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Opponents of Government Health Care are "Sub-human" and "Ghouls"—Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 37

Coming soon to a Tea Party near you?

A week ago Keith Olbermann slandered the Founders by falsely claiming…

OLBERMANN: Not very many of the founding fathers were evolved enough to believe that black people were actually people.

But this week, Olbermann denied the humanity of people who dare to disagree with him on nationalizing the health care system.

OLBERMANN: … the protests of these sub- humans who get paid by the insurance companies…

Whenever a conservative claims that the Left's policies endanger America, liberal are quick to squeal "How DARE you question my patriotism!" Last week, Keith tried to say the Tea Parties were racist. He has proclaimed them "Astroturf" and paid lackeys of the insurance companies before. Now, apparently, they are a whole other species. Maybe they should protest for expanded veterinary care?

This has to be the first time in my 30 years of engaging in political debate that someone with any kind of national platform has denied the humanity of an ideological opponent. All of this because Keith seems to think that doctors actually have a billing code for end of life counseling.

The uninitiated often ask me about Keith's mental state the first time they encounter a video clip of one of his rants. The following clip would seem to be absolute proof. MSNBC needs to consider compassionate leave for this guy. Keith is losing it. (Click NewsRealBlog link above for video. Warning, this is really hard to watch, not only because of an overdose of Olbermann rage, but because it is uncomfortably mixed up with an excruciating amount of detail about his father's illness.)

To be fair, Keith is under considerable and understandable emotional strain because of his father's painful and possibly terminal illness. He is absent often from his show, admirably taking time off to be in the hospital with him through the ordeal. (Though last week, he threw his dad under the racism bus along with Obama's "typical white person" grandmother.)

But often his grief turns into misdirected rage. Keith seems to spend a lot of his time in the hospital wondering what happens to everyone without a rich son to take personal charge of his health care—and assuming that the government would care for your father, they way he cares for his.

Because of the possibly terminal nature of the elder Olbermann's illness, Keith, his dad, and one or more doctors have had conversations about contingencies and end of life care. This led to this week's outrageous outburst.

OLBERMANN: That conversation, that one, was what these ghouls[DF—i.e. Republican members of Congress] who are walking into Blair House tomorrow morning decided to call death panels. Your right to have that conversation with a doctor, not the government, but a doctor, and your right to have insurance pay for his expertise on what your options are when dad says "kill me"—or what your options are when dad is in a coma and can't tell you a damn thing.

Or what your options are when everybody is healthy and happy and coherent and you're just planning ahead. Your right to have the guidance and the reassurance of a professional who can lay that all out for you—that's a, quote, "death panel," unquote.

That, right now, is the legacy of the protests of these sub-humans who get paid by the insurance companies, who say these things for their own political gain, or like that one fiend, for money. For money!

Betsy McCaughey told people that this conversation about life and death and relief and release, and also about—no, keep treating them no matter what happens, until the nation runs out of medicine. She told people that's a death panel! And she did that for money!

It's a life panel—A LIFE PANEL! It can save the pain of the patient and the family. It is the difference between you guessing what happens next and you being informed about what probably will. And that's the difference between you sleeping at night or second-guessing and third- guessing and 30^th guessing yourself.

There is one big thing wrong with this. I talked to a prominent cardiologist in Michigan yesterday, who greeted the premise with scorn.

"This is a very individual thing, but every doctor I know who treats dying patients has this conversation with them one way or another—and no one charges for it. I don't know how you ever would. There's no billing code for that. It's ridiculous to say we should create one."

The 7 million dollar talker (with the 1 million member audience) assumes that everyone gets paid for talking. Doctors get paid for medical procedures. Period. They may bill for a visit and examination surrounding those procedures, but they do not bill extra for particular kinds of advice.

No doctor is going to refuse this conversation because he or she can't bill extra for it.

However, it is highly likely that the inclusion of the original language in the bill WOULD have led to government-paid social workers whose job it was to come and tell you that it's time to pack it in, that you've lived long enough and it's just time.

After all, here's how the moderator of the group at Blair House views such things: (Click NewsRealBlog link above for video)

Keith ends the show with another wholly inappropriate mix of the personal and the political—also based entirely on this fallacy that doctors refuse to talk to patients unless there is a billing code for it.

OLBERMANN: So, considering that if he does not recover, you will not see me here for a while, I have some requests. First of you, please, have this conversation with your loved ones. Don't wait. Do it now.

It's tough. It acknowledges death. And it also narrows the gray area you or they will face from infinity to about a foot wide. It is my greatest comfort right now and I want it to be yours.

And to the politicians who go into Blair House tomorrow for that summit, I have some requests as well. Leave your egos at the door. I want, I demand, that you give everybody in this country a chance at the care my father has gotten. And I demand that you enact this most generous and most kind aspect of the reform proposed, the right to bill the damned insurance company for the conversation about what to do when the time comes, the life panel!

And I want all of you to think of somebody lying in a hospital bed tonight who needed that care and needed that conversation and imagine that is your father or mother or son or daughter or wife or husband or partner -and if you cannot do that, if you cannot put aside the meaninglessness of your political careers for this, my request to you then is that you not come back out of that meeting, for you would not be worthy of being with the real people of this country who suffer, and who suffer again because you have acted on behalf of the corporations and not the people. If you cannot do this, go into that room and stay there, and we will get new ones to replace your worthless roles in the life of our country.

So, we end our end of life counseling rant with the suggestion that the sub-human ghouls who oppose Keith should just commit hari-kari if they can't come around to his way of thinking.

Nice.

By David Forsmark  |  Mon, March 1, 2010 2:04 PM  |  Permalink

Democrat Plan to Jail Interrogators for Being Mean to Terrorists Stopped by Hoekstra

Baghdad Jim's attack on the CIA was smacked down by Pete Hoekstra yesterday.

