John McCain's Sour Grapes Doctrine

The Politics of Hate and Revenge

I've been obsessing about John McCain lately - but only because he's such a vile, little man. You don't have to look very hard to see through McCain's thin skin into his black heart to recognize that holding a grudge is Johnny Maverick's forte.

I mean, seriously, what else is this guy good at? Foreign policy? Hardly. Just because you were a war hero doesn't make you an expert at all things foreign policy. Unless that sole policy position is war escalation no matter the circumstance. Rachel Maddow had a great piece on this earlier in the week, showing McCain's response to foreign affairs over the years. 

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But McCain's biggest flaw, of a myriad of flaws is that he is a sore loser. He ran for President in 2000 and after winning the New Hampshire primary, was attacked with a George W. Bush whisper campaign about fathering an illegitimate black child. That child happened to be McCain's adopted daughter from Bangladesh. After Bush won the nomination and eventually became President, John McCain adopted a policy of revenge. What I call his Sour Grapes Doctrine.

In hindsight, what looked like McCain opposing Bush policies and voting against them for what Democrats at the time assumed were the right reasons, it was all a matter of getting back at the dweeb who beat him in the 2000 primary, especially after those vicious smear tactics.

Steve Kornacki: "...McCain’s various self-reinventions as a politician are best understood as acts of sore loser-dom. A decade ago, for instance, he took up a sudden interest in closing the gun show loophole, enacting a patients’ bill of rights, and stopping tax cuts for the wealthy. Not at all coincidentally, this came just after he’d lost a bruising campaign against George W. Bush. Bush and his team had been rough – very, very rough – on McCain, and McCain had deemed them unworthy victors. His sudden cooperation with Democrats in 2001 was his version of payback, giving the new Bush White House fits."

Of course, that all ended with 9/11 and by 2004, McCain was ignoring the swiftboating of another war hero, John Kerry, while supporting the re-election of Dubya, complete with head-on-shoulder man hugs. And apparently being presented a birthday cake while a major US city drowned is all you need to let bygones be bygones. Sorry about that bastard black baby thing... Here's a cake!

Fast forward four quick years and this time John McCain wins the Republican nomination but botches the general election while singing "Bomb Iran, "picking The Hockey Mom From Wasilla as his unfortunate running mate, suspending his campaign to sit in on a financial Wall Street crisis meeting where he promptly adds nothing by keeping his mouth shut, and referring to his opponent as "that one" in a debate.

But since he's had so much practice at grudge politics, McCain tacks to the right and decides to become a thorn in President Obama's side as he did with Bush, to the point of not just accusing US Ambassador Susan Rice of being incompetent and "not very bright" by repeating intelligence reports given to her by the CIA which happened to be vague and still pending information (intelligence reports that McCain himself probably had a copy of),  but threatening to filibuster not only her possible nomination as the next Secretary of State, but ANY nomination President Obama would propose to succeed Hillary Clinton, because he wants answers on what happened in Benghazi. And he'll even miss classified briefings about what happened in Benghazi to hold a press conference to demand answers on what happened in Benghazi!

John McCain is a vindictive, curmudgeonly, sour little prick who can't get over the fact that he blew his chance. And now he's using his elected office to continue an obstructionist strategy, despite seeming more and more unhinged. If only he'd use his powers for good instead of pettiness.

ADDING... Here's Steve Kornacki's rant on The Cycle. It's worth watching if you can stomach S.E. Cupp... which is not an easy task.

Paul Ryan Forgets Stimulus Requests

Seriously, dude?! Now you're just fucking with me.

Paul Ryan spent the last three years railing against the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad stimulus in front of the cameras and microphones, while asking for stimulus money behind the scenes to help his district create jobs and stimulate the economy. That's a goddamn fact.

And still, after being caught with his hand in the cookie jar, with video and audio proof and letters requesting stimulus funds with his fucking signature on them, he still tries to push the bullshit that it "did nothing to stimulate the economy." That the stimulus was a complete failure.

Unfuckingbelievable.

Rachel Maddow wipes up the studio floor with this punk, jackass. Must. See.

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(Cross-posted at ABLC)

Attention, Donald Trump...

...if you have questions about President Obama's place of birth, then by definition, you are a Birther. Trying to qualify it is nonsense.

