Hoist by his own petard

[Tammy Hope]

[SusanKG]

Absolutely false. MSNBC has many blacks and other ethnicities - hosts, producers, corespondents and contributers, as well as others behind the scenes. Any review of video of the tea-bagger's marches, meetings, speakers and paid agitators, shows few non-whites participating. If you put on a circus and use it to attack people, there will be a few persons of all ethnic background, religion, gender and occupation who are happy to join the parade. There's probably a GID person or two involved as well; that doesn't mean they have found a safe haven.

What this fiction production fails to address is the supposed invitiation to Olbermann to attend their Dallas meeting, and when he declined (and he is not obligated to attend, in fact his employer has ethics rules about political appearances, rules that Farce News employees apparently are not constrained by), followed by vicious and mean attacks on him for not doing so using as a supposed excuse the illness of his father, who in fact has been critically ill and hospitalized for months, after his mother died a few months ago.

There you have the wrong-wing tea-baggers in a nutshell - hateful, mean, vicious, dispicable liars.

SusanKG

[Tammy Hope]

It shows their own promotional ad in the video. No one is saying in the video or elsewhere that there are no minority employees of MSNBC....they simply referenced their featured host lineup.

Are they overlooking a program hosted by a prominent black or other ethnic on-air personality?

His comments were naked hypocrisy and he got nailed for it. I mean, I realize that EVER criticizing ANYTHING a nobel compassionate caring and wise left-winger says is, by definition, hateful....but the banner is unaltered. and all those faces are white.

As for being liars - you are aware it was MSNBC who purposely edited a video of a gun-toting man at one of those events full of "white racists" so you wouldn't know he was black - right?

[SusanKG]

It shows their own promotional ad in the video. No one is saying in the video or elsewhere that there are no minority employees of MSNBC....they simply referenced their featured host lineup. .... Are they overlooking a program hosted by a prominent black or other ethnic on-air personality?

For fairness and balance, I checked Fox News. Let's see: Gretchen Carlson, Steve Ducey, Britt Hume, Shepard Smith, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck several others. Hmmm, no minorities there. It does seem pretty much all white there. A check of CNN does show several minority on-air staff. Perhaps the middle-of-the-road news channel is doing some leading.

His comments were naked hypocrisy and he got nailed for it. 

No hypocrisy here, naked or otherwise. Since Keith Olbermann is an employee of and a commentator on MSNBC, he can not be held responsible for his network's alledged deficiency in minority hiring practices, and because it is a media corporation, I hold them to no strict standard of self-criticism in areas such as this, although self-criticism is always in order. The Tea-Baggers however are attempting to achieve positions that supposedly are to represent ALL Americans. I know, in politics that is a considerably deep decent into naivete to expect that from any politician, but it's certainly a standard I continue to hold them all to. I see no nailing here.

I mean, I realize that EVER criticizing ANYTHING a nobel compassionate caring and wise left-winger says is, by definition, hateful....but the banner is unaltered. and all those faces are white.

Who said that. Response to criticism is not in itself "hateful."

As for being liars - you are aware it was MSNBC who purposely edited a video of a gun-toting man at one of those events full of "white racists" so you wouldn't know he was black - right?

All video media edit the video they use. Who claims MSNBC purposely edited that particular tape to mask the race of some dim-wit toting a gun to a political meeting. and why would they, so the Tea Baggers would appear more reasonable if more blacks came armed??? Who was he, who says he was black, and why does that back up the supposed open arms of the group in question? And speaking of video editing, how about Farce News greatly exaggerating the head count of the marches on Washington, even showing the video of the first one which had more in attendance during coverage of the second march so to puff up their pet project. Does that qualify for being nailed for "Naked Hypocracy", or just standard operating procedure for the wrong-wing echo machine network?

Keith does blow off at times. I have found his commentary, while sometimes less than civil, to be accurate and fact based. The same can not be said for Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, Savage, and several other wrong-wing commentators.

Speaking of race though, are you one of those of the opinion that President Obama was not born in the U.S., thus having a false birth certificate?

SusanKG

[tekla]

Both sides are lying, and the lie is this... that any of this stuff matters at all, that any of these people are taken seriously by the very serious people who make very serious decisions.  And those people, you don't see them on the news, they don't do interviews unless a gun is being held to their head, they want to remain in the 'shadows' and not out front and center taking the heat, that would detract from their ability to make policy.  Policy in America (and pretty much everywhere else anymore) is made by huge corporations and only implemented by the government.

[SusanKG]

I can't argue with you tekla, you are 100 hundred percent right about the corporations and their control, recently expanded by the extreme wrong-wing Supreme Court.