While most of the politically aware public, and all of the news organizations, were focused on the Obama/Republican Health Care Summit, radicals in the House of Representatives tried to pushan amendment that banned such "degrading" procedures as "threatening" a terrorist detainee, or, causing a detainee's to "blaspheme" (not kidding) in an interrogation.

Congressman Pete Hoekstra, despite the huge disadvantage his party holds in Congress was able to embarrass the Democrats into stopping the vote with stinging arguments like these:

HOEKSTRA: "If a woman interviews a Muslim without a head covering, is that blasphemy?"

"In the intelligence community today, these folks already believe they are under attack by this administration, and this just reinforces this. This is outrageous. There has not been one minute of hearings or debates on this amendment, and you are putting something in … that could put officers in jail for life. What are you thinking?"

The amendment was written by "Baghdad Jim" McDermott, who went on a propaganda tour of Saddam's Iraq in 2002 sponsored by a terrorist financier, and who has taken the position that it is okay to wiretap John Boehner and Republican leadership, but not al Qaeda on American soil.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Sylvestre Reyes counter-argued that the amendment only codified what President Obama has already enforced by Executive Order. Reyes apparently is applying for the job of writing campaign commercials for the Republican National Committee.

Yesterday, the invaluable Andy McCarthy, the federal prosecutor who convicted the "Blind Sheikh and other terrorists from the first World Trade Center bombing (which the Democrats dishonestly use as proof that the federal system works for terrorism cases, without mentioning that the prosecutor from that case says that it is a disaster for national security to do so) summarized the McDermott Amendment at National Review's The Corner.

- "Exploiting the phobias of the individual"

- Stress positions and the threatened use of force to maintain stress positions

- "Depriving the individual of necessary food, water, sleep, or medical care"

- Forced nudity

- Using military working dogs (i.e., any use of them – not having them attack or menace the individual; just the mere presence of the dog if it might unnerve the detainee and, of course, "exploit his phobias")

- Coercing the individual to blaspheme or violate his religious beliefs (I wonder if Democrats understand the breadth of seemingly innocuous matters that jihadists take to be violations of their religious beliefs)

- Exposure to "excessive" cold, heat or "cramped confinement" (excessiveand cramped are not defined)

- "Prolonged isolation"

- "Placing hoods or sacks over the head of the individual"

Naturally, all of these tactics are interspersed with such acts as forcing the performance of sexual acts, beatings, electric shock, burns, inducing hypothermia or heat injury – as if all these acts were functionally equivalent… Here is the fact: Democrats are saying they would prefer to see tens of thousands of Americans die than to see a KSM subjected to sleep-deprivation or to have his "phobias exploited." I doubt that this reflects the values of most Americans.

Hmmm. I have a "phobia" about being locked up for the rest of my life, and would find it "degrading" as an adult to have someone else in charge of my daily schedule….

After the Administration's disastrous handling of the Christmas Day Underwear Bomber, even the radical House Leadership yesterday decided this was just too much to ram through and stopped the vote before they suffered yet another self-inflicted wound to their jeopardized majority.

The Amendment also contained a ban on "waterboarding," which Obama has already banned through Executive Order. However, like everything else in the bill, there was no definition of what was being banned.

Ironically, the Democrats have been screaming for years that waterboarding is a "war crime." If so, why the need to add it to this amendment? Is this an admission that waterboarding is not torture and not illegal under U.S. law?

The McDermott Amendment was so broad and so vague that is basically outlawed the interrogation of terrorists. American shoplifters can be threatened by prosecutors with their phobias in order to get a plea deal.

Radical House members tried to slip this through while everyone was focuses on the Health Care Summit. This won't be their last attempt. Look for a narrower bill or amendment soon, particularly on waterboarding.

After all, what's a few thousand dead Americans compared to the horror of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed suffering from sore sinuses for the afternoon?

By David Forsmark  |  Sat, February 27, 2010 3:47 PM  |  Permalink

Some of My Best Guests are Black: Meltdown with Keith Olbermann, Part 36

Just here to make you feel better about yourself, Keith.

Last week, Keith Olbermann stepped in it with a race-baiting rant that accused the Tea Parties of being racist because they are supposedly white people "surrounded by people who look exactly like you."

When various conservative bloggers, including me, called him on the fact that MSNBC's anchor lineup would fit that description, Keith gave a non-response to each of us.

OLBERMANN "My response to this is: Where are the people of color at the tea parties?

Thursday, Keith still in this hole and still digging, responding to Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid, (and with his typically amateur-night research staff mis-identifying Kincaid as being with the Media Research Center) who reported that there were black people in attendance with this utterly clichéd retort:

OLBERMANN: Why not just say it: "Some of my best Tea Party friends are black?"

Big talk for a guy who made this excuse on his Daily Kos blog when called to task from the Left:

OLBERMANN: Gene Robinson is with me whenever he can spare the time (and is in the studio for all our long-form political coverage, and I try to glue him to the seat next to mine), and we get Clarence Page on whenever we can…

In other words, "Some of my best guests are black."

Olbermann still has not responded to the obvious hypocrisy on his show. Other than the brief blog excuse above, Keith has merely appropriated the Goebbels technique of ignoring the facts and counterarguments and just shouting his racist charges even louder.

OLBERMANN: And if that were not enough, the racists in the right wing are digging themselves in deeper by the moment by trying to answer the unanswerable, the commentary in which I noted the obvious. The tea parties are overwhelmingly almost exclusively white. Defending the 9/12 rally in Washington, one of the Brent Bozell's henchmen at the so-called Media Research Council cites another one of the henchmen.