"A lot of people are questioning his birth certificate," Trump said on CNBC on Tuesday. "They're questioning the authenticity of his birth certificate." 

"I've been known as being a very smart guy for a long time. I don't consider myself birther or not birther but there are some major questions here and the press doesn't want to cover it," he said.

Douchenozzle.


ADDING...

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GOP Walking the Contraception Plank

Is this how it's going to end for the Republican Party?

TPM: Not satisfied with President Obama’s new religious accommodation, Republicans will move forward with legislation by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Sunday.

Currently, 28 states mandate that employers' health insurance cover contraception for its employees, eight of which require it regardless of whether they are religiously affiliated or not. Many Catholic universities and hospitals already provide the coverage. The Obama administration's religious exemption is far broader than current law and actually a loosening of restrictions. But for some reason, GOP leaders think they have a dog in this fight and are betting that this will be wedge issue to sway Catholic votes away from the President in the upcoming 2012 election. This despite the fact that 58% of Catholics believe that employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception, and that 62% of women overall, a huge voting block to be sure, agree as well.

So not only are they tying one end of the Blunt Amendment rope around the Catholic opposition rock, but they're tying the other end around their necks with a flawed "religious freedom" argument and attempting to roll back existing law for employers whose businesses have nothing to do with religion, and tossing it off the wingnut bridge.

“The fact that the White House thinks this is about contraception is the whole problem. This is about freedom of religion, it’s right there in the First Amendment. You can’t miss it — right there in the very first amendment to our Constitution,” [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell said. “What the overall view on the issue of contraception is has nothing to do with an issue about religious freedom.”

McConnell went on to embellish the argument, claiming Obama is being “rigid in his view that he gets to decide what somebody else’s religion is.” He said that “this issue will not go away until the administration simply backs down.”

How can a career politician of McConnell's stature get the First Amendment so wrong? It's because he is ginning up another empty attack on President Obama. He just can't help himself. Let's review:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

No law "respecting the establishment of religion..." - meaning that the government will not make any one religion the official religion of the country. "...or prohibiting free exercise thereof." - meaning that you are free to practice any religion you choose without fear of reproach from the government.

So, no, Senator McConnell, it's not "right there" in the First Amendment. Just because you are free to practice religion as you choose and follow its supposed moral values, does not mean you can arbitrarily ignore the laws of the land thereby causing an infringement on another person's rights. It's a far, far stretch to say that requiring an employer to cover contraception in its health care benefits for their employees, even if that employer is the Catholic Church now playing a role in the secular world, is a violation of conscience. It is up to the individual in question to face their moral conscience when it comes to the usage of contraception made available at no cost via their health insurance plans. Catholics who work outside the realm of the Church as their employer have that health care right. They also have the right not to use it - because of their religious beliefs.

In fact, I believe that in this particular case, it is the Catholic Church that is in violation of the very thing it protests. If the employee in question is not of the Catholic faith, why should he or she be discriminated against and not have the same health care benefits they would have if they didn't work for a religious organization? Is that not an infringement of their rights? If the government favored the religious institution's view, would that not be a violation of the First Amendment, namely "respecting the establishment" of their religion in lieu of federal law? If this were the case, could a Catholic secretary working for an Orthodox Jewish lawyer bring a ham and cheese sandwich to the office for her lunch in clear violation of her employer's Jewish beliefs?

I happen to be indifferent on the exemption to churches that President Obama offered. But when the church clearly steps in to the province of secular business, whether it be a hospital or a school in which people of all faiths are accepted, then they should and must follow the rules and regulations of the secular world. You can't claim religious exemption when it suits you. In this contraception coverage "nontroversy," the majority of Catholics are right, it's the Catholic Church and the "anything anti-Obama" GOP that are wrong.

ADDING... Rachel Maddow had a great piece on this issue last Thursday night. Along with exposing the Republican candidates fighting it out for the Presidential nomination, she also took a swipe and the 60-something, white male Beltway pundits who seem to think that it's the President who is looking bad on this issue even though he's with the majority of Americans. I think she may have been referring to Chris Matthews.

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PolitiFact Is Fired...

