Ayn Rand’s Revenge
By ADAM KIRSCH
Published: October 29, 2009 -- New York Times Book Review:
"A specter is haunting the Republican Party — the specter of John Galt. In Ayn Rand’s libertarian epic “Atlas Shrugged,” Galt, an inventor disgusted by creeping American collectivism, leads the country’s capitalists on a retributive strike. “We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we who had always been the givers, but have only now understood it,” Galt lectures the “looters” and “moochers” who make up the populace. “We have no demands to present you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you.”
“Atlas Shrugged” was published 52 years ago, but in the Obama era, Rand’s angry message is more resonant than ever before. Sales of the book have reportedly spiked. At “tea parties” and other conservative protests, alongside the Obama-as-Joker signs, you will find placards reading “Atlas Shrugs” and “Ayn Rand Was Right.” Not long after the inauguration, as right-wing pundits like Glenn Beck were invoking Rand and issuing warnings of incipient socialism, Representative John Campbell, Republican of California, told a reporter that the prospect of rising taxes and government regulation meant “people are starting to feel like we’re living through the scenario that happened in ‘Atlas Shrugged.’ ”
It is incredible how successful Conservatives have been in getting so many people who earn $30,000 a year to identify with Ayn Rand's fictional Super-Heroes and to believe that they, too, can become Masters of the Universe even as Ayn Rand's political and economic philosophy stacks the deck against them.
Conservative propagandists have convinced their followers to oppose any government intervention in the economy, claiming that any government intervention constitutes Socialism, citing as their gods Ayn Rand and Ronald Reagan. However, as President Obama announced today, the government stimulus programs of his administration have averted a new Depression and have started the American economy growing again.
If the Ayn Rand policies of non-government intervention had been followed, our economy would now be a wreck, and all the dreams of these $30,000 a year Conservatives ever becoming Masters of the Universe would be gone forever. Indeed, their $30,000 a year jobs would be gone, too.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
New Poll: America Hates the GOP
New Poll: America Hates the GOP
From MSNBC's "First Thoughts," writing about the new NBC/WSJ poll:
While impressions of Obama’s professional performance are mixed, the same can’t be said of the Republican Party at large. Put simply, the GOP’s brand is still a mess. According to the poll, just 25% have a positive opinion of the party (compared with 42% for the Dem Party), which ties the GOP's low-water mark in the survey and which is a worse score than it ever had during the Bush presidency.
(Honest question: Can the party still blame Bush for their problems if their numbers have gotten lower since he left the scene?)
In addition, only 23% approve of the way in which congressional Republicans have handled health care (compared with 43% for Obama). And looking ahead to the 2010 midterms, 46% prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, versus 38% who want a GOP-controlled Congress. Last month, Dems held a 43%-40% advantage.
I wonder why!
From MSNBC's "First Thoughts," writing about the new NBC/WSJ poll:
While impressions of Obama’s professional performance are mixed, the same can’t be said of the Republican Party at large. Put simply, the GOP’s brand is still a mess. According to the poll, just 25% have a positive opinion of the party (compared with 42% for the Dem Party), which ties the GOP's low-water mark in the survey and which is a worse score than it ever had during the Bush presidency.
(Honest question: Can the party still blame Bush for their problems if their numbers have gotten lower since he left the scene?)
In addition, only 23% approve of the way in which congressional Republicans have handled health care (compared with 43% for Obama). And looking ahead to the 2010 midterms, 46% prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, versus 38% who want a GOP-controlled Congress. Last month, Dems held a 43%-40% advantage.
I wonder why!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Alan Grayson, a Florida Congressman Democrats Can Be Proud Of
From Yahoo News -- Oct 29, 2009
Earlier in the month, shortly after he burst onto the political scene by presenting his "Die Quickly" interpretation of the Republican health care plan on the floor of the House, we asked, "Is Alan Grayson the Democrats' Joe Wilson?" Lately the similarities are fading. Wilson has, for the most part, retreated after his controversial outburst during President Obama's prime-time health care address in September.
Rep. Grayson has proven himself to be no one-hit-wonder, making national news regularly with controversial statements about political opponents, as well as an emotional display on the House floor. He's garnered the labels of "the left's Glenn Beck" and "the Democrat's version of Michele Bachmann." Here's a recap of his recent headline-garnering moves:
Compares former vice-president to a vampire:
Last Thursday, Grayson appeared as a guest on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews." There he attacked Dick Cheney for criticizing, at a recent Republican event, the Obama administration's efforts in fighting terror. Saying that he has trouble listening to the former vice-president speak "because of the blood that drips from his teeth," Grayson went on to accuse Cheney of projecting hatred toward the president because he "doesn't shoot old men in the face." Grayson closed by asking, "When he was done speaking, did he just turn into a bat and fly away?"
Questions the patriotism of Fox News:
Appearing on "The Ed Show" on MSNBC, Grayson slammed Fox News and its "Republican collaborators" for being what he called "the enemy of America." While many prominent Democrats, including the president himself, have been vocal about what they interpret as political bias in Fox News' reporting, few have gone as far as Grayson.
After reportedly being turned down after several requests to interview Grayson, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly dispatched "O'Reilly Factor" correspondent Griff Jenkins to conduct an ambush-style interview with Grayson outside his Capitol Hill office. Grayson refused to answer Jenkins' questions, imploring him to make an appointment for an interview through his press secretary.
Has an emotional moment at the House of Representatives:
On Wednesday, hours before House Democrats unveiled their $900-billion health care bill, Grayson burst into tears numerous times during the course of a floor speech in which he read letters from people whose loved ones had died because they lacked health insurance. "There are 44,789 who die every year from lack of health insurance," Grayson said. "In the course of my speech tonight, there will be five more."
Grayson noted that he received the letters from ordinary citizens through a website called namesofthedead.com, which he launched last week out of the hope that "honoring them will help us end this senseless loss of American lives."
Though Congressman Grayson's recent actions as a political provocateur have turned him into a bit of a liberal lightning rod, it appears as if he could be a good bet for re-election in 2010, despite representing a swing district, Florida's 8th, that voted heavily for Bush in 2000 and 2004. Some think that his tenacious rhetoric, though controversial, has struck fear into the hearts of potential Republican opponents within the district who could challenge him for his seat. The situation is so dire that the Republican party seems to be importing candidates from other Florida congressional districts to challenge him. Meanwhile, Grayson has raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars through his campaign website, congressmanwithguts.com, alone, giving financial support to his soapbox.
Earlier in the month, shortly after he burst onto the political scene by presenting his "Die Quickly" interpretation of the Republican health care plan on the floor of the House, we asked, "Is Alan Grayson the Democrats' Joe Wilson?" Lately the similarities are fading. Wilson has, for the most part, retreated after his controversial outburst during President Obama's prime-time health care address in September.
Rep. Grayson has proven himself to be no one-hit-wonder, making national news regularly with controversial statements about political opponents, as well as an emotional display on the House floor. He's garnered the labels of "the left's Glenn Beck" and "the Democrat's version of Michele Bachmann." Here's a recap of his recent headline-garnering moves:
Compares former vice-president to a vampire:
Last Thursday, Grayson appeared as a guest on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews." There he attacked Dick Cheney for criticizing, at a recent Republican event, the Obama administration's efforts in fighting terror. Saying that he has trouble listening to the former vice-president speak "because of the blood that drips from his teeth," Grayson went on to accuse Cheney of projecting hatred toward the president because he "doesn't shoot old men in the face." Grayson closed by asking, "When he was done speaking, did he just turn into a bat and fly away?"
Questions the patriotism of Fox News:
Appearing on "The Ed Show" on MSNBC, Grayson slammed Fox News and its "Republican collaborators" for being what he called "the enemy of America." While many prominent Democrats, including the president himself, have been vocal about what they interpret as political bias in Fox News' reporting, few have gone as far as Grayson.
After reportedly being turned down after several requests to interview Grayson, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly dispatched "O'Reilly Factor" correspondent Griff Jenkins to conduct an ambush-style interview with Grayson outside his Capitol Hill office. Grayson refused to answer Jenkins' questions, imploring him to make an appointment for an interview through his press secretary.
Has an emotional moment at the House of Representatives:
On Wednesday, hours before House Democrats unveiled their $900-billion health care bill, Grayson burst into tears numerous times during the course of a floor speech in which he read letters from people whose loved ones had died because they lacked health insurance. "There are 44,789 who die every year from lack of health insurance," Grayson said. "In the course of my speech tonight, there will be five more."
Grayson noted that he received the letters from ordinary citizens through a website called namesofthedead.com, which he launched last week out of the hope that "honoring them will help us end this senseless loss of American lives."
Though Congressman Grayson's recent actions as a political provocateur have turned him into a bit of a liberal lightning rod, it appears as if he could be a good bet for re-election in 2010, despite representing a swing district, Florida's 8th, that voted heavily for Bush in 2000 and 2004. Some think that his tenacious rhetoric, though controversial, has struck fear into the hearts of potential Republican opponents within the district who could challenge him for his seat. The situation is so dire that the Republican party seems to be importing candidates from other Florida congressional districts to challenge him. Meanwhile, Grayson has raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars through his campaign website, congressmanwithguts.com, alone, giving financial support to his soapbox.
Bad News for Republicans -- Keep Rooting for America to Fail, Conservatives
From The Washington Post -- October 29, 2009:
"The economy grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter, the best showing in two years, fueled by government-supported spending on cars and homes.
The Commerce Department's report Thursday delivered the strongest signal yet that the economy entered a new, though fragile, phase of recovery and that the worst recession since the 1930s has ended.
The much-awaited turnaround ended the streak of four straight quarters of contracting economic activity, the first time that's happened on records dating to 1947.
It also marked the first increase since the spring of 2008, when the economy experienced a short-lived uptick in growth.
The third-quarter's performance - the strongest since right before the country fell into recession in December 2007 - was better than the 3.3 percent growth rate economists expected.
Armed with cash from government support programs, consumers led the rebound in the third quarter, snapping up cars and homes.
Consumer spending on big-ticket manufactured goods soared at an annualized rate of 22.3 percent in the third quarter, the most since the end of 2001.
The housing market also turned a corner in the summer. Spending on housing projects jumped at an annualized pace of 23.4 percent, the largest jump since 1986. It was the first time since the end of 2005 that spending on housing was positive.
The government's $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers supported the housing rebound. Congress is considering extending the credit, which expires on Nov. 30.
The collapse of the housing market led the country into the recession. Rotten mortgage securities spiraled into a banking crisis. Home foreclosures surged. The sector's return to good health is a crucial ingredient to a sustained economic recovery.
Brisk spending by the federal government, led by efforts to stimulate the economy and on defense, also played into the third-quarter turnaround. Federal government spending rose at a rate of 7.9 percent in the third quarter, on top of a 11.4 percent growth rate in the second quarter."
"The economy grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter, the best showing in two years, fueled by government-supported spending on cars and homes.
The Commerce Department's report Thursday delivered the strongest signal yet that the economy entered a new, though fragile, phase of recovery and that the worst recession since the 1930s has ended.
The much-awaited turnaround ended the streak of four straight quarters of contracting economic activity, the first time that's happened on records dating to 1947.
It also marked the first increase since the spring of 2008, when the economy experienced a short-lived uptick in growth.
The third-quarter's performance - the strongest since right before the country fell into recession in December 2007 - was better than the 3.3 percent growth rate economists expected.
Armed with cash from government support programs, consumers led the rebound in the third quarter, snapping up cars and homes.
Consumer spending on big-ticket manufactured goods soared at an annualized rate of 22.3 percent in the third quarter, the most since the end of 2001.
The housing market also turned a corner in the summer. Spending on housing projects jumped at an annualized pace of 23.4 percent, the largest jump since 1986. It was the first time since the end of 2005 that spending on housing was positive.
The government's $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers supported the housing rebound. Congress is considering extending the credit, which expires on Nov. 30.
The collapse of the housing market led the country into the recession. Rotten mortgage securities spiraled into a banking crisis. Home foreclosures surged. The sector's return to good health is a crucial ingredient to a sustained economic recovery.
Brisk spending by the federal government, led by efforts to stimulate the economy and on defense, also played into the third-quarter turnaround. Federal government spending rose at a rate of 7.9 percent in the third quarter, on top of a 11.4 percent growth rate in the second quarter."
FOX News -- "Fair and Balanced" Is Actually the Propaganda Wing of the Republican Party
By Gene Lyons -- Salon -- October 28, 2009:
"The Obama administration's basic charge against Fox News is undeniably true: The network functions as the propaganda wing of the Republican Party. Fox openly organizes and promotes partisan political events such as April's "Fox News Tea Party." Its coverage of congressional "Town Hall" meetings reflected not a single individual supporting healthcare reform, as documented by Media Matters for America. Not one. Fox portrays every perceived setback for the Obama White House as a "victory" for "Fox Nation."
As necessary, Fox resorts to sheer fiction: Reporting that Glenn Beck's ballyhooed October Tea Party event drew upward of 2 million protesters to Washington. In reality, considerably more fans (102,941) attended the Auburn-Tennessee football game. (Political tip: If you hope to draw big crowds of Southern white men, avoid Saturdays in October.)
In this country, journalists don't sponsor or participate in partisan political events.
Explaining to the New York Times, deputy White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said, "We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional news organization."
"The Obama administration's basic charge against Fox News is undeniably true: The network functions as the propaganda wing of the Republican Party. Fox openly organizes and promotes partisan political events such as April's "Fox News Tea Party." Its coverage of congressional "Town Hall" meetings reflected not a single individual supporting healthcare reform, as documented by Media Matters for America. Not one. Fox portrays every perceived setback for the Obama White House as a "victory" for "Fox Nation."
As necessary, Fox resorts to sheer fiction: Reporting that Glenn Beck's ballyhooed October Tea Party event drew upward of 2 million protesters to Washington. In reality, considerably more fans (102,941) attended the Auburn-Tennessee football game. (Political tip: If you hope to draw big crowds of Southern white men, avoid Saturdays in October.)
In this country, journalists don't sponsor or participate in partisan political events.
Explaining to the New York Times, deputy White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said, "We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional news organization."
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Harry Hay Was Not a Pedophile
Harry Hay was not a pedophile. He died at 90, and for over 40 years he had a very committed relationship with a gay man roughly his age.
I have found nothing about Harry Hay which suggests that he was ever a pedophile or was ever accused of child molesting or anything of the sort.
On the contrary, Harry Hay was the opposite of a pedophile -- a 180 degree polar extreme opposite.
Harry Hay said that, during the Depression, when he was 13, he started working to help support his family, and when he was 14 he started looking for sex with older men. He was sexually active at 14 and he wanted sex with an older man. He was not interested in having sex with someone younger than himself. He was not a pedophile or a child molester.
His point was that, if he could work at rough physical labor as an adult at age 13, he should be able to start having sex with older people at 14. He did not want the statutory rape laws to apply to him because that would mean what he was doing was wrong, and he did not believe he was doing anything wrong. He called himself a child who was molesting adults, not the other way around.
In no way was Harry Hay ever an adult who molested children. He was interested sexually in adults, not in children.
The Right-Wing is trying to smear Obama's appointee, Kevin Jennings, by saying that Jennings was "inspired by a pedophile", Harry Hay. However, I have not found one single fact anywhere to support the accusation that Harry Hay was a pedophile.
I have found nothing about Harry Hay which suggests that he was ever a pedophile or was ever accused of child molesting or anything of the sort.
On the contrary, Harry Hay was the opposite of a pedophile -- a 180 degree polar extreme opposite.
Harry Hay said that, during the Depression, when he was 13, he started working to help support his family, and when he was 14 he started looking for sex with older men. He was sexually active at 14 and he wanted sex with an older man. He was not interested in having sex with someone younger than himself. He was not a pedophile or a child molester.
His point was that, if he could work at rough physical labor as an adult at age 13, he should be able to start having sex with older people at 14. He did not want the statutory rape laws to apply to him because that would mean what he was doing was wrong, and he did not believe he was doing anything wrong. He called himself a child who was molesting adults, not the other way around.
In no way was Harry Hay ever an adult who molested children. He was interested sexually in adults, not in children.
The Right-Wing is trying to smear Obama's appointee, Kevin Jennings, by saying that Jennings was "inspired by a pedophile", Harry Hay. However, I have not found one single fact anywhere to support the accusation that Harry Hay was a pedophile.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
FOX News' Contributions to America
Fox News lost over $500 million -- LOST HALF A BILLION DOLLARS -- during its first 5 years of operations. Fox News was not run as a profit-making business; it was run as an ideological wedge in service of a political party.
Without Fox News, we would not have had Dubya as President. Without Fox News, we wouldn't have had Tom DeLay, Phil Gramm, Denny Hastert, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, et al, who fleeced the nation and left us with $5.5 TRILLION in Federal Debt during the Dubya years, nor would we have invaded Iraq, nor would we be bogged down in Afghanistan due to the Iraqi distraction, nor would we have allowed unregulated credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, mortgage backed securities with no underlying assets, and $2-4 trillion in non-performing toxic assets.
No wonder we all love FOX News.
Without Fox News, we would not have had Dubya as President. Without Fox News, we wouldn't have had Tom DeLay, Phil Gramm, Denny Hastert, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, et al, who fleeced the nation and left us with $5.5 TRILLION in Federal Debt during the Dubya years, nor would we have invaded Iraq, nor would we be bogged down in Afghanistan due to the Iraqi distraction, nor would we have allowed unregulated credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, mortgage backed securities with no underlying assets, and $2-4 trillion in non-performing toxic assets.
No wonder we all love FOX News.
The Tortoise Vs. The Hare
Slow and Steady wins the race, as the Tortoise Taught Us -- and as he also taught the March Hare.
Then again, one can't expect much from a March Hare. He's always out attending Tea Parties. With lots of Mad Hatters.
Then again, one can't expect much from a March Hare. He's always out attending Tea Parties. With lots of Mad Hatters.
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Dumbest People on Earth -- Americans
Just Remember -- the Dumbest People on Earth live right here in the Good Old USA.
Don't take my word for it -- just surf the Internet.
Don't take my word for it -- just surf the Internet.
Kevin Jennings Vs. The Right-Wing Witch Hunters
There's one itsy -bitsy, teeny-weenie , teeny-tiny little difference between Kevin Jennings and Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, The Washington Times, and the other Right-WIng Propagandists who are trying to Witch-Hunt Jennings. Kevin Jennings was interested first, foremost and, totally, in the welfare, well-being and future of his student, "Brewster".
