On Saturday night's installment of the Fox News program Geraldo at Large, liberal pundit Sally Kohn and Congressman Tim Walberg (R-MI) debated the issue of gay marriage. Their discussion stood out to me (in a positive way) for a couple of reasons. Too often, debates on cable news devolve into shouting matches that are more befitting the WWE. I think that Ms. Kohn made some excellent points and did so logically. Although I disagree with Rep. Walberg's stance on this issue, he stated his case in a calm manner. It was also refreshing to see Rivera stick to just moderating the debate. What normally happens is that the host will pick a side and it turns into a 2 against 1 scuffle. Although I can understand the temptation for a host to jump into the fray of a 1-on-1 debate, it's better when they leave it to their guests to engage with one another.
What are your thoughts on the debate between Ms. Kohn and Rep. Walberg?
On the January 13th edition of Meet the Press, David Gregory questioned Colin Powell on whether or not he's still a Republican. Along with saying he still is, Powell also outlined why he thinks the GOP has lost it's way. Among the reasons Powell discussed were Romney surrogate John Sununu referring to President Obama as “lazy” and Sarah Palin accusing the president of shucking and jiving in regards to the Sept. 11 2012 attack against a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya. You can watch the segment below:
Colin Powell could have gone on, but don't fault him. After all, he only had approx. 30 minutes. Sadly, Powell seems to be the exception instead of the rule when it comes to prominent Republicans. The far right will likely dismiss his comments, label him a RINO, etc. However, unless the GOP wants to continue losing national elections, they'll listen to him. There are solid reasons why Mitt Romney lost to President Obama and no it's not the fault of the so-called mainstream media or any other BS excuse conservatives have used. The GOP is in trouble, but it can be fixed. So in the words of the Captain (played by Strother Martin) in the movie Cool Hand Luke, my message to the GOP is simple: "It's all up to you".
One of the dumbest GOP criticisms of President Obama is his use of a teleprompter. If you were to believe the GOP, you'd think President Obama was the first politician to use teleprompters. Even if he does rely on teleprompters when giving a speech, is it any worse than reading a speech that's on paper or index cards?!
One of the main critics of President Obama's teleprompter use is Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). In the clip below, Sam Seder (host of the Majority Report) talks about Rubio's teleprompter cracks directed at the president and Rubio's mishap during a speech he gave on foreign policy at Brookings Institution on Wednesday.
Because I had a lot of proverbial plates spinning on poles last week, I was unable to post about rocker Ted Nugent's controversial comments about President Obama at an NRA convention in St. Louis. His remarks were pretty much what I've come to expect from the draft dodging nutcase. The following comment is the one that has earned the most scrutiny:
"If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year."
What exactly does Ted mean? Does he think his death or imprisonment will come at the hands of the Obama administration? Did his statement refer to what will happen to him if he takes violent action against President Obama?
I will say that people have overreacted to his comments where he encouraged voters to "chop [Democrats'] heads off in November." He was just using a metaphor (I think). Even if he was, there's still a chance some of Ted's rabid followers are sharpening their axes in preparation.
The left's reaction to Ted's comments are yet another example of how we generally don't go overboard en masse when a celebrity says something controversial ala the Dixie Chicks. Sure, we rightfully condemned Ted's comments. However, we didn't take to the streets for a bonfire of old Ted's 8-tracks, LPs, etc.
Predictably, most of the right failed to come out against Ted for his remarks. Because he sought Ted's endorsement, Mitt Romney in particular was called out for not making a public statement about Ted Nugent. I didn't expect him to though. Even he wanted to wash his hands of the Motor City Madman, he can't without pissing off the NRA/Tea Party crowd. Whether he likes it or not, Mitt is stuck with Ted.
On the 4/19 installment of NOW with Alex Wagner, the host and her panel discussed Ted Nugent's controversial comments and Mitt Romney's lack of a response.