...by Rachel Maddow. After the head-snapping double take in response to PolitiFact's flawed guidelines in rating a specific quote from President Obama's State of the Union address last Tuesday, and the backtracking that followed, can you believe they did it again?! I'll let Rachel explain.

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Brain Dump

POSTED BY JHW22

It's been a while since I posted and I have a million thoughts swimming in my head. So, since Broadway Carl is nice enough to give me the key, I thought I'd let myself in and dump all these thoughts and be done with it. So, here goes:

Rick Perry says that when he's the President, he'll "shut down" the border (with Mexico) within 100 days. I love how the anti-Big Government guy says that when he's Big Government he'll do what he couldn't do as Medium Government. And if he were President and if his replacement as Governor didn't want Big Government coming into the state, then what? See, there's a problem when you always say Big Government is bad and that states are the shiznit. And then you, as the Big Gun of The Big Shiznit State, can't shut the shiznit down without begging the Big Government to do it for you. And all the while you've been wanting Federal employees to get a freeze/cut in pay or lose their jobs altogether and or lose some of their benefits. Oh, wait, those same people you want to lose their jobs or pay are the very people the Big Government needs to send into your big shiznit state. So, how's that gonna work for ya? Good thing we'll never find out.

*****

Speaking of Rick "Keep Big Government Out -- Until I am Big Government" Perry, he wants to force rape and incest victims to be blocked from accessing abortions. Now, in some ways, at least this is consistent. I never understood how someone who said the SANCTITY OF LIFE was so damn precious that a piece of tissue was the essence of life, could then throw in a moral exception for rape or incest. Either you think that baby is more sacred than its mommy or you don't. So in that regard, his revelation (a week before a really important campaign trip) at least is consistent with his SANCTITY OF LIFE ideas. But here's the problem. Rick Perry hasn't been raped and impregnated. Yes, there are women who are raped who give birth and give their babies to loving families. Or there are women who are raped and choose to make something good of something horrible. And those women raise their children with love and respect and no angst whatsoever over the conception trauma. If I met a woman like that, I would bow to her in awe. A woman like that would have to be kind and loving and selfless in her love for her child. That, as a mom myself, is commendable. But what about the women who are held at gunpoint, and cut with knives and left for dead after being raped by more than one man? The women who lock themselves away from the outside and jump at the sound of the mail truck outside. What about the women who can barely move on with life, let alone nurture a growing child inside. A child she may not consider a child because she doesn't think life begins at conception. What about that woman? Those women? Let's honor the children of rape as survivors. Let's be glad they had a chance at life despite the first step in getting them here. But let's not ask every woman to be strong enough to get through nine months if she can't even get through the first nine days.

******

Riding on his tour bus with his wife and Wolf Blitzer, Mitt Romney was saying that Obama has been so bad for the economy, yadda, yadda, yadda. Then he did something that makes me scream. You see, one of my biggest pet peeves about politicians is when they make definitive statements (like "Obama has been bad for the economy") yet, when CBO data is presented to them to show the opposite (like Wolf did to Romney) they say, "I'll take a look at that, but...". NO! If you've formed an opinion about Obama's policies, you should ALREADY have read the CBO data. The CBO data is one of the most trusted, accurately processed data in the country. PERIOD.


******

My last thought of the evening is about Rachel Maddow screaming for days about us needing a ticker-tape parade. I had to stop listening because it bothered me so much. Do I want to show our appreciation for the troops? YES. But before we spend a lot of money on confetti and road closures, can we make sure each man or woman coming home has a job? Or a home? Can we make sure their medical needs are met? And before we have a big celebration, can we wait until every troop comes home from that OTHER war? That other war that many who have come from Iraq may very well be shipped off to soon. Can we show we respect the men and women who have fought these long wars by DOING MORE than a parade? Please?

And considering Rachel is the only major media person I have heard saying this for days, you can imagine who popped into my head today when I heard all these damn GOP candidates complaining that Obama hasn't thrown the returning troops a parade. Thanks Rachel. Thanks a frickin' lot. This is why I get frustrated with Rachel. As much as I adore her, she drives me crazy. Why can't some of that "we want a parade" energy be directed toward giving us phone numbers and websites of resources where we can help returning troops and their families. I am sure many troops would LOVE a parade. Let's just wait until we can have it for all of them, and until we've done everything else for them that we can. Okie doke?

