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32,000,000The number of people who will now be covered by healthcare by PRIVATE insurance companies if the new healthcare bill passes the House.
Wow - that's some socialist takeover of our healthcare system!
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that's in people's pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States — the Great War of Yankee Aggression."--Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA) on March 19.
Another moron Republican from the south, demonstration once again the coherence and intelligent alternatives to President Obama's healthcare proposals.
*****
Facts & Quotes are updated weekly, or as close as I can get.
LAWYERLY LINGO
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Of all the Republican talking heads in our mainstream media, specifically TV, I've largely felt that Joe Scarborough is one of the more reasonable ones - not a ridiculous, babbling buffoon like Bill O'Lielly.
But, the Republican infighting has begun, as well as conservative pundits' criticizing and castigating Obama's every move as he sets up his administration. After all, the GOP just got pwned a few days ago, and the party and its supporters are fightin' mad. This is to be expected - I remember not-so-fondly in 1992 when then President-elect Clinton's transition team weathered similar criticism, but right-wing hate radio wasn't anywhere near the size it is today, and there were fewer Sean Hannitys back then.
A few mornings ago, Joe Scarborough wasted no time criticizing Obama's choice for White House Chief of Staff, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL-5). On his show, Morning Joe, Scarborough laughably compared Emanuel to former disgraced House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Seriously, Scarborough said it -- with a straight face.
So, Scarborough is comparing DeLay, a former member of Congress who is under federal indictment (and who is also tied to the Jack Abramoff scandal), to Rahm Emanuel, who has a reputation of being a tough political fighter and effective fundraiser? The last time I checked, Emanuel has not been involved in, accused of, or indicted of any crimes.
It would be a compliment to accuse Scarborough of using political hyperbole to disagree with an appointment, but calling it mindless, stupid partisanship would be more accurate.
Here's hoping that Obama has learned the lessons of the Clinton presidency, and that's to aggressively fight back against partisan smears, slanders and innuendo. As president, I realize Obama can't get distracted every little criticism, but Clinton allowed some blatant lies and distortions put forth by the right-wing media to fester, which in some cases proved an old maxim true: If you repeat a lie long enough, often enough and forcefully enough, people eventually start to believe it.
And by the way, what's with every Republican pundit having a fetish about President Jimmy Carter? (Sort of like their fetish with Ronald Reagan.) Carter's the president they point to when they are trying to make a political point. I'll go to my grave believing that Carter wasn't nearly as bad of a president as people make him out to be. Sure, he made plenty of mistakes (the Iranian hostages), but he also did a great deal of good, too. That's okay though - because Democrats will now have a president (George W. Bush) it can point to for decades when they want to make political points on the other side.
Hat tip to Crooks & Liars for finding this one on the Web.
It's of conservative personality Laura Ingraham trying to rein in her frustration during the early days of her ill-fated show on Faux News Channel, Just In With Laura Ingraham. Okay, I'll admit, it's only mildly amusing, and nothing compared to Bill O'Reilly's now infamous, "We'll do it live!" expletive-laden temper tantrum. And I guess I have to give her credit for "Jesus God in Heaven!" line - I know I would have been much more, ahem, "colorful."
Anyway, just guessing, but perhaps this is why her show on Fox lasted about as long as The Half Hour News Hour the blue M&Ms at Rush Limbaugh's house.
Anything about Ingraham grabs my attention because of her past misdeeds, specifically urging her largely Republican listeners to clog a Democratic Party hotline during the '04 election, which was set up for voters to voice complaints about voter suppression and irregularities. This is also the same Ingraham who regularly boasts about having "gone to Iraq," which consisted of about seven days in the comfy confines of the Green Zone and being spoon-fed reports from the military about how great things were. I guess that's her definition of "progress" in that godforsaken country. (Yet another example of how our "free press" has failed us - real, genuine reporting from Iraq that isn't spun to death by the Pentagon is a rare animal indeed; we hear, read and see what they want us to, and little more, at least from the American press.)
Anyway, much, much more in a bit - I'm gathering up plenty of video and articles from the past few days - I've got plenty on my mind. Back in a bit.