That's the one thing which Beck, Hannity,The Washington Times and the other lying Right-Wing Witch Hunters don't give a damn about.
That's the one thing which Beck, Hannity,The Washington Times and the other lying Right-Wing Witch Hunters don't give a damn about.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
FOX News In a Nutshell
"Fox News is the propaganda tabloid of the Republican Party. I get nothing out of Fox News but anger, resentment and fear. They appeal to the worst in human nature and predatorially intimidate the American people. Forget main stream media. Fox News is not news. It is a political show designed to form people's opinions for them with talking points, spinning and distortions for political gain."
The above comment was posted on CBS News web-site on October 23, 2009. So well put. I couldn't have said it better myself.
The above comment was posted on CBS News web-site on October 23, 2009. So well put. I couldn't have said it better myself.
The Difference Between Democrats and Republicans
A balanced budget is a good thing, but not always. Sometimes deficit spending is necessary to pull the country out of a recession.
No one here believes in Socialism. We all believe in capitalism. But, when there is a Great Recession, as we've just been through, steps should be taken to end the recession as quickly as possible. Throwing money at the problem, or priming the pump, is the answer and, as you can see, it's working once again.
As for "helping the less fortunate with no demands being placed on them", most of the money being spent now is to help people help themselves -- create jobs, repair infra-structure, make education more accessible, etc. Even health care reform will help the country by easing the financial burden on small businesses and on hospitals whose emergency rooms now have to care for so many uninsured individuals.
Republicans keep presiding over lots of boom and bust, with too many busts -- 1929 (Hoover); 1987 (Reagan); 2008 (Bush). Every few years, the Democrats keep having to ride to the rescue. Yet Republicans say that they believe in capitalism and liberals believe in Socialism. Isn't that a sick joke?
No one here believes in Socialism. We all believe in capitalism. But, when there is a Great Recession, as we've just been through, steps should be taken to end the recession as quickly as possible. Throwing money at the problem, or priming the pump, is the answer and, as you can see, it's working once again.
As for "helping the less fortunate with no demands being placed on them", most of the money being spent now is to help people help themselves -- create jobs, repair infra-structure, make education more accessible, etc. Even health care reform will help the country by easing the financial burden on small businesses and on hospitals whose emergency rooms now have to care for so many uninsured individuals.
Republicans keep presiding over lots of boom and bust, with too many busts -- 1929 (Hoover); 1987 (Reagan); 2008 (Bush). Every few years, the Democrats keep having to ride to the rescue. Yet Republicans say that they believe in capitalism and liberals believe in Socialism. Isn't that a sick joke?
Nine Months In
We are now nine months into the Obama presidency without a major terrorist attack having occurred on US soil -- (the Obama Administration thwarted one of those just last month, with Obama himself riding herd on the effort) -- which is more than Dubya Bush could say at this stage of his presidency.
Does this fact depress the Conservatives who want Obama to fail?
Does this fact depress the Conservatives who want Obama to fail?
Friday, October 23, 2009
President Obama Is Mopping Up
Excerpts from President Obama's Fund-Raising Speech in Washington, DC This Week:
“I don't mind cleaning up the mess that some other folks made. That's what I signed up to do. But while I'm there mopping the floor, I don't want somebody standing there saying, ‘You're not mopping fast enough.’ [Pause for laughter.] Or, ‘You're not holding the mop the right way.’ [More laughter.] Or, ‘It’s a socialist mop.’ [Merriment.]”
And then, with perfect timing, he exhorted: “Grab a mop!” [Sustained cheers.]
“Why don't you help clean up?” [Continued cheers.]
“I don't mind cleaning up the mess that some other folks made. That's what I signed up to do. But while I'm there mopping the floor, I don't want somebody standing there saying, ‘You're not mopping fast enough.’ [Pause for laughter.] Or, ‘You're not holding the mop the right way.’ [More laughter.] Or, ‘It’s a socialist mop.’ [Merriment.]”
And then, with perfect timing, he exhorted: “Grab a mop!” [Sustained cheers.]
“Why don't you help clean up?” [Continued cheers.]
Mikhail Gorbachev Says Obama Deserves the Nobel Peace Prize
The former Soviet leader tells Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Obama "deserved" the Nobel Prize, as he did, and draws a sort of parallel between them:
"I won it unexpectedly, and he won it unexpectedly. And i think I deserved it -- time has passed, and that's clear," Gorbachev says, laughing that he'd have to be a fool not to praise himself.
"America means a lot," Gorbachev said. "That's why we have to support a president of such stature who gave his own country and the world such a strong push forward. And it's already showing real results. That's honorable."
"You can complain about other things, but that is deserved," said Gorbachev of Obama's Nobel. "He'll now be reponble for following the path along which the Nobel Committee pushed him."
Of course, my Conservative friends will have their usual snit-fit when they hear about these comments from Gorbachev. They still believe that Ronald Reagan was responsible for the demise of Communism in the Soviet Union. The simple fact is that Mikhail Gorbachev is the man most responsible for ending the Communist system in the old Soviet Union and ushering in a new era of democracy there -- which is why Gorby won his Nobel Peace Prize.
"I won it unexpectedly, and he won it unexpectedly. And i think I deserved it -- time has passed, and that's clear," Gorbachev says, laughing that he'd have to be a fool not to praise himself.
"America means a lot," Gorbachev said. "That's why we have to support a president of such stature who gave his own country and the world such a strong push forward. And it's already showing real results. That's honorable."
"You can complain about other things, but that is deserved," said Gorbachev of Obama's Nobel. "He'll now be reponble for following the path along which the Nobel Committee pushed him."
Of course, my Conservative friends will have their usual snit-fit when they hear about these comments from Gorbachev. They still believe that Ronald Reagan was responsible for the demise of Communism in the Soviet Union. The simple fact is that Mikhail Gorbachev is the man most responsible for ending the Communist system in the old Soviet Union and ushering in a new era of democracy there -- which is why Gorby won his Nobel Peace Prize.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
It's Time to Stop The Despicable Right-Wing Sliming of ACORN
It's time to stand up against the coordinated devious Right-Wing sliming of ACORN. Here are some comments by a few people who are starting to push back:
Standing Up for ACORN
Washington, D.C. – ACORN announced that former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger was appointed to lead an independent inquiry into the "organizational systems and processes" of the embattled group's social services and will make public the results of that inquiry.
The following are statements by leaders of progressive organizations in support of ACORN and its efforts to get this important organization back on track.
Statement by Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Community Change:
"Since its founding in 1970, ACORN has made important contributions to community organizing. While there have been significant problems recently at ACORN, it has demonstrated the potential of local organizations to join together for national impact. It has won ground-breaking victories for low income communities on issues such as housing, community reinvestment, predatory lending, and living wage standards. It has stood up for the interests of the poor and given voice to the concerns of people who are too often ignored. The world is a better place because of the work done by ACORN. For these reasons, ACORN deserves a chance to review and reform its organizational systems and processes."
Statement by Wade Henderson, President of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights:
"There's no question that ACORN has made some painful mistakes, but unlike some other government contractors and Wall Street firms whose actions have had more serious consequences, ACORN hasn't run from its problems. Instead, it swiftly fired the staffers in the now-infamous videotapes and immediately ordered retraining of its other employees. It also took the unprecedented step of retaining former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to lead an independent investigation of this incident and other problems.
"Whether providing Katrina relief, fighting high-cost predatory loans, or working to reduce poverty, ACORN has done work for almost 40 years that no other national organization is doing for poor and minority communities. You wouldn't know that from listening to ACORN's critics.
"So let's keep things in perspective. ACORN is not the scourge that some right-wing shouting heads would like the public to believe. It's an organization with a valuable mission that has made some missteps and is trying valiantly to correct them. We support ACORN's efforts to put its house in order. And ACORN deserves the chance to earn the public's trust once again."
Statement by USAction Program Director Alan Charney:
"Given the tremendous amount of good work ACORN has done, and the important work it must do in the future, we support the appointment of former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to conduct an independent inquiry.
"It is imperative that concerns over ACORN's practices – some legitimate, others less so – be investigated and addressed in a timely manner so that ACORN can continue to do what it does best: provide assistance to low-income homeowners, many of whom are facing foreclosure in this time of economic stress. Until the inquiry is complete, Congress should resist political pressure and remember that ACORN is important and indispensable to millions of Americans who often do not have a place at the table, including people of color and immigrants."
Statement by Robert L. Borosage, Co-Director, Campaign for America's Future:
"ACORN has a proud record of serving the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. It reaches out, helps them organize, registers them to vote and gets them to the polls, provides counseling that protects them from predatory lenders, and much more. So it is not surprising that ACORN became the bête noire of Karl Rove and the rabid right. Rove traduced US Attorneys, demanding that they prosecute non-existent voter fraud. Right-wing zealots made fools of themselves arguing that ACORN's support of the Community Reinvestment Act was the central cause of the financial collapse. A large organization with hundreds of offices and thousands of staff members and volunteers, ACORN has plenty of management challenges. So a right-wing hit squad could film a couple of staff members saying idiotic things. But YouTube ignominy and right-wing hostility is not grounds for persecuting an organization that has devoted its energy and resources to empowering the poorest among us. At the Campaign for America's Future, we are proud to have worked with ACORN in the past and look forward to doing so in the future."
Statement by NAACP President Ben Jealous:
"We are deeply troubled by the despicable 'railroading' strategy being employed by anti-democratic zealots to bring down the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and end their invaluable service to poor and disadvantaged communities. This is particularly disturbing considering that there are a number of official investigations presently underway to determine if indeed they are actually guilty of the accusations being made of them.
"In this time of economic crisis, with homelessness and unemployment on the rise, we need organizations that are willing to work with families and communities that are underserved to help coordinate and bring their plight to those elected to serve their interests. Though many find it hard to believe with the onslaught of negative and too often disingenuous stories about ACORN, they have a long-standing legacy of empowering those seeking a better life in our nation. Standing true to our American principles, we must allow all of the evidence to come forward before casting judgment."
Statement from the Equal Justice Society:
"The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has championed the rights of low and moderate income level families for more than three decades. With the backing of 400,000 member families in about 75 cities across 40 states, ACORN has become a target of the Right Wing de-legitimization machine. Just as Van Jones was recently attacked with half-truths and outright lies in order to remove him from his position, so have the same forces politically assaulted ACORN for years.
"As promoters of racial, social and economic justice, the Equal Justice Society continues to support ACORN, its mission and its constituents. We do not support any actions that will further impair the ability of low and moderate income people to seek and access much-needed assistance. Thus, we find it regrettable that the House took the first steps to eliminate federal funding for ACORN's services. Instead, we believe the process for seeking the truth and proper consequences includes awaiting the findings of Scott Harshbarger and holding only the necessary people accountable for any wrongdoing."
Statement from Nathan Newman, Executive Director, Progressive States Network:
"For decades, ACORN has been a staunch advocate for working families, from working to raise the minimum wage to fighting foreclosures to promoting paid sick days. We should not allow a right-wing media circus to either overshadow that good work or substitute for a sober review of any internal processes that need to be improved in the organization."
So, let's not stand by and let the usual Right-Wing Hatchet Men and Media Con Artists destroy ACORN.
Standing Up for ACORN
Washington, D.C. – ACORN announced that former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger was appointed to lead an independent inquiry into the "organizational systems and processes" of the embattled group's social services and will make public the results of that inquiry.
The following are statements by leaders of progressive organizations in support of ACORN and its efforts to get this important organization back on track.
Statement by Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Community Change:
"Since its founding in 1970, ACORN has made important contributions to community organizing. While there have been significant problems recently at ACORN, it has demonstrated the potential of local organizations to join together for national impact. It has won ground-breaking victories for low income communities on issues such as housing, community reinvestment, predatory lending, and living wage standards. It has stood up for the interests of the poor and given voice to the concerns of people who are too often ignored. The world is a better place because of the work done by ACORN. For these reasons, ACORN deserves a chance to review and reform its organizational systems and processes."
Statement by Wade Henderson, President of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights:
"There's no question that ACORN has made some painful mistakes, but unlike some other government contractors and Wall Street firms whose actions have had more serious consequences, ACORN hasn't run from its problems. Instead, it swiftly fired the staffers in the now-infamous videotapes and immediately ordered retraining of its other employees. It also took the unprecedented step of retaining former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to lead an independent investigation of this incident and other problems.
"Whether providing Katrina relief, fighting high-cost predatory loans, or working to reduce poverty, ACORN has done work for almost 40 years that no other national organization is doing for poor and minority communities. You wouldn't know that from listening to ACORN's critics.
"So let's keep things in perspective. ACORN is not the scourge that some right-wing shouting heads would like the public to believe. It's an organization with a valuable mission that has made some missteps and is trying valiantly to correct them. We support ACORN's efforts to put its house in order. And ACORN deserves the chance to earn the public's trust once again."
Statement by USAction Program Director Alan Charney:
"Given the tremendous amount of good work ACORN has done, and the important work it must do in the future, we support the appointment of former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to conduct an independent inquiry.
"It is imperative that concerns over ACORN's practices – some legitimate, others less so – be investigated and addressed in a timely manner so that ACORN can continue to do what it does best: provide assistance to low-income homeowners, many of whom are facing foreclosure in this time of economic stress. Until the inquiry is complete, Congress should resist political pressure and remember that ACORN is important and indispensable to millions of Americans who often do not have a place at the table, including people of color and immigrants."
Statement by Robert L. Borosage, Co-Director, Campaign for America's Future:
"ACORN has a proud record of serving the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. It reaches out, helps them organize, registers them to vote and gets them to the polls, provides counseling that protects them from predatory lenders, and much more. So it is not surprising that ACORN became the bête noire of Karl Rove and the rabid right. Rove traduced US Attorneys, demanding that they prosecute non-existent voter fraud. Right-wing zealots made fools of themselves arguing that ACORN's support of the Community Reinvestment Act was the central cause of the financial collapse. A large organization with hundreds of offices and thousands of staff members and volunteers, ACORN has plenty of management challenges. So a right-wing hit squad could film a couple of staff members saying idiotic things. But YouTube ignominy and right-wing hostility is not grounds for persecuting an organization that has devoted its energy and resources to empowering the poorest among us. At the Campaign for America's Future, we are proud to have worked with ACORN in the past and look forward to doing so in the future."
Statement by NAACP President Ben Jealous:
"We are deeply troubled by the despicable 'railroading' strategy being employed by anti-democratic zealots to bring down the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and end their invaluable service to poor and disadvantaged communities. This is particularly disturbing considering that there are a number of official investigations presently underway to determine if indeed they are actually guilty of the accusations being made of them.
"In this time of economic crisis, with homelessness and unemployment on the rise, we need organizations that are willing to work with families and communities that are underserved to help coordinate and bring their plight to those elected to serve their interests. Though many find it hard to believe with the onslaught of negative and too often disingenuous stories about ACORN, they have a long-standing legacy of empowering those seeking a better life in our nation. Standing true to our American principles, we must allow all of the evidence to come forward before casting judgment."
Statement from the Equal Justice Society:
"The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has championed the rights of low and moderate income level families for more than three decades. With the backing of 400,000 member families in about 75 cities across 40 states, ACORN has become a target of the Right Wing de-legitimization machine. Just as Van Jones was recently attacked with half-truths and outright lies in order to remove him from his position, so have the same forces politically assaulted ACORN for years.
"As promoters of racial, social and economic justice, the Equal Justice Society continues to support ACORN, its mission and its constituents. We do not support any actions that will further impair the ability of low and moderate income people to seek and access much-needed assistance. Thus, we find it regrettable that the House took the first steps to eliminate federal funding for ACORN's services. Instead, we believe the process for seeking the truth and proper consequences includes awaiting the findings of Scott Harshbarger and holding only the necessary people accountable for any wrongdoing."
Statement from Nathan Newman, Executive Director, Progressive States Network:
"For decades, ACORN has been a staunch advocate for working families, from working to raise the minimum wage to fighting foreclosures to promoting paid sick days. We should not allow a right-wing media circus to either overshadow that good work or substitute for a sober review of any internal processes that need to be improved in the organization."
So, let's not stand by and let the usual Right-Wing Hatchet Men and Media Con Artists destroy ACORN.
Social Security and Medicare
I find that I have a lot of common ground with my Conservative friends who contact me about these posts.
Our differences relate to the best way of keeping this country strong and prosperous, and making it work well for the greatest number of people who live here.
Economic and political systems that work well for the few, but not the many, always collapse -- whether they are Communism, Feudalism, or unregulated, uncontrolled Capitalism.
Only a balanced system has worked effectively -- free enterprise with some government regulations and controls to keep rampant greed from running away with and destroying the system.
Social Security and Medicare have solved huge problems in our country which used to afflict the elderly. Native Americans and African tribes take in their elderly and care for them for the rest of their lives in the same tents and wigwams as the rest of the family. For us, Social Security and Medicare take the place of those family tents and wigwams.
Our differences relate to the best way of keeping this country strong and prosperous, and making it work well for the greatest number of people who live here.
Economic and political systems that work well for the few, but not the many, always collapse -- whether they are Communism, Feudalism, or unregulated, uncontrolled Capitalism.
Only a balanced system has worked effectively -- free enterprise with some government regulations and controls to keep rampant greed from running away with and destroying the system.
Social Security and Medicare have solved huge problems in our country which used to afflict the elderly. Native Americans and African tribes take in their elderly and care for them for the rest of their lives in the same tents and wigwams as the rest of the family. For us, Social Security and Medicare take the place of those family tents and wigwams.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Latest Poll: Obama Up, GOP Down
From: The Washington Post -- October 21, 2009
THE RUNDOWN
Is the Worst Over for Obama?
By Ben Pershing
It's increasingly possible that we will look back and see that August 2009 was this election cycle's height of Republicans' optimism over their political fortunes, and the depth of Democrats' despair.
By the time the midterm elections reach a fever pitch next year, President Obama may well have passed health-care reform, his signature domestic initiative, if not with overwhelming public support then at least with the backing of a solid majority of voters. The now common criticism that he hasn't accomplished anything will have been blunted. And while a high joblessness rate may persist, the narrative will have taken hold that the economy has either recovered or is well on its way.
