I love the obviously impartial journalistic integrity of the caption beneath Terkel’s name: “Far-Left Blogger”

Ooooohhh…. scary.  She’s not just a lefty blogger, she’s one of those islamocommiefascist ‘Merica hatin’ “far-left” bloggers.

Of course, it’s absurd for me to believe that the words “impartial journalistic integrity” could ever be applied to the crap Fox News produces.

Yeah, it’s “far left” to believe that parents of a murdered girl shouldn’t hear about how she was asking for it.

My God.  What a pathetic coward is Bill-O.  The success of Fox News doesn’t speak well for the intellect or moral values of a disturbingly high percentage of our population.  I think I have to go out now and buy some nasty, greasy food just to chase the taste of stupid out of my soul.

Thank you Amanda. I was waiting for somebody to write an article like that since I saw the video of O’Reilly’s disgusting attack on Terkel.

I’d just like to know why on Earth would “It Happened to Alexa” invite such a transparent misogynist to give a speech, even if they didn’t know about his comments regarding Jennifer Moore. Anyone who has seen the O’Reilly show knows how he speaks to women: mostly condescendingly, sometimes aggressively.

The success of Fox News doesn’t speak well for the intellect or moral values of a disturbingly high percentage of our population.

Don’t believe the hype.

Yes, it is true that Fox beats its cable news competition by pretty healthy margins, but it’s a very relative thing.  On any given day, Fox News will average between 1-3 Million viewers.  The United States has a population of approximately 310 Million people.  Which means that as well as Fox News may be doing compared to CNN or MSNBC, they still draw an audience which represents less than 1% of the entire country’s population.

It’s the same thing with Rush Limbaugh, who draws an audience anywhere between 10-20 Million on any given day.  Most of those who follow him swear by him as the ultimate authority on all things, but for the other 90% of Americans, he’s a pontificating, hypocrital hillbilly heroin addicted asshole.

Why do they outdraw their competition to the left (which doesn’t mean that their competition is left-leaning, just that they are relatively more to the left than them)?  For one, their wingnut followers are a fairly homogenous group that bows before authoritarian types.  They love their icons in a thoroughly uncritical way in which they are all placed completely beyond reproach.  I think most people, be they centrists or liberals, take a much more critical approach when consuming media, one in which we are ok with having differing viewpoints with those who would often be viewed as allies.  And we are willing to call out people who may be considered “our own” when we think they are wrong.  As such, we don’t have or feel compelled to have such strident allegiances to any particular media outlet.  I also think we offer a far greater variety of opinions in the media outlets we consume - we don’t relegate ourselves solely to one news network, one newspaper, one radio personality, and one unified blogosphere message.

In any case, no matter how focused their hateful message may be, no matter how unified these wingnuts may think they are with their teabagging parties, no matter how much they circlejerk themselves into fighting about who loves Rush the most - they are a tiny, insignificant group of people relative to the total population of the country.  They may think that their message resonates, but with who, other than themselves?  They went off and got Sarah Palin to be the VP candidate because supposedly McCain was too much of a RINO in their eyes (could have fooled me, he appears to be a full-blown Republican in my book), and because this small group of wingnuts was excited about her candidacy, they thought that that excitement would translate into increased odds of victory.  What it translated into was a more rabidly bloodthirsty base, and a centrist population that thought, “Wow these people are nucking futs!”

Let them keep foaming rabidly at the mouth.  Let them get angrier and angrier.  Keith Olbermann was explaining to Rachel Maddow the other night why O’Reilly and Bernard Goldberg named MSNBC the “worst outlet of the liberal media” (read, they meant Keith Olbermann is the worst outlet of the liberal media, but because Bill O’Reilly is inexplicably deathly afraid to utter Olbermann’s name, he simply says the more general MSNBC).  Nobody is out there criticizing Fox News with conjecture - they are simply repeating their own words and their own messages back to them.  Which puts Fox News in a trap, because they can’t deny the accusations being leveled against them, since the accusations are inherently tied to their very own words.

It’s all very amusing to watch, though.

