Al Franken describes the "war on truth!"

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2017

A dangerous war which we're losing:
In his final Senate speech, Al Franken described a "war on truth."

We're forced to agree with Franken's gloomy assessment. We'd have to say that this war on truth is a war our country is losing.

That said, the war is being fought on a good many fronts. It's being fought on the Fox News Channel, but within our own organs too.

Personally, we thought Franken seemed to be fighting a war on truth in his less than obsessively intelligent attacks on Jeff Sessions in the past year. Don't even ask about Senator Leahy, who flipped on the need for Franken to leave once Roy Moore was defeated.

Does our own flawless liberal team conduct wars on truth? We'd have to say it does. There's a lot of money in wars on truth. We see these wars on corporate cable every night of the week—and not just Over There.

Rachel cuts so many corners it's surprising the word still exists. And how about our own team's wars on logic and sense? Yesterday, Bret Stephens started his New York Times column like this:
STEPHENS (12/21/17): Matt Damon gave an interview to ABC News last week in which he offered the following observation: “There’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right? Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?”

Crazy, right?

Minnie Driver, Damon’s co-star in “Good Will Hunting,” thought so.
“There is no hierarchy of abuse—that if a woman is raped [it] is much worse than if a woman has a penis exposed to her that she didn’t want or ask for,” she told The Guardian. “You cannot tell those women that one is supposed to feel worse than the other.”
Does Driver's assessment make sense? We'd be inclined to say no.

That said, Driver is an actress. There's no reason to expect her, or any other actor, to be a flawless analyst.

Indeed, there are no flawless analysts within any cadre at all. But might we expect better performance than this from our Big Major Liberal Stars?
STEPHENS (continuing directly): Kirsten Gillibrand agrees [with Driver]: “I think when we start having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harassment and unwanted groping, you are having the wrong conversation,” the Democratic senator from New York said at a news conference when asked about calling on Senator Al Franken to resign. “You need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is O.K. None of it is acceptable.”

Of course none of it is O.K. The supposedly petty sexual harassment that so many women have to endure, from Hollywood studios to the factory floor at Ford, is a national outrage that needs to end. Period.

But what about the idea that we should not even discuss the difference between verbal harassment, physical groping and rape? Here’s a guess: A vast majority of Americans, men and women, would agree with Damon’s comment in its entirety.
For ourselves, we don't know what a vast majority of Americans think. But we think it's pretty sad when our major liberal leaders are offering analyses which don't exactly seem to make sense, except at times of moral panic following decades of silence.

Is a "war on truth" underway? We thought so in the 1990s! That's why we started this site.

We often think such thoughts when we watch Maddow stage her tribal diatribes, with lots of fun thrown in. At present, the work is astonishing Over There. But our own team wins no prizes, except perhaps for mugging, clowning, serving porridge to the rubes, and manifest self-adoration.

Is the "war on truth" being lost? We think it is when we read columns like today's column from Painter and Eisen.

They imagine the Republican Congress rising to smite Donald J. Trump if he moves to take out Mueller. On what planet have these egghead thought leaders been living? And by the way, how did George W. Bush's ethics czar ever become a star on liberal cable?

Back in the 1990s, we became a fan of Franken when he explained the Gingrich Medicare proposal in his book, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot. He even described a major PBS journalist's cluelessness regarding the matter.

Journalists hadn't been able to explain the proposal. Franken, a comedian, did.

We thought Franken had lost a few steps as he went after Sessions in the past year. That said, our tribe laps up partisan overstatement, much as theirs does Over There.

Has the war on truth already been lost? We'd say there's a very good chance! Two different realities now exist in the nation. Our team seems to have no earthly idea of the ways we've helped create this dangerous state of affairs.
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Our stars have mugged and clowned and called Others names as this state of affairs came into being. Our stars have also maintained a wide array of silences down through a great many years.

In our view, the war on truth has been underway for at least thirty years now. Our liberal leaders have gamboled and played—plus, they just aren't super sharp, except when it comes to the best ways to maintain their own careers.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but our leaders tend to be slightly fake, and they just aren't excessively sharp. The other team's leaders are out of control, but a solid knot of people have learned, long ago, never to listen to us.

Truthfully, we can see why they don't. Our team spills with standard insults, and it just isn't real sharp.