The scenario above represents Democrats' best-case scenario, and no element of it is assured. But the new Washington Post-ABC News poll makes it appear a bit more likely. The survey found "that support for a government-run health-care plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and wins clear majority support from the public." While ratings for Obama's handling of health care and the overall reform plans remained roughly the same, the president has regained the support of some Independents.
The Fix points out that the poll also contained bad news for Republicans, giving the party low marks for its ability to make good decisions and handing Democrats a 12-point lead on the generic Congressional ballot. (George Stephanopoulos' headline: "New Poll: Public Option Up ... GOP Down.")
THE RUNDOWN
Is the Worst Over for Obama?
By Ben Pershing
It's increasingly possible that we will look back and see that August 2009 was this election cycle's height of Republicans' optimism over their political fortunes, and the depth of Democrats' despair.
By the time the midterm elections reach a fever pitch next year, President Obama may well have passed health-care reform, his signature domestic initiative, if not with overwhelming public support then at least with the backing of a solid majority of voters. The now common criticism that he hasn't accomplished anything will have been blunted. And while a high joblessness rate may persist, the narrative will have taken hold that the economy has either recovered or is well on its way.
The scenario above represents Democrats' best-case scenario, and no element of it is assured. But the new Washington Post-ABC News poll makes it appear a bit more likely. The survey found "that support for a government-run health-care plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and wins clear majority support from the public." While ratings for Obama's handling of health care and the overall reform plans remained roughly the same, the president has regained the support of some Independents.
The Fix points out that the poll also contained bad news for Republicans, giving the party low marks for its ability to make good decisions and handing Democrats a 12-point lead on the generic Congressional ballot. (George Stephanopoulos' headline: "New Poll: Public Option Up ... GOP Down.")
Rush Limbaugh and "The Great White Hopes"
Rush Limbaugh has blamed "race hustlers" for wrecking his NFL team ownership bid, claiming he is a casualty of "Obama's America". Rush said that President Obama has created a climate which led NFL owners and the league to nix him as a part-owner of the St. Louis Rams. Rush stated that pressure from the Rev. Al Sharpton and other "race hustlers" was responsible for his being rejected as an NFL team owner.
Limbaugh was part of a group led by Dave Checketts (owner of the St. Louis Blues hockey team) that was bidding to acquire ownership of the St. Louis Rams. However, Checketts dropped Limbaugh as a partner, saying he had become "a complication and a distrraction" after black NFL players cited Limbaugh's racist remarks.
Gee, Rush, I wonder why that happened to you. I guess it's all the fault of professional "race hustlers" like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson -- and "Obama's America".
I'm sure it had nothing at all to do with any of the remarks you have made in your radio broadcasts over the years, such as:
1. ""I mean, why didn't these morons leave New Orleans before the hurricane? I'll tell you why: because they wanted to rape and loot! That's just the way some people are! And if they're black — if the rapists and looters are black — it's not George Bush's fault! We've had these problems ever since the Emancipation Proclamation. Once the whites leave town, all you've got is overwhelming lawlessness. That's not racism, Mr. Snerdley; it's a proven, demonstrable fact."
2. "Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"
3. "The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."
4. "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back (to an African American female caller)."
5. "In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering".
6. "Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."
7. "I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in Donovan McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve."
I'm sure, Rush, it had nothing to do with the fact that, based on these and other comments of yours, African-American NFL players didn't want you in the league. They had no desire to play for a team of which a white racist was part owner. And, perhaps, feeling the way you do, Rush, you would probably not to want to have any African-American players playing on your team.
That's too bad, Rush. You could have fielded a lily-white All-American team for the world. You could have changed the name of the St. Louis Rams to The Great White Hopes. You could have shown us all how well an all-white team, with no black players, can perform in today's NFL. Your revival of white racial pride on the football gridiron would have done the KKK proud.
What a lost opportunity, Rush. Well, that's "Obama's America" for you. Too bad, El Rushbo.
Limbaugh was part of a group led by Dave Checketts (owner of the St. Louis Blues hockey team) that was bidding to acquire ownership of the St. Louis Rams. However, Checketts dropped Limbaugh as a partner, saying he had become "a complication and a distrraction" after black NFL players cited Limbaugh's racist remarks.
Gee, Rush, I wonder why that happened to you. I guess it's all the fault of professional "race hustlers" like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson -- and "Obama's America".
I'm sure it had nothing at all to do with any of the remarks you have made in your radio broadcasts over the years, such as:
1. ""I mean, why didn't these morons leave New Orleans before the hurricane? I'll tell you why: because they wanted to rape and loot! That's just the way some people are! And if they're black — if the rapists and looters are black — it's not George Bush's fault! We've had these problems ever since the Emancipation Proclamation. Once the whites leave town, all you've got is overwhelming lawlessness. That's not racism, Mr. Snerdley; it's a proven, demonstrable fact."
2. "Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"
3. "The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."
4. "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back (to an African American female caller)."
5. "In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering".
6. "Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."
7. "I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in Donovan McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve."
I'm sure, Rush, it had nothing to do with the fact that, based on these and other comments of yours, African-American NFL players didn't want you in the league. They had no desire to play for a team of which a white racist was part owner. And, perhaps, feeling the way you do, Rush, you would probably not to want to have any African-American players playing on your team.
That's too bad, Rush. You could have fielded a lily-white All-American team for the world. You could have changed the name of the St. Louis Rams to The Great White Hopes. You could have shown us all how well an all-white team, with no black players, can perform in today's NFL. Your revival of white racial pride on the football gridiron would have done the KKK proud.
What a lost opportunity, Rush. Well, that's "Obama's America" for you. Too bad, El Rushbo.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Republicans Should Get Fewer Votes Than the Taliban in 2010
Rush Limbaugh says he "agrees with the Taliban". He also says he wants America to fail. If the election were held tomorrow, the Taliban should get more votes than the Republicans because the Taliban have done far less damage to this country than Conservatives have.
The DOW closed above 10,000 today, and Obama's Stimulus Package was the legislation which rescued America's banks and financial institutions from destruction. Only three Senate Republicans voted for this rescue package. Republicans have truly become the "Party of NO!" Let's remember that on Election Day. If Obama's Stimulus Package had failed, so would many of our most important banks and financial institutions, and the DOW today would probably be far below the 6,300 level it was at when Obama took office.
Now Republicans are trying to wreck Obama's Health Reform Plan. Obama's Health Plan would help the economy by significantly reducing health insurance premiums for small businesses. By providing health care coverage for all Americans, Obama's plan would ease the current financial burden on hospital emergency rooms which provide medical services for indigent persons and are either reimbursed through taxpayer dollars or are not reimbursed at all.
As for the two wars which Republicans bequeathed to Obama, Conservatives are now pressing Obama to precipitously rush 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan at a time when most Al Quaida operations have moved to Pakistan and when even the highly respected General McCrystal is talking about the corruption of the Karzai regime which is making it increasingly difficult for us to gain the support of the Afghan people in our effort to win that war.
Obama is now focusing on new programs to create jobs and put millions of unemployed Americans back to work. You can bet the Conservatives will fight him tooth and nail on that one, too. They really do want America to fail.
The DOW closed above 10,000 today, and Obama's Stimulus Package was the legislation which rescued America's banks and financial institutions from destruction. Only three Senate Republicans voted for this rescue package. Republicans have truly become the "Party of NO!" Let's remember that on Election Day. If Obama's Stimulus Package had failed, so would many of our most important banks and financial institutions, and the DOW today would probably be far below the 6,300 level it was at when Obama took office.
Now Republicans are trying to wreck Obama's Health Reform Plan. Obama's Health Plan would help the economy by significantly reducing health insurance premiums for small businesses. By providing health care coverage for all Americans, Obama's plan would ease the current financial burden on hospital emergency rooms which provide medical services for indigent persons and are either reimbursed through taxpayer dollars or are not reimbursed at all.
As for the two wars which Republicans bequeathed to Obama, Conservatives are now pressing Obama to precipitously rush 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan at a time when most Al Quaida operations have moved to Pakistan and when even the highly respected General McCrystal is talking about the corruption of the Karzai regime which is making it increasingly difficult for us to gain the support of the Afghan people in our effort to win that war.
Obama is now focusing on new programs to create jobs and put millions of unemployed Americans back to work. You can bet the Conservatives will fight him tooth and nail on that one, too. They really do want America to fail.
Thank Goodness We Have a Socialist in the White House
The DOW closed above 10,000 today. Thank goodness we have a Socialist in the White House. This "Socialist" is rescuing the American capitalist system which the Right-Wing Conservatives had nearly destroyed.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
FOX News Has Lost Its Mind -- Yet Again
From Media Matters for America -- October 13, 2009
Fox News accuses Obama of delaying troop deployment to win Nobel Peace Price
http://mediamatters.org/items/200910130021
Fox News personalities have reacted to President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize by accusing Obama of -- in the words of Fox News contributor Dick Morris -- "delaying the decision to commit troops to Afghanistan" in order to "win this prize." Responding to initial reports that Obama was awarded the peace prize, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said he was "wondering" whether the Nobel charter "has anything to do with the delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan," adding, "If you add forces to a war, you can't win."
Fox News personalities accuse Obama of withholding troops to secure Nobel Peace Prize
Morris: Obama "delaying the decision to commit troops to Afghanistan ... because he wanted this prize." During an appearance on the October 12 edition of Hannity, Morris stated, "I think the reason that Obama was delaying the decision to commit troops to Afghanistan is because he wanted this prize, and he probably knew he was nominated for it, he knew roughly when the decision is being made, and I don't think he's going to send troops until after that award is safely in his pocket." [Fox News' Hannity, 10/12/09]
Kilmeade: "I'm wondering, does [the Nobel Peace Prize charter] have anything to do with the delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan?" Responding to initial reports that Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Kilmeade stated, "I'm looking at the charter -- and we're just getting this now -- but this guy, Alfred Nobel, stipulated the peace prize should go to the person who will have done the most or the best work of the fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses. I'm wondering, does that have anything to do with the delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, because that was his big postulization over the last week or so. 'Should I put more troops in?' " Kilmeade went on to say, "If you add forces to a war, you can't win." [Fox News' Fox & Friends, 10/9/09]
How dumb are FOX News listeners if they are always being played for fools by this constant barrage of phony FOX News malarkey?
Fox News accuses Obama of delaying troop deployment to win Nobel Peace Price
http://mediamatters.org/items/200910130021
Fox News personalities have reacted to President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize by accusing Obama of -- in the words of Fox News contributor Dick Morris -- "delaying the decision to commit troops to Afghanistan" in order to "win this prize." Responding to initial reports that Obama was awarded the peace prize, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said he was "wondering" whether the Nobel charter "has anything to do with the delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan," adding, "If you add forces to a war, you can't win."
Fox News personalities accuse Obama of withholding troops to secure Nobel Peace Prize
Morris: Obama "delaying the decision to commit troops to Afghanistan ... because he wanted this prize." During an appearance on the October 12 edition of Hannity, Morris stated, "I think the reason that Obama was delaying the decision to commit troops to Afghanistan is because he wanted this prize, and he probably knew he was nominated for it, he knew roughly when the decision is being made, and I don't think he's going to send troops until after that award is safely in his pocket." [Fox News' Hannity, 10/12/09]
Kilmeade: "I'm wondering, does [the Nobel Peace Prize charter] have anything to do with the delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan?" Responding to initial reports that Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Kilmeade stated, "I'm looking at the charter -- and we're just getting this now -- but this guy, Alfred Nobel, stipulated the peace prize should go to the person who will have done the most or the best work of the fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses. I'm wondering, does that have anything to do with the delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, because that was his big postulization over the last week or so. 'Should I put more troops in?' " Kilmeade went on to say, "If you add forces to a war, you can't win." [Fox News' Fox & Friends, 10/9/09]
How dumb are FOX News listeners if they are always being played for fools by this constant barrage of phony FOX News malarkey?
A Common Sense Response to Conservative Right-Wing Media Freaks -- Today's "Hanoi Janes"
From: The Washington Post -- Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Obama's High Bar -- By Eugene Robinson
Somebody explain this to me: The president of the United States wins the Nobel Peace Prize and Rush Limbaugh joins with the Taliban in bitterly denouncing the award? Glenn Beck has a conniption fit and demands that the president not accept what may be the world's most prestigious honor? The Republican National Committee issues a statement sarcastically mocking our nation's leader -- elected, you will recall, by a healthy majority -- as unworthy of such recognition?
Why, oh why, do conservatives hate America so?
Okay, I know, it's just some conservatives who've been exhibiting what they, in a different context, surely would describe as "Hanoi Jane" behavior. Others who haven't taken leave of their political senses -- and are familiar with the concept of manners -- responded to President Obama's unexpected award with equanimity and even grace. Sen. John McCain, for example, offered his good-natured congratulations.
Some of Obama's most strident critics, however, just can't give it a rest. They use words like "farce" and "travesty," as if there were always universal agreement on the worthiness of the Nobel peace laureate. Does anyone remember the controversy over Henry Kissinger or Yasser Arafat or F.W. de Klerk?
The problem for the addlebrained Obama-rejectionists is that the president, as far as they are concerned, couldn't possibly do anything right, and thus is unworthy of any conceivable recognition. If Obama ended world hunger, they'd accuse him of promoting obesity. If he solved global warming, they'd complain it was getting chilly. If he got Mahmoud Abbas and Binyamin Netanyahu to join him around the campfire in a chorus of "Kumbaya," the rejectionists would claim that his singing was out of tune.
Let the rejectionists fulminate and sputter until they wear their vocal cords out. Politically, they're only bashing themselves. As Republican leaders -- except RNC Chairman Michael Steele -- are beginning to realize, "I'm With the Taliban Against America" is not likely to be a winning slogan.
More interesting, but no less goofy, is the recommendation -- by otherwise sane commentators -- that Obama should decline the award. This is ridiculous.
If the award just represented the political views of a handful of left-leaning, self-satisfied Norwegian Eurocrats, as some critics have charged, then it wouldn't matter whether Obama had won it or not. But of course it means much more. The Nobel Peace Prize, irrespective of the idiosyncratic process that selects its winner, is universally recognized as a stamp of the world's approval. For an American president to reject such a token of approval would be absurdly counterproductive.
Obama has shifted U.S. foreign policy away from George W. Bush's cowboy ethos toward a multilateral approach. He envisions, and has begun to implement, a different kind of U.S. leadership that I believe is more likely to succeed in an interconnected, multipolar world. That this shift is being noticed and recognized is to Obama's credit -- and to our country's.
The peace prize comes as Obama is reviewing war strategy in Afghanistan. Some advocates for sending additional troops are complaining -- and some advocates of a pullout are hoping -- that the award may somehow limit the president's options. But the prize is nothing more than an acknowledgement of what Obama has been saying and doing thus far. He hardly needs to be reminded of his philosophy of international relations -- or that he once called Afghanistan a "war of necessity." Threading that needle is not made any easier or harder by the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision.
What I really don't understand is the view that somehow there's a tremendous downside for Obama in the award. It raises expectations, these commentators say -- as if expectations of any American president, and especially this one, were not already sky-high. Obama has taken on the rescue of the U.S. financial system and the long-term restructuring of the economy. He has launched historic initiatives to revolutionize health care, energy policy and the way we educate our children. He said flatly during the campaign that he wants to be remembered as a transformational president.
The only reasonable response is McCain's: Congratulations. Nothing, not even the Nobel Peace Prize, can set the bar any higher for President Obama than he's already set it for himself.
Obama's High Bar -- By Eugene Robinson
Somebody explain this to me: The president of the United States wins the Nobel Peace Prize and Rush Limbaugh joins with the Taliban in bitterly denouncing the award? Glenn Beck has a conniption fit and demands that the president not accept what may be the world's most prestigious honor? The Republican National Committee issues a statement sarcastically mocking our nation's leader -- elected, you will recall, by a healthy majority -- as unworthy of such recognition?
Why, oh why, do conservatives hate America so?
Okay, I know, it's just some conservatives who've been exhibiting what they, in a different context, surely would describe as "Hanoi Jane" behavior. Others who haven't taken leave of their political senses -- and are familiar with the concept of manners -- responded to President Obama's unexpected award with equanimity and even grace. Sen. John McCain, for example, offered his good-natured congratulations.
Some of Obama's most strident critics, however, just can't give it a rest. They use words like "farce" and "travesty," as if there were always universal agreement on the worthiness of the Nobel peace laureate. Does anyone remember the controversy over Henry Kissinger or Yasser Arafat or F.W. de Klerk?
The problem for the addlebrained Obama-rejectionists is that the president, as far as they are concerned, couldn't possibly do anything right, and thus is unworthy of any conceivable recognition. If Obama ended world hunger, they'd accuse him of promoting obesity. If he solved global warming, they'd complain it was getting chilly. If he got Mahmoud Abbas and Binyamin Netanyahu to join him around the campfire in a chorus of "Kumbaya," the rejectionists would claim that his singing was out of tune.
Let the rejectionists fulminate and sputter until they wear their vocal cords out. Politically, they're only bashing themselves. As Republican leaders -- except RNC Chairman Michael Steele -- are beginning to realize, "I'm With the Taliban Against America" is not likely to be a winning slogan.
More interesting, but no less goofy, is the recommendation -- by otherwise sane commentators -- that Obama should decline the award. This is ridiculous.
If the award just represented the political views of a handful of left-leaning, self-satisfied Norwegian Eurocrats, as some critics have charged, then it wouldn't matter whether Obama had won it or not. But of course it means much more. The Nobel Peace Prize, irrespective of the idiosyncratic process that selects its winner, is universally recognized as a stamp of the world's approval. For an American president to reject such a token of approval would be absurdly counterproductive.
Obama has shifted U.S. foreign policy away from George W. Bush's cowboy ethos toward a multilateral approach. He envisions, and has begun to implement, a different kind of U.S. leadership that I believe is more likely to succeed in an interconnected, multipolar world. That this shift is being noticed and recognized is to Obama's credit -- and to our country's.
The peace prize comes as Obama is reviewing war strategy in Afghanistan. Some advocates for sending additional troops are complaining -- and some advocates of a pullout are hoping -- that the award may somehow limit the president's options. But the prize is nothing more than an acknowledgement of what Obama has been saying and doing thus far. He hardly needs to be reminded of his philosophy of international relations -- or that he once called Afghanistan a "war of necessity." Threading that needle is not made any easier or harder by the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision.