****

Disclaimer: this was a quickly-typed brain dump so screw it if there are typos. You get my points or you don't.

Must See Interview

It's amazing how sharp former President Jimmy Carter still is at 86 years young. This interview is a must see just for the realization of how underrated and under appreciated Carter was and still is. His demonization by the right is shameful.

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I'll update with the added video as it becomes available.

Misinterpreting or Underestimating Obama

Posted by Desert Crone

I have been mulling over an idea that’s been rattling around in my head for a while, and that idea grew to fruition with two tweets by Lt. Dan Choi: “. . . .sad that Barack Obama would have voted no" and "Obama: ‘I have plenty of gay friends. Some of them work for me. I just feel they are inferior to me, and they don't deserve marriage.’" That set me off in an ugly old cranky rant on “Tweeter.” I called Lt. Choi a self-made martyr and a media whore. However, this wasn’t a spontaneous tweet; it was an opinion I’ve held about him since he came out. We drunks have a saying in AA, “Principles over personalities,” and Lt. Choi’s behavior and comments flew in the face of that belief.

His crusade became about himself and his rising star on MSNBC, not the greater good. In my opinion, President Obama became the target of “his” movement, and he lost sight of the LGBT movement. Of course, my criticism of Lt. Choi generated much support and criticism, some very harsh, which was of no surprise to me. However, I digress. In my mind Lt. Choi is hardly a martyr (which to my knowledge he has not claimed to be but acts like) because martyrs don’t throw others under the bus. Martyrs help people get on the bus and up on stools at Woolworth and into voting booths and into segregated public schools and universities. But my epiphany and the point of this post aren’t about Choi’s motive; they revolve around his criticism of President Obama.

As you know, Lt. Choi, Rachel Maddow, and Michael Moore all have the opinion that Obama would have voted against the gay marriage bill in NY. This is simply, unequivocally false. I am truly befuddled by this statement because I have read much of what Pres. Obama has said and written about gay marriage. Others are tweeting “evolve already” to the president, presumably assuming that Obama is struggling with moral or political issues around his view on gay marriage. I also disagree with that assumption.

I believe President Obama’s conundrum is whether or not gay marriage is a vehicle to achieving civil rights for LGBT’S, or whether gay marriage will come with the passing of more sweeping civil rights legislation and court rulings. If my observation does, in fact, define his conflicted feelings (or evolution), then his statements about gay marriage revolve around his search for the most pragmatic path to ensuring civil rights for LGBT’s.

 In this quote from Dec. 2008, Obama says:

‘Look, when my parents got married in 1961, it would have been illegal for them to be married in a number of states in the South. So obviously, this is something that I understand intimately, it’s something that I care about. But if I were advising the civil rights movement back in 1961 about its approach to civil rights, I would have probably said it’s less important that we focus on an anti-miscegenation law than we focus on a voting rights law and a non-discrimination and employment law and all the legal rights that are conferred by the state. Now, it’s not for me to suggest that you shouldn’t be troubled by these issues. But my job as president is going to be to make sure that the legal rights that have consequences on a day to day basis for loving same sex couples all across the country.’

Basically, but not wholly, I base my premise on the part of the quotation that is in bold. Also, I would like to reference articles by Greg Sargent and Andrew Sullivan. I reference these articles, not necessarily because they support my opinion, but because both “get” that this President understands nuance. The lack of understanding this about President Obama has created much of the Left’s vitriolic, unreasonable criticism.

I find it incredulous that many of Obama’s liberal/progressive critics appear to forget that Obama is a brilliant Constitutional lawyer with a powerful intellect. Even a frequent critic of the President, Keith Olbermann admits “it was really one of those moments where you thought, well, maybe we do have one of say the 1,000 smartest people in the country is [sic] the President of the United States. Maybe he`s 999. Maybe number 83 - we don`t know.” 

Yet, still Olbermann and other critics frequently go to great lengths to give President Obama advice on how to do this or that. The fact that Obama is a pragmatist and a Constitutional scholar with a brilliant mind leads me to believe that his positions on issues are not based on his religious beliefs or political scheming but the most pragmatic, quickest way to do the right thing for people of the United States. Thus, he has used and is using his executive powers to make it easier for unions to organize, to implement parts of the DREAM Act, and to obtain civil rights for LGBT’s. If Congress won’t get the job done, then Obama looks for other avenues.