It’s weird.  The first time I saw Bill O’Reilly 7 or 8 years ago, he was ranting about how bad SUVs are, which is something I agree with.  Ever since then, he has been wrong about everything.  What are the odds that I would have switched to that channel the one time he said something I agree with?  He always gives me a weird feeling now because I am always reminded of that one time.

Kieth Olbermann said something really offensive in the set-up to that interview with Terkel.  He was railing against O’Rreilly, and said that “he wasn’t man enough” to stalk Terkel himself, but sent someone else to do it.

First, criticizing someone for not being “a man” buttresses patriarchal conceptions of masculinity.
Second, Olbermann connects stalking, which is a reprehensible criminal behavior, with being manly.

It’s great for Olbermann to go after O’Reilly, but it would be a lot better if Olbermann didn’t reinforce oppressive notions of masculinity while he did it.

It’s great for Olbermann to go after O’Reilly, but it would be a lot better if Olbermann didn’t reinforce oppressive notions of masculinity while he did it.

Agreed.  As much as I agree with much of what KO says and I usually love his snark, I don’t like him feeding into these notions either.  He often lets his ire towards O’Reilly drift down this road, and it really hurts his own arguments, which, when fueled less by raw emotion (you can tell that he and O’Reilly despise each other on a very personal level) and more by rational logic, can stand well enough on their own without the “manly” nonsense.

For me, the phrase “man enough” is so played out and used so many times for both men and women that it hardly means anything anymore. But the suggestion that Bill-O should have stalked Terkel himself is troubling, even though I don’t think that’s what he meant. KO is obviously offended by the way FOX and Bill-O went about talking to Terkel.

Didn’t take long for someone to come along and derail the thread.

Your concern is noted.

I don’t think that was KO’s intent, but he could have phrased it a bit more carefully.  He easily slips into name calling when talking about his favorite person ... which isn’t really necessary given all of the other material he’s given to work with.

Kieth Olbermann said something really offensive in the set-up to that interview with Terkel.  He was railing against O’Rreilly, and said that “he wasn’t man enough” to stalk Terkel himself, but sent someone else to do it.

It’s great for Olbermann to go after O’Reilly, but it would be a lot better if Olbermann didn’t reinforce oppressive notions of masculinity while he did it.

I’m sure Blue Fielder will be miffed that I’m following you down the the other garden path Hairylegs, but I find KO to be fairly insufferable and seldom much better than BillO (though I can’t go so far as to say Rush). He’s a bombastic self-important blowhard, he just happens to be one that I mostly agree with. I think it’s just what happens when the left tries to take this particular page out of the right-wing playbook. It’s not just the ideas that make BillO distasteful (though they do a lot of the heavy lifting).

I often felt the same way about Franken on the radio. Every time he went off on how the Bush daughters should be forced to go to Iraq or carry snowflake babies to term, I had to send him another email about how even the Bush women have autonomy over their own bodies and fuck him for thinking it’s his right to say what they should do with them. I ended up feeling the same thing about Randi Rhodes and Ed Schultz as well. I think it’s why liberal talk doesn’t get the big numbers. More people may share liberal views, but it seems like it’s mostly a certain kind of jerk who digs that style and that jerk is more often than not a rightie.

Give me more Maddow, Seder, and Terri Gross. Please and thank you.

I’m sure Blue Fielder will be miffed that I’m following you down the the other garden path

Oh, how adorable, the troll thinks I can be goaded into the response they want.

Welcome to my killfile.  You’ll be sharing space with “visionaries” like Middleage"liberal”, tooracistfortheright, and Dana.

@Babieca:

I won’t dispute your assertion that Olbermann is extremely bombastic in his style, and I recognize that his emotional temperment can be a turnoff to lots of folks, even those who disagree with him.

And likewise, on style, I generally prefer the even keel of Maddow to Keith O’s emotional temperment.