How many blacks were in the audience? My colleague, Cliff Kincaid, who covered the protest and took pictures of it saw some blacks in the crowd, although he didn't count them.

That's the crowd organizers' claim was more than a million. Why not just say it? Some of my best tea party friends are black!

Well, we have Keith's allegation that the Tea Parties are all white; and that it's because of racism.

But we have empirical evidence that MSNBC's lineup is all white.

Now, let's ask the logical question of which is more likely to be the result of racism– the lack of black participation in Tea Parties, or their absence from the MSNBC lineup:

1. The Tea Parties are basically organized to protest Barack Obama's economic policies
2. In polls, American blacks still show support for Barack Obama's policies in the 90+ percent range
3. It was estimated by the New York Times that 5% of the Tea Parties are "minorities."
4. MSNBC relentless cheerleads for Barack Obama's policies
5. More American blacks agree with MSNBC than with the Tea Parties
6. MSNBC has 0% featured black anchors.

So, again: My response is, where are all the black faces on the MSNBC anchor roster?

And don't tell me some of your best guests are black.

By David Forsmark  |  Fri, February 26, 2010 12:23 PM  |  Permalink

Chris Matthews Goes "Jay Walking"

One of Jay Leno's funniest bits on the Tonight Show is when he goes trolling in Hollywood for people who know nothing about America. They don't know what country we fought to be independent from, what century the Civil War was in, etc.

MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews is a frequent Leno guest; but Thursday night, he proved he's been in the wrong part of the show. He should be featured in "Jay Walking."

Matthews and Salon.com's Joan Walsh teamed up against Tea Party activist Colin Hanna of Let Freedom Ring. With condescension dripping from their tone, these two supposedly intelligent members of the media tried to lecture Hanna on the Constitution, but proved themselves as dumb as any "Jay-walker."

As Walsh nodded in approval, Matthews accused the Tea Partiers of wanting to bring back slavery, and didn't know the Bill of Rights was part of the original Constitutional discussion, or that the Republican Party wasn't formed until just before the Civil War. For good measure, he also threw in the closing shot that "patriot" was an "exclusive" term that offends him.

And Hanna took these "smart kids" to school and beat them up for their lunch money.

Here is Chris's tryout for "Jay-walking" and his contribution to future blonde jokes.

MATTHEWS: If the original document, the Constitution, was so perfect, why did we need 10 amendments right up front Colin?Why do we need the 2nd Amendment for the gun guys, right up front, if it was a perfect document. We started amending pretty early, didn't we?

HANNA: Actually we started the amendments, Chris, if you, well before the actual document was made.

MATTHEWS: Well to get them approved because the Republican Party insisted on the amendments.

HANNA: No, no, no. Many of those things that became the rights are laid out in the amendments, the first 10, the Bill of Rights were, in fact, derivations of other documents that actually predated the Constitution.

MATTHEWS: Oh sure, sure. The colonial documents. Well not colonial but the, the, the state charge. But look- [DF—WHAT?]

HANNA: Right. But look here's, here's, here's the point. Here's the point…

MATTHEWS: But here's the point. Don't we have, if you get into this first principle thing we can't even have an Air Force. There's no Air Force in the Constitution. Is there?

Hm. For 8 years, Chris has been insisting that wiretapping foreign terrorists in "un-Constitutional. Pretty sure cell phones aren't in the Constitution either…

First, the Republican Party was formed in 1854 as an anti-slavery party, Lincoln, Chris—you may have heard of him—was its first President. While he's just as revered, HE WAS NOT A FOUNDER. When Lincoln used the phrase "Four score and seven years ago," (that means 87, Chris) he was talking about the Founding. You know, the Gettysburg Address? Ring any bells?

(And don't even try to say you meant Thomas Jefferson's party, the Democratic-Republican Party which was called "Republicans" by their contemporaries. It wasn't formed until 1800.)

Second, Hanna schooled you pretty well on the Bill of Rights, but one other point. The only controversy over the first 10 Amendments—which were passed during the first Congress after the Constitution was ratified in 1787, was whether the original document already implied that everything them was already covered. They were NOT considered a "change" to the document.

Third, you ninny, the military IS covered in the Constitution, which sets up a Commander-in-Chief and designates war powers. Kind of like including cable news as part of "the press" when it comes to the First Amendment? Get it?

Oh, and as far as Amendments go, "going back to the Constitution" would include the Amendments, including the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th, genius.

Now, tell me why I should think that Chris Matthews is any more knowledgeable than anyone in this Jay Walking segment. (click NewsReal link above for video)

Not to be outdone in historical ignorance, Joan Walsh got into the act:

JOAN WALSH, SALON.COM: Well yeah Chris. I mean what, one of the things I really resent. Mr. Hanna said it's an inclusive movement but it certainly doesn't include people like me and that's their prerogative-

HANNA: No it's your prerogative.

WALSH: But more than that it demonizes liberals, it demonizes Democrats. Thank you it's mutual here. But it demonizes liberals, it demonizes Democrats as though we're hostile to the Founders, we're hostile to the Constitution. And I think those of us on the Democratic side really look back on a wonderful set of Founders a wonderful set of founding documents but say back in the day women could not vote, African-Americans were mostly property. Asians and Latinos were excluded and so we've needed some updating. We needed Social Security and Medicare because the life expectancy of people back then was about 35 or 40. So we've needed some updating. We're proud of the updating we've done, but we are, we still hue to the original values and to the original principles. And so I never liked being told that we're not patriots or we're not respecting the Constitution. I don't see that at all.

Perhaps Joan can enlighten us as to when the Social Security and Medicare Amendments to the Constitution were passed, or point out the references to Asians and Latinos excluding them from citizenship…?

