Our own leading turkey takes flight: With the gatekeepers gone, we're learning what we the people have presumably always been like.
When the major political parties were in the hands of elite gatekeepers, potential candidates like Candidate Trump weren't allowed into the mix.
Now, we pick our candidates almost wholly through primaries. With media gatekeepers gone as well, we're learning that there's a pretty good market for a hopeful like Trump.
Over here in our liberal tents, we can see the many misstatements of a person like Trump. We can't see the way we love our own brand of dissembling, most of which currently turns on matters of gender and race.
Over in the conservative tents, they can see this about us. They're told about it every day. Much of what they're being told is, alas, perfectly accurate.
There's something else we liberals can't see. We can't see how dumb we liberals have been for all these countless years.
We can see that The Others are dumb. We can't spot the trait in ourselves.
How dumb have we been for all these years? Last Friday night, the biggest turkey of them all took wing and flew again.
Chris Matthews was hosting a panel which included Eliana Johnson, Washington editor for the National Review. A bit of background on Johnson:
She graduated from Yale in 2006; she joined the National Review in 2012. In the interim, she spent three years as a segment producer for Sean Hannity at Fox.
Three years producing segments for Sean? Journalistically, that's a horrible background. Having offered that word of warning, let's return to last Friday's Hardball.
At one point, Matthews asked Johnson why so many conservatives say that Obama's a Muslim. The turkey was soon in the air.
As any Hannity droog would do, Johnson quickly recited the standard canard concerning Candidate Clinton. And good God! Matthews quickly affirmed and embellished Johnson's claim. He then tossed in an older canard concerning Candidate Gore!
With apologies, we haven't been able to compare the transcript of Friday's Hardball program to videotape. The tape of the horrible segment in question doesn't appear at the Hardball site.
That said, the transcript seems to provide a reasonably faithful version of the exchange, which we watched several times at the end of last week. What are we the people actually like? The exchange offers a taste of the journalistic inventions of the past twenty years.
We start with the canard about Candidate Clinton. Here's what happened when Matthews asked why Republican voters keep saying Obama's a Muslim:
MATTHEWS (11/20/15): Why do people keep saying that, Eliana? They do they keep telling pollsters that?We hate to spoil the party, but Clinton didn't "first put out there about Obama being a Muslim." By way of contrast, Candidate Trump spent several years broadcasting versions of this canard in every possible forum.
JOHNSON: Well, I have to say, I do think it's amusing that it's Hillary Clinton, it's the Clintons who first put this out there about Obama being a Muslim.
MATTHEWS: Why did she do it?
JOHNSON: I think because it's a pretty effective way, when you start to question whether somebody is American in their origin.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Do you think that's an American thing to do?
JOHNSON: No, I don't. I think it's an abominable campaign tactic. But I do think it's worth it to remember that it was, in 2007, the Clintons who did this.
MATTHEWS: I know. It's their original sin.
JOHNSON: The dirtiest campaign in the country.
Despite this minor problem, Matthews didn't simply agree with Johnson's mandated canard. He actually added to her claim, calling this action-which-didn't-occur the Clintons' "original sin."
The Clintons' conduct was un-American, our number-one turkey intoned.
Surely, that would have been awful enough. But this particular corporate gobbler wasn't finished yet:
MATTHEWS (continuing directly): Jeanne, if you name it on this— I know it was Al Gore who used the Willie Horton—Good God! After playing the old Clinton-called-Obama-a-Muslim card, Matthews even reached all the way back. He repeated the pitiful RNC claim that it was really Candidate Gore who invented the ugly, racialized mess concerning Willie Horton.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: We know that history.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Why is that funny? It's terrible.
(In real time, no one pimped that line more than Hannity, though this was before Johnson's time. Last Friday, Chris helped the horrible Johnson out, reciting this old canard for her.)
Can we talk? In the realm of "cable news," Matthews is the original Trump. He was Trump before Donald Trump was a gleam in cable's eye.