31 comments:

  1. "Here’s a guess: A vast majority of Americans, men and women, would agree with Damon’s comment in its entirety."

    Whoa. Time for the Church of Saints Bill, Hill and Barry to anathematize Bret Neocon Scumbag Stephens...

    ReplyDelete
  2. They imagine the Republican Congress rising to smite Donald J. Trump if he moves to take out Mueller.

    Because Trump's actions as President have not been as bad as anticipated, many criticisms are based on hypothetical actions, such as firing Mueller or becoming a tyrant.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you ignore all the things Trump said he would do on the campaign trail, you'll find that Trump has followed-through on all the things he said he would do on the campaign trail.

      Delete
    2. "Because Trump's actions as President have not been as bad as anticipated, ...."

      Yet another factually-bankrupt thesis from the former Ted Cruz supporter.

      Delete
    3. Trump's actions as President have not been as bad as anticipated..

      According to who, you treasonous bastard? You? Will already know your judgment is fucked up. You have demonstrated over and over you do not object to the president being a lying sack of shit.

      Delete
    4. "...many criticisms are based on hypothetical actions, such as firing Mueller or becoming a tyrant."

      Rome wasn't built in a day.

      Delete
    5. Trump campaign promises fulfilled:

      1. Cut taxes
      2. Reduce regulations
      3. Booming economy
      4. Low unemployment*
      5. Permit drilling in ANWR
      6. Acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel's capital
      7. Defeat ISIS

      *Did you know that black unemployment has gone down sharply and Hispanic unemployment is lower than it had ever been?

      Delete
    6. 1. Cut taxes (for himself)
      2. Reduce regulations (without any regard for the consequences to our economic system, health and safety of our citizens or our environment)
      3. Booming economy (booming things explode)
      4. Low unemployment* (thanks to President Obama)
      5. Permit drilling in ANWR (more disregard for future generations)
      6. Acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel's capital (a couple of tribal elders in Palau and Nauru agree this is a good thing)
      7. Defeat ISIS (even you don’t believe this)

      How about the one about all Americans insured with cheaper, better medical coverage?

      Or the one about putting H & R Block out of business?

      Don’t forget that he won the war on Christmas.

      Happy Fucking Holidays and Feliz Kwanzaa!

      Delete
    7. 1) Trump's main Tax Reform message during the campaign was his vow to end the Carried Interest Deduction, which allows some rich business leaders to pay lower tax rates than their secretaries.
      Of course, Trump's "successful Tax Reform Bill" did no such thing.

      I'll wait for DavidinCal to chime in from his fantasyland that the main vow Trump made regarding tax reform during the campaign counts as a promise fulfilled in his 'humble opinion".

      Delete
    8. You have a good point, 11:16. I am very disappointed that the carried interest deduction remains.

      Delete
    9. Yet you made the Tax Reform Bill his number 1 promise fulfilled.
      I guess it's better to feel "disappointed" than suckered by a lifelong grifter.

      Delete
    10. If he thinks he's disappointed now, just wait until David finds out there is such a thing as a rich black person.

      Delete
    11. AnonymousDecember 24, 2017 at 9:29 AM -- regarding the tax cut, see video at

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3OG5zL51Bg

      "Most Americans will get a tax cut next year..."

      Merry Christmas to all

      Delete
    12. David thinks everyone else is as stupid as he is.

      Delete
    13. Trump campaign promises fulfilled:

      1. Cut taxes
      2. Reduce regulations


      For example, some of those burdensome regulations the flimflam man decided to brush away.

      The Trump administration is scaling back the use of fines against nursing homes that harm residents or place them in grave risk of injury, part of a broader relaxation of regulations under the president. The shift in the Medicare program’s penalty protocols was requested by the nursing home industry. The American Health Care Association, the industry’s main trade group, has complained that under President Barack Obama, federal inspectors focused excessively on catching wrongdoing rather than helping nursing homes improve.

      Comrade DinC, I am praying that you wind up in one of those nursing homes where they don't needlessly have to follow all of those burdensome regulations just to protect your health.

      A Kaiser Health News analysis of four years of federal inspection records shows 74% of nursing homes have been cited for lapses in infection control — more than for any other type of health violation. In California, health inspectors have cited all but 133 of the state’s 1,251 homes.