I hardly have the words for one of O'Reilly's latest rants - see the video above. Evidently, America is not in decline, and that most of the things that are wrong in America are the fault of liberals, including letting the education system go down the drain. He's got to be kidding. I don't know if America is in decline or not, and debating it is pointless and accomplishes nothing. I do know that certain aspects of America are in decline, including our educational system, as well as how we are viewed in the world, based on the Bush administration's missteps during the last 7+ years.
BOR's latest rant is so far out there, it stands out against his other rants. More to the point, this one is pretty special. O'Reilly touches all the bases here - Islamic Fascism, how the press wants Obama to win in November (!), how the press has under reported our successes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he even gets in a France reference (what O'Lielly tirade is complete without that?!?) Quite simply, he's in fine form here, touching all the bases. Well done indeed, Mr. O'Reilly!
For one of the very few times in recent memory, BOR has left me virtually speechless. After all the damage that Bush's No Child Left Behind has done to the educational system in this country, I find it stunning that even a blowhard ideologue like Billy could go on TV and claim the decline in our schools is somehow the fault of liberals. I certainly concede that some prominent Democrats must share some blame for NCLB, Senator Kennedy among them, but this was Bush's plan to restore schools in America, and he's had almost eight years. The schools still have a long way to go.
However, don't take my word for it. Ask 10 teachers who are in K-12 public education what they think of NCLB, and you will get some quite revealing answers.
It's little wonder that I despise Bill O'Lielly as much as I do. The footage above is a great example of why. To BOR, only one person has an accurate and proper memory of anything, and that's him.
He's so full of it about what pushed the case for the War in Iraq over the top. According to O'Lielly, it was Colin Powell's speech at the U.N. That's BOR's partisan, myopic view, and it's about 1/8th accurate. I distinctly recall people like Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (then National Security Advisor) mentioning "mushroom cloud" and "Iraq" in the same sentence, and President Bush doing the exact same thing. Just so you don't think my memory is as good as O'Reilly's, here's on clip of our esteemed president, pre-Iraq War, at his propaganda spewing best:
Anyway, here's a partial rough transcript of the top video, via C&L, of O'Reilly's (attempted) grilling of McClellan:
O'Reilly: You said they used propaganda and that is a loaded word.
McClellan: The White House Iraq group, the White House Iraq group was set up, it's a marketing arm for selling the a war. That was a specific purpose that I talked about in the book
O'Reilly: Because they fervently believed that the guy was a danger and could hand his weapons off.
McClellan: No because the President had a bigger driving motivation which was to transform the middle east.
O'Reilly: You telling me that President Bush didn't believe they had the...
McClellan: No, he did too. He believed that too.
OReilly: That's not propaganda then, that's not propaganda.
McClellan: It is when you package it all together—over sell it and over state it to the American people. That is propaganda.
Ooo - O'Reilly's pretty touchy about the "P" word, isn't he?
O'Reilly's rolling George Tenet footage doesn't exactly boost his case in this debate, either. Tenet is hardly a credible source when it comes to any sort of intelligence relating to 9/11 OR the War in Iraq.
Good on McClellan for bringing up about the White House Iraq Group and its role in pimping the Iraq War to the American people via an all-too-subservient corporate media.
I give major kudos to McClellan, Bush's former propaganda minister turned whistle blower, for appearing on State TV to spar with one of Bush's many current propaganda ministers, Bill O'Lielly.
Here's another piece of entertaining footage - Bill O'Lielly again going after Markos Moulitsas, the founder of The Daily Kos, an excellent liberal blog that's doing a great deal of important work.
The bottom line here is that O'Reilly can't handle criticism, and when prominent liberal blogs go after him for his lies and distortions, he gets his dander up, labeling them "hate sites." Of course, BOR can never get through a criticism of anything or anyone liberal without a Nazi or KKK reference - in this case likening Moulitsas to David Duke - which is pretty hilarious.
I got a good laugh out of O'Reilly and Mary Katherine Ham coddling each other about how disgusting the pictures are of Iraqi War casualties. Yes, they are disgusting, but it's violence that this administration has caused, period. So, I get a kick out of conservatives expressing horror and disgust whenever a liberal Website has the temerity to publish unpleasant images of the War in Iraq. Too damn bad - this is violence that your president has caused.
And Ham and O'Reilly, as usual, can't get through a criticism about a liberal blog without mentioning the comments section in any Website, either, be it the Daily Kos or The Huffington Post. Too bad O'Reilly allows many hate filled comments on his site, too, as detailed by some great work on the part of Crooks & Liars.