At the time, Matthews was being made extremely rich by his corporate owner, conservative zillionaire Jack Welch. He played the Trump role for many years with his crazy Clinton/Gore-hating misstatements.
The liberal world just sat there and took it. E.J. Dionne? Lawrence O'Donnell? They both agreed not to notice. Today, they're on MSNBC!
At this point, we the liberals can actually see that Trump is making crazy, inaccurate, harmful misstatements. Because he's in the GOP, we're able to see it and say it.
We were too dumb and ineffective to ever react to Matthews. We still can't bring ourselves to understand the way our favorite liberal media stars have covered for his appalling conduct every step of the way.
Today, we watch Chris on our own One True Channel; we see our darling Rachel fawn about how much she loves and admires the man she calls her dear friend. He still says things like the ones shown above. We're too hopeless and soft to react.
Why does our tribe favor Matthews today? Because he gives us the R-bombs we deeply love—the R-bombs we seem to love more than life itself. We're inclined to ask nothing more from our "intellectual leaders."
Those R-bombs are our own tribe's version of Donald Trump's Syrian/Muslim slanders. They convince us that The Very Bad People can all be found Over There. In all of human history, tribal groups have rarely asked for much more.
("Moral equivalence," we liberals will cry. Like people who swallow Hannity-Johnson's guff, we liberals know three or four plays.)
We can see what They are doing. It's harder for us to see the truth about the multimillionaire corporate turkeys who have been assigned to Us down through these many destructive and deeply ridiculous years.
He knows from un-American: Matthews knows all about un-American.
In the wake of 9/11, he shared these thoughts about ex-candidate Gore with Don Imus, who was extremely influential at the time:
"He doesn’t look like one of us. He doesn’t seem very American, even."
Yes, he actually said it! He said it on Imus' radio show, which was still being simulcast on MSNBC at that time.
We liberals just sat there and took it. For the record, Christopher Matthews was still Donald Trump at that point in time.
Imus was in rare form that morning (November 2, 2001). For a fuller account of his thoughtful remarks, just click here, then scroll to The Daily Update.
We've accepted this crap every step of the way. Who in the name of creation are we to mock the gullible average voters in the other tribe?
I watched that segment in total disgust. This is the only writing on that I found anywhere. Matthews should be informed and he's not the only one. He seems to be tipsy lately...even more out of it.
ReplyDeleteLooks like you haven't accepted this crap every step of the way.
DeleteI posted a comment on THE HARDBALL website immediately after the show (well, I had to go through a protracted registration process first). I asked that Chris Matthews deliver an on-air retraction the next night. I posted my email on FB. And I didn't hold my breath...But citing Matthews as 'one of ours' is like citing Scarborough or Todd as 'one of ours' because they're on MSNBC.
ReplyDeleteWho in the name of creation are you to set yourself up as superior to the rest of your tribe?
DeleteOne reason our side calls the other side dumb is stories like this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/11/americans-say-trump-most-likely-to-ruin-thanksgiving-dinner-gop-opposes-obama-on-turkey-pardons.html
Republicans are opposed to Obama pardoning the Thanksgiving Turkeys.
So, with beliefs like this, it is not difficult to call the other side dumb.
This poll question asked about Obama's "executive action last year to to pardon 2 turkeys, rather than the customery 1". (emphasis added)
DeleteThis was a trick question, because it had two components:
1. Pardoning turkeys
2. Obama's executive actions
The President has discussed or taken executive actions on guns and illegal immigrants that are unpopular among conservatives . Many conservatives may have answered "disapprove" to indicate that their feeling toward the President's executive actions.
You think Congress should have to pass a bill about how many turkeys to pardon? That's just as silly as objecting to pardoning turkeys.
DeleteDavid, thank you for confirming my suspicion that certain conservatives don't listen at all, and are thus immune to reason. Instead, they react without fully knowing what they are reacting to.
DeleteBut my I pose the possibility that it wasn't "executive action" they were reacting to, but "Obama."