Hanna was undaunted by the rants and answered calmly and rationally.

HANNA: What, the mistake Joan was making was that she was talking about how some of the policies of the 18th century didn't follow the principle of liberty for example. That's entirely true. There were all kinds of policy errors that we made, certainly the tolerance of slavery, all of those things are things that can and should be corrected. No one is arguing for them as any kind of standard of perfection. But the fundamental principles of the founding. The principles of individual liberty, of ordered liberty, of, of, of limited government, those are principles that today when we look at them they appear to be very conservative. But in point of fact, that was the center of the spectrum at that time and that's what's being re-established right now, Chris, with this Mount Vernon Statement that was signed today.

WALSH: …I'm glad to hear Colin say he is against slavery and I believe most people are. I really do believe that.

Gee, thanks, Joan.

There is more, much more, along these lines, and you can check it out if you like. (click Newsreal link above for video)

Chris took his final shot, with the old leftie cliche about the word "patriotism."

MATTHEWS: …Back in the beginnings of our country – and you're a student, we all are, of our history [DF-- I think you disproved that, Chris]– there was a real honest debate between how strong a central government we have and how much should it be distributed among small farmers. The sort of Jeffersonians against the Hamiltonians. But Jefferson didn't accuse Hamilton of being unpatriotic. He didn't say "You're not one of us." He said, "You have a different view." The trouble with your crowd is if you take a strong big government view, if you think we ought to have a little bit more socialism like health care, which is a point of view, you guys say we're not American.And I've got say wait a minute, you can have people on the left who are just as American as people on the right. You've got people on the right who want to secede from the Union! Don't tell me somebody wants to secede from the Union is more patriotic than somebody who would like to see a national health care system like Tony Weiner. I'm sorry, just because you disagree doesn't mean the other guy ain't one of us! And that's what-. I hear this word "patriot," and I don't like it. I think it excludes people who aren't with your point of view. That's all I'm saying. And what does a patriot mean these days? This isn't a re-enactment play!

HANNA: I would fundamentally disagree with you because-

MATTHEWS: Why do you use the word patriot?

HANNA: Because you're using entirely negative terms and I don't think that this is a movement, either the conservative movement or the tea party movement which is using the negative terms in anything like the way you are. They are using positive terms and if you feel excluded by the positive terms-

MATTHEWS: Yeah I do.

HANNA: Frankly Chris, that's your problem-

MATTHEWS: It is my problem!

HANNA: It's not, it's not our, it's not our problem, because we're stating it positively.

Chris, you are a patriot– just like you're a student of American history.

It's interesting that as Barack Obama's agenda tanks with the American people that the new MSNBC tactic– by both Matthews and Olbermann– is to trash the American Founding. Is this self-revealing, or what?

By David Forsmark  |  Sat, February 20, 2010 12:15 PM  |  Permalink

"Where are the People of Color"– in MSNBC's Lineup? Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 35

I once did a lot of freelancing for a daily newspaper called The Flint Journal, whose editorial pages regularly and vociferously called for "affirmative action." They were located in a majority black city, but very often they had few black writers and no black editors. If you wanted to keep working for them, pointing this out was not a good idea.

Last night, Keith Olbermann read reactions to his race-baiting rant the other night from conservative blogs Hot Air, GOPUSA, and the below bit from Meltdown with Keith Obermann Part 33:

FORSMARK: The next time Keith Olbermann calls you racist or any other hateful ephithet, take comfort in the fact that you are in the best possible company. In fact, if Keith Olbermann is not directing hate-filled rants of invective your way, that will be the time to second guess yourselves.

OLBERMANN "My resonse to this is: Where are the people of color at the tea partes.

That was Keith's response to each of the 3 excerpts he read– all of which were carefully selected to avoid the following issue– which I did, indeed, raise in my post

So, My response to this is: Where are the People of Color in MSNBC's Lineup?

OLBERMANN: And now the second of tonight's "Quick Comments," and still the topic is Tea. I wanted to give some equal time to those on the right who disagreed with the focus of Monday's "Special Comment" that there is an alarming homogeneity at the so-called Tea Party events, and that this is not some sort of demographic coincidence. In other words, they're almost all white people, and this is, in essence, a white people's party. (click NewsReal link above for the video)

Well, your anchors are not "almost all,'" but are ALL "white people." So MSNBC is, by the standard YOU set, a white people's network.

Keith may have ignored it on his show, but in his Daily Kos column yesterday, he posted this very defensive response o Kos reader JoanMar who called him on this issue.

OLBERMANN:Lester Holt was our primary anchor at MSNBC until '04 or so, and he got promoted to NBC. And Alison Stewart had her own show and was my primary back-up (we got somebody named Rachel something to replace her), and then she went to raise a family (and do NPR for awhile) and now she's back part-time as Rachel's back-up, and Tamron is one of my back-ups and co-anchored her own two-hour political show in the afternoon, and you mentioned Christina Brown (call her "Christine" at your peril), and Carlos Watson had his own show (and that didn't work out very well for anybody, as will occasionally happen), and Gene Robinson is with me whenever he can spare the time (and is in the studio for all our long-form political coverage, and I try to glue him to the seat next to mine), and we get Clarence Page on whenever we can, and really we do as much astronomy as we do only because Derrick Pitts is so damn good, and somebody upthread mentioned Melissa Harris-Lacewell, and Paul Mooney used to come on for political comment. I'm not satisfied with this as the status quo, but I did want to balance the picture as much as it can be. And suddenly this got me thinking, I wonder if Derrick has ever thought about politics and tv…

Well, if you had a black anchor 6 YEARS AGO, all right then! Womder how Clarence and Gene feel today about being singled out as tokens by Keith Olbermann?