Somehow Newsweek shouldn't have hired Kos because of what other people say in the comments or post in their user blogs, but of course [O'Reilly's] okay with [Fox News] hiring Rove who has been involved in scandal after scandal. Who's more like David Duke? Kos, or the guy behind the robocalls [who] said McCain had an illegitimate black child? I'm just sayin'.
Sweet. I couldn't have said it better myself. More on Rove's role at Fox, as well as his status as a McCain consultant, in a bit.
I got this from Crooks & Liars the other day, so I'm getting most of my information about this story from that site, which, by the way (as I frequently mention) is arguably the best liberal blog and information site on the Internet (along with HuffPo & Think Progress). The people over at C&L do tremendous work, and liberals owe that site a debt of gratitude for the hard work they put in by bringing us spot-on commentary and raising and highlighting issues that otherwise wouldn't get the attention they should. I get lots and lots of my video clips from that site, too. I don't always remember to post h/t's (hat tips) to C&L for providing video clips, but I try to remember. Anyway, if you haven't visited that site, 1. Where have you been? It's the best, and 2. Please spread the word and support C&L, a site that I hope CMB is 1/8th as good as, some day. Anyway, moving on...
This is the most stark example I've seen in quite some time as to why our corporate media needs to be broken up - now. More on that point in a minute.
Barry Nolan of CN8 in Boston, Comcast's news channel, has been fired for daring to criticize the fact that Bill O'Reilly, of all people, was being honored at the Emmy Awards.
I am appalled, just appalled," [that O'Reilly was being honored] Nolan told the Track. "He inflates and constantly mangles the truth... and his frequent target is the 'left-leaning' media - the ones who do report the news fairly. And those are the same people who will be sitting in the room honoring him."... More Here.
"Their take is that I was insubordinate," Nolan told us yesterday. "They wanted me to sit down and shut up." The host of "Backstage With Barry Nolan" had argued that O'Reilly, the volatile Fox News host and former Channel 7 anchor, was unworthy of the Governor's Award. (Past recipients include the likes of Mike Wallace, Ken Burns, and Natalie Jacobson.) "The idea of honoring someone who does their job with constant factual errors, name-calling, and mangling of the truth... It's ridiculous," said Nolan...
We're told Nolan was warned by his bosses at CN8 to pipe down, but at the May 10 dinner honoring O'Reilly he handed out a six-page document listing some of O'Reilly's wackier errors, utterances, and information about the talk-show host's sexual harassment settlement. Seems Comcast was concerned that Nolan's actions could harm the network's relationships with the academy and Fox. He was immediately suspended without pay for two weeks and then fired over the phone Tuesday.
One particular instance that I find incredibly nauseating is how O'Reilly goes after crime victims (or victims' surviving family members, like when he attacked the son of a man killed in the World Trade Center on his show, an then threatened him with violence). John Amato over at C&L has thoroughly documented and written about how O'Reilly went after Shawn Hornbeck, an 11-year old who was held captive for over four years by Michael J. Devlin in Kirkland, Missouri. Devlin is currently serving 74 life sentences, and if there's any justice in this world, a prisoner where he is incarcerated will test out a new shiv on him. (Posted above is video O'Lielly discussing attacking Hornbeck during a discussion with Greta Van Susteren, the princess of plastic.) Take a look at the video - it's just plain sickening and revolting. By the way, O'Lielly's attack on Hornbeck got him uninvited to a speaking engagement to the National Center for Missing Kids. (Due in part to the efforts of Amato over at C&L; predictably, no comment from BOR.)
This is just one example of the kind of sewage and filth that O'Reilly continually spews forth to his listeners. The truly frightening thing is that people listen and believe a great deal of it.
As Amato succinctly put it over at C&L the other day (and I whole-heartedly agree) - it's worth considering whether Rupert Murdoch is now going after anyone who criticizes O'Reilly, his networks or their executives? After all, he's not above going after NBC over Keith Olbermann's criticisms of Roger Ailes, the head of Fox Noise Channel.
As Howard Kurtz of WaPohas reported, last summer Ailes threatened to go after NBC if Olbermann didn't cease going after him and Fox, using BOR and The New York Post.