Both sides of the media do lie, because they are owned by the corporations. They may not get specific talking points -it's too subtle for that, at least yet, but most everyone knows which side of their bread the butter is on, to coin a phrase; media staff will follow the company line. But we have to take the info sources that come even somewhat close to our beliefs, sift out what we know to be false or inaccurate, and be informed enough to actually think for ourselves. That's hard work of course, and always prone to failure, but there is no other way to figure things out.

And besides, Keith's World's Worst is usually dead on accurate! In my opinion of course, and that is what debate, discussion, and what too often passes for those are - opinion.

SusanKG

(modified for spelling - SusanKG)

[gennee]

Thus the need of an independent media.

Gennee

[Tammy Hope]

For fairness and balance, I checked Fox News. Let's see: Gretchen Carlson, Steve Ducey, Britt Hume, Shepard Smith, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck several others. Hmmm, no minorities there. It does seem pretty much all white there. A check of CNN does show several minority on-air staff. Perhaps the middle-of-the-road news channel is doing some leading.

the next time Fox News calls out, well, ANYONE for not having a proper minority representation that will be relevant.

No hypocrisy here, naked or otherwise. Since Keith Olbermann is an employee of and a commentator on MSNBC, he can not be held responsible for his network's alledged deficiency in minority hiring practices, and because it is a media corporation, I hold them to no strict standard of self-criticism in areas such as this, although self-criticism is always in order.

so Olberman is under no onus to point out that his own network fails to meet his standards?

fair enough.

but if so, then where is his moral high ground to deride the tea party folks (laying aside the fact that he was wrong)?

I'm sure the tea party folks provide plenty of legitimate ammo for a left-winger like KO to go after them on - so why stoop to the tired, worn out, weak canard of trying to tarnish anyone who disagrees with you with the henious label of "racist"?

It's a very typical, and very obvious and very VERY tired tactic of leftists to whip out the "he's a racist" club anytime someone dares take a right of center position or challenge any of their power structure.

The Tea-Baggers

You know, you lefties are not remotely as cute as you think you are with the whole "tea bagger" bit - it's actually pretty juvinille. but whatever makes you feel superior I guess.

however are attempting to achieve positions that supposedly are to represent ALL Americans. I know, in politics that is a considerably deep decent into naivete to expect that from any politician, but it's certainly a standard I continue to hold them all to. I see no nailing here.

Well I'll give you that MSNBC - if there ratings are any indication - represent about 200 Americans so maybe no one should care.

That said, they are also the network that PURPOSELY mangled video in order to KNOWINGLY present a false perception that a tea party rally was all white (and thus, in lefty-logic, clearly a pack of skinhead racists) - I trust you have a link to some broadcast in which Olberman called out his network for such misleading tactics?

Surely journalistic ethics is at least as important to him as political activism, right?

Ratings aside, do you not think that manipulative media outlets (on either side) have as much if not more influence on who holds positions of power as the tea party folks do?

Who said that. Response to criticism is not in itself "hateful."

I quote:

"There you have the wrong-wing tea-baggers in a nutshell - hateful, mean, vicious, dispicable liars."

All video media edit the video they use.

Right. You have video of a man with a shoulder holstered rifle and you just SO HAPPEN to edit the shot in such a way that none of his skin shows - purely coinciendal?

Who claims MSNBC purposely edited that particular tape to mask the race of some dim-wit toting a gun to a political meeting. and why would they, so the Tea Baggers would appear more reasonable if more blacks came armed???

To exercise one of the oldest tricks of the left - one the great and revered Alinsky recommends in his "Rules" - tar your opponent with a smear which makes them by reputation disreputable. And the favorite smear is "racist"

You can't call folks racist as easily if they have folks of other races in their midst. That's also why when the major networks air convention coverage they go out of their way to make sure their crowd pans at the GOP convention are as white as possible.

In this particular case, it wasn't about "reasonable" or not - the text of their report would take care of that. The images serve only to reinforce the narrative they wished to convey, and the primary narrative of the left-wing media is that conservative = racist - EVERY time.

Who was he, who says he was black, and why does that back up the supposed open arms of the group in question?

If you are so ill-informed on the matter at hand, there's really no point in us discussing this further. You can't practically hope to accomplish anything here when you've spent this much time discussing an event of which the basic facts are well known without acquainting yourself with those facts. All that shows me is that you are speaking from ideology and not from actual events.