My point is that the criticism that Obama would have voted no on gay marriage or that he doesn’t support gay marriage is so simplistic to be laughable if it weren’t so tragically absurd. It might be true if he were a black and white thinker (no pun so don’t even go there), but he is not. He is a complex man. And don’t you ever forget it.

Gay Marriage, The States, and Pitchforks

POSTED BY JHW22

I am staying as far from the fray as I can in regards to the post-victory letdown of the passage of gay marriage in New York. From what I gather, a certain self-made martyr and an intelligent, if not emotional and often too myopic, journalist, have decided to dampen celebrations with hyperbole that suggests, in a roundabout way, that Obama hates gay people. They haven't come out (pun intended?) and said he does, as far as I know, but the implications gushing forth from a certain faction of the Angry Left is that Obama doesn't ever want gay people to get married.

Now, he has said he doesn't support gay marriage from a personal perspective (totally paraphrasing but pretty spot-on) but has never taken actions as President to prevent it. Many articles have illustrated how he has actually done MORE than any other President to advance the rights of the LGBT community so I am not going to try to reinvent that wheel.

What I want to focus on is an angle many people miss on many issues. This is just the latest example of the issue I call the "I want unrealistic perfection" syndrome. And this syndrome usually manifests itself in a form of rewriting 2008 campaign history. It results in the Angry Left misrememberstanding (yep, I made up a word) who was running and what our choices were. It results in some la la land delusion of "we could have had someone better" or "(insert candidate) wouldn't have betrayed us".

Here's what Obama said last week that got panties in a bunch:

And since I taught constitutional law for a while, I felt like I was in a pretty good position to agree with courts that have ruled that Section 3 of DOMA violates the Constitution. And that’s why we decided, with my attorney general, that we could no longer defend the constitutionality of DOMA in the courts.

Now, part of the reason that DOMA doesn’t make sense is that traditionally marriage has been decided by the states. And right now I understand there’s a little debate going on here in New York — (laughter) — about whether to join five other states and D.C. in allowing civil marriage for gay couples. And I want to — I want to say that under the leadership of Governor Cuomo, with the support of Democrats and Republicans, New York is doing exactly what democracies are supposed to do. There’s a debate; there’s deliberation about what it means here in New York to treat people fairly in the eyes of the law.

That has been debated as hypocrisy because that's the argument used against his bi-racial parents, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But this isn't only Obama's rationale. Nope, someone else said almost the same thing:

Well, I prefer to think of it as being very positive about civil unions. You know, it's a personal position. How we get to full equality is the debate we're having, and I am absolutely in favor of civil unions with full equality of benefits, rights, and privileges. I want to proceed with equalizing federal benefits.

And I've also been a very strong supporter of letting the states maintain their jurisdiction over marriage. I want to repeal Section 3 of DOMA, which stands in the way of the extension of benefits to people in committed, same-sex relationships. I will be very strongly in favor of doing that as president.

That's what Hillary Clinton said while running for the job we elected Obama to do.

So, be grumpy that Obama has issues with gay marriage that don't sound liberal enough to you. Fine. But let's not pretend someone else in the Oval Office, and I mean a real person and not some imaginary one, would be handling this differently.

My friends here at Broadway Carl have a perspective on this. Some consider us irrelevant or gay-bashing for disagreeing with SOME people who happen to be gay (while at the same time agreeing with many people who happen to be gay -- go figure). But when the facts are clear and when Obama has shown, repeatedly, to be progressive on gay rights, then the hyperbole and exaggeration and speculation are what I consider irrelevant.

And frankly, Obama has acted in the most honestly separation-of-church-and-state way possible. If his personal beliefs on gay marriage are based on his religious studies and thought, and yet he is moving toward more and more rights for gay couples, then he is demonstrating, repeatedly, that he knows how to keep his personal beliefs separate from his professional responsibilities. He has created two silos -- one with a man's views and one with a President's views.

