FRIDAY: Lawrence was "enraged" last night!

FRIDAY, MAY 6, 2022

In the beginning, he wasn't: We're losing a lot of time today, so we can only offer this hint:

Last night, Lawrence O'Donnell said he was "enraged." He said so right at the start of his Last Word program. No transcript is available yet.

O'Donnell said he was enraged by Justice Alito's Supreme Court draft opinion. We're not saying he shouldn't be enraged. But we couldn't help remembering a time in the past when he wasn't.

We refer to his calm demeanor during Campaign 2000. In particular, we recall his calm demeanor as he described the way the mainstream press was taking it out on Candidate Gore. 

His exposition, was back then, was in fact highly informative. But the mainstream press was deeply involved in a twenty-month "war against Gore," and Lawarencelike everyone else in the mainstream guilddisplayed exactly zero rage in the face of this gruesome behavior.

For the record, Lawrence has had a fair share of enragement events over the many long years. During Campaign 2004, he got booted off the air for an enragement event concerning the "Swiftboat" campaign against Candidate Kerry.  

During Campaign 2012, he had to apologize for his various attacks on Candidate Romney's Mormon faith. On one occasion, he actually challenged one of Romney's sons to a (literal) fistfight, adopting his working-class Dorchester accent to do so. 

He did so right on the air.

We aren't complaining about those enragement events, although they were quite unhelpful. Instead, we're noting the lack of enragement Lawrence displayed during the fateful war against Candidate Gore.

Starting in March 1999, his colleagues kept it up for two solid years. As a fairly obvious result, George W. Bush squeaked into the White House, winning Florida by maybe twelve votes.

O'Donnell displayed no sense of rage about what his colleagues were doing during Campaign 2000. (Tomorrow, we'll offer more detail about the specific event to which we've already referred.)

Lawrence voiced no enragement as the war against Gore proceeded. Result? George W. Bush squeezed into the White Houseand proceeded to nominate Samuel Alito to serve on the Supreme Court! We're going to guess that a President Gore would have named somebody else.

"In my beginning [was] my end," one of the great poets said. (We don't know what he meant.) In the beginning, Lawrence voiced no sense of enragement. By last evening, twenty-two years later, he was extremely upset.

Our species tends to function this way, an array of top experts have said.

(Details and links tomorrow.)


35 comments:

  1. mh -- thanks for providing details on the Arkansas abortion law in the previous thread. It is indeed shocking and disturbing.

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    1. It's only "shocking" if you don't know Republicans are the fascist party.

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    2. David is playing dumb. He knows the return of Jim Crow has always been the Republicans endgame (from Birch to Reagan to Trump), and Alito's opinion is the tool they will use to get there.

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    3. anon 12:37, it's your constant repetitive, simplistic reductive and inane type of thinking that illustrates pretty well why repubs do as well as they do

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    4. I agree with 12:37 about David and also about the Republican agenda. If you think 12:37 is affecting anyone's vote, you are a moron. Don't you and Cecelia have a rally to attend somewhere in the heartland?

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    5. I also agree with 12:37 and 10:14, AC/MA I am actually who you think 12:37 is, but my views are backed by evidence so they are supported by many; your views are backed by misinformation and lies so are only supported by similar lost souls.

      AC/MA you are the one that is perfectly fine lying in a sad attempt to win an argument. You were caught in your lies and now you have no credibility.

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    6. anon 10:40, Oh, you must be "right" since your views are backed by "evidence" and mine by "misinformation and lies." I guess that settles it. It couldn't be that you are kind of an idiot. You keep claiming that I'm "perfectly fine with lying." Actually, I see no point in lying to win some type of argument here, though arguing with you is similar to arguing with a MAGA zealot - questionable whether there is a point to it. One thing I'm pretty sure of - you can't give any examples of my "lying."

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    7. AC/ MA,
      Remind us again, which groups exactly should we not be protecting the rights of, because "identity politics" is wrong.
      Please be specific, and try not to use the word "woke".
      Thanks.

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    8. May we suggest, dear dembot, that "identity politics" is wrong because there are no 'groups' with 'rights'. There are citizens. That's all.

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    9. Republicans have been victimized by "All Votes Matter"
      Try to keep up.

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    10. AC/ MA,
      12:37 here.
      Blame Somerby. He was the one who told me to listen to "the Others".

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    11. AC/MA you lied about the Zimmerman trial, even after being shown you were spreading misinformation, with links to articles that demonstrated what you were spreading was false.

      You are a liar.

      You have no credibility.

      Also you lie about being a Democrat and you lie about being a lawyer. That is just so lame and sad.

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  2. Oh noes. Not the algore-related whining again, please.

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    1. You know you're pleading with an algore-rhythm, and not a human, right?

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  3. ...as for the talking head dembot being "enraged", hey they're always enraged about something or other.

    Such is the law of genre, dear Bob.

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    1. dear Mao, a simple query: are the Republi-bots any less often enraged than the dembots?

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    2. For the alternatively gifted: talking heads of all persuasions are always enraged about something or other. Capeesh?