What I really don't understand is the view that somehow there's a tremendous downside for Obama in the award. It raises expectations, these commentators say -- as if expectations of any American president, and especially this one, were not already sky-high. Obama has taken on the rescue of the U.S. financial system and the long-term restructuring of the economy. He has launched historic initiatives to revolutionize health care, energy policy and the way we educate our children. He said flatly during the campaign that he wants to be remembered as a transformational president.
The only reasonable response is McCain's: Congratulations. Nothing, not even the Nobel Peace Prize, can set the bar any higher for President Obama than he's already set it for himself.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Wise Words of Wisdom from Michael Moore
From The Huffington Post -- October 10, 2009
By Michael Moore
"Many, for the past couple days (yes, myself included), have grumbled, "What has he done to earn this prize?" How 'bout this:
The simple fact that he was elected was reason enough for him to be the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Because on that day the murderous actions of the Bush/Cheney years were totally and thoroughly rebuked. One man -- a man who opposed the War in Iraq from the beginning -- offered to end the insanity. The world has stood by in utter horror for the past eight years as they watched the descendants of Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson light the fuse of our own self-destruction. We flipped off the nations on this planet by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to melt eight more years worth of the polar ice caps. We invaded two nations that didn't attack us, failed to find the real terrorists and, in effect, ignited our own wave of terror. People all over the world wondered if we had gone mad.
And if all that wasn't enough, the outgoing Joker presided over the worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression.
So, yeah, at precisely 11:00pm ET on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. And the 66 million people who voted for him won it, too. By the time he took the stage at midnight ET in the Grant Park Historic Hippie Battlefield in downtown Chicago, billions of people around the globe were already breathing a huge sigh of relief. It was as if, in that instant, one man did bring the promise of peace to the world -- and most were ready to go wherever he wanted to go to achieve that end. Never before had the election of one man made every other nation feel like they had won, too. When you've got billions of people ready, willing and able to join a cause like this, well, a prize in Oslo is the least that you deserve.
One other thought. The Peace Prize historically has been given to those who have worked to throw off the yoke of racial discrimination and segregation (Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu). I think the Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the prize, was also rewarding the fact that something profound had happened in a nation that was founded on racial genocide, built on racist slavery, and held back for a hundred-plus years by vestiges of hateful bigotry (which can still be found on display at teabagger rallies and daily talk radio).
The fact that this one man could cause this seismic historical event to occur -- and to do so with such grace and humility, never succumbing to the bait, but still not backing down (yes, he asked to be sworn in as "Barack Hussein Obama"!) -- is more than reason enough he should be in Oslo to meet the King on December 10. Maybe he could take us along with him. 'Cause I also suspect the Nobel committee was tipping its hat to all of us -- we, the American people, had conquered some of our racism and did the truly unexpected. After seeing searing images of our black fellow citizens left to drown in New Orleans -- and poor whites seeing their own treated no better than the black man they had been raised to hate -- we had all seen enough. It was time for change.
Thank you, Barack Obama, for giving us the opportunity to redeem ourselves. Now for the tasks ahead. We need you to do all that you promised to do. We need it. The world needs it.
My prediction for the future? You become the first *two-time* winner of the Nobel Peace Prize! Yeah!"
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/get-off-obamas-back-secon_b_316480.html
By Michael Moore
"Many, for the past couple days (yes, myself included), have grumbled, "What has he done to earn this prize?" How 'bout this:
The simple fact that he was elected was reason enough for him to be the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Because on that day the murderous actions of the Bush/Cheney years were totally and thoroughly rebuked. One man -- a man who opposed the War in Iraq from the beginning -- offered to end the insanity. The world has stood by in utter horror for the past eight years as they watched the descendants of Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson light the fuse of our own self-destruction. We flipped off the nations on this planet by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to melt eight more years worth of the polar ice caps. We invaded two nations that didn't attack us, failed to find the real terrorists and, in effect, ignited our own wave of terror. People all over the world wondered if we had gone mad.
And if all that wasn't enough, the outgoing Joker presided over the worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression.
So, yeah, at precisely 11:00pm ET on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. And the 66 million people who voted for him won it, too. By the time he took the stage at midnight ET in the Grant Park Historic Hippie Battlefield in downtown Chicago, billions of people around the globe were already breathing a huge sigh of relief. It was as if, in that instant, one man did bring the promise of peace to the world -- and most were ready to go wherever he wanted to go to achieve that end. Never before had the election of one man made every other nation feel like they had won, too. When you've got billions of people ready, willing and able to join a cause like this, well, a prize in Oslo is the least that you deserve.
One other thought. The Peace Prize historically has been given to those who have worked to throw off the yoke of racial discrimination and segregation (Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu). I think the Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the prize, was also rewarding the fact that something profound had happened in a nation that was founded on racial genocide, built on racist slavery, and held back for a hundred-plus years by vestiges of hateful bigotry (which can still be found on display at teabagger rallies and daily talk radio).
The fact that this one man could cause this seismic historical event to occur -- and to do so with such grace and humility, never succumbing to the bait, but still not backing down (yes, he asked to be sworn in as "Barack Hussein Obama"!) -- is more than reason enough he should be in Oslo to meet the King on December 10. Maybe he could take us along with him. 'Cause I also suspect the Nobel committee was tipping its hat to all of us -- we, the American people, had conquered some of our racism and did the truly unexpected. After seeing searing images of our black fellow citizens left to drown in New Orleans -- and poor whites seeing their own treated no better than the black man they had been raised to hate -- we had all seen enough. It was time for change.
Thank you, Barack Obama, for giving us the opportunity to redeem ourselves. Now for the tasks ahead. We need you to do all that you promised to do. We need it. The world needs it.
My prediction for the future? You become the first *two-time* winner of the Nobel Peace Prize! Yeah!"
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/get-off-obamas-back-secon_b_316480.html
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Peace-Keepers' Prize
Here is a truly great article from The New York Times -- October 10, 2009
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
The Nobel committee did President Obama no favors by prematurely awarding him its peace prize. As he himself acknowledged, he has not done anything yet on the scale that would normally merit such an award — and it dismays me that the most important prize in the world has been devalued in this way.
It is not the president’s fault, though, that the Europeans are so relieved at his style of leadership, in contrast to that of his predecessor, that they want to do all they can to validate and encourage it. I thought the president showed great grace in accepting the prize not for himself but “as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.”
All that said, I hope Mr. Obama will take this instinct a step further when he travels to Oslo on Dec. 10 for the peace prize ceremony. Here is the speech I hope he will give:
“Let me begin by thanking the Nobel committee for awarding me this prize, the highest award to which any statesman can aspire. As I said on the day it was announced, ‘I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.’ Therefore, upon reflection, I cannot accept this award on my behalf at all.
“But I will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century — the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
“I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, to liberate Europe from the grip of Nazi fascism. I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers and sailors who fought on the high seas and forlorn islands in the Pacific to free East Asia from Japanese tyranny in the Second World War.
“I will accept this award on behalf of the American airmen who in June 1948 broke the Soviet blockade of Berlin with an airlift of food and fuel so that West Berliners could continue to live free. I will accept this award on behalf of the tens of thousands of American soldiers who protected Europe from Communist dictatorship throughout the 50 years of the cold war.
“I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who stand guard today at outposts in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan to give that country, and particularly its women and girls, a chance to live a decent life free from the Taliban’s religious totalitarianism.
“I will accept this award on behalf of the American men and women who are still on patrol today in Iraq, helping to protect Baghdad’s fledgling government as it tries to organize the rarest of things in that country and that region — another free and fair election.
“I will accept this award on behalf of the thousands of American soldiers who today help protect a free and Democratic South Korea from an unfree and Communist North Korea.
“I will accept this award on behalf of all the American men and women soldiers who have gone on repeated humanitarian rescue missions after earthquakes and floods from the mountains of Pakistan to the coasts of Indonesia. I will accept this award on behalf of American soldiers who serve in the peacekeeping force in the Sinai desert that has kept relations between Egypt and Israel stable ever since the Camp David treaty was signed.
“I will accept this award on behalf of all the American airmen and sailors today who keep the sea lanes open and free in the Pacific and Atlantic so world trade can flow unhindered between nations.
“Finally, I will accept this award on behalf of my grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who arrived at Normandy six weeks after D-Day, and on behalf of my great-uncle, Charlie Payne, who was among those soldiers who liberated part of the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald.
“Members of the Nobel committee, I accept this award on behalf of all these American men and women soldiers, past and present, because I know — and I want you to know — that there is no peace without peacekeepers.
“Until the words of Isaiah are made true and lasting — and nations never again lift up swords against nations and never learn war anymore — we will need peacekeepers. Lord knows, ours are not perfect, and I have already moved to remedy inexcusable excesses we’ve perpetrated in the war on terrorism.
“But have no doubt, those are the exception. If you want to see the true essence of America, visit any U.S. military outpost in Iraq or Afghanistan. You will meet young men and women of every race and religion who work together as one, far from their families, motivated chiefly by their mission to keep the peace and expand the borders of freedom.
“So for all these reasons — and so you understand that I will never hesitate to call on American soldiers where necessary to take the field against the enemies of peace, tolerance and liberty — I accept this peace prize on behalf of the men and women of the U.S. military: the world’s most important peacekeepers.”
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
The Nobel committee did President Obama no favors by prematurely awarding him its peace prize. As he himself acknowledged, he has not done anything yet on the scale that would normally merit such an award — and it dismays me that the most important prize in the world has been devalued in this way.
It is not the president’s fault, though, that the Europeans are so relieved at his style of leadership, in contrast to that of his predecessor, that they want to do all they can to validate and encourage it. I thought the president showed great grace in accepting the prize not for himself but “as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.”
All that said, I hope Mr. Obama will take this instinct a step further when he travels to Oslo on Dec. 10 for the peace prize ceremony. Here is the speech I hope he will give:
“Let me begin by thanking the Nobel committee for awarding me this prize, the highest award to which any statesman can aspire. As I said on the day it was announced, ‘I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.’ Therefore, upon reflection, I cannot accept this award on my behalf at all.
“But I will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century — the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
“I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, to liberate Europe from the grip of Nazi fascism. I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers and sailors who fought on the high seas and forlorn islands in the Pacific to free East Asia from Japanese tyranny in the Second World War.
“I will accept this award on behalf of the American airmen who in June 1948 broke the Soviet blockade of Berlin with an airlift of food and fuel so that West Berliners could continue to live free. I will accept this award on behalf of the tens of thousands of American soldiers who protected Europe from Communist dictatorship throughout the 50 years of the cold war.
“I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who stand guard today at outposts in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan to give that country, and particularly its women and girls, a chance to live a decent life free from the Taliban’s religious totalitarianism.
“I will accept this award on behalf of the American men and women who are still on patrol today in Iraq, helping to protect Baghdad’s fledgling government as it tries to organize the rarest of things in that country and that region — another free and fair election.
“I will accept this award on behalf of the thousands of American soldiers who today help protect a free and Democratic South Korea from an unfree and Communist North Korea.
“I will accept this award on behalf of all the American men and women soldiers who have gone on repeated humanitarian rescue missions after earthquakes and floods from the mountains of Pakistan to the coasts of Indonesia. I will accept this award on behalf of American soldiers who serve in the peacekeeping force in the Sinai desert that has kept relations between Egypt and Israel stable ever since the Camp David treaty was signed.
“I will accept this award on behalf of all the American airmen and sailors today who keep the sea lanes open and free in the Pacific and Atlantic so world trade can flow unhindered between nations.
“Finally, I will accept this award on behalf of my grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who arrived at Normandy six weeks after D-Day, and on behalf of my great-uncle, Charlie Payne, who was among those soldiers who liberated part of the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald.
“Members of the Nobel committee, I accept this award on behalf of all these American men and women soldiers, past and present, because I know — and I want you to know — that there is no peace without peacekeepers.
“Until the words of Isaiah are made true and lasting — and nations never again lift up swords against nations and never learn war anymore — we will need peacekeepers. Lord knows, ours are not perfect, and I have already moved to remedy inexcusable excesses we’ve perpetrated in the war on terrorism.
“But have no doubt, those are the exception. If you want to see the true essence of America, visit any U.S. military outpost in Iraq or Afghanistan. You will meet young men and women of every race and religion who work together as one, far from their families, motivated chiefly by their mission to keep the peace and expand the borders of freedom.
“So for all these reasons — and so you understand that I will never hesitate to call on American soldiers where necessary to take the field against the enemies of peace, tolerance and liberty — I accept this peace prize on behalf of the men and women of the U.S. military: the world’s most important peacekeepers.”
Why Obama Should Not Have Received the Peace Prize -- Yet
Unlike the idiotic ravings and rantings of the brain-dead Conservative Right-Wing Media Noise Machine, here is a comment by Robert Reich in today's Salon regarding Obama's Nobel Peace Prize that does make sense.
From Salon -- October 11, 2009:
Why Obama Shouldn't Have Received the Peace Prize -- Yet
The president may be an inspirational figure, and he's not George Bush, but that's not enough. He needs to deliver
By Robert Reich
Oct. 10, 2009 | President Obama's only real diplomatic accomplishment so far has been to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy from unilateral bullying to multilateral listening and cooperating. That's important, to be sure, but not nearly enough. The Prize is really more of a Booby Prize for Obama's predecessor. Had the world not suffered eight years of George W. Bush, Obama would not be receiving the Prize. He's prizeworthy and praiseworthy only by comparison.
I'd rather Obama had won it after Congress agreed to substantial cuts in greenhouse gases comparable to what Europe is proposing, after he brought Palestinians and Israelis together to accept a two-state solution, after he got the United States out of Afghanistan and reduced the nuclear arms threat between Pakistan and India, or after he was well on the way to eliminating the world's stockpile of nuclear weapons. Any one of these would have been worthy of global praise. Perhaps the Nobel committee can give him half the prize now and withhold the other half until he accomplishes one or more of these crucial missions.
Giving the Peace Prize to the President before any of these goals has been attained only underscores the paradox of Obama at this early stage of his presidency. He has demonstrated mastery in both delivering powerful rhetoric and providing the nation and the world with fresh and important ways of understanding current challenges. But he has not yet delivered. To the contrary, he often seems to hold back from the fight -- temporizing, delaying, or compromising so much that the rhetoric and insight he offers seem strangely disconnected from what he actually does. Yet there's time. He may yet prove to be one of the best presidents this nation has ever had -- worthy not only of the Peace Prize but of every global accolade he could possibly summon. Just not yet.
From Salon -- October 11, 2009:
Why Obama Shouldn't Have Received the Peace Prize -- Yet
The president may be an inspirational figure, and he's not George Bush, but that's not enough. He needs to deliver
By Robert Reich
Oct. 10, 2009 | President Obama's only real diplomatic accomplishment so far has been to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy from unilateral bullying to multilateral listening and cooperating. That's important, to be sure, but not nearly enough. The Prize is really more of a Booby Prize for Obama's predecessor. Had the world not suffered eight years of George W. Bush, Obama would not be receiving the Prize. He's prizeworthy and praiseworthy only by comparison.
I'd rather Obama had won it after Congress agreed to substantial cuts in greenhouse gases comparable to what Europe is proposing, after he brought Palestinians and Israelis together to accept a two-state solution, after he got the United States out of Afghanistan and reduced the nuclear arms threat between Pakistan and India, or after he was well on the way to eliminating the world's stockpile of nuclear weapons. Any one of these would have been worthy of global praise. Perhaps the Nobel committee can give him half the prize now and withhold the other half until he accomplishes one or more of these crucial missions.
Giving the Peace Prize to the President before any of these goals has been attained only underscores the paradox of Obama at this early stage of his presidency. He has demonstrated mastery in both delivering powerful rhetoric and providing the nation and the world with fresh and important ways of understanding current challenges. But he has not yet delivered. To the contrary, he often seems to hold back from the fight -- temporizing, delaying, or compromising so much that the rhetoric and insight he offers seem strangely disconnected from what he actually does. Yet there's time. He may yet prove to be one of the best presidents this nation has ever had -- worthy not only of the Peace Prize but of every global accolade he could possibly summon. Just not yet.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Why Hasn't Obama Rushed 40,000 More American Troops Into Afghanistan?
Some Conservatives have wondered why President Obama has not rushed 40,000 more American troops into Afghanistan, immediately, in line with General McChrystal's request. To these Conservatives, it's a simple question of Yes or No -- follow the field commander's recommendations or don't. Like everything else, these Conservatives continue to see the entire world in simple colors of black or white.
Perhaps the following article from today's Politico might give even these "Blinder-Wearers" some idea of the complexities involved. I think everyone else will surely begin to understand the strategic problems Obama is dealing with.
From Politico -- October 10, 2009:
VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN IS ON THE COVER OF THE NEWSWEEK CLOSING TONIGHT -- 'AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH TELLER':
From health-care reform to Afghanistan, Joe Biden has bucked Obama--as only a good veep can,' by Holly Bailey and Evan Thomas: 'Joe Biden had a question. During a long Sunday meeting with President Obama and top national-security advisers on Sept. 13, the VP interjected, 'Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?' Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. 'And how much will we spend on Pakistan?' Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. 'Well, by my calculations that's a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question.
Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?' The White House Situation Room fell silent. But the questions had their desired effect: those gathered began rethinking their assumptions and began putting more thought into Pakistan as the key theater in the region.
'Some administration officials, led by Biden, appear to hope that American forces can rely more on counterterrorism operations--attacks by Predator drones and small elite units on terrorist hiding places--to hold Afghanistan together and defeat Al Qaeda. But critics call this 'splitting the baby' and say it'll never work. As a senior civilian Pentagon official points out, 'No one has more experience with counterterrorism than McChrystal,' who ran black ops in Iraq and Afghanistan for five years. 'If there was an easier, better way, he'd be pushing for it,' says this official, who would not be quoted discussing internal deliberations.
Opinions within the intelligence community are split, according to current and former operatives. Some back McChrystal's view that the only way to obtain the intelligence necessary to conduct counterterror operations is by a counterinsurgency campaign that protects civilians. Yet a significant minority of intelligence officials, at the CIA and elsewhere, doubt that more troops will make much difference; some think the additional forces could be counterproductive.
'Senior military officials backing McChrystal have not given up hope that Obama will fully support the general, not Biden, and order tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan. It is impossible to know with certainty where Obama will come out on this; the strategy meetings will go on until at least next week. But the president will have confidence that, whatever he decides, he will have challenged all assumptions and thrashed out all views. He can also be confident that he won't be second-guessed by his vice president. Biden is determined to be a 'team player,' says a close friend who asked for anonymity while commenting on Biden's motivations. 'He wants to help the president. Joe is someone who is probably not going to run again. This is the apex of his career, and there is no separate agenda."