Republican opposition to The Buffett Rule has Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks fired up! As you may know, the Buffett Rule (which failed Monday in the Senate) is the tax plan proposed by President Obama that would apply a minimum tax of 30 percent to individuals making more than a million dollars a year. The clip below features Cenk discussing the Republican's stance on The Buffett Rule interspersed with comments made by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) on Fox.
Over the past several weeks, the GOP has seemed hell bent on pissing off one of the key voting blocs needed to win a presidential election... women. As a result, President Obama's lead over Mitt Romney among women voters has continued to grow.
On the 4/4/12 installment of his MSNBC program Politics Nation, Al Sharpton and his guests (NOW president Terry O'Neill and HuffPo writer Laura Bassett) discuss how the GOP has alienated many women voters and whether or not the likely Republican presidential nominee (Mitt Romney) can turn it around by November.You can watch the segment below.
Do you think the GOP can win back women voters in time for the 2012 presidential election?
In the aftermath of Rush Limbaugh's controversial comments about Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, several companies pulled their advertising from his radio program. On March 3rd, Rush did something I don't believe he's ever done when faced with backlash from any of the outrageous statements he's made... he offered an apology. At least it's the closest he could come to one.
Posted on Rush's website is his "apology":
"For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity,
three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the
wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal
attack on Ms. Fluke.
I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious
political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational
activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that
American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened
to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the
line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be
debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that
are interested in running to keep fit?In my monologue, I posited that it
is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's
bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential
level.
My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be
humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke
for the insulting word choices."Rush's apology rings false because after his initial Wednesday February 29th attack against Ms. Fluke, he hurled additional verbal bombs at her on Thursday and Friday. It was only after a number of advertisers started to abandon ship that he saw the error of his ways. Apparently, his "apology" hasn't stopped the bleeding because another advertiser, Carbonite, pulled their ads from his show. After dropping Limbaugh's program, Carbonite CEO David Friend said the following: "No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could
possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and
well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal
attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency.
Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless
decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our
action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn
their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public
discourse."While writing this post, I learned that
another company (Pro Flowers) yanked their ads from Limbaugh's show on
March 4th. Props to all the companies who have finally had enough of
Limbaugh's "entertainment". If you'd like to let the companies still advertising on Rush's program know that you don't approve of his misogyny, below is one of the sites where you can make your voice heard. CREDO actionLet me close by saying that the Limbaugh/Fluke controversy isn't a left vs. right issue to me. Even if one disagrees with Ms. Fluke's stance that health insurance plans should cover the cost of birth control, I don't see how they can defend Rush's despicable attacks against her. As always, I like to hear from people with opposing viewpoints. I'd especially like to hear from any female conservatives who read this post.
Sandra Fluke's testimony:
On 2/22, E.J. Dionne wrote the following article about the right's inaccurate portrayal of President Obama. Following the article is my commentary (in bold type).
By E.J. Dionne Jr., Published: February 22
They say that President Obama is a Muslim, but if he isn’t, he’s a secularist who is waging war on religion. On some days he’s a Nazi, but on most others he’s merely a socialist. His especially creative opponents see him as having a “Kenyan anti-colonial worldview,” while the less adventurous say that he’s an elitist who spent too much time in Cambridge, Hyde Park and other excessively academic precincts.
Whatever our president is, he is never allowed to be a garden-variety American who plays basketball and golf, has a remarkably old-fashioned family life and, in the manner we regularly recommend to our kids, got ahead by getting a good education.
Please forgive this outburst. It’s simply astonishing that a man in his fourth year as our president continues to be the object of the most extraordinary paranoid fantasies. A significant part of his opposition still cannot accept that Obama is a rather moderate politician quite conventional in his tastes and his interests. And now that the economy is improving, short-circuiting easy criticisms, Obama’s adversaries are reheating all the old tropes and cliches and slanders.
