Day: 7/6/2009

A Sad Day For Bill O’Reilly – Courtesy Of Senator Franken

Posted by on July 6, 2009 at 10:12 pm. 2 Comments :

O’Reilly: “In a sad day for America, Al Franken is now a U.S. Senator.”
It’s not sad for the majority of Minnesotans who voted for him, and the millions of Americans who believe in Democracy.

O’Reilly: “Franken is a blatantly dishonest individual, a far-left zealot, who is not qualified to hold any office.
Except that of U.S. Senator, as determined by the voters. O’Reilly is a blatantly dishonest, far-right zealot, who is upset that he can’t pick all the senators himself.

O’Reilly: “A man who trafficked in hate on his failed Air America radio program.”
I wonder if O’Reilly could inject any more hatred into his allegation that Franken traffics in hate?

O’Reilly: “With people like Franken on the hill, this country is in deep trouble.”
Translation: With people like Franken on the hill, O’Reilly is in deep trouble.

O’Reilly saved this little tirade for the last 15 minutes of his show. Glenn Beck never mentioned Franken at all. And he didn’t mention Palin either. Carl Cameron, earlier in the day reported that Franken used to have a program on the “disfunct (sic), bankrupt Air America.” Of course Air America is neither disfunct nor even defunct. It just had its fifth birthday. I wonder if Cameron ever bothered to report that Fox News lost money every year for at least its first five years.

Palin vs. Sotomayor

Posted by on July 6, 2009 at 7:33 pm. 1 Comments :

So Sarah Palin can no longer abide attacks by political opponents. So she is unwilling to endure the unconscionable smears from the media. So it has become too much to ask her and her family to stand by idly as she is demonized and disparaged. All of these laments were included in Palin’s resignation speech on Friday.

Her defenders in the rightist media concurred with her and launched a PR campaign to spin Palin’s cowardly retreat as an unconventional response to an environment wherein she was mercilessly battered and besmirched. They condemned what they characterized as unfair attacks against the poor defenseless governor and conservative icon.

I wonder if those same Palin defenders will now condemn Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, who is promoting a campaign to defeat Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor with the flier pictured here. The flier that this image comes from describes Sotomayor as “a radical supporter of child-killing.” I wonder if they will consider it to be an unfair and disgusting personal attack. I wonder if they will condemn the rest of her far-right critics who have cast Sotomayor as a racist, or stupid, or Marxist, etc.

It is instructive to note how these two very different women respond to the slings and arrows of public life. Palin, who has a record of quitting when the kitchen gets too hot, is fleeing the scene and leaving the state she pledged to serve in the lurch. Sotomayor is soldiering on and will soon take her place on the nation’s highest court.

The truth is that everyone in public life has had to dodge mud and worse. The only way Palin can expect to avoid getting hit is to stay out of the ring. Yet she seemed to imply that a higher calling compels her to further service on her country’s behalf. Does she think that when she reappears there will be no one who disagrees with her policies or agenda? And when they do, as they inevitably will, is she going to quit again?

Hopefully the lessons learned from these confrontational days are that the real heroes are those who stand for something. The true role models are the ones who don’t back down from adversity. In the future women, and all Americans, will be able to look up to Justice Sotomayor with pride. And, in the best case scenario, we will look back at Palin and laugh.

Brent Bozell To GOP: Set A Torch To That Big Tent

Posted by on July 6, 2009 at 1:36 pm. NO Comments :

Brent Bozell, the president of the uber-conservative Media Research Center, has issued a bit of advice for the Republican Party that ought to make Democrats everywhere ecstatic.

“Incoming memo to the GOP: Set a torch to that big tent of yours. People are flocking from liberals’ failing policy and ideals.”

The impetus for this counsel is new polling from Gallup that says that Americans in recent years have become more conservative. Bozell’s knee-jerk reaction typifies the shallow and partisan analysis for which he is known.

The Gallup poll cited by Bozell does indeed show that 39% of Americans consider themselves more conservative than they did a few years ago. What Bozell fails to reveal is that a significant majority of those who say they have become more conservative were conservative to begin with.

Plus, it is mostly Republicans whose views have shifted more to the right. So what we are seeing is primarily a hardening of ideology by those who were already on the right side of the scale.

In addition, a prior Gallup poll showed that Republicans already reside in the smallest of tents, with 73% describing themselves as conservative and only 4% as liberal and 24% moderate. Democrats, on the other hand, breakdown to 38% liberal, 40% moderate and 22% conservative, a much more balanced community.

The obvious conclusion from the data in this poll is that there isn’t any advantage for officeholders or candidates to swing to the right. Even if the American people are sliding slightly rightward, that doesn’t mean that they will vote Republican. Just take a look at the results of last November’s election when Democrats took the White House and added seats in both chambers of congress. And contrary to Bozell’s contention that “people are flocking from liberals’ failing policy and ideals,” Gallup explicitly debunks that claim in their polling on specific issues.

Consequently, Bozell’s advice to the GOP to circle the wagons and become more exclusionary than ever can only help Democrats, who are presently viewed as more tolerant of diverse opinions. The public still blames Bush for the economy and Iraq; still prefers Obama’s approach to healthcare and immigration; and still has a 63% approval rating for the President.

So light up your torches, Republicans. Fan those embers of your party’s support. Feed the flaming rhetoric of your right flank. You are only going to burn down your own house.