What should matter is what he puts in the Presidential silo. What should matter is that he doesn't allow personal beliefs to affect how he governs. And that is precisely what I think he is doing.

Who Wants To Shut The Government Down?!

Over the last few days, I've posted a couple of examples of Republicans on record threatening to shut down the government if all their budget cut demands aren't met. The GOP, or rather the Tea Party faction of the GOP, wanted $100 billion in cuts to the budget already in place. The Democrats countered with $10 billion. Both bills were rejected in lieu of a more serious discussion. The GOP originally wanted about $32 billion in cuts, and the Tea Party insisted on at least $61 billion. The Democrats met Speaker John Boehner to agree on $33 billion, $1 billion more than the original GOP proposal. Boehner was immediately spanked by the Tea Party and rejected what he had initially agreed to, countering this time with $40 billion in cuts. If the Democrats agree to $40 billion, Boehner and the Tea Party Republicans would reject it and demand yet another number.

Why is this? Why does the GOP, who's collective nutsack is in a Tea Party vise, keep moving the goal posts? Why does Boehner agree to a number, then come back with his tail between his legs and renege on the agreement? It's because they really don't want to negotiate. They don't want a compromise, they want a shutdown because they think it's in their political best interests. It also shows Boehner is no leader.

Here's Rachel Maddow and Melissa Harris-Perry on the shutdown and Rep. Paul Ryan's $1 trillion Medicare cut idea.

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Newt Was For It Before He Was Against It PART 2

Rachel Maddow explains my previous post in 2 minutes. That's why she gets paid the big bucks while I... do not. I ♥ Rachel Maddow.

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Big. Fat. Oops.

New Jersey Governor and resident walrus Chris Christie is doing his best to plummet his numbers to Scott Walker levels. But New Jersey firefighters and police officers aren't going to sit idly by and watch.

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Brain Dump

POSTED BY JHW22

OK, so I've been away for a while and that last post felt good. But I need to get a few things out that aren't really post-worthy. More reflection and curiosity than anything deep and thoughtful:

I fear I am inadvertently raising a Republican. My child hates change. He likes the Christmas tree but is mad that I moved a bookshelf to put the tree up. He hates when I change throw pillows. He hates the new toothpaste. He falls apart over transitions. He falls into ritualistic OCD. SEE! He's a Republican. What am I doing wrong? ;)

Why did Bristol Palin drive to LA for DWTS? Her mom flies all over the country on private jets and she can't bother to send her kid to LA on a plane? Is it so she could have a "truck" in LA? Or was it just for a story? And really, a truck? Who is she? Scott Brown?

Did people call Laura Bush a fascist for encouraging parents to read to their children? No. So why can't Michelle Obama encourage healthy eating and *gasp* exercise without being labeled a Nazi? I have a friend in a small red-state town who seriously fell into the trap of blaming Michelle Obama for the cafeteria menu changing to things her kid hates. The whole town is in an uproar over Michelle Obama personally changing every elementary school menu in the country. Yet, I don't hear them yelling at Rachel Ray for doing the same thing. Shame on that hyperactive speed-cooker for trying to discourage crappy eating habits. Personal freedom means being able to raise an obese child if a parent chooses. Don't tread on them and don't make them use a treadmill, damn it.

Wikileaks: Someone needs to plug that leak. Transparency is one thing. Theft is another. And really, it pisses me off that it's not even an American who has single-handedly decided what to do with our documents.

I cheer each time a judge determines that the health care law isn't unconstitutional.

The DADT study is exactly what I thought it was going to be: a review of what the effects of repeal will be and how to move forward. I wish people like Rachel Maddow and Bill Press, etc, etc, would have realized that sooner rather than acting as if it were a survey about whether to repeal. They really ranted about a lot of nonsense. Much Ado About Nada.

I like Secretary Gates.

I think I'll be writing another Palin post soon. Trying to figure out how to write something thorough and organized. I tend to lose my mind when thinking about her and I want to be clear and linear and make relevant connections. Trying to manage that when discussing the walking chaos factory is hard.

Dog Pile on McCain

And deservedly so.

John McCain's flip flops are becoming the stuff on legends, but whereas previously it was played off as being all mavericky, now he's showing himself to be nothing but a bitter, old man (and possibly a little senile) who will say anything to oppose the man the soundly beat him for the Oval Office, even if it means taking a contradictory stance on your own policy positions.