True, some of this is driven by cable television (a venue in which I acknowledge regularly participating). Attacks designed to gin up the conservative base are quickly recycled to gin up outrage within Obama’s own base. Moreover, Obama is not the first president caught up in the rank unpleasantness of this particularly unforgiving political moment. A quick Google search will unearth references to George W. Bush as a “Nazi,” and Bill Clinton’s Republican opponents went so far as to impeach him in a shameful episode of extreme partisanship.
On those Hitler metaphors: Can we please agree to a voluntary cross-party ban on invoking the Fuhrer in the context of American politics? Only dictators who commit genocide against millions qualify for this odious comparison. It trivializes Hitler’s crimes to use Nazi references as everyday epithets.
But there is something especially rancid about the never-ending efforts to turn Obama into a stranger, an alien, a Manchurian Candidate with a diabolical hidden agenda. Are we trying to undo all the good it did us with the rest of the world when we elected an African American with a middle name popular among Muslims?
In my experience, even Americans who voted against Obama were proud that our nation showed friend and foe alike that we are a special place. We know it’s wrong to judge people by their race or lineage, and we so value religious freedom and openness that we elected a Christian convert who is the son of a Muslim father and an agnostic mother to lead us at one of our most difficult moments.
Yet many in the anti-Obama camp just can’t stop themselves from playing on fears that electing a man who defies old stereotypes was a terrible mistake. Thus did the Rev. Franklin Graham assert Tuesday on MSNBC not only that Muslims regard Obama as “a son of Islam” (because his father was Muslim) but also that “under President Obama, the Muslims of the world, he seems to be more concerned about them than the Christians that are being murdered in the Muslim countries.” Graham slightly softened his comments on CNN Wednesday, but it remains troubling that he chose to turn a legitimate concern about the persecution of Christians into a slander.
In the meantime, Republican presidential candidates want to take a disagreement over whether and how contraception should be covered in plans issued under the new health-care law and turn it into a war against religion itself. “Unfortunately, possibly because of the people the president hangs around with, and their agenda, their secular agenda — they have fought against religion,” declared Mitt Romney, who pursued a similar line of attack in Wednesday night’s debate.
It’s another breathtaking slander to label Obama’s choice as an attack on religion altogether — and I say this as someone who strongly opposed the president’s initial decision not to offer any accommodation to religiously affiliated institutions on contraception. And how strange it is that Obama’s critics imply that he’s a Muslim and also condemn him as a secularist. He must be terribly clever — maybe it’s that fancy education of his — to be both.
As for Obama as a socialist, ponder two numbers: 13,005, which the Dow Jones average hit this week, up from a low point of 6,547 in March 2009. Some socialist.
We are blessed with the freedom to say whatever we want about our president. But those who cast Obama as something other than one of us don’t understand him and don’t understand what it means to be American.
E.J. is absolutely right. In an effort to downplay the heated rhetoric directed at President Obama, I've heard people on the right say that some of our previous presidents (namely Clinton and Bush 43) also faced fierce attacks. Although that's true, comparing what they endured with what President Obama has faced is an example of false equivalency. Here's why:
Prior presidents didn't have their U.S. citizenship scrutinized.
They never had their patriotism questioned on a continued basis, if at all.
Their religious faith wasn't called into question
Also, we aren't just talking about the garden variety kook hammering away at a computer keyboard or a blowhard pundit shouting into a radio microphone/TV screen. No, a lot of these attacks are coming from prominent GOP politicians. People who actually have a shot at becoming the next POTUS!
If anyone still wants to say the attacks against President Obama aren't any worse than what previous presidents have faced, I'd love to hear your arguments.
On the 2/24 installment of Politics Nation with Al Sharpton, E.J. Dionne and former RNC chairman Michael Steele discuss these continued attacks on President Obama.