As Newsbusters points out today:

In a Thursday, February 11, CBS Evening News story, correspondent Nancy Cordes cited a CBS News/New York Times poll showing that 95 percent of Tea Party activists are white, suggesting that five percent – a number that is not insignificant – are minorities.

That's 5% better than the MSNBC anchor lineup.

I do not believe in using numbers like this to prove racism. I don't believe in setting quotas to "solve the problem." In the case of the Flint Journal, I know first hand the efforts they made at recruitment and the angst their white liberal guilt caused them over the situation.

The problem is, that liberal press organizations can give you all kinds of logical reasons as to the demographic makeup of their newsroom– but they do not accept similar explanations from businesses. Corporations are presumed guilty if they do not meet a proscribed balance in their hiring results– no matter how neutral their hiring practices can be proven to be.

One other point. MSNBC has been falsely accusing the Tea Party groups and Town Hall protesters of racism since the demonstrations began. When they were trying to whip up assassination plot hysteria about the gatherings, they notoriously hid the racial identity of an anti-Obama protester: (click NewsReal link for video)

Now, here is the same guy, same footage, which MSNBC deliberately re-edited to conceal the man's ethnic identity: (Click Newsreal link for video)

Okay, it's not news that MSNBC are crude propagandists, and Keith Olbermann does not broadcast in good faith. So…

My response to this is: Where are the People of Color in MSNBC's Lineup?

By David Forsmark  |  Thu, February 18, 2010 10:49 AM  |  Permalink

Worst Research in the Wooorrrrllld! Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 34

Hey, Keith, this is not a rifle!

In his latest great Bob Lee Swagger thriller, I Sniper, author Stephen Hunter has a character state sarcastically, "Someone once defined a newspaper gun story as 'something with a mistake in it.'"

You'd think that if Keith Olbermann was going to mount his high horse, do a superior act and be sarcastic about someone he would at least have the provable facts straight. Sure, he twists the truth out of all proportion every night, on his "Worst Person in the World" segment, and slanders anyone who disagrees with him in unconscionable ways—but usually it takes more than a simpleGoogle search to refute him.

Thanks for making my job so easy today, smart guy:

OLBERMANN: He [Congressman Steve King] Tweets that last week a raccoon tried to get into his House, so he chased out into, quote, a midday mid-blizzard and shot it with a semi-automatic rifle called a Desert Eagle.

Nice research team you have there.

But that's only the dumb part, the host who has been displaying a deep dark obsession with race lately also made a smirky "coon" joke at the end of the segment naming Congressman King the Runner Up for Worst Person in the Woooorrrrlllld. (Click the NewsRealBlog link above for video)

OLBERMANN: The runner-up, Representative Steve King of Iowa, pulling back in front in the weekly craziest congressmen derby. He Tweets that last week a raccoon tried to get into his House, so he chased out into, quote, a midday mid-blizzard and shot it with a semi-automatic rifle called a Desert Eagle. King says he was protecting his grand daughters. His quote, "that's just what has to happen when you live out here in the country. I can't have a crazy COON, unquote."

Check out Olbermann's double take on the word "coon" at the end of the King segment. Now imagine Don Imus getting away with this.

And who beat out Steve King as the Worst Person in the World yesterday? Why Glenn Beck, of course.

OLBERMANN: But our winner, Lonesome Roads Beck. His advice today on what to do with the Taliban's number two, Mullah Baradar, captured by US and Pakistani intelligence? "We've just captured the second most wanted guy in al Qaeda. Shoot him in the head."

Taliban, not al Qaeda. Different groups. Like you wouldn't want me calling you "New York Post" when you're Fox News.

First thing out of my mind, "shoot him in the head." Yes, that's not the first thing out of your mind. Don't you want to interrogate him, Becky was asked. "If I were in charge, we'd be interrogating him. We'd interrogate and interrogate him, and then we'd shoot him in the head. Shoot him in the head before we release him into, what, primary schools in New York City? What are we going to do with this guy?

Since it's worked with a lot of other people whose plans would destroy America, give him a show on Fox News.

Glenn "he's every man at the bar", if every man has just escaped from a mental health facility.

Beck, today's worst person in the world.

Yep, the guy who wants to shoot Taliban terrorists in the head, NOT the terrorist who want to blow up innocents is the Worst Person in the World on Olbermann's show.

And the Left squawks "McCarthyism!" when we point out they would rather fight their domestic opponents than America's foreign enemies.

By David Forsmark  |  Thu, February 18, 2010 12:37 AM  |  Permalink

Tea Partiers are Like the Founders—Racists! Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 33

Attention Tea Partiers! Keith Olbermann has finally admited that you have chosen appropriately in identifying with the Founders. You DO have something in common with the people who established our nation.

You are all racists.

OLBERMANN: And I know phrases like "Tea Klux Klan" are incendiary and I know I use them in part because I'm angry that at so late a date we still have to bat back that racial uneasiness which envelops us all.

Then this astounding statement, which is as historically illiterate as it is hateful:

OLBERMANN: Not very many of the founding fathers were evolved enough to believe that black people were actually people. The Founding Fathers thought they were and fought hard to make sure they would always remain slaves.

The next time Keith Olbermann calls you racist or any other hateful ephithet, take comfort in the fact that you are in the best possible company. In fact, if Keith Olbermann is not directing hate-filled rants of invective your way, that will be the time to second guess yourselves.

Keith gave a clue from the get-go where he was headed with his Special Comment last night. (Click the NewsRealBlog link above for the outrageous video)

OLBERMANN: Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on this Presidents' Day celebrating George Washington, and the Founding Fathers he represents and Abraham Lincoln, and the Emancipation he represents.