That said, I think Keith Olbermann is a result of Fox News, and for that matter, all of the MSM outlets that sold us the Bush lies hook, line, and sinker in the buildup to the Iraq War.  Countdown debuted in March 2003, right at the very start of that fucking quagmire, and at the time, Olbermann was the only one on television screaming that the emporer had no clothes.  This is when CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN were all following the pied piper of Fox News into selling America this war, and sadly, America complicitly followed along - it wasn’t popular to speak against Iraq at the onset - 70% of the country supported it.

And Olbermann was the only one at the time saying, “Has everyone lost thier minds?”

I am grateful that he rose to prominence, because his path helped pave the way for Maddow’s show - he was one of the most prominent people at MSNBC telling the executives to give her a show.  And don’t believe the hype that NBC, or even MSNBC is now beholden to some evil liberal agenda because 2 hours of daily programming go to Keith and Rachel (nevermind that Doucheborough gets THREE hours in the morning on that network) - MSNBC is beholden to profits, nothing more, nothing less, as their owner General Electric expects them to be.  Olbermann filled a niche that was seeking to be filled, and MSNBC, and consequently GE, made money off of what he does.  And then Rachel Maddow got a show, which is also doing well.  Soon, the 10PM ET slot will be filled by another (hopefully) progressive voice, though the word is it’s gonna be Ed Schultz getting that spot.

In any case, bombastic as Olbermann may be, partisan as he may be, over-the-top as he may be, I’m glad he’s there, because few others are as willing or able to take Fox News lies on directly in front of such a large audience.

Ooops… I meant to say, “even those who agree with him” in the first paragraph above…

Bill-O.
He is The dirt that won’t come off…

I really fucking hate to say this, but since the coming of Glenn Beck Bill-O has turned into the voice of reason in Fox News Land.

Soon, the 10PM ET slot will be filled by another (hopefully) progressive voice, though the word is it’s gonna be Ed Schultz getting that spot.

I was thinking Lawrence O’Donnell. I loved his takedown of Cantor.

My accountant watches Glenn Beck.  Last time I was there he warned me of the FEMA concentration camps and how we’re all going to be rounded up someday soon.

Might need a new accountant.

He watches him for real? Dear God.

I can only watch him drunk. Otherwise my Beck Limit is about 90 seconds.

I think he watches him stoned, to be honest.  I do okay every tax season, though, so I guess I can’t complain too much.

Hey, as long as he is in some kind of altered state of mind.

I haven’t done weed in a few years but I could see the entertainment value in watching Beck on pot. It might be hilarious, actually. So that’s excusable.

BTW, this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkMqvy-D5hM

confirms Shepard Smith as my favorite person on all of Fox News. That along with his Katrina coverage. You can kind of tell he wants to be a real journalist but just doesn’t know how to get out.

Pot paranoia might be the only way by which Glenn Beck makes sense.

Yeah, that’s where I was headed ... the pot makes Beck’s assertions about FEMA camps all that more believable to him. 

And the world banks are going to take over.  With the UN.  New world order.

Buy jerky.

And the world banks are going to take over.  With the UN.  New world order.

Also, remember: The New World Order’s Negro Army will bring forced interracial marriage.

You have been warned!

The New World Order’s Negro Army will bring forced interracial marriage.

Okay, I was excited before about my (secret) enrollment into the Negro Army but they didn’t put that in the pamphlet! Now I can’t wait!

I was thinking Lawrence O’Donnell. I loved his takedown of Cantor.

O’Donnell would be decent, but I would really like to see it go to Sam Seder, Stephanie Miller, or Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks.

Ed Schultz has been called in twice in the past three weeks to guest host 1600 Pennsylvania (on nights when Shuster filled in for KO on Countdown), and the New York Times and Huffington Post have both reported that an anonymous source inside MSNBC has said that Schultz is currently in negotiations with the top execs at the network for the job.  MSNBC refuses to comment on the rumors, but won’t deny them, either.

I’d honestly prefer that it were somebody other than Schultz, but I’m betting that he’s gonna get the gig.

+1 for Stephanie Miller. I fucking love her.

Maybe O’Donnell could be at 7:00 to replace the Tweety re-run and Miller could be at 10:00.