This is exactly why our corporate media conglomerates must be broken up. I find it outrageous that any CEO of a corporate media entity would see fit to going after a critic by using TV stations, commentators and newspapers as cudgels. But, that's exactly what Murdoch has been doing for years. Phew! Thank GOD his corporation was permitted to buy The Wall St. Journal!
I'm very thankful (and hopeful) that if Barack Obama gets elected, he will reverse this troubling trend in our press. He recently stated that if elected, he feels it's time the U.S. government start enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act, a law that is still in the books (if you can believe that) that would break up these multi-media giants. I don't care if we're talking about liberal or conservative media conglomerates - they all are a threat to destroying our free press. (I do wonder and worry that Obama may have incurred the wrath of these multi-media giants by saying he would like to bust them up, before he wins the election. God only knows what lengths these companies will go to in order to get McCain elected now. We've always known that our corporate media is on McCain's side - Obama's recent comments did nothing to ameliorate this worrisome concern.)
In the meantime, O'Reilly goes on as one of the loudest mouthpieces for Murdoch's News Corporation, the parent of Fox News, carrying out his marching orders from the abominable Murdoch.
I'd be remiss if I didn't pass this one on - it's a remix to O'Reilly's flip out that I posted a day or two ago. It gets kind of old after about 30 seconds or so, but it's still pretty funny.
**Warning - there are plenty of eff bombs in this video, so this is not appropriate for children or at work!** (Hey, they are BOR's, not mine.)
Congrats to Stephen Colbert and all who work on his show, The Colbert Report, for winning the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. The award is well deserved, and just in case you don't think he deserves any kudos, it's okay by him - Colbert's inclined to give himself all the praise he deserves. *Smirk* My suggestion? He should send footage of this over to Bill O'Reilly and have some fun with it - maybe using the award as a doorstop, or something like that.
Just in case you were actually starting to believe that Bill O'Lielly is really Bill O'Reilly, it never gets old bringing up his biggest whopper ever told - a blatant lie that his old tabloid show, Inside Edition, won two Peabody Awards.
Man did I get a big laugh recalling how Franken made O'Reilly look like the gigantic ass he truly is. Cooks and Liars has the rest:
Many C&L readers remember the halcyon days when the worst lie Bill O’Reilly ever told was that his old show Inside Edition had won a Peabody Award, the oldest and most prestigious award given to electronic media. You may recall Al Franken also having lots of fun debunking that lie. Now it turns out that The Colbert Report, which "some people say" (ha) is a thinly veiled parody of The O’Reilly Factor, has actually won a Peabody award. Let's hope Mr. O'Reilly sends Mr. Colbert a congratulatory fruit basket.
Update: Okay, comment number 24 is good enough to bring up from below:
Colbert should run around saying he won a Polk, forcing people to remind him it was actually a Peabody.
Brilliant, just brilliant - especially the reader's comment. A little background - Bill O'Reilly smugly began telling people a few years ago that his old show, Inside Edition, won two Peabody Awards. "What do you want us to do, give 'em back?" he snidely remarked when once asked a question about IE being a tabloid show. Upon hearing this, Franken got curious, made a few calls, and discovered that O'Reilly's show hadn't so much as sniffed one Peabody, much less two. And the comment from the C&L story above about a Polk? That was what O'Reilly tried to cover his arse with - that his show won "two [George] Polk awards, not two Peabodys." Turns out, that was a lie, too; Inside Edition won a George Polk award, but after O'Reilly left. Oops.
Oh, why not? Here's some footage of the exchange Franken and O'Reilly had a few years ago at the Los Angeles Book Expo to promote their respective books. It's pretty good - watch as BOR comes unglued. Evidently, Billy no likey getting exposed as a liar. I promise it's worth it - it's under a minute...
Good stuff, eh? This is precisely why O'Reilly derides people like Franken and Websites like Media Matters - because they are able to successfully call him out on his lies. No wonder BOR hates the Internet. (Full disclosure - Franken is the first I read calling BOR "O'Lielly," so I'm carrying the torch, since Franken is trying to make a difference by running for the U.S. Senate in his home state of Minnesota. I hope he wins, but if he doesn't, maybe Franken will go back to writing his brilliant books that sagely debunk the right-wing noise machine, led by none other than O'Lielly himself.)
For once, when Bill O'Reilly will undoubtedly call a story about him a "hit job," I completely agree. And he deserves it.