Right. George Washington represented the Founding Fathers, while Lincoln represented emancipation. Get it? One guy ONLY represented the other white guys. It gets worse, however, much worse.

OLBERMANN: Not all of our heritage is honorable. Not all the decisions of the founding fathers were noble. Not very many of the founding fathers were evolved enough to believe that black people were actually people. The Founding Fathers thought they were and fought hard to make sure they would always remain slaves.

This is beneath contempt, and undeserving of a response. But since it's my job…

Slavery may have been dehumanizing, but almost no one believed slaves were not people. Otherwise it would not have been slavery, anymore than teaming up horses is slavery. But there were NO founders that did not believe slaves were people. The 3/5ths Compromise was about counting PEOPLE, you insufferable bag of mashed up hatred.

The issue of slavery was the most contentious of the Constitutional Convention; and if your above slander were even close to correct, there would have been NO states without slavery.

If you were in the ballpark with the truth, why did George Washington free all of his slaves upon his death—and provide them with pensions in his will? Why did Thomas Jefferson write, "It is written in the book of fate that these people will be free." Benjamin Franklin, never a proponent of slavery, became an active abolitionist before his death, joining the Quakers in a petition for swift abolition.

These are just the Big Three. Other examples would be too numerous for this post– but you know this. Entire books have been written on it. You're counting on your (largely white) guilt-ridden and ill-informed audience not to have a clue.

Of course, Olbermann is infamous for his use of George Washington comparisons. But dead white men aren't the only guilty ones…

OLBERMANN: And I think, having now been one for 51 years, I am permitted to say I believe prejudice and discrimination still sit, defeated, dormant, or virulent, somewhere in the soul of each white man in this country.

No. You are not permitted. (and you're only 51? Really?) Then Jeremiah Wright gets to talk for all black men, right? Especially one who sat as his feet for 20 years? Keith, having been a man for nearly 49 years, I think I am permitted to say that most of us don't consider you to be one.

OLBERMANN: I think the progress we have made in the last 60 years in this country has been measurable and good. But I think discrimination has been tamed, not eradicated.

We haven't eradicated murder or rape either, but that doesn't mean it lurks somewhere in the soul of each of us

OLBERMANN: These thoughts still linger in our lives, still actively passed to some of us by people who are not like my father, who never questioned their own upbringing or parents or school or world. That older, brutal, prejudiced-with-impugnity world which reappears every day like Brigadoon with virulence as in Don Imus's infamous remarks; sometimes with the utter arrogant tone-deafness of John Mayer's Playboy interview; sometimes with a kind of poorly informed benign phrase like Harry Reid's comment about "dialect;" sometimes with the lunkheadedness of surprise that nobody is screaming "Emm-effer, I want more iced tea" at a Harlem restaurant.

Hmmm, Keith, that last one is pretty specific. Speak for yourself—oh wow, I think you just did.

OLBERMANN: Thus it has become fashionable —sometimes psychologically necessary — that when some of us express it we have to put it in code, or dress it up, or provide a rationalization to ourselves for it that this has nothing to do with race or prejudice, the man's a Socialist and he's bent on destroying the country and he was only elected by people who can't speak English.
The whole of the "anger at government" movement is predicated on this. Times are tough, the future is confusing, the threat from those who would dismantle our way of life is real (as if we weren't to some extent doing it for them). And the president is black. But you can't come out and say that's why you are scared.

And since we can't come out and say it, we have Keith with his 51 years (are you sure that's all you are?) of experience to read our minds. What would we do without him? Yes, no one would have called Bill Clinton a socialist if he had taken over 2 of the Big 3 automakers. No one was throwing that word around over Hillarycare—were they? Or are you going to argue that Bill Clinton was the first black president?

OLBERMANN: Say that, and in all but the lifeless fringes of our society, you are an outcast. And so this is where the euphemisms come in. Your taxes haven't gone up, the budget deficit is from the last administration's adventurer's war, Grandma is much more likely to be death-paneled by your insurance company, and a Socialist president would be one who tried to buy as many voters as possible with tax cuts.

Say what? I think we've covered Keith's ability to decide that everything BUT racist rhetoric is racist rhetoric, as long as it is part of opposition to Obama. But what the HECK does that last sentence even mean? Did you pick that up on the lifeless fringes of society?

I suppose in a Mad Hatter world where calling someone who takes over entire industries a socialist must be a cover for latent racism; the real socialist would be someone who does NOT transfer wealth or assets to the government?

OLBERMANN: And I know phrases like "Tea Klux Klan" are incendiary and I know I use them in part because I'm angry that at so late a date we still have to bat back that racial uneasiness which envelops us all.

"Us all," who, paleface? Everybody does it is the oldest dodge in the psychological book, bud. Talk about your white guilt. But this seems to go beyond that a little.

OLBERMANN: And I know, if I could listen only to Lincoln on this of all days about the better angels of our nature, I'd know that what we're seeing at the Tea Parties is, at its base people who are afraid. Terribly, painfully, cripplingly, blindingly, afraid.

But let me ask all of you who attend these things: How many black faces do you see at these events? How many Hispanics? Asians?Gays? Where are these people? Surely there must be blacks who think they're being bled by taxation. Surely there must be Hispanics who think the government should've let the auto industry fail. Surely there must be people of all colors and creeds who believe in cultural literacy tests and speaking English.

Ask yourself: Where are the black faces? Who am I marching with? What are we afraid of? And if it really is only a president's policy and not his skin. Ask yourself one final question: Why are you surrounded by the largest crowd you'll ever again see in your life that consists of nothing but people who look exactly like you?

Oh, I don't know, maybe it's just the lineup of MSNBC hosts and their relatives who came out for this march?