Now, we are beginning to see why Obama is taking his time so that he can "get it right".
Perhaps the following article from today's Politico might give even these "Blinder-Wearers" some idea of the complexities involved. I think everyone else will surely begin to understand the strategic problems Obama is dealing with.
From Politico -- October 10, 2009:
VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN IS ON THE COVER OF THE NEWSWEEK CLOSING TONIGHT -- 'AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH TELLER':
From health-care reform to Afghanistan, Joe Biden has bucked Obama--as only a good veep can,' by Holly Bailey and Evan Thomas: 'Joe Biden had a question. During a long Sunday meeting with President Obama and top national-security advisers on Sept. 13, the VP interjected, 'Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?' Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. 'And how much will we spend on Pakistan?' Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. 'Well, by my calculations that's a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question.
Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?' The White House Situation Room fell silent. But the questions had their desired effect: those gathered began rethinking their assumptions and began putting more thought into Pakistan as the key theater in the region.
'Some administration officials, led by Biden, appear to hope that American forces can rely more on counterterrorism operations--attacks by Predator drones and small elite units on terrorist hiding places--to hold Afghanistan together and defeat Al Qaeda. But critics call this 'splitting the baby' and say it'll never work. As a senior civilian Pentagon official points out, 'No one has more experience with counterterrorism than McChrystal,' who ran black ops in Iraq and Afghanistan for five years. 'If there was an easier, better way, he'd be pushing for it,' says this official, who would not be quoted discussing internal deliberations.
Opinions within the intelligence community are split, according to current and former operatives. Some back McChrystal's view that the only way to obtain the intelligence necessary to conduct counterterror operations is by a counterinsurgency campaign that protects civilians. Yet a significant minority of intelligence officials, at the CIA and elsewhere, doubt that more troops will make much difference; some think the additional forces could be counterproductive.
'Senior military officials backing McChrystal have not given up hope that Obama will fully support the general, not Biden, and order tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan. It is impossible to know with certainty where Obama will come out on this; the strategy meetings will go on until at least next week. But the president will have confidence that, whatever he decides, he will have challenged all assumptions and thrashed out all views. He can also be confident that he won't be second-guessed by his vice president. Biden is determined to be a 'team player,' says a close friend who asked for anonymity while commenting on Biden's motivations. 'He wants to help the president. Joe is someone who is probably not going to run again. This is the apex of his career, and there is no separate agenda."
Now, we are beginning to see why Obama is taking his time so that he can "get it right".
The American Taliban
Of course, Conservative Right-Wing Media agrees with the Taliban. They are the American Taliban.
Another Comment on the Nobel Peace Prize Worth Noting
"Certainly from our standpoint, this gives us a sense of momentum -- when the United States has accolades tossed its way, rather than shoes," said State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley, referring to the December incident in which an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during his final visit to Baghdad.
Three Nobel Prize Comments Worth Hearing
After being deluged yesterday with Conservatives' latest anti-American barrage in response to President Obama's being awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize, here are three comments which all Americans should be hearing.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated: "Finally, it sets the seal on America's return to the heart of all the world's peoples."
The Nobel Prize Committee said: "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."
Fredrik S. Heffermehl, the Norwegian author of "Nobel's Will," said Obama's selection and the language the committee used in announcing it -- focusing on the importance of international cooperation and nuclear disarmament -- amounted to a "tremendous victory" in interpreting the original wishes of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite who endowed the Peace Prize through his will.
After delivering a six-minute speech in the Rose Garden yesterday, in response to receiving the Award, President Obama turned away from the microphone and headed back to work -- back to two wars, a ruptured health-care system, a broken economy.
Thank you, Dubya Bush and the Conservatives for leaving this splendid legacy behind you for America's future.
the Nobel Peace Prize, here are three comments which all Americans should be hearing.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated: "Finally, it sets the seal on America's return to the heart of all the world's peoples."
The Nobel Prize Committee said: "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."
Fredrik S. Heffermehl, the Norwegian author of "Nobel's Will," said Obama's selection and the language the committee used in announcing it -- focusing on the importance of international cooperation and nuclear disarmament -- amounted to a "tremendous victory" in interpreting the original wishes of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite who endowed the Peace Prize through his will.
After delivering a six-minute speech in the Rose Garden yesterday, in response to receiving the Award, President Obama turned away from the microphone and headed back to work -- back to two wars, a ruptured health-care system, a broken economy.
Thank you, Dubya Bush and the Conservatives for leaving this splendid legacy behind you for America's future.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Sean Beck or Glenn Hannity?
Which one is the bigger lying smear artist -- Sean Beck or Glenn Hannity ---- or are they interchangeable?
Conservatives Agree With the Taliban
A Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan has condemned President Barack Obama's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, saying the American president had only escalated the war by sending more troops.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi accused Obama "of having the blood of the Afghan people on his hands."
Rush Limbaugh agrees with the Taliban, and Rush brags about it.
"I think that everybody is laughing," Limbaugh said, in a segment picked up by Media Matters. "Our president is a worldwide joke. Folks, do you realize something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn't deserve the award. Now that's hilarious, that I'm on the same side of something that the Taliban, and that we all are on the same side as the Taliban."
I've been saying for months that these Conservatives are on the same side as the Taliban -- doing their best to destroy the USA. It's nice to see Conservatives admitting where they stand publicly, and even reveling in that fact.
It's about time that Americans began listening to people who are on the same side as America -- and not to the Conservative media allies and soul brothers of the Taliban.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi accused Obama "of having the blood of the Afghan people on his hands."
Rush Limbaugh agrees with the Taliban, and Rush brags about it.
"I think that everybody is laughing," Limbaugh said, in a segment picked up by Media Matters. "Our president is a worldwide joke. Folks, do you realize something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn't deserve the award. Now that's hilarious, that I'm on the same side of something that the Taliban, and that we all are on the same side as the Taliban."
I've been saying for months that these Conservatives are on the same side as the Taliban -- doing their best to destroy the USA. It's nice to see Conservatives admitting where they stand publicly, and even reveling in that fact.
It's about time that Americans began listening to people who are on the same side as America -- and not to the Conservative media allies and soul brothers of the Taliban.
Conservative Media Quislings Slam America Again
When Obama failed to get the Olympics for Chicago, they attacked him. Now that Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, they attack him again. Win or lose, Obama gets attacked.
How much longer will the American people continue to put up with these mindless Right-Wing media attack dogs who paralyzed the Clinton administration and are doing their best today to destroy the Obama administration?
The Right-Wing Media Noise Machine wants America to fail, and they spend every single day trying to bring about that failure.
From Media Matters for America -- October 9, 2009
Still rooting against America: Right-wing media use Nobel Prize announcement as excuse to attack Obama
http://mediamatters.org/items/200910090025
Numerous conservative media figures have seized on the Nobel Committee's decision to award President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize as an excuse to attack Obama or his policies. Media conservatives previously rooted against Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games, similarly using the bid as an excuse to attack Obama, and celebrated when the games were awarded to Rio de Janeiro.
Any excuse: Conservative media attack Obama for being given Nobel Prize
Limbaugh: Nobel Committee awarded Obama to promote concept of "weakened, neutered U.S." The Politico reported that, in an email, Rush Limbaugh said the award was a "greater embarrassment" than Chicago's failed Olympic bid. Limbaugh reportedly added, "They love a weakened, neutered U.S, and this is their way of promoting that concept. I think God has a great sense of humor, too." [Politico, 10/9/09]
Malkin: "The World Apology Tour yields dividends." Michelle Malkin wrote on her blog, "From community organizer to Illinois state senator (present!) to U.S. Senator for 143 days before moving into the White House...and now, the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize -- not for anything he's actually done, but for the symbolism of what he might possibly accomplish sometime way off in the future." She added, "The World Apology Tour yields dividends." [MichelleMalkin.com, 10/9/09]
Gateway Pundit: Obama awarded prize after he "bankrupted the US economy and destroyed the morale of our military." Gateway Pundit asserted that Obama "turned his back on the Iranian freedom protesters ... He's allowed the Taliban killers back into the government ... He's sided with Marxists Castro, Chavez, Morales and Ortega ... Obama's bankrupted the US economy and destroyed the morale of our military. No wonder he was awarded the Nobel." [Gateway Pundit, 10/9/09]
RedState's Erickson: "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota." Erick Erickson wrote, "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news. There is no way Barack Obama earned it in the nominations period." [RedState, 10/9/09]
Mike Gallagher: "I guess his worldwide apology tour has worked." Appearing on Fox & Friends, radio host Mike Gallagher stated, "The man hasn't completed a full year yet. Even Saturday Night Live is spoofing how little this man has accomplished. ... I mean, it must be good to be the king. I guess his worldwide apology tour has worked. Now the world community has said, 'OK, well we'll award you with something.' This is nonsensical, and it's great political fodder for the loyal opposition to say, once again, this Oprah president gets a nondeserved award for doing little or next to nothing." [Fox News' Fox & Friends, 10/9/09]
Kilmeade wonders if this "[has] anything to do with delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops." Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade stated: "I'm looking at the charter, and we're just getting this now, but this guy Alfred Nobel stipulated the Peace Prize should go to the person who will have done the most or the best work of the fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses. I'm wondering, does that have anything to do with the delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, because that was his big postulization [sic] over the last week or so. Should I put more troops in?" [Fox & Friends, 10/9/09]
NRO's Levin: Prize will awaken public's "intolerance for pompous arrogance." Yuval Levin wrote on National Review Online's The Corner blog that the prize "risk[s] awakening with a vengeance the notorious good sense of the American public, and its democratic intolerance for pompous arrogance and nonsense." Stating that the award "challenges Obama and his circle to assure the country that they are not delusional," Levin asserted that "Obama himself and his circle" were among those that believed in his "cult of personality" and that "the world would change its attitude about America simply because he was there." [National Review Online, 10/9/09]
Hot Air's Morrissey: "Perhaps they should change the award's name to the Neville rather than the Nobel." Ed Morrissey wrote, "What diplomatic efforts 'so far'? He gave a speech in Cairo and ... and ... and ... gave a few in Europe, too." He added, "Obama did make a big show of appeasing Iran during its election crisis. Perhaps they should change the award's name to the Neville rather than the Nobel." [Hot Air, 10/9/09]
Conservative media previously rooted against Chicago's Olympic bid
Brzezinski notes similarity between conservatives attacking Obama over Olympics and criticizing Nobel Peace Prize. On MSNBC's Morning Joe, after Joe Scarborough stated that "Marisa Tomei did more to win the Academy Award in My Cousin Vinny ... than Barack Obama has done to win a Nobel Peace Prize," Mika Brzezinski stated, "This is hypocritical to criticize the people who said 'ha, ha, ha' about Chicago, and now you're saying it's not right that the president won the Nobel Peace Prize." Scarborough previously wrote of opposition to Chicago's bid that "the fact many right-wing figures opposed the President's mission shows just how narrow-minded partisanship makes us all."
Fox News attack machine smeared Chicago as a violent city unsuitable for Olympics. Prior to the IOC's decision, conservative media -- led by Fox News -- attacked Obama's support of Chicago's Olympic bid: smearing the city as unfit to host the Olympics, often by citing individual instances of violence. For example, Sean Hannity, after citing a recent murder and an assault, asked whether Chicago is "a city where we want the Olympics," and Glenn Beck said, "Chicago is good at ... organized Mafi -- oops, did I say that out loud?"
Beck led conservative media in raising specter of Chicago cronyism to attack Obama's bid for Olympics. Conservative media suggested or claimed that Obama was advocating for Chicago to host the Olympics in order to return political favors to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley or forward the financial interests of other "Chicago pals." For instance, Beck advanced baseless speculation that Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett "may personally benefit" from the Olympics, and Malkin wrote that Daley "cronies" in Obama's circle are "returning the favor for their hometown boss" by pushing for the Chicago Olympics.
Fox News used Olympic bid to attack Obama. Fox News hosts, contributors, and guests used Obama's promotion of Chicago's Olympic bid as an excuse to attack him. Attacks on Obama's efforts included Hannity saying that "it sounds" like Obama "is more concerned about bringing the Olympics to Chicago than winning the war in Afghanistan"; Brent Bozell claiming Obama's trip to Copenhagen to promote the Chicago bid "is evidence that this man just cannot stay away from the klieg lights"; and Bret Baier invoking the "carbon footprint" of Obama's trip to Copenhagen to smear the president.
Conservative media celebrated Chicago's elimination, bashed Obama. Numerous media conservatives celebrated the IOC's decision to award the 2016 Olympics to Rio de Janeiro rather than Chicago. For instance, Beck crowed that the IOC's decision was "so sweet," and Limbaugh stated, "I don't deny it. I'm happy," while Bill Kristol stated that "you couldn't help but be amused by it."
How much longer will the American people continue to put up with these mindless Right-Wing media attack dogs who paralyzed the Clinton administration and are doing their best today to destroy the Obama administration?
The Right-Wing Media Noise Machine wants America to fail, and they spend every single day trying to bring about that failure.
From Media Matters for America -- October 9, 2009
Still rooting against America: Right-wing media use Nobel Prize announcement as excuse to attack Obama
http://mediamatters.org/items/200910090025
Numerous conservative media figures have seized on the Nobel Committee's decision to award President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize as an excuse to attack Obama or his policies. Media conservatives previously rooted against Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games, similarly using the bid as an excuse to attack Obama, and celebrated when the games were awarded to Rio de Janeiro.
Any excuse: Conservative media attack Obama for being given Nobel Prize
Limbaugh: Nobel Committee awarded Obama to promote concept of "weakened, neutered U.S." The Politico reported that, in an email, Rush Limbaugh said the award was a "greater embarrassment" than Chicago's failed Olympic bid. Limbaugh reportedly added, "They love a weakened, neutered U.S, and this is their way of promoting that concept. I think God has a great sense of humor, too." [Politico, 10/9/09]
Malkin: "The World Apology Tour yields dividends." Michelle Malkin wrote on her blog, "From community organizer to Illinois state senator (present!) to U.S. Senator for 143 days before moving into the White House...and now, the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize -- not for anything he's actually done, but for the symbolism of what he might possibly accomplish sometime way off in the future." She added, "The World Apology Tour yields dividends." [MichelleMalkin.com, 10/9/09]
Gateway Pundit: Obama awarded prize after he "bankrupted the US economy and destroyed the morale of our military." Gateway Pundit asserted that Obama "turned his back on the Iranian freedom protesters ... He's allowed the Taliban killers back into the government ... He's sided with Marxists Castro, Chavez, Morales and Ortega ... Obama's bankrupted the US economy and destroyed the morale of our military. No wonder he was awarded the Nobel." [Gateway Pundit, 10/9/09]
RedState's Erickson: "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota." Erick Erickson wrote, "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news. There is no way Barack Obama earned it in the nominations period." [RedState, 10/9/09]
Mike Gallagher: "I guess his worldwide apology tour has worked." Appearing on Fox & Friends, radio host Mike Gallagher stated, "The man hasn't completed a full year yet. Even Saturday Night Live is spoofing how little this man has accomplished. ... I mean, it must be good to be the king. I guess his worldwide apology tour has worked. Now the world community has said, 'OK, well we'll award you with something.' This is nonsensical, and it's great political fodder for the loyal opposition to say, once again, this Oprah president gets a nondeserved award for doing little or next to nothing." [Fox News' Fox & Friends, 10/9/09]
Kilmeade wonders if this "[has] anything to do with delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops." Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade stated: "I'm looking at the charter, and we're just getting this now, but this guy Alfred Nobel stipulated the Peace Prize should go to the person who will have done the most or the best work of the fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses. I'm wondering, does that have anything to do with the delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, because that was his big postulization [sic] over the last week or so. Should I put more troops in?" [Fox & Friends, 10/9/09]
NRO's Levin: Prize will awaken public's "intolerance for pompous arrogance." Yuval Levin wrote on National Review Online's The Corner blog that the prize "risk[s] awakening with a vengeance the notorious good sense of the American public, and its democratic intolerance for pompous arrogance and nonsense." Stating that the award "challenges Obama and his circle to assure the country that they are not delusional," Levin asserted that "Obama himself and his circle" were among those that believed in his "cult of personality" and that "the world would change its attitude about America simply because he was there." [National Review Online, 10/9/09]
Hot Air's Morrissey: "Perhaps they should change the award's name to the Neville rather than the Nobel." Ed Morrissey wrote, "What diplomatic efforts 'so far'? He gave a speech in Cairo and ... and ... and ... gave a few in Europe, too." He added, "Obama did make a big show of appeasing Iran during its election crisis. Perhaps they should change the award's name to the Neville rather than the Nobel." [Hot Air, 10/9/09]
Conservative media previously rooted against Chicago's Olympic bid
Brzezinski notes similarity between conservatives attacking Obama over Olympics and criticizing Nobel Peace Prize. On MSNBC's Morning Joe, after Joe Scarborough stated that "Marisa Tomei did more to win the Academy Award in My Cousin Vinny ... than Barack Obama has done to win a Nobel Peace Prize," Mika Brzezinski stated, "This is hypocritical to criticize the people who said 'ha, ha, ha' about Chicago, and now you're saying it's not right that the president won the Nobel Peace Prize." Scarborough previously wrote of opposition to Chicago's bid that "the fact many right-wing figures opposed the President's mission shows just how narrow-minded partisanship makes us all."
Fox News attack machine smeared Chicago as a violent city unsuitable for Olympics. Prior to the IOC's decision, conservative media -- led by Fox News -- attacked Obama's support of Chicago's Olympic bid: smearing the city as unfit to host the Olympics, often by citing individual instances of violence. For example, Sean Hannity, after citing a recent murder and an assault, asked whether Chicago is "a city where we want the Olympics," and Glenn Beck said, "Chicago is good at ... organized Mafi -- oops, did I say that out loud?"
Beck led conservative media in raising specter of Chicago cronyism to attack Obama's bid for Olympics. Conservative media suggested or claimed that Obama was advocating for Chicago to host the Olympics in order to return political favors to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley or forward the financial interests of other "Chicago pals." For instance, Beck advanced baseless speculation that Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett "may personally benefit" from the Olympics, and Malkin wrote that Daley "cronies" in Obama's circle are "returning the favor for their hometown boss" by pushing for the Chicago Olympics.