You'd think that Bill O'Lielly would stay a million miles away from the Eliot Spitzer scandal, but of course he can't help himself. I guess BOR is drawn to a sex story like a moth to a campfire, but it's too bad guys like Keith Olbermann are around to make sure he gets burned.
Take a listen and laugh as Olbermann plays interpreter to BOR's analysis of Spitzer's fall - it really is a hoot. It seems that O'Reilly simply can't save himself from his own stupidity, and since that's so often the case, his loss is our gain.
I never thought I'd find myself writing this, but thank you, Billy! Thanks for providing all of your fodder for the nut job cannon. Keep up the good work, BOR.
(Keith's thanks goes without saying - he really is the Fox "News" Network's kryptonite)
Every once in a while, I run across something on another liberal blog that I just simply want to share, and occasionally I can think of nothing to add. (Often, I find stuff on my two favorite blogs, Crooks & Liars and Think Progress.) This is one of those times.
Take a minute and watch the video above - it's a pretty good montage of O'Lielly's Nazi fetish, or put another way, Goodwin's Law. Seems like it's all he can think to call liberals and progressives who disagree with him.
"This video ought to be placed in a museum somewhere so we can marvel at it 20 years from now. And this is what should be inscribed on the plaque beside it: Bill O'Reilly, a.k.a The 21st Century [sic] Father Coughlin."
That's about as apt description of O'Lielly I've heard in quite some time.
Pathological Liar Bill O'Reilly's pathetic jihad against the Website Daily Kos continues. His latest? That the site "advocates the overthrow of the U.S. government." Umm Hmm. I read the site nearly every day, and nowhere, anywhere have I ever read anything even remotely close to that. But hey, why let truth get in the way of a good "story," right? Notice that BOR neglects to give specific examples of how the authors of Daily Kos want to overthrow the government, he just throws it out there.
This is from a well-worn page right out of the Republican playbook:
Throw a lie out there, and the damage will be done. Even though the truth will eventually come out, that won't spread as far and wide as the lie itself.
The list of lies by the right that have been debunked is getting rather lengthy. A fraction of that list...
• The Clintons murdered Vince Foster • Bill Clinton could have had bin Laden, but turned him down • Al Gore invented the Internet • John Kerry didn't deserve his purple hearts • Sidney Blumenthal abused his wife • Media Matters is funded by George Soros • Al Gore's carbon footprint is bigger than Greenland • Barack HUSSEIN Obama was educated in a madrassa • Daily Kos authors want to overthrow the government
I can't wait to see what the GOP Network comes up with next.
By the way, BOR actually says this in the clip above, and it bears repeating: "Doing business with people who traffic in hate-filled diatribes is unacceptable."
Jon Stewart must be delighted that BOR has gone to work for Comedy Central.
Oh, and that Pepsi boycott regarding Ludacris? Totally phony, just like his boycott against France and Jet Blue. I just remembered that I have to write Jet Blue to tell them to keep up the good work. Thanks for reminding me, Billy.
Keith Olbermann has apologized for a remark made on Countdown last week while the show was hosted by Alison Stewart. Some comments were made about Wendy Vitter, wife of Senator David Vitter (R-LA), who is caught up in the D.C. Madame Scandal.
I give Olbermann props for apologizing, but it shouldn't have run in the first place, really. Without knowing how the show is produced and who decides what airs, especially when Olbermann is absent, I'm guessing the producer is at fault here. However, Olbermann sets the tone, and he should know better.
There's no need to attack Republicans, or their spouses, for what they wear. These bumbling buffoons are doing a terrific job of hanging themselves for other misdeeds, so KO's nightly rants need not get personal in most cases. Just give us the facts, KO, because the facts are damning enough.
Neither Olbermann, nor his producer(s) are perfect though, and I give him credit for saying so. Therein lies the difference between the likes of Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly. Both make sometimes inappropriate remarks in the heat of the moment (BOR much more frequently), but only Olbermann has the words "I apologize" in his vocabulary.
Imagine if Bill O'Reilly said this. First, there would have been no apology. Secondly, if someone brought it up six months from now, this is what BOR would scream: "Nope. Never said it. Bring me the tape of it, then. You don't have tape because I never said it." What O'Reilly hates about Websites like DailyKos and Media Matters is that they actually save this stuff and call him on his b.s.