Here are Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow calling out the Maverick of the Senate.

Maddow/Stewart Interview, Complete & Uncut

I watched last night and contrary to what I was reading on the Twittersphere during the interview, I found it engaging, informative and honest. In TweetWorld, some were calling it boring, uninteresting and I was really quite shocked that people disagreeing with Stewart were checking out after watching just the first segment. What did they expect? Yelling and fisticuffs? Have we really become that ideological, that extreme that we can't even sit and listen to an interview/debate of what are considered to be two incredibly intelligent people, both on the liberal side of the aisle? Is the needle spiked the to the right edge on the National Attention Deficit Disorder Meter?

Yes, there were moments when Jon Stewart's parsing of some issues were a little much for my taste, but that's his opinion. He's entitled to it. We can all argue about the minutia of whether or not you consider George W. Bush "wrong" versus "evil" on his waterboarding stance. I don't think Bush was evil, just badly misguided. And if he felt it was morally wrong, he can claim plausible deniability and hide behind the lawyers that told him it was legal. Now Cheney on the other hand, I believe is truly evil but that's for another time.

Ultimately the crux of the interview confirmed my assessment of the Rally To Restore Sanity message: it wasn't about content, it was about tone.

Maddow Responds To Olbermann Suspension

"I know everyone likes to say, "Oh, cable news, it's all the same. Fox and MSNBC -- mirror images of each other. But if you look at the long history of Fox hosts not just giving money to candidates, but actively endorsing campaigns and raising millions of dollars for politicians and political parties -- whether it's Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck or Mike Huckabee -- and you'll see that we can lay that old false equivalency to rest forever...

...Their network is run as a political operation. Ours isn't. Yeah, Keith's a liberal, and so am I. But we're not a political operation -- Fox is. We're a news operation. The rules around here are part of how you know that.

...Now, weirdly, it is Keith who is once again illustrating the difference between what he does at MSNBC -- what we do here -- and what goes on across the street."

What the Stewart Rally Meant to Me

It's taken me a couple of days to digest the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally To Restore Sanity at the National Mall in Washington DC. I've had to mull it over to figure out what it means to me because I think that the message was a little different for everyone. Here's Stewart's speech at the end of the rally:



No, I don't completely buy into the "both sides are the same" meme only because one side deals with content and facts and one side deals with hyperbole and untruths. But that doesn't mean that Stewart isn't correct in saying the screechiness on both sides can be equal. And from what I can tell, most of the participants in the over the top rhetoric were the ones most offended.

While I still think it's incorrect in trying to force the notion that there's equivalency from both sides, because the right wing noise machine is much louder, much bigger and therefore more far reaching in it's message. But it doesn't help the liberal side to participate in the teabagger, wingnut, crazy name calling. I know it's hard, but we can rebut and debate without ad hominem attacks. It only weakens our message because people who need the message most get caught up in Keith Olbermann or Ed Schultz calling someone a "right wing nutjob" rather than the content of why they are categorizing that person as such. The content can be all the more effective without clouding it in name calling.

We all do it. I do it on my blog, the right does it, the left does it, hell Stewart even included clips of himself in the video montage the preceded his speech. That doesn't mean that he thinks he's full of shit. He deals in truths and common sense through satire and comedy, but even he will admit that having a Gospel choir sing "Go Fuck Yourself" is exactly the type of "both sides" meme he's talking about.

But he's not completely wrong about new organizations or opinion shows posing as news organizations (I'm looking at Fox New Channel in particular) going too far. We love the red meat. But if you follow politics when there are no upcoming elections, if you read the political blogs daily or watch the political cable shows daily, you are a political junky. You know what's going on. Unfortunately, most people don't. Most people in America can't name the Speaker of the House. And due to the name calling, those are the people who are quicker to dismiss the content of the message because they've already tuned out - the hyperbole turned them off before you had a chance to grab their attention.

So while I didn't completely agree with Stewart, I felt I got what he was trying to say. And I think that the ultimate message Stewart was trying to put across was not that both sides are equal in content, but that they can both be over the top in negative rhetoric. That's what I got out of it anyway.