Fox News used Olympic bid to attack Obama. Fox News hosts, contributors, and guests used Obama's promotion of Chicago's Olympic bid as an excuse to attack him. Attacks on Obama's efforts included Hannity saying that "it sounds" like Obama "is more concerned about bringing the Olympics to Chicago than winning the war in Afghanistan"; Brent Bozell claiming Obama's trip to Copenhagen to promote the Chicago bid "is evidence that this man just cannot stay away from the klieg lights"; and Bret Baier invoking the "carbon footprint" of Obama's trip to Copenhagen to smear the president.
Conservative media celebrated Chicago's elimination, bashed Obama. Numerous media conservatives celebrated the IOC's decision to award the 2016 Olympics to Rio de Janeiro rather than Chicago. For instance, Beck crowed that the IOC's decision was "so sweet," and Limbaugh stated, "I don't deny it. I'm happy," while Bill Kristol stated that "you couldn't help but be amused by it."
The Right-Wing Media Slime Machine Which Smeared the Clintons Is Back in Full Force
From: Salon The Web October 9, 2009
Time for the Media to Fess Up
Journalists like Evan Thomas now admit the Clinton scandals were bogus. When will they admit they played along?
By Joe Conason
"Better late than never" isn't always true, but public candor from people and institutions that have misled us for many years can be refreshing -- and sometimes even liberating.
Prodded by recent events -- including publication of "The Clinton Tapes," historian Taylor Branch's fascinating account of his contemporaneous private conversations with President Bill Clinton; the unwholesome reappearance of healthcare reform nemesis Betsy McCaughey; and perhaps even the death of retired New York Times Op-Ed columnist William Safire -- certain media myth-makers of the Clinton era have suddenly uttered startling acknowledgments and even a grudging confession or two.
At this late date, it is scarcely radical to suggest that Whitewater and all the other "scandals" deployed by the Washington press corps to besiege the Clinton White House (before the Lewinsky affair) were without substance. In the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, which created and promoted those stories, even such media mandarins as Thomas Friedman and Evan Thomas now casually assure us that they were overblown, even "bogus." And former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan today admits that the famous takedown of the Clinton healthcare reforms he published in 1994, Betsy McCaughey's "No Exit," was essentially a fake too.
Belated as those affirmations are, by more than a decade, they may still matter -- if only because they arrive at a time when the mainstream media is just beginning to descend into some of the same bad habits that plagued us during the last Democratic presidency and the far right is already talking impeachment.
Let us start with Friedman, who wrote a column on Sept. 30 bemoaning the diseased condition of political discourse in America and tracing the dangerous pathology back to its origin. "The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater 'scandal,'" he wrote. Presumably he used those scare quotes to suggest just how fraudulent the whole business was, as if "bogus" didn't quite do it -- and true enough, as far as it goes.
But it doesn't go far enough, because as Friedman knows very well, the right was not alone in hounding the Clintons -- and wouldn't have achieved traction without the journalistic assistance and moral support provided by the Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, the New Republic and the rest of Washington's press establishment, followed slavishly by their intellectual imitators on network and cable television.
Back then Friedman's own Times Op-Ed column rarely mentioned Whitewater or the Clinton scandals, but he remained agreeably silent while the most avid perpetrators of scandal nonsense, such as the late Safire and Maureen Dowd, transformed the paper of record into a megaphone for the president's adversaries. Unlike Anthony Lewis, who bravely argued with the harshly negative Times party line on Clinton and the scandals, the Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent never wrote a word that could be construed as dissent. (Bob Somerby performed the Nexis search and offers much more on this subject in his trenchant Daily Howler commentaries.) Coming from him, "bogus" should be taken as a verdict not only on the scandals but on the scandal-mongering in the news, opinion and editorial columns of his newspaper -- and on his own failure to speak up when that might have made a difference.
Still, it is bracing to see that pithy epithet applied to the works of Kenneth Starr and the journalists who served as his lackeys in the Times' own pages. By comparison, Evan Thomas sounded squishy in his own recent belittling of the scandals, when he reviewed "The Clinton Tapes" for the Washington Post -- but then he has considerably more to answer for than Friedman.
Although he was trying no doubt to sound magisterial rather than mealy-mouthed, Thomas was unable to discuss past disgraces in any but the most indirect and evasive terms. Consider this passage, which follows a flip reference to Clinton's moaning and ranting in self-pity as he coped with the hostile press corps:
"Today, when the mainstream media seems so weakened, we forget how powerful -- and arrogant -- the New York Times and The Washington Post, along with the networks and news magazines, seemed to be in the early and mid-1990s. They were part of a giant scandal machine that dominated official Washington in the first few years after the Cold War. The endless string of special prosecutors and the media's obsession with Whitewater seem excessive in retrospect."
To some of us the obsession seemed excessive at the time, of course, which only enraged the likes of Thomas whenever we said so. (And isn't an obsession excessive by definition?) The true obsession among reporters was not the boring Whitewater land deal, as Thomas notes, but the "rumors of 'bimbo eruptions' floated by political enemies and less-than-reliable state troopers." Is he confessing his own fixation on Clinton's private life or merely recalling the unwholesome preoccupations of his colleagues?
Kenneth Starr had nothing, but he punked the Newsweek boys
Like all of them, Thomas certainly pretended to care about Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate and all those other forgettable tall tales. What is remarkable now, however, is how smoothly he attempts to dissociate himself from the relentless scandal machine that he actually helped to operate. (Among his signed pieces, Thomas himself once wrote a fawning apology to Paula Jones that looks even sillier today than at the time he published it.) To put it bluntly, he served as a top editor at Newsweek when that periodical was Kenneth Starr's most favored outlet.
A low point was the magazine's December 1996 cover story, which dramatically featured the prosecutor's promise to "deliver" justice in five scandals supposedly percolating in the Clinton White House. With the "extraordinary access" provided by Starr, Newsweek declared breathlessly that within the coming months he would "decide whether to bring indictments that could very possibly alter the course of Bill Clinton's second term." A helpful sidebar on potential criminal acts attributed to the Clintons and their aides accompanied the exclusive Starr interview.
What Starr actually delivered, only eight weeks later, was his own resignation as special prosecutor -- to take a deanship at Pepperdine University (financed by Clinton nemesis Richard Mellon Scaife) in a deal that he had been negotiating for months. He had nothing, but he punked the Newsweek boys.
Finally there is Andrew Sullivan, whose disservices to journalism as editor of the New Republic were many and varied in the Clinton years, vicious in personal tone and ersatz in journalistic content. In April 1994, for instance, he published a highbrow version of "The Clinton Chronicles" titled "The Name of Rose," which portrayed Arkansas government as a third-world-style criminal enterprise directed by the Clintons with the connivance of the Rose Law Firm, Stephen Inc. and a supporting cast of shadowy, sinister Pakistanis and Indonesians. It was all nonsense but it played well in Washington's scandal culture -- and it gave respectable license to the Republican right's crusade to vilify the Clintons.
For Sullivan the high point of Clinton-bashing came with the publication of "No Exit," McCaughey's takedown of the new administration's healthcare reform proposals. Lately McCaughey has popped up again as the source of the fraudulent "death panel" allegations against President Obama's healthcare reform plan -- and that in turn has revived scrutiny of the myriad inaccuracies and blatant falsehoods in her 1994 New Republic article (which the magazine's editors have disowned).
Having boasted proudly that by publishing McCaughey he helped to destroy the Clinton plan, and having accepted a National Magazine Award for doing so, Sullivan now says he is sorry about all that. He professes to take "full responsibility" for publishing an article that he knew to be false in its particulars and its broader argument -- but, in fact, smarmily seeks to blame someone higher up (in addition to McCaughey herself) who supposedly forced him to run the piece. That would have to be Martin Peretz, who then owned the New Republic and advertised himself as "editor in chief."
If what Sullivan says is true, then the least he and Peretz should do is return the National Magazine Award, for the sake of the journalists and editors who have honestly earned that prize. That gesture might restore a semblance of sanity to the debate over healthcare.
As for the responsible parties at the Times, the Post, Newsweek and all the others, like Friedman and Thomas, who feel residual guilt over the Clinton scandals, there is still time to confront the past honestly. Fessing up is hard to do. But at a moment when the New York Times and the Washington Post again seem eager to grovel to the far right, it is worth recalling where that same impulse led during the Clinton years.
Time for the Media to Fess Up
Journalists like Evan Thomas now admit the Clinton scandals were bogus. When will they admit they played along?
By Joe Conason
"Better late than never" isn't always true, but public candor from people and institutions that have misled us for many years can be refreshing -- and sometimes even liberating.
Prodded by recent events -- including publication of "The Clinton Tapes," historian Taylor Branch's fascinating account of his contemporaneous private conversations with President Bill Clinton; the unwholesome reappearance of healthcare reform nemesis Betsy McCaughey; and perhaps even the death of retired New York Times Op-Ed columnist William Safire -- certain media myth-makers of the Clinton era have suddenly uttered startling acknowledgments and even a grudging confession or two.
At this late date, it is scarcely radical to suggest that Whitewater and all the other "scandals" deployed by the Washington press corps to besiege the Clinton White House (before the Lewinsky affair) were without substance. In the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, which created and promoted those stories, even such media mandarins as Thomas Friedman and Evan Thomas now casually assure us that they were overblown, even "bogus." And former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan today admits that the famous takedown of the Clinton healthcare reforms he published in 1994, Betsy McCaughey's "No Exit," was essentially a fake too.
Belated as those affirmations are, by more than a decade, they may still matter -- if only because they arrive at a time when the mainstream media is just beginning to descend into some of the same bad habits that plagued us during the last Democratic presidency and the far right is already talking impeachment.
Let us start with Friedman, who wrote a column on Sept. 30 bemoaning the diseased condition of political discourse in America and tracing the dangerous pathology back to its origin. "The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater 'scandal,'" he wrote. Presumably he used those scare quotes to suggest just how fraudulent the whole business was, as if "bogus" didn't quite do it -- and true enough, as far as it goes.
But it doesn't go far enough, because as Friedman knows very well, the right was not alone in hounding the Clintons -- and wouldn't have achieved traction without the journalistic assistance and moral support provided by the Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, the New Republic and the rest of Washington's press establishment, followed slavishly by their intellectual imitators on network and cable television.
Back then Friedman's own Times Op-Ed column rarely mentioned Whitewater or the Clinton scandals, but he remained agreeably silent while the most avid perpetrators of scandal nonsense, such as the late Safire and Maureen Dowd, transformed the paper of record into a megaphone for the president's adversaries. Unlike Anthony Lewis, who bravely argued with the harshly negative Times party line on Clinton and the scandals, the Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent never wrote a word that could be construed as dissent. (Bob Somerby performed the Nexis search and offers much more on this subject in his trenchant Daily Howler commentaries.) Coming from him, "bogus" should be taken as a verdict not only on the scandals but on the scandal-mongering in the news, opinion and editorial columns of his newspaper -- and on his own failure to speak up when that might have made a difference.
Still, it is bracing to see that pithy epithet applied to the works of Kenneth Starr and the journalists who served as his lackeys in the Times' own pages. By comparison, Evan Thomas sounded squishy in his own recent belittling of the scandals, when he reviewed "The Clinton Tapes" for the Washington Post -- but then he has considerably more to answer for than Friedman.
Although he was trying no doubt to sound magisterial rather than mealy-mouthed, Thomas was unable to discuss past disgraces in any but the most indirect and evasive terms. Consider this passage, which follows a flip reference to Clinton's moaning and ranting in self-pity as he coped with the hostile press corps:
"Today, when the mainstream media seems so weakened, we forget how powerful -- and arrogant -- the New York Times and The Washington Post, along with the networks and news magazines, seemed to be in the early and mid-1990s. They were part of a giant scandal machine that dominated official Washington in the first few years after the Cold War. The endless string of special prosecutors and the media's obsession with Whitewater seem excessive in retrospect."
To some of us the obsession seemed excessive at the time, of course, which only enraged the likes of Thomas whenever we said so. (And isn't an obsession excessive by definition?) The true obsession among reporters was not the boring Whitewater land deal, as Thomas notes, but the "rumors of 'bimbo eruptions' floated by political enemies and less-than-reliable state troopers." Is he confessing his own fixation on Clinton's private life or merely recalling the unwholesome preoccupations of his colleagues?
Kenneth Starr had nothing, but he punked the Newsweek boys
Like all of them, Thomas certainly pretended to care about Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate and all those other forgettable tall tales. What is remarkable now, however, is how smoothly he attempts to dissociate himself from the relentless scandal machine that he actually helped to operate. (Among his signed pieces, Thomas himself once wrote a fawning apology to Paula Jones that looks even sillier today than at the time he published it.) To put it bluntly, he served as a top editor at Newsweek when that periodical was Kenneth Starr's most favored outlet.
A low point was the magazine's December 1996 cover story, which dramatically featured the prosecutor's promise to "deliver" justice in five scandals supposedly percolating in the Clinton White House. With the "extraordinary access" provided by Starr, Newsweek declared breathlessly that within the coming months he would "decide whether to bring indictments that could very possibly alter the course of Bill Clinton's second term." A helpful sidebar on potential criminal acts attributed to the Clintons and their aides accompanied the exclusive Starr interview.
What Starr actually delivered, only eight weeks later, was his own resignation as special prosecutor -- to take a deanship at Pepperdine University (financed by Clinton nemesis Richard Mellon Scaife) in a deal that he had been negotiating for months. He had nothing, but he punked the Newsweek boys.
Finally there is Andrew Sullivan, whose disservices to journalism as editor of the New Republic were many and varied in the Clinton years, vicious in personal tone and ersatz in journalistic content. In April 1994, for instance, he published a highbrow version of "The Clinton Chronicles" titled "The Name of Rose," which portrayed Arkansas government as a third-world-style criminal enterprise directed by the Clintons with the connivance of the Rose Law Firm, Stephen Inc. and a supporting cast of shadowy, sinister Pakistanis and Indonesians. It was all nonsense but it played well in Washington's scandal culture -- and it gave respectable license to the Republican right's crusade to vilify the Clintons.
For Sullivan the high point of Clinton-bashing came with the publication of "No Exit," McCaughey's takedown of the new administration's healthcare reform proposals. Lately McCaughey has popped up again as the source of the fraudulent "death panel" allegations against President Obama's healthcare reform plan -- and that in turn has revived scrutiny of the myriad inaccuracies and blatant falsehoods in her 1994 New Republic article (which the magazine's editors have disowned).
Having boasted proudly that by publishing McCaughey he helped to destroy the Clinton plan, and having accepted a National Magazine Award for doing so, Sullivan now says he is sorry about all that. He professes to take "full responsibility" for publishing an article that he knew to be false in its particulars and its broader argument -- but, in fact, smarmily seeks to blame someone higher up (in addition to McCaughey herself) who supposedly forced him to run the piece. That would have to be Martin Peretz, who then owned the New Republic and advertised himself as "editor in chief."
If what Sullivan says is true, then the least he and Peretz should do is return the National Magazine Award, for the sake of the journalists and editors who have honestly earned that prize. That gesture might restore a semblance of sanity to the debate over healthcare.
As for the responsible parties at the Times, the Post, Newsweek and all the others, like Friedman and Thomas, who feel residual guilt over the Clinton scandals, there is still time to confront the past honestly. Fessing up is hard to do. But at a moment when the New York Times and the Washington Post again seem eager to grovel to the far right, it is worth recalling where that same impulse led during the Clinton years.
The Clinton Scandals Were Bogus, and American Journalists Played Along
From Salon --- Friday, Oct 9, 2009:
Time for the media to fess up
Journalists like Evan Thomas now admit the Clinton scandals were bogus. When will they admit they played along?
By Joe Conason
"Better late than never" isn't always true, but public candor from people and institutions that have misled us for many years can be refreshing -- and sometimes even liberating.
Prodded by recent events -- including publication of "The Clinton Tapes," historian Taylor Branch's fascinating account of his contemporaneous private conversations with President Bill Clinton; the unwholesome reappearance of healthcare reform nemesis Betsy McCaughey; and perhaps even the death of retired New York Times Op-Ed columnist William Safire -- certain media myth-makers of the Clinton era have suddenly uttered startling acknowledgments and even a grudging confession or two.
At this late date, it is scarcely radical to suggest that Whitewater and all the other "scandals" deployed by the Washington press corps to besiege the Clinton White House (before the Lewinsky affair) were without substance. In the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, which created and promoted those stories, even such media mandarins as Thomas Friedman and Evan Thomas now casually assure us that they were overblown, even "bogus." And former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan today admits that the famous takedown of the Clinton healthcare reforms he published in 1994, Betsy McCaughey's "No Exit," was essentially a fake too.
Belated as those affirmations are, by more than a decade, they may still matter -- if only because they arrive at a time when the mainstream media is just beginning to descend into some of the same bad habits that plagued us during the last Democratic presidency and the far right is already talking impeachment.
Let us start with Friedman, who wrote a column on Sept. 30 bemoaning the diseased condition of political discourse in America and tracing the dangerous pathology back to its origin. "The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater 'scandal,'" he wrote. Presumably he used those scare quotes to suggest just how fraudulent the whole business was, as if "bogus" didn't quite do it -- and true enough, as far as it goes.
But it doesn't go far enough, because as Friedman knows very well, the right was not alone in hounding the Clintons -- and wouldn't have achieved traction without the journalistic assistance and moral support provided by the Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, the New Republic and the rest of Washington's press establishment, followed slavishly by their intellectual imitators on network and cable television.
Back then Friedman's own Times Op-Ed column rarely mentioned Whitewater or the Clinton scandals, but he remained agreeably silent while the most avid perpetrators of scandal nonsense, such as the late Safire and Maureen Dowd, transformed the paper of record into a megaphone for the president's adversaries. Unlike Anthony Lewis, who bravely argued with the harshly negative Times party line on Clinton and the scandals, the Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent never wrote a word that could be construed as dissent. (Bob Somerby performed the Nexis search and offers much more on this subject in his trenchant Daily Howler commentaries.) Coming from him, "bogus" should be taken as a verdict not only on the scandals but on the scandal-mongering in the news, opinion and editorial columns of his newspaper -- and on his own failure to speak up when that might have made a difference.
Still, it is bracing to see that pithy epithet applied to the works of Kenneth Starr and the journalists who served as his lackeys in the Times' own pages. By comparison, Evan Thomas sounded squishy in his own recent belittling of the scandals, when he reviewed "The Clinton Tapes" for the Washington Post -- but then he has considerably more to answer for than Friedman.