If Obama's for it, they're against it. Easier than having to do all the hard work of listening and thinking.
I agree with you 11:17. And, I suspect, the same would be true of liberals regarding, say, Donald Trump. E.g., I think a substantial number of liberals would answer "disapprove" to the question:
DeleteDo you approve or disapprove of Donald Trump's lies about the Thanksgiving turkey?
David in Cal = all agenda, no brains, all the time.
DeleteIt's dumb to call the other side dumb based on a poll. It's dumb to think the other side even cares about turkey pardons. I could be wrong though because actually I am quite dumb.
DeleteIn that case, it is dumb the way polls keep asking about Clinton's honest or trustworthiness. These have been shown to have no impact at all on likelihood of voting for her. They just measure the effect of propaganda against her, like the remarks above.
Delete12:53. I don't know anything about these polls you mentioned but they do sound dumb. I would be fine if they took all the polls, past present and future and threw them in the river.
DeleteI have two dear cousins who post Facebook items daily purporting to show that Republicans are dumb or ignorant. I have little patience with their comments and Anon 10:21's. First of all, the supposed evidence is generally bogus, like the cited poll here. Second, according to Pew, Republicans are somewhat better-informed than Democrats, on average. Third, the focus on supposed dumbness of the other tribe is a way to avoid addressing action issues.
DeleteSee http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/03/10/pew-makes-it-official-republicans-are-smarter-than-democrats-54686
11:17
DeleteCertain libs also don't listen at all, and are thus immune to reason. Instead, we react without fully knowing what we are reacting to just like our conservative brothers. I do it all th time and I'm a lib. I f'n hate myself for it but I behave exactly as you described a lot. I overeat too an embarrassing compulsion that also crosses party lines like the not listening thing you described. Sometimes I think were all just pigs in the same pen. Bob is probably right about our inability to see faults in ourselves that we see in others. It's probably a logical fallacy or whatever. I can see mine perhaps a little more clearly than others because I'm a fat, broke drug addict with no prospects and no relationships. I've broken bread with conservatives though and they are not bad people. Not any worse than I am anyway. Not that that would be hard. Whatever. I'm going to go watch The Mentalist.
Anyone who conjures up some sort of scenario where one large set of people are dumb versus another large set of people simply does not have their underpants on - to borrow a phrase from Napoleon. Hell, my ex-girlfriend is a huge liberal and she's dumb as rocks!
DeleteI'm not sure that reflects well on you.
Delete2:25
DeleteHang in there. I am sorry you are suffering. I hope things change for the better. Listen to good music, eat a little better, exercise a little when you can. People are obsessed with dominance and are terrible at providing support for others. Maybe get a pet.
@2:17 PM - "I have little patience with their comments and Anon 10:21's."
DeleteThat goes right into my now-voluminous Who Gives A Shit About David in Cal's Fee Fees file.
Thanks man. I had one but she swallowed a Robitussin cap and died. But life goes on. I guess I got it better that I don't know, some stone worker in the 13th century building a damn chapel or whatever.
DeleteAnd again, David shows how easily he can be manipulated.
DeleteBizpacreview.com is one of those right-wing web sites David obviously reads to reinforce his comfort zone.
The story he posted cites a FIVE-YEAR OLD poll, without linking to the poll itself so that readers could judge for themselves whether the poll measures what the author of this piece says it does.
But David doesn't need all that. He found an article on the Internet that he totally agrees with, so it is absolutely true.
The first response to my post by David in Cal to Republicans opposing Obama pardoning the Turkeys proved my original point about why many of us think the other side is dumb.
DeleteIdiots. The presence of Chris Matthews demonstrates you have no right to mock David in Cal.
DeleteI called her Jody but she may as well been called God's Pure Love because that's the feeling I got around her. Another holiday alone without her. I admit I was drunk. I agree with Bob about tribes. Blind to our shortcomings. Like that Carlin joke about maniac drivers. It may even have to do with psychological projection. Projecting our own darkness on others. Hannity is a dumb liar that's for sure. Bush was crazy. David Mamet made some good points in that essay about liberal hypocrisy.. Hope everyone has a good one today.