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    3. "Capisce (pronounced cah-PEESH) is an Italian word that is used in American slang to say "got it" or "understand." The correct word in Italian would be capisci (pronounced cah-PEE-shee) to address the second person informally, a.k.a. you. Capisce, in Italian, is used only to address the second person formally (like when speaking to an elder or someone you don't know) or to express that a third person (he, she, it) understands. The correct Italian pronunciation of capisce is cah-PEE-shay.

      To say I understand is capisco (cah-PEE-sko)."

      If you are trying to sound ignorant, stupid, uneducated, say it your way.

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    4. Yes Mao. I capeesh.

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    5. Perfetto, mio caro.

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    6. I found the problem. Turns out, Republicans are fascists.

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  4. I'm still upset about the treatment of Al Gore. It heralded the beginning of the age of stupid. Hot takes and the death of analysis and reasoned opinion.

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    1. Somerby thinks Lawrence should have been enraged about Al Gore’s press mistreatment when he was himself cool as a cucumber when Hillary received much worse treatment, later blaming her for losing and never advocating for her. It is time to shut up about Al Gore.

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    2. Al Gore losing was mostly a self own. He would have served society vastly better than Bush, yet he chose to run a milquetoast campaign and then turn servile in the face of confrontation.

      Morons like Somerby think THIS is the way to win? Brother, please.

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  5. Hope you're doing well, Bob. Thanks for your work on this site for lo these many years.

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    1. I second that. And I was a loose forward.

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  6. Perhaps Lawrence O’Donnell is feigning outrage. Who knows? But the loss of a woman’s fundamental right is perhaps a legitimate reason to be outraged.

    Was Bush v Gore an outrage? Yes. Perhaps O’Donnell should have been outraged. Or perhaps he was, but he just didn’t show it publicly at that point.

    That said, O’Donnell’s outrage was unlikely to have changed the outcome of Bush v Gore. His current expression of outrage (if indeed that is what he said, don’t have the links) may serve more of a purpose since midterms are approaching.

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    1. Bush v Gore? The context was "the way the mainstream press was taking it out on Candidate Gore."

      Invented the internet... earth tones... dressed by a woman... ?

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    2. mh is aware of that. Read more carefully please. He is talking about the impact of that stuff on the election.

      The court decision about Bush v Gore was an outrage. Gore downplayed it to prevent division within the nation, a noble act that many Democrats were upset about, beyond what the court itself did.

      I agree with mh that the press mistreatment of Gore likely had a minor impact on the election itself. Gore's own actions were more important and I think he lost the election himself. No one really cared about his suit coat buttons. But people laughed at the mockery because he came across as a stiff, self-important, pompous twit. No one on earth cared whether he said he invented the internet compared to helping to create the internet (which he really said). Outrage about that would be an overreaction. But outrage about Roe v Wade is fully justified and Somerby's criticism of O'Donnell's concern strikes me as an attempt to minimize the outrage we all feel over what has happened. By "all" I mean the liberals here, not the conservative fanboys.

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    3. That's very illuminating how you downplay the press treatment of Gore. That treatment framed Gore in a way that was palatable to the masses. The continued focus on Gore sighing during the debate with the moronic Bush is a great example. Focusing on policy is boring for the media and they believe for their viewers as well. So they took the story and made it about Gore's impatience with the idiotic remarks from Bush.

      And then you try to create revisionist history that Gore was his own undoing. He was a perfectly viable candidate as evidenced by your own admission at how close the election was.

      And to say that the media didn't play a strong role in that is delusional. "No one on earth cared whether he said he invented the internet compared to helping to create the internet (which he really said). " Of course they did! Mocking a candidate in such a fashion reduces confidence in the candidate, reduces turn outs, reduces votes...

      No wonder you can't comment intelligently on Bob's work, you don't even agree with the basic, simple premise of how the Democrats shoot themselves in the foot time and time again.

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  7. Well said Bob. This all started with the Steal of 2000

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    1. No, it started in 1619.

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    2. To take another human being as a slave is so disgustingly reprehensible it is nearly impossible to imagine the kind of monsters that did it, but in fact it was those in power at the time, whose descendants now are in power. Time advances, technology advances, society stays shitty.

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  8. Lawrence O'Donnell was enraged, so he told the truth:

    "On last night’s “The Last Word,” Lawrence O’Donnell told listeners that with all their new anti-abortion legislation and the Alito outrage, the GOP is going to create a generation of “Rape Dads”: men who can expect the women they’ve victimized to give birth to their children."

    The problem of rape is compounded when parents force an underage girl to marry the man who seduced or raped her. The same states that are passing forced birth laws also allow underage marriage, without the consent of the girl involved, who is pressured by parents to give the baby a father. These regressive laws go hand-in-hand, but Somerby thought it was OK for Roy Moore to pursue young teen girls while he was in his 30s, as long as the mama gave permission.

    I am enraged about this too. It cannot be permitted because it is exploitation of girls who are too young to make life decisions involving birth and marriage, often causing them to drop out of school and putting college out of the picture. Such coerced marriages tend not to last, but it is very difficult for a girl to recover her future after such experiences.

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