Although he was trying no doubt to sound magisterial rather than mealy-mouthed, Thomas was unable to discuss past disgraces in any but the most indirect and evasive terms. Consider this passage, which follows a flip reference to Clinton's moaning and ranting in self-pity as he coped with the hostile press corps:
"Today, when the mainstream media seems so weakened, we forget how powerful -- and arrogant -- the New York Times and The Washington Post, along with the networks and news magazines, seemed to be in the early and mid-1990s. They were part of a giant scandal machine that dominated official Washington in the first few years after the Cold War. The endless string of special prosecutors and the media's obsession with Whitewater seem excessive in retrospect."
To some of us the obsession seemed excessive at the time, of course, which only enraged the likes of Thomas whenever we said so. (And isn't an obsession excessive by definition?) The true obsession among reporters was not the boring Whitewater land deal, as Thomas notes, but the "rumors of 'bimbo eruptions' floated by political enemies and less-than-reliable state troopers." Is he confessing his own fixation on Clinton's private life or merely recalling the unwholesome preoccupations of his colleagues?
Next page: Kenneth Starr had nothing, but he punked the Newsweek boys
Time for the media to fess up
Journalists like Evan Thomas now admit the Clinton scandals were bogus. When will they admit they played along?
By Joe Conason
"Better late than never" isn't always true, but public candor from people and institutions that have misled us for many years can be refreshing -- and sometimes even liberating.
Prodded by recent events -- including publication of "The Clinton Tapes," historian Taylor Branch's fascinating account of his contemporaneous private conversations with President Bill Clinton; the unwholesome reappearance of healthcare reform nemesis Betsy McCaughey; and perhaps even the death of retired New York Times Op-Ed columnist William Safire -- certain media myth-makers of the Clinton era have suddenly uttered startling acknowledgments and even a grudging confession or two.
At this late date, it is scarcely radical to suggest that Whitewater and all the other "scandals" deployed by the Washington press corps to besiege the Clinton White House (before the Lewinsky affair) were without substance. In the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, which created and promoted those stories, even such media mandarins as Thomas Friedman and Evan Thomas now casually assure us that they were overblown, even "bogus." And former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan today admits that the famous takedown of the Clinton healthcare reforms he published in 1994, Betsy McCaughey's "No Exit," was essentially a fake too.
Belated as those affirmations are, by more than a decade, they may still matter -- if only because they arrive at a time when the mainstream media is just beginning to descend into some of the same bad habits that plagued us during the last Democratic presidency and the far right is already talking impeachment.
Let us start with Friedman, who wrote a column on Sept. 30 bemoaning the diseased condition of political discourse in America and tracing the dangerous pathology back to its origin. "The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater 'scandal,'" he wrote. Presumably he used those scare quotes to suggest just how fraudulent the whole business was, as if "bogus" didn't quite do it -- and true enough, as far as it goes.
But it doesn't go far enough, because as Friedman knows very well, the right was not alone in hounding the Clintons -- and wouldn't have achieved traction without the journalistic assistance and moral support provided by the Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, the New Republic and the rest of Washington's press establishment, followed slavishly by their intellectual imitators on network and cable television.
Back then Friedman's own Times Op-Ed column rarely mentioned Whitewater or the Clinton scandals, but he remained agreeably silent while the most avid perpetrators of scandal nonsense, such as the late Safire and Maureen Dowd, transformed the paper of record into a megaphone for the president's adversaries. Unlike Anthony Lewis, who bravely argued with the harshly negative Times party line on Clinton and the scandals, the Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent never wrote a word that could be construed as dissent. (Bob Somerby performed the Nexis search and offers much more on this subject in his trenchant Daily Howler commentaries.) Coming from him, "bogus" should be taken as a verdict not only on the scandals but on the scandal-mongering in the news, opinion and editorial columns of his newspaper -- and on his own failure to speak up when that might have made a difference.
Still, it is bracing to see that pithy epithet applied to the works of Kenneth Starr and the journalists who served as his lackeys in the Times' own pages. By comparison, Evan Thomas sounded squishy in his own recent belittling of the scandals, when he reviewed "The Clinton Tapes" for the Washington Post -- but then he has considerably more to answer for than Friedman.
Although he was trying no doubt to sound magisterial rather than mealy-mouthed, Thomas was unable to discuss past disgraces in any but the most indirect and evasive terms. Consider this passage, which follows a flip reference to Clinton's moaning and ranting in self-pity as he coped with the hostile press corps:
"Today, when the mainstream media seems so weakened, we forget how powerful -- and arrogant -- the New York Times and The Washington Post, along with the networks and news magazines, seemed to be in the early and mid-1990s. They were part of a giant scandal machine that dominated official Washington in the first few years after the Cold War. The endless string of special prosecutors and the media's obsession with Whitewater seem excessive in retrospect."
To some of us the obsession seemed excessive at the time, of course, which only enraged the likes of Thomas whenever we said so. (And isn't an obsession excessive by definition?) The true obsession among reporters was not the boring Whitewater land deal, as Thomas notes, but the "rumors of 'bimbo eruptions' floated by political enemies and less-than-reliable state troopers." Is he confessing his own fixation on Clinton's private life or merely recalling the unwholesome preoccupations of his colleagues?
Next page: Kenneth Starr had nothing, but he punked the Newsweek boys
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Strom Thurmond, Kevin Jennings and Harry Hay
Strom Thurmond was a racist and a segregationist. He lived to age 90 and served many years in the United States Senate.
During the course of his long life, I'm sure that Thurmond did many good things -- so much so that, when he died, many members of the Senate were able to make speeches praising him for his positive accomplishments.
Does that make those Senators racists and segregationists? Does that mean that they endorsed Thurmond's segregationist positions?
If that were so, then most of the U. S Senate would have had to resign. Most of those senators found good things to say about Strom, not because of, but in spite of, his racist views.
The same thing applies here. Kevin Jennings had good things to say about Harry Hay -- that Hay "inspired him" -- because Hay did do good things. Hay founded the Mattachine Society in 1948, which was the first major gay civil rights organization in America.
Do those words of praise mean that Jennings supports Hay's other organization, NAMBLA, or that Jennings is in favor of pedophilia? Nonsense. No more so than a senator praising Strom Thurmond is thereby showing his support of segregation.
Only a charlatan would try to make that connection, and only a fool would believe him.
During the course of his long life, I'm sure that Thurmond did many good things -- so much so that, when he died, many members of the Senate were able to make speeches praising him for his positive accomplishments.
Does that make those Senators racists and segregationists? Does that mean that they endorsed Thurmond's segregationist positions?
If that were so, then most of the U. S Senate would have had to resign. Most of those senators found good things to say about Strom, not because of, but in spite of, his racist views.
The same thing applies here. Kevin Jennings had good things to say about Harry Hay -- that Hay "inspired him" -- because Hay did do good things. Hay founded the Mattachine Society in 1948, which was the first major gay civil rights organization in America.
Do those words of praise mean that Jennings supports Hay's other organization, NAMBLA, or that Jennings is in favor of pedophilia? Nonsense. No more so than a senator praising Strom Thurmond is thereby showing his support of segregation.
Only a charlatan would try to make that connection, and only a fool would believe him.
Conservatives Never Met a Smear They Didn't Like
The Conservative Pussy Posse is charging full speed ahead with their latest pack of smears and lies. They have really got the bit in their mouths on this one. What there really needs to be is "Zero Tolerance" for this kind of lying media garbage and character assassination spewing all over the public airwaves. The airwaves belong to the public, and our nation is being woefully short-changed by these Right-Wing media charlatans.
From Media Matters for America -- October 8, 2009
Yet another outrageous smear of Jennings: Conservative media compare Jennings to Polanski
http://mediamatters.org/items/200910080016
As part of their smear campaign against Obama Education Department official Kevin Jennings, conservative media figures including Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter have compared Jennings to film director Roman Polanski, stating -- in the words of Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers -- that "there needs to be zero tolerance for this kind of stuff," specifically citing Jennings and "the Roman Polanski stuff." Thus, media conservatives are smearing Jennings -- who counseled someone who was of age at the time and who has said he did not have a sexual relationship -- with the outrageous suggestion that he is comparable to Polanski, who was charged with rape and pleaded guilty to having sex with a girl who was 13 at the time after allegedly plying her with drugs and alcohol.
Polanski pleaded guilty to sex with 13-year-old; Jennings counseled someone who was of age
Polanski pleaded guilty to sex act with 13-year-old. Polanski fled the United States after pleading guilty to a charge of having sex with an underage girl. According to grand jury testimony by the victim, Polanski had plied the girl with pills and alcohol before having sex with her. According to her grand jury testimony, the victim said she was "afraid" of Polanski, and repeatedly told him "no" and asked to go home.
By contrast, Jennings counseled a person who was of age. As Media Matters for America has documented, Jennings' attorney stated in 2004 that the conversation conservatives have focused on was with "a sixteen-year-old student" -- the legal age of consent in Massachusetts -- and that there "is no factual basis whatsoever for" the "claim that Mr. Jennings engaged in unethical practices, or that he was aware of any sexual victimization of any student, or that he declined to report any sexual victimization at any time." On October 2, Media Matters published a statement from the student in question, who said he was "of legal consent at the time" -- a statement confirmed by his driver's license -- and that he "had no sexual contact with anybody at the time, though I was entirely legally free to do so."
Powers echoes Hannity's calls to fire Jennings, cites Polanski and calls for "zero tolerance for this kind of stuff"
Powers: Jennings "should be fired" because "there needs to be zero tolerance for this kind of stuff ... like the Roman Polanski stuff." Asked by Sean Hannity on his Fox News program about "our safe schools czar," Fox News contributor and New York Post columnist Kirsten Powers stated that "the reason I would say he should be fired" is that "there needs to be zero tolerance for this kind of stuff. Because when you start saying, like, the Roman Polanski stuff was so disgusting, you know, and just -- and just appalling." Hannity stated, "He raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl that he pumped full of drugs." [Hannity, 10/7/09]
Limbaugh says to understand "libs" reaction to Polanski, you have to look at Jennings
Limbaugh: "So if you wonder why the libs are really ticked off that Roman Polanski might be extradited," look at Jennings. From The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: So if you wonder why the libs are really ticked off that Roman Polanski might be extradited to face the music on that long-ago act with the 13-year-old girl, Quaaludes and rape, understand that Obama's safe schools czar is a guy promoting homosexuality in the schools and encouraged a 15-year-old kid to have a homosexual relationship with an older man, and even facilitated it. [9/28/09]
Hannity repeatedly brings up Polanski while discussing Jennings
Hannity: Jennings "[j]ust like with the Roman Polanski thing." During a discussion of Jennings on October 7, Hannity said: "Do you think I am wrong to demand he be fired and stay on this? And when you now get into the NAMBLA, the praise of this guy Harry Hay, it throws me over the top. Just like with the Roman Polanski thing. This is about children. This is about -- he's a sophomore in high school."
Hannity: "[L]et me expand the argument" about Jennings to Polanski. After a falsehood-laden discussion of Jennings and other Obama administration officials on October 1, Hannity said on his Fox News program, "Let me ask -- let me expand the argument in this sense. We've been dealing with the issue of Polanski for the last number of nights here on this program, and I'm shocked. You know, here's a guy, he pumps a 13-year-old girl full of Quaaludes and alcohol 30 years ago. He's 44, she's 13. He -- he sodomizes this girl, and more than a number of Hollywood liberals are saying we should not put him in jail." Guest Rev. Jacques DeGraff responded, "In New York City the hero of the Super Bowl two years ago is sitting in a prison cell right now because actions have -- actions have consequences." Hannity then interjected: "Except if you're Kevin Jennings."
Hannity "dovetail[s]" discussion of Jennings into discussion of Polanski. On September 30, Hannity said: "I want to get into this Roman Polanski issue. But I want to start with some news that we -- we have tonight. ... We have the safe schools czar, a guy by the name of Kevin Jennings, OK? And he -- he writes this book, and he gives information to a 15-year-old. ABC News and Jake Tapper write about this tonight. A 15-year-old sophomore, and his advice to him when he -- when he's having a gay relationship is, you know, 'Did you use a condom?' He knew it was an older adult. Now, as The Washington Times said, at the very least, statutory rape occurred. And he didn't report it." After discussing Jennings for several minutes, Hannity said, "Let me dovetail into the Roman Polanski issue."
Coulter compares Jennings to Polanski "anally raping a 13-year-old girl"
Coulter compares Jennings writing the forward of a book to Polanski "anally raping a 13-year-old." On October 1, right-wing commentator Ann Coulter said to Hannity during a discussion of Jennings: "I liked your list at the beginning of all the problems [President] Obama has had with all the czars and appointees and cabinet nominees, but I have a slightly different list. You have ACORN encouraging and counseling these -- these two, well, actors as it turns out, how to avoid taxes, how to bring Salvadoran sex slaves into the country, underage girls. You have all of Hollywood and -- and media elites defending Roman Polanski for anally raping a 13-year-old. And now you have this guy who's written the introduction to Queering Elementary Education. I mean, that is the issue here. And you mentioned Bill Ayers. This -- can't you just let kids be kids? No, they want to sexualize -- sexualize kids. And forget the homosexual aspect of it; just sexualizing kids generally and teaching them about how to come out or how to deal with homosexuality in kindergarten. It's monstrous what they're doing." [10/1/09]
American Spectator contributor: "Pelosi to Polanski to Jennings: Why Sean Hannity Is Right"
Lord in American Spectator: "a left-wing philosophy that doesn't blink about adults sexually preying on kids" is "showing up" in Polanski petition, "placement of Mr. Jennings." American Spectator contributor Jeffrey Lord wrote an October 6 piece headlined, "Pelosi to Polanski to Jennings: Why Sean Hannity Is Right." In the piece -- which Media Matters for America senior fellow Eric Boehlert noted advances the false assertion that Jennings was "sought out by a 15-year-old boy asking for advice about an affair with an older adult male" -- Lord said of Jennings and Polanski:
It is this sentiment that manifested itself with San Francisco honoring Harry Hay, knowing full well he was famous for his advocacy of adult male sex with "thirteen, fourteen and fifteen year old " boys. It showed up with Nancy Pelosi and the entire San Francisco political establishment happily marching behind Harry Hay, never uttering a peep of objection. And now it is showing up in arenas as diverse as the petition demanding the release of Mr. Polanski and the placement of Mr. Jennings in, of all places, the United States Department of Education -- where Jennings is laughably charged with the issue of school safety.
What's really going on here is the slow-motion injection into the American political and social mainstream of what might be called "Hayism" 8 -- the core idea that sex between adults and children is just no big deal. Not for the boys of Harry Hay, not for Nancy Pelosi and the San Francisco political establishment (she wasn't marching alone, you know), not for Roman Polanski and his rich, famous, and powerful friends in Hollywood and the international film community, and -- more to the point -- not for the Obama White House, which has appointed Mr. Jennings.
Polanski comparison one of several smears against Jennings
Conservative media falsely claim Jennings covered up statutory rape. As Media Matters has documented, Fox News and its websites Fox Nation and FoxNews.com repeatedly advanced the falsehood that Jennings, in the words of Fox News host Bill Hemmer, knew of a "statutory rape" and "never reported it."
Rove falsely claimed Jennings advocated for NAMBLA. On October 7, after Hannity introduced his Fox News show by asking, "Does Kevin Jennings support the group NAMBLA?" Karl Rove falsely claimed that Jennings had engaged in "high-profile, in-your-face advocacy of things like NAMBLA and gay rights and queering elementary school curricula." Neither Rove nor Hannity provided any evidence that Jennings has ever "support[ed]" -- let alone engaged in "high-profile, in-your-face advocacy" of -- NAMBLA, and Rove's suggestion that support for "gay rights" is somehow related to support for NAMBLA is a smear.
It is truly about time to start getting some of these Conservative libel and slander artists off the public airwaves.
From Media Matters for America -- October 8, 2009
Yet another outrageous smear of Jennings: Conservative media compare Jennings to Polanski
http://mediamatters.org/items/200910080016
As part of their smear campaign against Obama Education Department official Kevin Jennings, conservative media figures including Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter have compared Jennings to film director Roman Polanski, stating -- in the words of Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers -- that "there needs to be zero tolerance for this kind of stuff," specifically citing Jennings and "the Roman Polanski stuff." Thus, media conservatives are smearing Jennings -- who counseled someone who was of age at the time and who has said he did not have a sexual relationship -- with the outrageous suggestion that he is comparable to Polanski, who was charged with rape and pleaded guilty to having sex with a girl who was 13 at the time after allegedly plying her with drugs and alcohol.
Polanski pleaded guilty to sex with 13-year-old; Jennings counseled someone who was of age
Polanski pleaded guilty to sex act with 13-year-old. Polanski fled the United States after pleading guilty to a charge of having sex with an underage girl. According to grand jury testimony by the victim, Polanski had plied the girl with pills and alcohol before having sex with her. According to her grand jury testimony, the victim said she was "afraid" of Polanski, and repeatedly told him "no" and asked to go home.
By contrast, Jennings counseled a person who was of age. As Media Matters for America has documented, Jennings' attorney stated in 2004 that the conversation conservatives have focused on was with "a sixteen-year-old student" -- the legal age of consent in Massachusetts -- and that there "is no factual basis whatsoever for" the "claim that Mr. Jennings engaged in unethical practices, or that he was aware of any sexual victimization of any student, or that he declined to report any sexual victimization at any time." On October 2, Media Matters published a statement from the student in question, who said he was "of legal consent at the time" -- a statement confirmed by his driver's license -- and that he "had no sexual contact with anybody at the time, though I was entirely legally free to do so."