No wonder you are asking "Where are all the black faces?" Keith. So, what was your answer? Surely there must be blacks who think that we are not being bled enough by taxation. Surely there must be Hispanics who think we should take over the health care industry like we did the auto industry. Surely there must be people of all colors and creeds who think we should give foreign terrorists the same rights as American shoplifters.

No wonder you feel guilty.

By David Forsmark  |  Wed, February 17, 2010 9:48 AM  |  Permalink

Obama/Holder Right on Cell Phones, Wrong on Terrorism

Civil libertarians are all a-twitter today because the Obama Justice Department argued that it was fine for the FBI to check cell phone records to look for common numbers placed at the time and location of a string of bank robberies.

The arguments against this are silly. This was great police work—and no different than checking security camera videos at the bank for common faces.

The government argument that is getting all the attention is this:

"Warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no 'reasonable expectation of privacy' whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that 'a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records' that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Our own Liz Blaine said:

"Despite the Obama administration's assertion, I somehow doubt the signers of the Constitution would have agreed there is "no reasonable expectation of privacy."

Well, you can read the Constitution all day, and never find the word "privacy." You will find restrictions on "search and seizure" of your person or property. Your whereabouts are obviously not a matter of 4^th Amendment protection.

If they were, law enforcement would need a warrant all surveillance, even following a suspect in public. If your whereabouts are Constitutionally protected, then law enforcement becomes impossible.

However, the Obama Administration should be smacked down for gross hypocrisy here. But we should use this opportunity to use their own words to urge greater vigilance in combating terrorism. This is an Administration that is extending Constitutional rights to foreign illegal combatants—who should not even be granted Geneva Convention protections.

For instance, it is hypocritical that Obama prefers Predator strikes to waterboarding, then claims a humanitarian high ground. Our argument should NOT be that Predator strikes should stop!

When the Obama Administration does something right, we should use the argument to get them to do other things right—not counterproductively smack them with their own liberal argument and pile on the ACLU bandwagon, just for the sake of making a political "gotcha" point.

By David Forsmark  |  Fri, February 12, 2010 8:28 PM  |  Permalink

Citizen Ebert: Roger's Culturally Illiterate Tweets

As someone who was a working film critic for nearly 20 years—and, I'm pretty sure, the only Baptist to win 2 Catholic Press awards for movie reviews—I probably owe Chicago Sun Time film critic Roger Ebert (and his late partner Tribune critic Gene Siskel) a nod of tribute for popularizing such writing.

Siskel and Ebert were, no doubt, reliably liberal, with a Baby Boomer love of 70s film as the height of artistic expression. Plotless character studies like The Last Picture Show earned their endless rapture. However they also had a populist edge that escaped their colleagues like the New Yorker's Pauline Kael. Ebert wrote of Dirty Harry, for instance, "The movies moral position is fascist. No doubt about it." Then, unlike other hoity toity critics, gave it a "Thumbs Up."

But like the rest of the liberal press since the Bush Administration, Ebert has become more openly partisan, and his reviews—still published under the aegis of the Chicago Sun Times and syndicated to places which have eliminated film critics like my hometown newspaper The Flint Journal– are often nothing but political lectures.

However, Modern Roger's biggest offenses come via his Twitter account. Of course, everyone in the lamestream media has to get their Palin shots in, and Roger is no exception. This weekend's was a howler:

EBERT TWITTER: Some distinguished person should patiently explain to Palin why the Constitution protects citizens who "don't deserve it."

… and some 3^rd grader should patiently explain to Roger that the word "citizens" in an American Constitutional sense, does not apply to Nigerians.

This was, of course, in response to Palin's weekend comments that terrorists like Nigerian underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, do not "deserve" Constitutional rights.

Newspaper editors and publishers have been flailing about, trying to save their dying business model for years, grasping onto the next trending solution like a shipwreck survivor grabs a life preserver. Unfortunately, most of the time they are like men in holes grabbing shovels to try anddig themselves out.

For a while, the "solution" was "branding." Marketing consultants made big bucks telling publishers that their 100 year-old newspaper could fix its image in the community with a snappy new slogan, as long as everything the paper said and did to promote itself tied back into it.

To cut costs, the newspapers cut local content and used more wire service features. In other words, they got rid of what made them unique, and expected people to pay for articles they could find online for free—and a day earlier.

Then, someone came up with the bright idea that the way to fix a business with falling revenueswas to improve the FREE online product—pass the shovel, please!

Now, editors are just as convinced that if writers would just blog, tweet and email, they will attract younger readers even more quickly than their older customer base is dying off.

Want to know why the newspaper business is dying? It's condescending crap like this. J-schools have been churning out PC-trained young skulls full of mush with built-in liberal biases for decades. Unfortunately for them, the market their advertisers are willing to pay the most to reach are in the mostly REPUBLICAN suburbs.

Nearly every mid-to-large city newspaper has spent a generation alienating those cutomers, just at the time technology is giving them more—and more timely– options for getting their news.

One of Roger's favorite films is Citizen Kane, the Orson Welles classic about an egomaniacal newspaper publisher who builds an empire, but alienates those who love him.

Citizen Ebert exemplifies how the newspaper business has alienated its natural customer base. Now that he's such an online guy, I wonder if Roger has answered any emails from that Nigerian prince…?

No wonder readers are turning thumbs down to newspapers in larger numbers every day.

By David Forsmark  |  Mon, February 8, 2010 6:39 PM  |  Permalink

Dumb & Dumber – Wolffe & Olbermann

Meltdown with Keith Olbermann, Part 32 ♦

Constant Countdown guest and obsequious suckup, Richard Wolffe, along with host Keith Olbermann last night proudly declared themselves to be less sophisticated than — Sarah Palin.