At any rate, kudos to Olbermann for admitting a mistake. Hopefully it won't happen again.
Bill O'Lielly, the Misinformation Minister himself, is at it again. Even passive viewers of his nightly show, The O'Reilly Factor, can pretty quickly detect a pattern in his attacks against people, TV personalities, Websites, and just about everything else with a "D" associated with it (or, heaven forbid, the horrific LIBERAL label).
O'Reilly latest target? DailyKos, a very popular liberal Website that dares to take aim against the Bush administration's propaganda, lies, fear mongering and distortions, all of which BOR is a more than willing purveyor of. BOR's beef with the site? Some idiots who posted some disparaging comments about Tony Snow, Dick Cheney and others on the site. What BOR neglects to tell his viewers, many of whom will probably believe just about anything Billy tells them to believe, is that the offensive material he reads on his show are from comments following stories that appeared on DailyKos, not in the stories themselves.
To be fair, yes, the site should be more vigilant about taking hateful, inexcusable comments down. It's news to no one that there are nut jobs of all stripes in the political world, liberals included. Arianna Huffington weathered a similar O'Reilly rant earlier this year when some morons posted hateful things on her site, The Huffington Post.
But, you know what? ANYONE can post a comment on a Website like that after registering, which takes about two minutes, typically with the validation of an e-mail address. To take it a step further, any conservative (or staffer from Billy's office) could go on DailyKos, post something offensive, and VIOLA! - a story to slam another liberal Website.
This is such a non-story. By far the most interesting aspect of this is how BOR will pursue anyone with an agenda of uncovering his well-documented penchant for lying.
But, someone posting something hateful in the comments section of a Website is a far cry from a Website posting commentary that Tony Snow is better off dead or musing at America's bad luck that Dick Cheney wasn't killed in Afghanistan.
If you can manage to get through the entire length of the footage, you'll notice that not ONCE during the entire rant does BOR mention that these offensive opinions were in the Comments of the Website.
Typical. It's not like I'd ever expect the accurate, precise truth from a blowhard like Bill O'Reilly.
The best part? Another phony BOR boycott. The latest company that will feel no effect whatsoever? JetBlue.
O'Lielly is miffed the JetBlue, a fledgling airline, has sponsored a DailyKos event. I'm sure the CEO of JetBlue, David Neeleman, lost loads of sleep this week because of a Bill O'Reilly distortion that any educated person could see through after about five minutes of clicking and researching on DailyKos.
DailyKos is simply the latest Website to be targeted by BOR, who loves to call them "hate sites," because he cries that sites like Media Matters, the Huffington Post and DailyKos have the temerity to call him on his lies.
This story has caused me to do three things:
1. Check JetBlue's prices, and if possible, fly the airline whenever I can,
2. Visit DailyKos every day to increase the site's ad revenue,
3. and start recording The O'Reilly Factor to see who is sponsoring this Republican Party propaganda, and I'll boycott them (and of course, right about it). I'll let you know of my findings.
If you think I'm done with the Libby pardon, think again. Not even close. Yes, I'm calling it a pardon, even though the White House is not. I know that two year's probation and the $250,000 fine is an incredible hardship, but I'm sure Libby will, ahem, "survive." I wonder if Halliburton has an opening? One phone call from our favorite Dick will land him a job just about anywhere in the right-wing industrial complex that our creep veep controls. I let out a yelp when I saw that Libby wrote out a check for $250,000 last week to pay his fine. Hmm. Wondering where that generosity came from? But, I digress.
I meant to post this last week, but with the holiday, I forgot. It's still as powerful now as it was when Keith Olbermann delivered it last week.
As usual, Olbermann nails the Libby pardon just as he has so many other Bush missteps in the past few years; it's just too bad that Olbermann wasn't around from about 2002 on - I wonder if all of the things he exposes and offers biting commentary on about this administration would have made just enough of a difference in the 2004 election. We'll never know, but hopefully he'll make a huge difference this year and next.
For those who feel that Olbermann is the left's equivalent of Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, I'd say you don't listen to any of them. I have, and Olbermann is the only one who deals with the facts, not hatred, intolerance or demagoguery. Okay, he does take off on O'Lielly quite a bit, but I overlook that, because that's long overdue, and deserved.