The mere fact that liberals like TomTomorrow would tweet, "Like Digby says, right wing isn't going to listen to any of this. So basically DFH's just got told to STFU" just gives more credence to what Stewart was saying in the first place. No, he wasn't calling you a dirty fucking hippie and wasn't telling liberals to shut the fuck up, but because everyone is so on edge, TomTomorrow and Digby and Keith Olbermann didn't get the message I got.

It's like when you were in school and the teacher berated the entire class for totally bombing on a midterm exam. Then you get your test back and you got a B+ or an A and you have to step back and think, "Oh, he wasn't talking to me. I get it." You have to separate yourself in an objective manner and not take things so personally. Those that were offended by Stewart didn't seem to be able to do that.

Yes, I'll still watch Olbermann because he still gives me pertinent information even though it may be in a bombastic way. And that's why I watch him and Rachel Maddow, because I can rely on their information. It's based it fact, not fantasy or fear. And since I'm not a vegetarian, the red meat makes me feel like I'm not crazy.

I'll still read Digby's blog and TomTomorrow's tweets because they still have interesting things to say. Just because I don't agree with what people say 100% of the time doesn't mean I'll write them off. It's the same with Glenn Greenwald, for example. In my eyes, sometimes he's just an Obama contrarian but that doesn't mean I disagree with everything he has to say. It's called "opinion." I just have to separate that out.

By the way, I watched MSNBC on and off for a few hours today and didn't hear one mention of the rally. An estimated 215,000 showed up for the rally, outdrawing Beck's rally of 87,000. But we'll cover the Beck rally for a week.  Stewart's? No so much.  So much for equivalence, huh?

Dedicated to Mr. Anonymous

Posted by JHW22

Since our loyal watcher, Mr. Anonymous, seems to enjoy the topic of hypocrisy, this post is for him.

I was watching Rachel Maddow interview Joe "Constitution Ninja" Miller regarding the very Constitution he so ardently defends and protects and seems to know better than anyone else (because he's a lawyer or because he's a Conservative -- I'm not sure which is more qualifying these days).

MADDOW: Do you think there should be a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage?

MILLER: That’s up to the people. You’ve got a three-quarters vote, ratified, I’d vote for it.

MADDOW: You would vote for it?

MILLER: Yeah, I would. But it would require an amendment to the Constitution.

Now, I am no Constitutional scholar, attorney, or Conservative (who appear to be the only people who are allowed to comment on the Constitution these days) but I am pretty sure there is some inherent hypocrisy when Joe "Amendments are Bull Crap" Miller thinks stuff like this:

He called the idea of a living, changing Constitution “bullcrap,” and said he would support an amendment for term limits as well as an amendment repealing the 17th Amendment, which allows for the direct election of senators by the public rather than by state legislatures.

I am hoping Mr. Anonymous checks in and explains this contradiction in beliefs that it is okay to change the Constitution for some but not for others. You'd think that a staunch defender of the original writing of the Constitution, like Joe "Written in Cement" Miller would NOT want to alter it to limit the rights of some considering the original said something about securing "Blessings of Liberty" (but what's the significance of a preamble anyway, right?) Apparently, Joe "Except for You" Miller thinks it's okay to restrict the rights of teh gays via an amendment but I guess all the other amendments, written post-Founders, should be stripped or something?

I will be a catalyst to move those in Congress to make the tough, principled decisions needed to bring Washington back to the limited role anticipated by our Founders. We must act now.

I can totally see how banning marriage for 10%+ of the public is bringing back a limited role of government. It makes total sense -- in someone's alternate interpretation of the supposed document that is not living or open to anyone's interpretation but his.

I tend to agree with the man who wrote the Alaska State Constitution, Vic Fisher, when he said:

I would think a Yale Law School graduate would understand that a Constitution is a framework -- a foundation for the future.

In some ways, Joe "Keeping it Real" Miller thinks that the document is living and is adaptable depending on the mood of the country. In other ways he thinks it's meant to be stuck in the day when not everyone had a say in how that document could be adapted. Therein lies the hypocrisy. I do hope Mr. Anonymous will shed some light on this issue. I hope he uses original thought, however. I'd hate to read the same talking points I could find by a simple Google search.