      Delete
    14. mm -- regarding the defeat of ISIS, Trump said,

      "I totally changed rules of engagement. I totally changed our military, I totally changed the attitudes of the military and they have done a fantastic job," Trump told radio host Chris Plante on Tuesday. "ISIS is now giving up, they are giving up, they are raising their hands, they are walking off. Nobody has ever seen that before."

      Regarding nursing homes, which approach is better? Helping them improve or focusing excessively on catching wrongdoing? I don't know. But, the focus on wrongdoing didn't seem to work very well, since we know that 74% had inadequate infection control.

      Delete
    15. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    16. Comrade DinC, yes, I think Herr tRump should hold a news conference and announce to the country how he has unilaterally decided to allow nursing homes to break the rules and then explain to the country why he did that and how he expects this to help. In what ways will he be "working to improve" the situation? As I said, I hope you wind up in one of those homes where there is chronic rules violators and then when you catch an infection through no fault of your own you can take comfort in the fact that the owners will not be fined.

      Regarding his Isis statement: he is a lying sack of shit. he has no credibility. that's the result of being a continuous stream of bullshit. It's amazing how you completely ignore the BBC report I linked to. If Obama had issued a stand down order and let these fighters walk away unmolested your hair would be on fire.

      Delete
  3. I tend to think that if you really looked into it, you'd see that the war on truth has been going on throughout the entire span of human history. Some times, truth has fought back with more success than in others.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed, Jesus' resurrection being one of the worst.

      Delete
  4. Somerby doesn’t have the right to say whether Minnie Driver makes sense or not. He has no standing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Franken seems like a good senator but he resigned because he couldn’t say he hadn’t misbehaved. That’s a low bar for most men but he couldn’t pass it. I am not inclined to give him a pass just because I like his politics. I like Dustin Hoffman’s movies but he has done some horrible things to interns.

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  6. All reality is constructed because we experience the world filtered through our senses. The amount of effort expended to know what is real varies. Somerby doesn’t even know what lying is, so how can he talk about truth? I hope Franken will become a comedian again, but first he has to learn some impulse control.

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  7. Bob is very shaky here because, obviously, Franken's dismissal doesn't, or shouldn't, have anything to do with how well Bob thinks he was doing aginst poor Jeff Sessions. He is not being thrown out of the Senate for that. He is being thrown out of the Senate because too many of his fellow Democrats put too much stock in the trash jounalism of The Huffington Post and The Atlantic. The foolish notion that "all women must be believed" is now an extremely good weapon to use against them. And so it will go. But the final verdict does make Bob tragically correct: the stupid people will have a good laugh in defeating the smart people once again.

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    ReplyDelete
  9. "That said, the war is being fought on a good many fronts. It's being fought on the Fox News Channel, but within our own organs too. "

    Bob, you crazy old bat, I don't share any organs with you, that would be disgusting. Thanks for reminding us of how you NEVER criticize the truly evil Fox News for ANYTHING, EVER! Nope, you always and constantly seem like a sniper for RT or Fox News, telling us about those Evil Liberals and Democrats. You are absolutely indistinguishable in your commentary from say, Breitbart. Why do you never EVER critique Fox News, Bob? Too scared? Don't have the balls? On their payroll? Thanks for your nonstop attacks on liberals and Democrats as the REAL problem, Bob. I'd swear you're getting money from RT or something, but there's only maybe ten people who read your sad crackpot site for lulz, as well as Russian trolls and weird Russian psychics and spammers. Coincidence, I'm sure. When will you critique Fox News, Bob? Why do you pretend to be journalistically objective when ALL you do is attack liberals and Democrats? What the hell is wrong with you, Bob?

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  10. Dave the Guitar PlayerJanuary 2, 2018 at 1:25 PM

    If you think anything Bob (or you) has to say about Fox News has any effect on Fox News or those who subscribe to them, then you are naïve. Perhaps you enjoy shouting insults into the wind. Conversely, I would hope that Liberal criticism of the excesses of the "so called" liberal press would actually prompt them to do better. If you care anything about progressive issues, you would want the MSM to do a better job of getting the facts out there, since as we know, "facts have a known liberal bias". So, rather than screaming your disgust at some blogger for pointing out the shortcomings of our "liberal" stars, you really should be joining with him in calling out individuals on "out team" who are not giving us the whole story or feeding us misinformation.

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