On the February 18th episode of SNL, the guest host was former regular Maya Rudolph. Although I missed it last night (I heard it was very good overall), I did catch a few of the skits online this afternoon. In the first skit below, Michelle Obama (Rudolph) introduces her new campaign for fighting childhood obesity: a sitcom starring her family, their secret service agents and the vice-president.
In the 2nd clip, Seth Meyers and SNL alum Amy Poehler take on the birth control debate in the "Really?!?" portion of Weekend Update.
In the recent poll in which I asked who you thought would get the GOP nomination, over 1/2 of voters think that Mitt's the man. Here are the final results:
Mitt Romney- 58%
Newt Gingrich- 33%
Rick Santorum- 8%
Ron Paul- 0%
At the time of the post (1/22), I was leaning Newt's way. However, January 22nd seems like a loooong time ago because I now think Mitt will be the nominee. Still, I don't think Newt will go away quietly. I'm also not going to count him out either. Newt Gingrich reminds me of something Bobby Ewing said about his older brother J.R. on the series Dallas. Bobby said something along the lines that J.R. is at his most dangerous when his back is against the wall. To me, that's Newt in a nutshell.
Late last week on the "County Fair" blog portion of Media Matters, writer Eric Boehlert lays out his case of how Fox "News" is causing the demise of the GOP. You can read the article by following the link below:
I've been watching how Fox has conducted itself during the Obama administration and I'm in agreement with Boehlert's assessment. Although the less than honorable tactics often employed by many at Fox have paid off in regards to ratings, I think they are causing a lot of Republican politicians to say and do things they wouldn't under normal circumstances. The "Fox-ification" of the Republican party is a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. The bottom line is that what's good for Fox isn't necessarily good for the GOP.
Do you think Fox is helping or hurting the Republican Party?
During his appearance on Face the Nation this past Sunday, RNC chairman Reince Priebus compared President Obama to Capt. Francesco Schettino (who was at the helm of the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia when it partially sank on January 13th). The reason for Priebus' ridiculous analogy? According to him, President Obama campaigning for a 2nd term is akin to abandoning the American people. I don't recall past presidents being criticized for hitting the campaign trail. Now that President Obama is in the White House, a commander-in-chief trying to convince the American people he deserves reelection is comparable to manslaughter.
Not only were Priebus's remarks outrageous, but they are another example of the sad decline of the GOP. These comments weren't made by a right-wing media pundit or a run-of-the-mill conservative blogger. They were made by the head of the Republican party! Although this type of inflammatory rhetoric plays well with the people who already hate President Obama's guts, I doubt if it'll appeal to moderates or independents (you know, the people who can decide elections).
In the clip below, MSNBC host Martin Bashir discusses Priebus's comments with DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse.
Do you think Reince Priebus crossed the line with his analogy?
On last night's edition of "Politics Nation with Al Sharpton", Al and his guest (radio host Joe Madison) debunked the lie started by Newt Gingrich that "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history".
As you can see from the clip below, Sharpton announced that he's willing to meet with Gingrich to challenge him over Gingrich's food stamp lie. It remains to be seen if Newt will accept.
On Tuesday November 6th, one of these four men (Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul) will go up against President Barack Obama in the general election. Who will it be? I think it's a two-man race between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Although his impressive showing in the South Carolina primary could be an isolated incident, I'm leaning toward Newt Gingrich getting the nomination. I say this because I think the Republican base wants an angry candidate who they believe can go toe-to-toe with President Obama. They couldn't care less about all the baggage that makes up the personal and political life of Newt "Samsonite" Gingrich. What they want to see is the political destruction of President Obama and they think Newt is the man for the job.
If you want to share your reasoning for why you feel the person you selected will win the nomination, feel free to do so in the comments section.
Rachel Maddow is at it again! Hitting the GOP with those pesky little things known as facts. On her show Friday night, Rachel did a segment in which she dismantled the GOP talking points about President Obama regarding big government, immigration, taxes, and the war on terror. You can read the accompanying article on PoliticusUSA.