DeletePlus Chris Matthews almost got somebody killed.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to Bill O'Reilly's jihad against that murdered abortion doctor. If I recall correctly it was Pat Buchanon's unbalanced brother who was apprehended armed with a loaded weapon laying in wait for his and Chris' target.
DeleteYou recall with degrees of accuracy and inaccuracy. Just as Somerby recalls Matthews was once a lot more influential.
Delete"We liberals"??? Bob please stop pretending that you're a liberal. You're not fooling anyone any more
ReplyDeleteYou have to pass the purity test to be considered a liberal -- no independent thinking allowed. Oh for the good old days of self-criticism sessions to root out all that backsliding.
DeleteNo purity test but anyone who reads this blog knows that Bob, like MEka on morning joke, is only pretending to be a liberal.
DeleteSorry, one can not be liberal AND be critical of our corporate media. Criticizing Chris Matthews is simply intolerable, I am beyond miffed.
DeleteCalling Chris Matthews a liberal does not win a blogger points for understanding liberalism.
DeleteCalling Chris Matthews a liberal does not win a blogger points for understanding liberalism.
DeleteWe still can't bring ourselves to understand the way our favorite liberal media stars have covered for his appalling conduct every step of the way.
DeleteThree days of the turkeys.
ReplyDeleteThree years of producing segments for Sean Hannity.
Rule of three.
As a wise professed professorial commenter once said, watch out for the threebies.
Facts don't necessarily come in threes, but when people select examples from a set of facts, they tend to present three of them. You left one out.
DeleteJust waiting for three anonymous exuses for Somerby from Dr. Corby Disclaimer to appear.
DeleteDon't you have anything better to do today?
DeleteWhy does our tribe favor Matthews today?
DeleteI can think of a lot more things Chris Matthews has said in the last week or so that make me madder than his creating the HIgh Holy Howler sin of
ReplyDeletenoting that the Willie Horton story can be traced, just like Love Canal, to the work of Al Gore.
You perhaps feel this way because you are not connecting the dots. The Willie Horton story was brought up to remind us that Matthews can tilt this election through his lies, just as he helped do in 2000. If you don't understand why Gore was mentioned and why it is important, you aren't thinking things through and seeing the parallels between the past and the repetition of it happening now.
DeleteYes, and the gatekeepers were brought up to remind us why we didn't have to worry about our own dissembling about gender and race. Heck, not only did we not have primaries, we pretty much didn't let women and black people vote!
DeleteI don't think giving idiots a chance at nomination is the price we must pay for widening access for women and minorities. We could have achieved the latter without making the nomination process into a free-for-all, in my opinion.
DeleteYes, if you're full of shit "the Willie Horton story can be traced to the work of Al Gore"
DeleteIn his service as a primary candidate Al Gore took the initiative in creating Mass. Prison furloughs as a campaign issue.
DeleteExcept he didn't.
DeleteIs it true? What actually happened in 1988? In one of 45 Dem debates that year, Candidate Gore challenged Candidate Dukakis to defend a Massachusetts furlough program under which convicts serving life sentences without hope of parole were released on weekend passes. In particular, Gore noted that two furloughed prisoners had committed new murders while on weekend leave.
DeleteIt was Republican Lee Atwater who decided to racialize a legitimate issue by, in his words, making Willie Horton the most famous Black in America. Gore did not reference Horton.
DeleteAl Gore, Jr. took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s politics.
DeleteAl Gore did not reference the internet in his initative.
DeleteHow come Bob didn't cover the latest release of NAEP scores in time for Thanksgiving dinner?
ReplyDeleteHell, if you want to drag out some grievances from the past and drop a holiday bomb, why settle for a minor villain like Chris Matthews.
ReplyDeleteSomerby is such a wuss.