Check out Beavis & Butt-head discussing WMDs in Iraq. Bill O'Reilly and Dennis Miller - I can think of no higher authority to discuss WMDs and what's in Syria than these two. Call me crazy, but didn't we bury the WMD issue about three years ago? (Or longer?) I would have thought this topic died with the defeat of former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. But, I guess if you look under enough rocks or in enough caves, you can find a few conservatives who cling to the hope that the Bush administration can salvage some credibility and dignity by finding something, ANYTHING that resembles WMD in Iraq.
Fat chance.
It's good to see that Miller, the liberal turned neo-con, hasn't lost his penchant for the stupid analogy, either - Pavarotti's colander? I love it when Miller gets down verbally - nothing like entertaining yourself, Dennis.
I think Miller would be a great fit on Hannity and Colmes. He could add his mindless commentary to Hannity's inane neocon patter. One thing's for sure - he couldn't make the show any worse.
McCain & BOR wax poetic on immigration and white Christian rule
Sorry about the poor audio quality of this footage, but stick with it - it seems to get a little better, and more importantly, Bill O'Reilly shows his true colors.
This is a pretty telling interview on both sides.
First, John McCain has to straddle the immigration issue very carefully (as do all presidential candidates, because Latinos and Hispanics are now America's largest minority; Read: there are lots of votes at stake here).
Believe it or not, I partially agree with McCain here - the thought of rounding up and deporting 12 million illegal immigrants is not only unrealistic and dumb, but it would be physically impossible to do anyway. And he's right that we have to secure our southern border. Hiring 20,000 new border agents would be a good start. Anyone who has followed this issue knows that the Bush administration has dragged its feet on this for years - Bush's answer was to use National Guard troops as a stop-gap measure for border patrol.
Where this footage gets really interesting is when O'Reilly, as he is so wont to do, starts fanning the flames of xenophobia and jingoism. If I understand him right, he is saying he fears that the white, Christian power structure in this country is being threatened, and he has a big problem with that. What's more, McCain seems to agree with him.
And Republicans have the audacity to whine that they are having a hard time courting the black and minority vote - this is Exhibit A why.
I've been waiting to find the trailer, and Michael Moore must have been keeping a lid on the trailer until after SiCKO premiered at Cannes.
Anyway, I finally found it, and it looks like a fantastic movie. The film was, by every account I've read, very well received at the Cannes Film Festival. I'm not out on much of a limb by predicting that SiCKO looks to be another Michael Moore success.
However, he's received a great deal of negative publicity from (surprise) Republicans, including this administration.
I find it ridiculous, moronic and absurd that this administration would waste a single man-hour on going after Moore for his trip to Cuba. But, that's what happens in the America of today - if you have a political opinion that differs with this administration, it's attack! attack! attack! I've already blogged about the Bush administration's witch hunt against Moore, so I won't continue that here.
Moore's Website reports that the government is not only pursuing him for his trip to Cuba, but also the 9-11 survivors that he took with him to Cuba:
The New York Post reported Sunday that the Bush administration, in addition to going after me for filming scenes in or near Cuba, may now go after the 9/11 rescue workers I took with me to get the medical care they were denied by our own government. I couldn't make up irony like this if I wanted to, and I will do whatever is necessary to defend the human right of these true American heroes to receive the medical attention they deserve.
(More on that Cuba trip in a minute.) It's not surprising at all to hear that the pharmaceutical industry (and the politicians they fund) are gearing up for a rebuttal against SiCKO.
According to Moore, he received copious amounts of whistle blower documents from many pharm employees:
We've also received word that the HMO and pharmaceutical industries are gearing up to fight SiCKO. We received so many great whistle blower letters while we were making the movie from employees of these companies. We'd like to hear from you again! Send us the internal memos and any other plans you run across at the company copying machine or Internet server. It will help to stay ahead of whatever they are up to, and it will also give us a chance for a bit of fun at the industry's expense.
I don't know what I'm looking forward to more - the movie, or Sean Hannity's and Rush Limbaugh's attack on Moore. Of course, they won't attack the film nearly as much as they will Moore himself.
In an interview with Time last week, Moore responded to critics who have treated his trip to Cuba like he dropped in on Osama bin Laden for tea:
Time: You also speak rhapsodically about the French and Cuban systems and travel to Cuba, where you interview Che Guevara's daughter. France, Cuba, Che. Are you going out of your way to annoy the right?
