian Association? And what do they both have in common with the company that makes Levi’s? All three of them area actually on the National Rifle Association’s enemies list. As is Richard Gere and Lou Gossett Jr.This time, it sounded like lots of people and groups are on that enemies list! Soon, Lawrence did a segment about the recent conduct of the NRA and its “blood-drenched lobbyist, Wayne LaPierre.”
It is the craziest list you have ever heard, and it is on tonight’s Rewrite.
After that, he teased the enemies list again. But this time around, he dropped a famous, very well-known bomb:
O’DONNELL: Coming up, Wayne LaPierre has an enemies list, and you’re probably on it, especially if you’re in a union, since the AFL-CIO is on it. That means that I’m on it, because the unions that I’m in are members of the AFL-CIO. And it’s more likely if you’re in any Jewish organization.Lawrence, an East Coast Irish Catholic, fancies himself on the enemies list, along with the YWCA and the AFL-CIO. But he said it’s more likely you’re on the list if you’re in a Jewish organization.
The madness and the anti-Semitism of the NRA is in tonight’s rewrite.
And then, he dropped the A-S-bomb, just like the right-wingers like to do! Later, he teased the segment again, making the same suggestion:
O’DONNELL: Coming up in “The Rewrite,” a second night of readings from the NRA’s enemies list. It did not just name celebrities, as we told you about the other night. It also named doctors, teachers and a surprisingly long list of Jewish organizations.Like you, we’ve never quite figured out why Lawrence calls that nightly segment “The Rewrite.” But by now, he had said or suggested that the NRA is anti-Semitic three or four different times, depending on how you were counting. And he had referred to that enemies list over and over again.
Is the NRA anti-Semitic? Can you discern such a thing from its enemies list? And by the way: What the heck is this enemies list? Lawrence still hadn’t told us! But then, he also never answered that question on Monday night, when he devoted one full segment to this dark-sounding list.
We think we’ll stop right here for today, though Lawrence’s conduct was already quite serious. He was making a very serious charge, and he seemed to be having fun as he did. But then, people of Lawrence’s off-kilter caliber always always enjoyed dropping these bombs.
Remember when he used to go on the TV machine and rant about the Mormons? So lustily that The One True Channel finally made him go on TV and take his insults back?
In recent years, it’s the neocons who have made casual accusations of anti-Semitism a standard part of their warfare. We liberals have tended to stick to our R-, N-, N-, B- and X-bombs. (Racist, nativist, homophobe, bigot, xenophobe. Sexist and misogynist? Not so much, for perfectly obvious reasons.) But Lawrence had already made some very serious statements at the point where we leave off today.
When Lawrence finally did The Rewrite, the segment went on for a very long time. We thought the way he “established” the casual claim he’d been making was a balls-out disgrace.
But then, what else is new from this vintage cable crackpot? Yesterday, we discussed the Good Lawrence. That Lawrence is rarely around.
Coming: Bad Lawrence toys with his bombs. To watch Wednesday's segment, click this.
Warning! The Crazy can last a very long time when Lawrence goes into his rant.
You should at least mention the punch-line for the whole segment. Earlier in the week, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League had sent a letter to Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live strongly critical of a skit regarding the Chuck Hagel hearings in the Senate.
ReplyDeleteThe skit had not aired but had been made available on the Web. In the skit, the cast played the senators as falling over themselves and each other in declaring their undying loyalty to Israel. Although the skit was exaggerated and veered off into the raunchy, anyone who watched even portions of the actual hearings could tell what had inspired the SNL crew. A word cloud of the hearings (http://mondoweiss.net/2013/02/israel-hagel-hearing.html) indicates that the skit was not that far off.
O'Donnell had already done at least one other segment on what he calls the NRA's enemies list. That segment was structured as a "what do these people have in common?" guessing game, where the answer was that all of the celebrities he mentioned were on the NRA's list. The Rewrite that is the subject of your post was just another edition in that continuing theme.
But it had an extra point. O'Donnell was suggesting to Foxman that his criticisms were misplaced, and that there are participants in the American cultural and political landscape far more dangerous to the real concerns of Jews than the SNL writers and cast.