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/25/the_unprecedented_nightmare_of_donald_trumps_campaign_weve_openly_begun_using_the_f_word_in_american_politics/
He doesn’t look like one of us. He doesn’t seem very liberal, even.
DeleteHow about another six parts on how crazy Kasich said Trump's budget plan is?
ReplyDeletehttp://crooksandliars.com/2015/11/donald-trump-hitler-new-kasich-ad
I wonder what caused Chris Matthews to trot out these old stories. Maybe the same instinct which caused Hillary Clinton to drag out the old tale about trying to join the Marine Corps. I understand a preocupation with rehashing stories once told but now barely recollected is one of the things we will all have to get used to with all these boomers reaching their sixties.
ReplyDeleteHe still says things like the ones shown above. We're too hopeless and soft to react.
DeleteHe still says things like the ones shown above. We're too hopeless and soft to react.
Deletedroog is a word coined by author Anthony Burgess (a known conservative) for his novel A Clockwork Orange which was inspired by his wife getting raped by American soldiers stationed in London during WWII. He is apparently also known as a pathological liar.
ReplyDeleteI never watch Matthews, but flipping through the channels happened to catch that. You'd think Welch was still signing his paychecks.
ReplyDeleteWe liberals just sat there and took it.
DeleteMy Aunt likes Chris Matthews.
ReplyDeleteProbably most of the time She sees him he's saying something that sounds basically mainstream democrat in an east coast sort of way that reminds her of home. He's an entertainer, She buys his shtick.
She is eighty, still works, has family and health concerns, and looks after her husband who has much worse health concerns. She doesn't has time to hold Matthews feet to the fire and make sure he's consistent. If She was watching back in the Clinton/Gore days when he was at the peak of his shamelessness, She probably forgot all about it when he was repositioned. And why not? She has bigger fish to fry.
Chris Matthews is a pretty horrible piece of work. When He FINALLY called out W, well after Katrina, Bob's old pal Mary Matlin got really mad at him for being a turncoat. He came out and said publicly that for all the abuse he had piled on Bill Clinton, he never tried to influence what he was doing on the show the way the W White House and Matlin had. In the same interview he was asked if he would keep Ann Coulter off the show (a matter he had lied about and tired to embarrass Joe Conason over) and he said of course not. "We are both in the same business."
So that's about all you have to know about Chris Matthews and why he continues to be on the air. It's infotainment. To view it as some great moral failure on the part of liberals is as silly as anything Chris Matthews says. And if you want to see the guy enabled, check him out the next time he's on Bill Maher's show.
My gripe with Matthews is that he has never really progressed beyond the "shout show" format he learned on the McLaughlin Group way back in the 80s. He is constantly cross-talking and interrupting his guests, and even falls back into the habit of sarcastically laughing at them. Not with them, at them.
DeleteThat show was the grandaddy of all the "cable news" evening talk shows, although most of them have evolved beyond the old "shout show" format of pitting a "conservative" against a "liberal" who scream at each other then call that serious discussion.
They are all infotainers, out to find a small niche audience that keeps their show on the air, and even the highest rated one of them all -- O'Reilly's show -- draws what is truly a miniscule audience.
But then again, we learn that Matthews tilted the election to Bush in 2000, and that Lawrence O'Donnell -- appearing as a guest on one MSNBC show -- "doomed" Kerry in 2004.
And that is the big flaw in Somerby's 17-year narrative -- ascribing enormous powers and influence to a handful of people who are his favorite and repeated targets, while ascribing an incredible amount of stupidity to the public in general and to "liberals" in particular for falling for it.
So today we get another "Isn't Mattews awful" post, preaching to an ever shrinking choir consisting primarily of those that Bob convinced of this 17 years ago, while most people truly don't give a damn.
We've accepted this crap every step of the way.
DeleteYep, it's infotainment, so we should -- and all do -- ignore it when Matthews is full of shit.
DeleteYep, it's infotainment, so we should -- and do -- pretend calling it out amounts to ascribing "enormous powers" to Matthews.