Powers echoes Hannity's calls to fire Jennings, cites Polanski and calls for "zero tolerance for this kind of stuff"
Powers: Jennings "should be fired" because "there needs to be zero tolerance for this kind of stuff ... like the Roman Polanski stuff." Asked by Sean Hannity on his Fox News program about "our safe schools czar," Fox News contributor and New York Post columnist Kirsten Powers stated that "the reason I would say he should be fired" is that "there needs to be zero tolerance for this kind of stuff. Because when you start saying, like, the Roman Polanski stuff was so disgusting, you know, and just -- and just appalling." Hannity stated, "He raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl that he pumped full of drugs." [Hannity, 10/7/09]
Limbaugh says to understand "libs" reaction to Polanski, you have to look at Jennings
Limbaugh: "So if you wonder why the libs are really ticked off that Roman Polanski might be extradited," look at Jennings. From The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: So if you wonder why the libs are really ticked off that Roman Polanski might be extradited to face the music on that long-ago act with the 13-year-old girl, Quaaludes and rape, understand that Obama's safe schools czar is a guy promoting homosexuality in the schools and encouraged a 15-year-old kid to have a homosexual relationship with an older man, and even facilitated it. [9/28/09]
Hannity repeatedly brings up Polanski while discussing Jennings
Hannity: Jennings "[j]ust like with the Roman Polanski thing." During a discussion of Jennings on October 7, Hannity said: "Do you think I am wrong to demand he be fired and stay on this? And when you now get into the NAMBLA, the praise of this guy Harry Hay, it throws me over the top. Just like with the Roman Polanski thing. This is about children. This is about -- he's a sophomore in high school."
Hannity: "[L]et me expand the argument" about Jennings to Polanski. After a falsehood-laden discussion of Jennings and other Obama administration officials on October 1, Hannity said on his Fox News program, "Let me ask -- let me expand the argument in this sense. We've been dealing with the issue of Polanski for the last number of nights here on this program, and I'm shocked. You know, here's a guy, he pumps a 13-year-old girl full of Quaaludes and alcohol 30 years ago. He's 44, she's 13. He -- he sodomizes this girl, and more than a number of Hollywood liberals are saying we should not put him in jail." Guest Rev. Jacques DeGraff responded, "In New York City the hero of the Super Bowl two years ago is sitting in a prison cell right now because actions have -- actions have consequences." Hannity then interjected: "Except if you're Kevin Jennings."
Hannity "dovetail[s]" discussion of Jennings into discussion of Polanski. On September 30, Hannity said: "I want to get into this Roman Polanski issue. But I want to start with some news that we -- we have tonight. ... We have the safe schools czar, a guy by the name of Kevin Jennings, OK? And he -- he writes this book, and he gives information to a 15-year-old. ABC News and Jake Tapper write about this tonight. A 15-year-old sophomore, and his advice to him when he -- when he's having a gay relationship is, you know, 'Did you use a condom?' He knew it was an older adult. Now, as The Washington Times said, at the very least, statutory rape occurred. And he didn't report it." After discussing Jennings for several minutes, Hannity said, "Let me dovetail into the Roman Polanski issue."
Coulter compares Jennings to Polanski "anally raping a 13-year-old girl"
Coulter compares Jennings writing the forward of a book to Polanski "anally raping a 13-year-old." On October 1, right-wing commentator Ann Coulter said to Hannity during a discussion of Jennings: "I liked your list at the beginning of all the problems [President] Obama has had with all the czars and appointees and cabinet nominees, but I have a slightly different list. You have ACORN encouraging and counseling these -- these two, well, actors as it turns out, how to avoid taxes, how to bring Salvadoran sex slaves into the country, underage girls. You have all of Hollywood and -- and media elites defending Roman Polanski for anally raping a 13-year-old. And now you have this guy who's written the introduction to Queering Elementary Education. I mean, that is the issue here. And you mentioned Bill Ayers. This -- can't you just let kids be kids? No, they want to sexualize -- sexualize kids. And forget the homosexual aspect of it; just sexualizing kids generally and teaching them about how to come out or how to deal with homosexuality in kindergarten. It's monstrous what they're doing." [10/1/09]
American Spectator contributor: "Pelosi to Polanski to Jennings: Why Sean Hannity Is Right"
Lord in American Spectator: "a left-wing philosophy that doesn't blink about adults sexually preying on kids" is "showing up" in Polanski petition, "placement of Mr. Jennings." American Spectator contributor Jeffrey Lord wrote an October 6 piece headlined, "Pelosi to Polanski to Jennings: Why Sean Hannity Is Right." In the piece -- which Media Matters for America senior fellow Eric Boehlert noted advances the false assertion that Jennings was "sought out by a 15-year-old boy asking for advice about an affair with an older adult male" -- Lord said of Jennings and Polanski:
It is this sentiment that manifested itself with San Francisco honoring Harry Hay, knowing full well he was famous for his advocacy of adult male sex with "thirteen, fourteen and fifteen year old " boys. It showed up with Nancy Pelosi and the entire San Francisco political establishment happily marching behind Harry Hay, never uttering a peep of objection. And now it is showing up in arenas as diverse as the petition demanding the release of Mr. Polanski and the placement of Mr. Jennings in, of all places, the United States Department of Education -- where Jennings is laughably charged with the issue of school safety.
What's really going on here is the slow-motion injection into the American political and social mainstream of what might be called "Hayism" 8 -- the core idea that sex between adults and children is just no big deal. Not for the boys of Harry Hay, not for Nancy Pelosi and the San Francisco political establishment (she wasn't marching alone, you know), not for Roman Polanski and his rich, famous, and powerful friends in Hollywood and the international film community, and -- more to the point -- not for the Obama White House, which has appointed Mr. Jennings.
Polanski comparison one of several smears against Jennings
Conservative media falsely claim Jennings covered up statutory rape. As Media Matters has documented, Fox News and its websites Fox Nation and FoxNews.com repeatedly advanced the falsehood that Jennings, in the words of Fox News host Bill Hemmer, knew of a "statutory rape" and "never reported it."
Rove falsely claimed Jennings advocated for NAMBLA. On October 7, after Hannity introduced his Fox News show by asking, "Does Kevin Jennings support the group NAMBLA?" Karl Rove falsely claimed that Jennings had engaged in "high-profile, in-your-face advocacy of things like NAMBLA and gay rights and queering elementary school curricula." Neither Rove nor Hannity provided any evidence that Jennings has ever "support[ed]" -- let alone engaged in "high-profile, in-your-face advocacy" of -- NAMBLA, and Rove's suggestion that support for "gay rights" is somehow related to support for NAMBLA is a smear.
It is truly about time to start getting some of these Conservative libel and slander artists off the public airwaves.
The Difference Between Trent Lott and Kevin Jennings
Some Conservatives are now saying that Trent Lott's comments praising Senator Strom Thurmond -- which set off a public reaction that forced Lott to step down -- are similar to Kevin Jennings' praise of Harry Hay, and that Jennings should now also be forced to step down.
Harry Hay was the founder of the Mattachine Society in 1948 -- which became the first major gay civil rights organization in America and, years later, Hay was a leader of the organization NAMBLA -- a gay organization which is now trying to legalize under-age sex.
However, Trent Lott did not simply praise Strom Thurmond and say he was a good man. Had he done that, there would have been no firestorm. Trent Lott said that this country would have been better off had we listened to Strom Thurmond and elected him president in 1948. Thurmond was running on the Dixiecrat Party in 1948 as a strict segregationist as a reaction against President Harry Truman's attempts to get civil rights legislation passed.
In making his statement, Lott was specifically endorsing the segregationist platform on which Thurmond ran in 1948. Lott was saying pretty directly that this country would have been better off if we had continued to have racial segregation by electing Turmond president in 1948. That's why Lott was forced to step down.
It would have been the same as if Jennings had endorsed Hay's support of NAMBLA. However, Jennings never said a word about NAMBLA in his comments about Hay. In fact, Jennings has never at any time expressed any support for NAMBLA or what it stands for. In the gay community, NAMBLA is an extremely unpopular organization, with an infinitesimal following -- just as any organization which promotes under-age sex in the straight community would be a tiny fringe group, to say the least.
Strom Thurmond continued to serve in the Senate for many years after 1948, long after legalized segregation was dead and buried. If Trent Lott had contented himself with a testimonial about Thurmond's character, there would have been no problem. Instead, Lott's comments sounded like he was specifically endorsing segregation, as espoused by Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrat Party platform in 1948.
However, Jennings has never said anything remotely expressing support for NAMBLA or what it stands for.
Isn't it ironic, also, that 1948 was the year in which Strom Thurmond was running for president on the Dixiecrat Party in a failed effort to perpetuate racial segregation in America -- and in that same year Harry Hay was founding the Mattachine Society, the first major gay civil rights organization in America? To many Conservatives, that apparently makes Hay a bum and Thurmond a hero.
Harry Hay was the founder of the Mattachine Society in 1948 -- which became the first major gay civil rights organization in America and, years later, Hay was a leader of the organization NAMBLA -- a gay organization which is now trying to legalize under-age sex.
However, Trent Lott did not simply praise Strom Thurmond and say he was a good man. Had he done that, there would have been no firestorm. Trent Lott said that this country would have been better off had we listened to Strom Thurmond and elected him president in 1948. Thurmond was running on the Dixiecrat Party in 1948 as a strict segregationist as a reaction against President Harry Truman's attempts to get civil rights legislation passed.
In making his statement, Lott was specifically endorsing the segregationist platform on which Thurmond ran in 1948. Lott was saying pretty directly that this country would have been better off if we had continued to have racial segregation by electing Turmond president in 1948. That's why Lott was forced to step down.
It would have been the same as if Jennings had endorsed Hay's support of NAMBLA. However, Jennings never said a word about NAMBLA in his comments about Hay. In fact, Jennings has never at any time expressed any support for NAMBLA or what it stands for. In the gay community, NAMBLA is an extremely unpopular organization, with an infinitesimal following -- just as any organization which promotes under-age sex in the straight community would be a tiny fringe group, to say the least.
Strom Thurmond continued to serve in the Senate for many years after 1948, long after legalized segregation was dead and buried. If Trent Lott had contented himself with a testimonial about Thurmond's character, there would have been no problem. Instead, Lott's comments sounded like he was specifically endorsing segregation, as espoused by Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrat Party platform in 1948.
However, Jennings has never said anything remotely expressing support for NAMBLA or what it stands for.
Isn't it ironic, also, that 1948 was the year in which Strom Thurmond was running for president on the Dixiecrat Party in a failed effort to perpetuate racial segregation in America -- and in that same year Harry Hay was founding the Mattachine Society, the first major gay civil rights organization in America? To many Conservatives, that apparently makes Hay a bum and Thurmond a hero.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Another Foul Smear from Sean Hannity -- Baselessly Trying to Connect Kevin Jennings to NAMBLA
From Media Matters -- October 7, 2009:
In vicious new smear, Rove falsely claims Jennings advocated for NAMBLA
http://mediamatters.org/items/200910070044
After Sean Hannity introduced his Fox News show by asking, "Does Kevin Jennings support the group NAMBLA?" Karl Rove falsely claimed that Jennings, a Department of Education official, had engaged in "high-profile, in-your-face advocacy of things like NAMBLA and gay rights and queering elementary school curricula." Neither Rove nor Hannity provided any evidence that Jennings has ever "support[ed]" -- let alone engaged in "high-profile, in-your-face advocacy" of -- NAMBLA, and Rove's suggestion that support for "gay rights" is somehow related to support for NAMBLA is a smear.
Rove falsely claims Jennings engaged in "high-profile, in-your-face advocacy" of NAMBLA
Rove, Hannity provided no evidence in support of false claim that Jennings advocated for NAMBLA. Hannity attempted to link Jennings to NAMBLA during the first two segments of his show, but neither he nor Rove provided any evidence in support of the false claim that Jennings supported or advocated for NAMBLA. Moreover, Rove's effort to link "things like NAMBLA and gay rights" is a smear.
From the October 7 edition of Fox News' Hannity:
HANNITY: Tonight -- shocking new allegations about President Obama's safe schools czar. Does Kevin Jennings support the group NAMBLA? The FBI agent who infiltrated that organization is here.
HANNITY: What do you make of what we talked about in our last segment? Here we have the safe schools czar, this guy by the name of Kevin Jennings. We talked about his praise of this guy Harry Hay, who is, you know, a guy that supports the group NAMBLA. He praised the guy, looked up to the guy. This guy admitted in his own words that he had counseled a 15-year-old that was having sex with an adult. He didn't report it; he asked the kid if he used a condom.
He said other controversial things. This Queering of Elementary Education book that he writes the foreword to. How does somebody like that, with that background, get appointed by a president of the United States?
ROVE: Well, one of two things happened on this. Either they decided that they deliberately wanted to put a very provocative, very controversial person in a job that -- where his views and his public statements and his actions were likely to unsettle a large amount -- number of Americans, or, once again, that vaunted Obama White House vetting system broke down.
I can't imagine that President Obama lacked the sensitivity to think that somebody who had said the things that Mr. Jennings had said, had done the things that Mr. Jennings had done, had taken the sort of high-profile, in-your-face advocacy of things like NAMBLA and gay rights and queering elementary school curricula -- that the president of the United States would think this was a person that he ought to put in charge of safe schools, and yet he did.
Jennings' praise of gay rights pioneer Hay had nothing to do with NAMBLA
Jennings reportedly said he was inspired by Harry Hay, "who started the first ongoing gay rights groups in America ... the Mattachine Society." Peter LaBarbera, president of a group that seeks to "expos[e] and counter the homosexual activist agenda," published a transcript of Jennings' 1997 remarks at the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network's mid-Atlantic conference that LaBarbera said was reprinted from The Lambda Report. In that speech, Jennings reportedly said, "One of the people that's always inspired me is Harry Hay, who started the first ongoing gay rights groups in America. In 1948, he tried to get people to join the Mattachine Society." Jennings' remarks include no mentions of NAMBLA.
Hay broadly recognized as gay rights pioneer. Upon Hay's death in October 2002, numerous obituaries (retrieved from Nexis) noted that Hay was a pioneer of the American gay rights movement -- just as Jennings noted in his 1997 speech. The New York Times noted that Hay "founded a secret organization six decades ago that proved to be the catalyst for the American gay rights movement." The Associated Press called Hay "a pioneering activist in the gay rights movement" who founded "the Mattachine Society." The San Francisco Chronicle stated that Hay was "considered by many to be the founder of the modern American gay rights movement." None of the obituaries mentioned NAMBLA.
Hannity's and Rove's efforts to link book foreword written by Jennings to NAMBLA are a smear.
Jennings' book foreword decried anti-gay violence, had nothing to do with statutory rape. Jennings wrote the foreword to the 1999 book Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling. In the foreword -- which, contrary to Rove's and Hannity's suggestions, had nothing to do with statutory rape -- Jennings called for valuing "every human being as a precious gift" and looked forward to the day when people could "walk down our streets without fear."
In vicious new smear, Rove falsely claims Jennings advocated for NAMBLA
http://mediamatters.org/items/200910070044
After Sean Hannity introduced his Fox News show by asking, "Does Kevin Jennings support the group NAMBLA?" Karl Rove falsely claimed that Jennings, a Department of Education official, had engaged in "high-profile, in-your-face advocacy of things like NAMBLA and gay rights and queering elementary school curricula." Neither Rove nor Hannity provided any evidence that Jennings has ever "support[ed]" -- let alone engaged in "high-profile, in-your-face advocacy" of -- NAMBLA, and Rove's suggestion that support for "gay rights" is somehow related to support for NAMBLA is a smear.
Rove falsely claims Jennings engaged in "high-profile, in-your-face advocacy" of NAMBLA
Rove, Hannity provided no evidence in support of false claim that Jennings advocated for NAMBLA. Hannity attempted to link Jennings to NAMBLA during the first two segments of his show, but neither he nor Rove provided any evidence in support of the false claim that Jennings supported or advocated for NAMBLA. Moreover, Rove's effort to link "things like NAMBLA and gay rights" is a smear.
From the October 7 edition of Fox News' Hannity:
HANNITY: Tonight -- shocking new allegations about President Obama's safe schools czar. Does Kevin Jennings support the group NAMBLA? The FBI agent who infiltrated that organization is here.
HANNITY: What do you make of what we talked about in our last segment? Here we have the safe schools czar, this guy by the name of Kevin Jennings. We talked about his praise of this guy Harry Hay, who is, you know, a guy that supports the group NAMBLA. He praised the guy, looked up to the guy. This guy admitted in his own words that he had counseled a 15-year-old that was having sex with an adult. He didn't report it; he asked the kid if he used a condom.
He said other controversial things. This Queering of Elementary Education book that he writes the foreword to. How does somebody like that, with that background, get appointed by a president of the United States?
ROVE: Well, one of two things happened on this. Either they decided that they deliberately wanted to put a very provocative, very controversial person in a job that -- where his views and his public statements and his actions were likely to unsettle a large amount -- number of Americans, or, once again, that vaunted Obama White House vetting system broke down.
I can't imagine that President Obama lacked the sensitivity to think that somebody who had said the things that Mr. Jennings had said, had done the things that Mr. Jennings had done, had taken the sort of high-profile, in-your-face advocacy of things like NAMBLA and gay rights and queering elementary school curricula -- that the president of the United States would think this was a person that he ought to put in charge of safe schools, and yet he did.
Jennings' praise of gay rights pioneer Hay had nothing to do with NAMBLA
Jennings reportedly said he was inspired by Harry Hay, "who started the first ongoing gay rights groups in America ... the Mattachine Society." Peter LaBarbera, president of a group that seeks to "expos[e] and counter the homosexual activist agenda," published a transcript of Jennings' 1997 remarks at the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network's mid-Atlantic conference that LaBarbera said was reprinted from The Lambda Report. In that speech, Jennings reportedly said, "One of the people that's always inspired me is Harry Hay, who started the first ongoing gay rights groups in America. In 1948, he tried to get people to join the Mattachine Society." Jennings' remarks include no mentions of NAMBLA.
Hay broadly recognized as gay rights pioneer. Upon Hay's death in October 2002, numerous obituaries (retrieved from Nexis) noted that Hay was a pioneer of the American gay rights movement -- just as Jennings noted in his 1997 speech. The New York Times noted that Hay "founded a secret organization six decades ago that proved to be the catalyst for the American gay rights movement." The Associated Press called Hay "a pioneering activist in the gay rights movement" who founded "the Mattachine Society." The San Francisco Chronicle stated that Hay was "considered by many to be the founder of the modern American gay rights movement." None of the obituaries mentioned NAMBLA.
Hannity's and Rove's efforts to link book foreword written by Jennings to NAMBLA are a smear.
Jennings' book foreword decried anti-gay violence, had nothing to do with statutory rape. Jennings wrote the foreword to the 1999 book Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling. In the foreword -- which, contrary to Rove's and Hannity's suggestions, had nothing to do with statutory rape -- Jennings called for valuing "every human being as a precious gift" and looked forward to the day when people could "walk down our streets without fear."
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