Moore: I give people more credit than the media and the political machine running this country do. The story line is: France, bad; France, cowards. What crime did France commit? We wouldn't have had this country without their support in the Revolution. They gave us that statue that sits out in New York Harbor. They responded immediately after 9/11. And they remain eternally grateful for what we did during World War II. As for Cuba, yes, when I've got a film crew there, they're going to show us their best. But there's a reason the World Health Organization ranks their health-care system [among] the best in the Third World and that people from Latin America come there for their health care. There's also a reason Cubans live on average a month longer than we do. I'm not trumpeting Castro or his regime. I just want to say to fellow Americans, "C'mon, we're the United States! If they can do this, we can do it."
I found Moore's words about France particularly poignant. The right has made great sport out of poking fun of and castigating France, all because they DARED disagree with us about our ill-fated foray into Iraq. Hmmm. Over four years after it started, who was more correct - France or Bush and Bill O'Reilly?
Michael Moore dares to make people think. (And sometimes, recoil. Look at that publicity photo! I may not sleep tonight.) I can't believe the audacity of Moore to possibly bring up the things that France has done for the U.S., including helping us during the Revolutionary War, the Statue of Liberty, etc.
Who has more credibility here - Bill O'Reilly and his phony France boycott, or Moore putting our country's relationship with France into historical context? Again, Moore is putting up facts against O'Lielly's rhetoric, such as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" and another World War II joke that's about 50 years old.
Moore reasons that his film cuts across the political divide, and I believe he's right:
This film does cut across party lines. Everybody gets sick; everybody has had a problem with insurance or the prescription drugs they're supposed to be taking or an elderly parent who needs care. On the surface, it does seem that the only people who are going to be upset are the executives of insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
He couldn't be more right - the insurance and pharmaceutical industries will whine like babies, but that's because Moore is exposing them for the money grubbing, racketeering operations they are.
Two quotes caught my eye yesterday as I was scanning my usual Websites. I've already posted a Quote of the Week, but these two whoppers are worth noting.
Bill O'Reilly and Robert Novak are soulless on a good day, but I always get a special sort of joy when they show their true colors.
Bill O'Reilly, when discussing his latest fetish, Rosie O'Donnell, had this to say:
Never in the history of American television has one performer alienated so many people.
I couldn't stop laughing when I read he said that. Bill O'Reilly said that. I feel very sad for him.
He enjoys being rich... he enjoys being an Oscar-winner... and I think he enjoys being fat, too.
I'm encouraged that Novak isn't waiting until Gore announces his candidacy for president (if he does) before attacking him, year 2000 style. Rather impressive, actually.
If I can psychoanalyze for a nanosecond, I'd say the early Gore attacks are a pretty good indication of how desperate the Right is about the GOP's chances to retain the White House in 2008. Maybe Karl Rove can feed Novak more people whose careers need ruining. So far, no luck, but there's still plenty of time before the '08 election.
And since Novak chooses to go into the gutter, I will for a second as well. Since he likes poking fun at Gore's midsection, he may want to put down the Twinkies himself.
Choosing who's the worst between these two is like choosing between food poisoning and a flaming case of hemorrhoids.
This is a fantastic round-up of stupidity in the media, most of it from the political right. However, it certainly isn't exclusive to right-wing media - but conservative personalities are just the most noteworthy.
I got a kick out of Ann Coulter not knowing her facts about the Vietnam War, and Michelle Malkin suggesting that John Kerry shot himself to earn a purple heart. And then, there's always Bill O'Reilly. His theatrics and phony tirades always make for fantastic footage. I'd rant on Nancy Grace if she were anything other than completely irrelevant. I have no idea how this woman has a television show on any channel anywhere. She gives mediocre, semi-attractive people hope. Glenn Beck? Words defy me on this guy. It's CNN's pathetic attempt to siphon off viewers of Fox News. He's got as much talent as toe cheese. Michelle Malkin is on television for one reason and one reason only - she's an attractive hate monger presented by Fersatz News to all of the horny, white, conservative men in America for ratings. She's not even good at reading the hate mongering off of the teleprompter.
Anyway, it's all good stuff. Watch it, laugh and watch it again.