And speaking of video editing, how about Farce News greatly exaggerating the head count of the marches on Washington, even showing the video of the first one which had more in attendance during coverage of the second march so to puff up their pet project. Does that qualify for being nailed for "Naked Hypocracy", or just standard operating procedure for the wrong-wing echo machine network?

they were nailed, they admitted they screwed up, and they paid a price in credibility for it.

Again, I notice that you love the childish name-calling so prevalent on the left ("Farce News" or "Faux News"...."the wrong wing" etc). I prefer a bit more maturity in my political discourse, personally.

I don't say this just to point fingers - I'm simply trying to point out that that sort of dialog only impresses those who already agree with you - it does nothing at all - less than nothing really because it's so off-putting - to wine over those folks who waver in their views between the right and the left.
Actually, I suppose I should not discourage the practice - it can only work against left wing politics which, in most cases, works for me.

Keith does blow off at times. I have found his commentary, while sometimes less than civil, to be accurate and fact based. The same can not be said for Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, Savage, and several other wrong-wing commentators.

while I carry no brief for Hannity or Savage (the latter is a blight on the airwaves IMO) I would say as much about the others as you have said about Olberman here.

Clearly we're not going to agree on that as we start from opposite preconceptions. That's ok. But just as I am sure you would waste no time in pointing out some blunder by Limbaugh, you surely can understand that when KO gets it wrong, his critics will seize that opportunity.

Here's how I handle it - If Beck (my favorite, by the way) gets it wrong, I simply just say "yeah, he screwed the pooch on that one" and move on, I don't have to agree with or defend every point. I would suggest that it shows some intellectual chops for even an Olberman fan to admit when he put his foot in it and carry on, rather than spending a lot of time trying to weasel him out of it.

Just my opinion anyway.

Speaking of race though, are you one of those of the opinion that President Obama was not born in the U.S., thus having a false birth certificate?

SusanKG

Oh heck no. For starters, whether or not he was born on U.s. Territory isn't a racial issue at all, so I'm not sure how "speaking of race" plays into it unless you have fallen victim to the left-wing mindset that any opposition to Obama of any sort arises from racism.

Second, I DO think that Obama has been purposely less than forthcoming about a multitude of things (including but not limited to the birth issues) as a political strategy - to wit, he knows full well that anyone who goes off obsessing over his birth certificate accomplishes two valuable things for him: (1) they tarnish everyone who disagrees with him with the stigma of "not" because these nuts are among them; and (2) they serve to distract a certain portion of the electorate from the real reasons to worry about him.

But I haven't give 3 consecutive seconds thought to the question of where he was born - there are much more tangible reasons to oppose him.

Post Merge: March 01, 2010, 10:09:37 PM

Thus the need of an independent media.

Gennee

We need one but it's a practical impossibility.

Partly because of business interests, but more so because if you ask any journalism student in the last 60 years why they went into journalism, they will probably say "because I want to change the world"

when Journalist stopped thinking they were neutral observers and started thinking they could and should influence outcomes, we started down the road to where we are now.

I don't think there is a road back.

People have come to assume it now, and if any newspaper or network actually did report as a neutral observer, both the right and the left would accuse them of being obviously on the other side.

[tekla]

Y'all know that the sharpest tool in the tool box is still a tool.

[lisagurl]

Y'all know that the sharpest tool in the tool box is still a tool.

Unless it is the user who is being used.

[SusanKG]

My ADD is kicking inand I also fear any long response would cause Susan's system to run out of bits or bytes or whatever. If a winner is needed, I concede; hopefully no one will thus accuse me of being run off, but if so, so be it. Two quick points:

Your right, I said "There you have the wrong-wing tea-baggers in a nutshell - hateful, mean, vicious, dispicable liars." I apologize for smearing everybody with my belief about the character of the few.

Yes, I use the term Tea-Bagger. I didn't invent it - they did, and were happy to use it until someone whispered in their ear that kind of meant a practice they really don't agree with. I am perfectly content to adopt their initial self-label, but I also realize there is way too much name-calling from all sides.

SusanKG

[Tammy Hope]

My ADD is kicking inand I also fear any long response would cause Susan's system to run out of bits or bytes or whatever. If a winner is needed, I concede; hopefully no one will thus accuse me of being run off, but if so, so be it. Two quick points:

Your right, I said "There you have the wrong-wing tea-baggers in a nutshell - hateful, mean, vicious, dispicable liars." I apologize for smearing everybody with my belief about the character of the few.

Yes, I use the term Tea-Bagger. I didn't invent it - they did, and were happy to use it until someone whispered in their ear that kind of meant a practice they really don't agree with. I am perfectly content to adopt their initial self-label, but I also realize there is way too much name-calling from all sides.