The question is how viewers respond to it. Does he actually sway any voters? Does anyone change their opinion of Clinton because of these constant attacks on her? If they do, then we should worry about people like Matthews and Mika and even Maddow. They don't have to have enormous powers when an election is close, as the election of Gore was. Politics is a war of accretion where many small effects result in a victory or loss down the road.
DeleteA liberal person criticizing a liberal candidate will have stronger influence on the listener than a conservative person criticizing a liberal candidate. When Matthews pretends to be liberal but serves conservative (or plutocrat) interests, his influence is greater. It is important to call him out in order to undercut that advantage.
Politics is most engrossing when you care about the outcome. I doubt anyone watches cable news shows without caring. That makes it more than just entertainment.
And how about a "pretend to be liberal" blogger who howls daily to "liberals" how wrong they are on just about every issue -- from the gender wage gap to any and all allegations of racism that he dismisses out of hand?
DeleteHow about a blogger who pretends to call for civilized dialogue while hurling the vilest playground names he can think of at those with whom he disagrees?
Yes, "many small effects" have their impact on a close election. But for 15 years now, Somerby has repeatedly ad nauseam focused on only what a handful of reporters and pundits wrote and said.
Has he once addressed Gore's horrendous decision to choose Joe Lieberman as his running mate? A decision that drove enough progressive voters in Florida and New Hampshire to Ralph Nader to allow Bush to steal the election?
Yes, the real problem in our country is bloggers who don't do what you think they should.
DeleteActually, I hope Bob doesn't change a thing about what he does.
DeleteI love seeing self-important blowhards make asses out of themselves on a daily basis.
Almost as much as I love seeing his hero-worshipping fans continue to adore him, and defend him.
As long as he has three of them left, he'll be around. But it's getting pretty close.
To Anom at 11:12, I must retort "What you mean "We" Kemosabe?"
DeleteAll through the Monica debacle, when the Press core clearly stepped over the line and were doing there damnedest to hector Clinton out of the White House, I contacted, wrote letters, got up in the face of every journalist doing dishonest work I could. I learned how arrogant and touchy these people are when challenged in anyway ( Clinton's poll numbers from that period suggest I may not have been alone). Not just the big stars like Matthews, but the progressives as well. I remember challenging the excellent cartoonist Tom Tomorrow on an anti-Clinton cartoon he did (substantially repeating right propaganda) and I received an amazingly thin skinned retort. I called out the odious Marc Cooper (The Nation, The Huffington Post) often when he had an open website, and was patronized and insulted for my trouble. (Cooper, it should be noted, didn't have any good answers for my questions at that point, so much Hitchens worshiping garbage had he carted around by then.) When Cooper was hired to cover the the 2008 race for the HP, after years of openly despising Hillary Clinton, I did all I could to raise holly hell about it. The best I got was a response from Digby agreeing Cooper was an idiot.
As far as "taking it" goes, let me tell you, Bob Somerby is not much better at responding. He got mad and used a nasty note I sent him about his over the top defense of Mel Gibson's Jesus Movie in his blog. Well, I have to admit I was wrong there because it turned out, as you'll recall, Gibson was no anti-semite. (No apology from Bob has ever been forthcoming). And I ripped The Daily Howler a new one when Bob basically sited with Romney's 48% meme, suggesting he has no idea what working class Americans are up against.
So we don't all "take it." Bob's problem is he tends to start ringing his hands with horror at our lack of civility when we don't.
I vaguely recall Cooper telling a story about how he came to disrespect Clinton during the very early days of the '92 campaign. Covering him in Arkansas, in a restaurant/coffee shop with a couple of his backers Clinton was said to have put his arm around a waitress's waist and said something along the lines of "fellas right here's the sweetest pussy in all of Little Rock". If that's the case I can understand his dislike. To his credit Cooper was the only member of the press corp to take Clinton's NAFTA betrayal seriously. In hindsight had Clinton resigned, Gore would have won in 2000 by a comfortable margin and this country would have never have had to suffer a W presidency
DeleteSomeone left the door open and this crawled in.