Either that or they showed they think Keith's remaining audience is r— er, "challenged" and will fall for the crudest of propaganda techniques.

Last week on the world's most influential Facebook page, Palin outed White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for calling liberal activists "F—ing retards." Of course, everyone gets why Palin would take particular offense because her son (yes, Andrew Sullivan, her SON) Trig has Down's Syndrome.

On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh threw Emanuel's words back in Rahm's face. Last night, Wolffe and Olbermann pretended not to recognize the Emmanuel reference and called Palin a "hypocrite" for not being offended by Limbaugh!

Either that, or both men are themselves…you know; and MSNBC should be congratulated for helping both men find employment and overcome their, ummmm… challenge.

Check out the unintentionally hilarious way in which these two pretend to be having a serious political discussion—as if there is enough "there" there to actually have a guest "analyst" come on to talk about it. (click NewsRealBlog link above for video)

WOLFFE: What would have been consistent–and not that consistency has always been Sarah Palin's strong point—would have been maybe a Facebook entry along the lines of what she wrote about Rahm Emanuel: are you capable of decency, Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck? I'll leave you to answer that one.

But the question here for her and for those who love her is this question of does she have the guts to stand up for what she believes in, no matter whether it's Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or anyone else? Because if you can't stand up to a talk radio host, then how are you going to confront Putin when he rears his head?

Yeah, the current guy is doing great with Putin, not to mention Ahmadinejad…

OLBERMANN: Eventually somebody will ask her about say Beck's repeated and public and gleeful use of this word, or press her about Limbaugh's use of it. What does she say then?

WOLFFE: Well, here's the tough thing—of course, for a start, it's hard for journalists to press her, because it's a one-way communication. Facebook does not exactly constitute a press conference.

But the problem for her, the challenge for her, is that essentially however authentic and meaningful and heartfelt her original sentiment was, she is taking a, quote/unquote, politically correct point of view. She is trying to, in the eyes of folks like Limbaugh and Beck, restrict their free speech. This is not a tack you can take with those folks. And by the way, it's not a tack you can take for the libertarian wing of the Republican party, that forms the Tea Party folks who are paying to hear her speak at their annual convention.

So, you know, politically, it doesn't make any sense for her. And that I think is why you're seeing this supposedly authentic politician become just yet another conventional politician.

What parallel universe are these idiots discussing? In his first try, Wolffe blasts Palin for NOT trying to "restrict their free speech," then she says Limbaugh and Beck will resent her trying to "restrict their free speech"… and who appointed Richard Wolffe spokesman for the Tea Party movement, Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh?

This isn't even too clever by half.

OLBERMANN: …here she is, once again, using her child to try to beat up the White House, when it's clear she doesn't care when her political buddies and her Fox colleagues are far more guilty of the same offense. Is there a tipping point in terms of doing damage with those who have supported her in the past?

WOLFFE: Well, the greatest disappointment has got to be with those mothers who are—families who are in the same situation as her, who thought she would be that advocate. But authenticity, the sort of genuine nature, the unvarnished nature of her is her currency. That's her brand. And the more she has to create problems like this, and try and get out of them, the more she's worried about offending certain people, the more she just looks like another career politician. And that is ultimately going to be her downfall. She has to take a stand and stick to it. That's what going rogue would really mean.

Yes, Sarah, you need to listen to Richard Wolffe if you want to keep your fan base happy. He's got his finger on the pulse of the Tea Party movement…

Kathy Shaidle previously covered this in a terrific post, but it's worth revisting Rush's comments. Only a – you know– could fail to understand where he was coming from, who he was attacking, and why he repeatedly used the "r-word."

LIMBAUGH: [Emanuel] was getting mad at them about health care. The liberal activists kept blaming the White House for all this health care debacle not happening and not getting done. Emanuel's getting ticked off out there saying, (paraphrasing) "What are you blaming us for? We didn't do anything about it, you F-ing retards." I think the big news is the crack-up going on. But our politically correct society is acting like some giant insult's taken place by calling a bunch of people who are "retards," "retards." I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks. They are Looney Tunes. I'm not going to apologize for it. I'm just quoting Emanuel. It's in the news. I think the big news is thathe's out there calling Obama's number one supporters "F-ing retards."

So now there's going to be a meeting, there's going to be a "Retard" Summit at the White House, much like the Beer Summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.

If you want to look at how this is broken down, Emanuel compares Democrat activists to retarded people, then apologizes to retarded people. Not to the Democrats.

Normally if you call somebody a retard, you apologize to them for calling them a retard. But he has apologized to the retarded people for daring to lump them with Democrats. It's hilarious.

Classic Rush. Perfectly tuned satire that makes liberals gag on their own words.

Sarah Palin, that unsophisticated, illiterate rube from tiny backward Wasilla, Alaska got it—people in Rio Linda probably got it. Olbermann and Wolffe? Over their heads.

Olbermann, by the way, has done this before, playing Rush's deliberate smack at Harry Reid's "light skinned" and "Negro dialect" comments out of context, pretending they were merely racist cracks. (Story on Monday's Countdown: "David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog calls Sarah Palin an 'unsophisticated, illiterate rube!!!'")

In the wake of Olbermann's infamous Scott Brown outbursts, and the revelation that his ratings have dropped 44% in a year , analysts are suggesting that people are tired of the hatred and constant insults against everyone who disagrees with Keith—which would be about 80% of the political landscape. This theory has merit, but I would like to suggest another reason for the ratings plunge.

The AUDIENCE is tired of being insulted.

By David Forsmark  |  Mon, February 8, 2010 12:25 AM  |  Permalink