SusanKG

I, for one, don't look at these exchanges in terms of winners and losers - if everyone is civil, everyone wins from respectful exchange of ideas, IMO.

As for the tea-bagger thing - I don't believe it is true they self-labeled that way.

they used tea-bags as symbolism and the label was applied from outside the group - however, the kernel of truth is that they initially didn't protest it until they caught on to the joke.

In any case, even if they had inadvertently adopted the label before realizing the implications, it doesn't keep it from being used in a derisive context by their opponents.


I'm not saying I'm above referring to, for instance, a Michael Moore in a derisive fashion - but I hope when I do I won't be quite that middle-school about it.

I guess that falls under "different strokes..."

[tekla]

Giving equal time to bad ideas, is, in and of itself, a bad idea.

[cradle_o]

It shows their own promotional ad in the video. No one is saying in the video or elsewhere that there are no minority employees of MSNBC....they simply referenced their featured host lineup.

Are they overlooking a program hosted by a prominent black or other ethnic on-air personality?

His comments were naked hypocrisy and he got nailed for it. I mean, I realize that EVER criticizing ANYTHING a nobel compassionate caring and wise left-winger says is, by definition, hateful....but the banner is unaltered. and all those faces are white.

As for being liars - you are aware it was MSNBC who purposely edited a video of a gun-toting man at one of those events full of "white racists" so you wouldn't know he was black - right?

I am not aware of that. If you want to demonstrate it as factual you might link us to or at least cite a reputable sources which do. Yes the burden is on you as you've made the assertion.

Are you aware of a thing in logic known as the straw man argument, or straw man fallacy? If not here's help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

That's all you've managed here.

Let's examine your basic premise here: 'The Left' is a lot of hypocrites in terms of racial equality. Hey, why no make that argument, construct it as if your reader is substantial. If one is accustomed to talking to people with a tea bag as a symbol, this may be a novel concept.

So, a tea bagger (or tea bagger apologist) (FYI! the term was coined by the self-same people who are now offended by the use of...) is 'sensitive' to the idea that The Tea Party™ are 99% white. What's the next move?

Projection, accuse the people who got wise quickly enough to y'all of the same sin.
It's not exactly respectable discourse, I have to tell you.
Post Merge: June 01, 2010, 12:19:07 AM

but if so, then where is his moral high ground to deride the tea party folks (laying aside the fact that he was wrong)?

I'm sure the tea party folks provide plenty of legitimate ammo for a left-winger like KO to go after them on - so why stoop to the tired, worn out, weak canard of trying to tarnish anyone who disagrees with you with the henious label of "racist"?

How do you come up with this stuff? Cite to me specific examples to support the case of 'anyone who disagrees'. You appear to be the one tarring with the XXL brush here. To the point that Olbermann is a symbol of 'the left' instead of addressing an actual quote or anything.

And 'the fact' that he was wrong is not a given here, you have to demonstrate factuality. That is your own 'special' interpretation of the overall situation. It's not demonstrable as fact until that's accomplished.

It's a very typical, and very obvious and very VERY tired tactic of leftists to whip out the "he's a racist" club anytime someone dares take a right of center position or challenge any of their power structure.You know, you lefties are not remotely as cute as you think you are with the whole "tea bagger" bit - it's actually pretty juvinille. but whatever makes you feel superior I guess.Well I'll give you that MSNBC - if there ratings are any indication - represent about 200 Americans so maybe no one should care.

How do expect to be considered as substantial in your ideas when you stoop to the most absurd level of hyperbole? Characterizing millions as hundreds almost gives hyperbole a bad name. And this confounds 'ratings' with 'status' as if that indicates 'insubstantial' in the argument; which is just silly and kind of childish. After all, Hitler was quite popular in his day. A lot of people 'deciding' to agree on a thing, like sheep, doesn't confer anything more than that, a mass experience of some variety.

You sound exactly like Bill O'Reilly's parrot (owned by an idiot), when you do this.

You can't call folks racist as easily if they have folks of other races in their midst.

Maybe not 'easily' (which is a relative term) but it's not terrifically challenging either. There is a concept known to the African-American experience in the US, called internalized racism (Also see: self-hating Jew. Et cetera.). There is even a cartoon character representing the idea, in The Boondocks on Adult Swim. It's a thing. Not saying that's what went on there, I can't know (any more than you). Could just be they simply are idiots, and people seek out their own in ways which aren't the first thing you'd guess was the case.

It makes little sense for a person of color to be going in for the tea party crowd, just like it makes little sense for a transsexual to be aligning herself with the right.

But life's funny sometimes, you know.