DeleteSorry, but it helps explain Cooper's distain. May also have helped predict Clinton's reckless, stupid behavior regarding Lewinsky and perhaps others.
DeleteHe doesn’t look like one of us. He doesn’t seem very liberal, even.
DeleteDo male journalists really faint when they hear the word pussy? Explains a lot about clandestine perversion in the Republican party.
DeleteI vaguely recall ... said to have put....said something like....
DeleteIf that's the case...
12:48 - Clinton was crudely boasting to the journalist about his infidelity. Furthermore, by referring to this woman as a sexual organ, he was de-humanizing her.
DeleteExcept it most likely didn't happen. "I vaguely recall...said to have put...said something like...If that's the case..."
DeleteClinton didn't go around crudely boasting about infidelity. The whole point was that he didn't admit to it, so how likely is it he was boasting in front of a journalist? That makes no sense at all. It isn't as if he were new to politics and didn't understand that journalists were not friendly to him. This is a man who grew up in politics, learning from Fulbright while still in high school. This is a MADE UP story, like so much of the garbage spread around by conservatives and Clinton haters.
@ 2:08 PM - straight from the wingbat-fellating mouth of Lucianne Goldberg.
Deletederp
Whoo Boy, our Clinton garbage gets very hazy as the years go by.... Anom at 233, you are fouling up that story pretty badly, methinks. I reviewed Clinton with Cooper many a time and such a story never came up. Coop had some hero who had tried to puff up Whitewater as a legitimate Clinton cudgel but this tack, as any Daily Howler reader will know, never made much sense. I BELIEVE the story you are referring to was one Alex Cockburn used to tell about a dinner Clinton was at and the word was "Cunt." To the extent that this matters, I never saw it affirmed by a another party and this was supposedly at a sort of boys-will-be-boys frat dinner with a lot of people there..
DeleteMy point was, and you can go ahead and put the NAFTA back on the shelf (has anyone ever proved this was a great plague on American workers? Evidence I've seen has been inconclusive, and it's real time enemy was the freakish Ross Perot) because it doesn't have a thing to do with anything. The point was Cooper (kind of a tragic guy, a decent features writer ultimately thrown off Pacifica by the kind of ninnies he was attempting to pander to) the point is Cooper had no business by 2008 being hired as a reporter to cover that campaign. Once you have openly declared you hate one of the candidate's guts it's just not cricket. Cooper work, of course, reflected this and he was roundly ignored by everyone.
The HIGHLY DUBIOUS notion, however, that Clinton could have saved the day for us all by resigning comes straight from old Coop, of course. Glad he found at least one sucker on the midway. Well, at least you got the David In Ca seal of approval!!
Gore's ...decision to choose Joe Lieberman as his running mate ...drove enough progressive voters in Florida and New Hampshire to Ralph Nader to allow Bush to steal the election
ReplyDeleteOTOH maybe the voters objecting to Lieberman were anti-semites. This conclusion should seem obvious to liberals who call Obama's critics "racists".
Courtesy of Soapy:
Delete"David in Cal = all agenda, no brains, all the time."
The sad thing is, David really thinks he came up with something that was clever.
DeleteBush won the majority vote, and 20% of it was Black. His name is Clarence Thomas.
ReplyDelete
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He cast spells for different purposes
Obama needs to make a clear statement deploring this attack on Planned Parenthood -- not just gun violence.
ReplyDeleteWho could have known what we were really like with those wonderful gatekeepers around to supress our inner selves? Who could have predicted Donald Trump would surpass Chris Matthews and emerge as the real Donald Trump?
ReplyDeleteAs the Thanksgiving holiday's come to a close lets appreciate Bob Somerby's efforts to remind us Don Imus once had a lot more influence.
On this occasion, if the President can pardon his turkey, why can't the Howler?
ReplyDelete