‘Flavour’ should be ‘Breed’. The sentence originally read completely differently but I didn’t edit it properly.
Y’know what? Although I still think my arguments themselves are sound, the insults were extremely uncalled for.
Duffer. I humbly apologise for being such a rude asshole to you. I’m under a lot of pressure at work at the moment and I took my frustrations out on you without provocation. I unreservedly take back every insult I made. You didn’t deserve any of them.
griffen2, what an unexpected breath of fresh air that was. Kudos to you! 
One only needs to listen to Michael Savage or read Ann Coulter to see what she is trying to do. Last week, I listened to Michael Savage go on for about 15 minutes (until I had to turn it off…) on how liberals are total hate mongers who hate this country and hate everything it stands for. On and on and on he went. He didn’t focus on policy points, he didn’t even focus on personalities. He had boiled down his entire political worldview into one easy-to-digest nugget that he was faithfully spewing into whoever his receptive listeners are : liberals hate American values.
Janeane is trying to do the same with her worldview. She probably views it as an antidote for Rush and those to the right of him. The people behind AirAmerica have a theory that if they could boil their liberal worldviews into an easy-to-digest nugget, then maybe they can have the runaway appeal of Rush et al. Judging from the OP, she seems to have found one – conservatives are only concerned with their view and will use force (from union busters to Florida 2000) to disseminate it. Judging from her appearance on the Daily Show (which I saw), I would refine it – conservatives are only concerned with their money and their religion and will use force to disseminate it.
I don’t think it will work. Call me a snooty liberal intellectual, but I don’t think that a liberal viewpoint is easily boiled down into a nugget or even a soundbite. That (and a lack of oratory skills) is what killed Gore and what is killing Kerry. A viewpoint like “I voted against the $87 billion Iraq funding bill only because the Republicans chose not to reduce the tax cut to fund it” much too easily is portrayed as “flip-flopping” or “anti-troops” or “wrong on defense” because the extra dimension is ignored in the soundbite driven media.
Trust me, that wasn’t the worst thrown at me. I take very little personally on these boards. Apology accepted, but not necessary. We’re all under pressure, though since I’m unemployed I can spread it around a little more. I have a feeling we’ll butt heads again and be assholes to each other, but I’ll refrain from vitiole to you, if you agree. 
shit, I meant vitriol
One more point. If I could fellate my appendix, I wouldn’t have time to hit the SDMB. 
Sounds like a good deal to me. Thanks for accepting my apology.
Too…gross…Does not…compute…Must…squeegee…third…eye
Let’s just note that Janeane Garofalo != Air America Radio.
Despite what some folks may believe, most of the AAR programming is fairly mild, chatty talk-radio stuff. The only AAR program that gets into Limbaugh/O’Reily/Coulter/Savage-level shrieking is Randi Rhodes, and she’s only 3 hours out of their 14-hour programming day.
Any chance she took her name from Randy Rhodes? In an attempt to get name-recognition by proxy? Wouldn’t put it past her.
I think you’re right. I think that is what she and other liberals are trying to do. But they’re doing it stupidly. I disagree with you that liberalism cannot be boiled down into sound bites. It can. Kennedy did it. Lyndon Johnson did it. Even our worst president in history, Franklin Roosevelt, did it. Liberalism, however misguided it may be, is all about fairness and equality. What liberals need to do is frame these principles in terms that people care about. Don’t go the controversial route; go the route that the conservatives are going. Conjure up images that will swing the fence sitters who, for the most part, see a danger in Bush but believe that Kerry is merely the devil they don’t know. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. For example, you can evoke liberalism’s cherished “level playing field” by equating it with the prime directive of Navy SEALs special forces. Say, “Liberals are like Navy SEALs — we don’t leave anyone behind.” You need to start disassociating yourselves with the popular view (by conservatives) that liberals are cowering wet noodles who would let enemies take over the country while sympathizing with their plight. There’s no reason you can’t do the same thing the conservatives are doing and use images of patriotism and courage to publicize your views.
Lib
You are probably right. Both liberals and conservatives have avenues to which to turn to find well thought out, consistent arguments to support their views. Janeane and others (I haven’t sat down and listened to AAR so rjung’s correction is noted) are not trying to fill that niche. I would like to change my argument around a bit.
The examples you cite (as well as Bill “I feel your pain” Clinton) are examples where the Democrats were able to seize the middle of the country. Bush seized it back in 2000, and I’m a little doubtful to how many of those swing voters are going to switch horses in midstream, as it is perceived. Especially when the other horse is Kerry, who doesn’t seem able to grab those votes with a powerful message.
Janeane and others are trying to energize the fringes, much like Rush, Michael Savage, Phylis Schafly, Ann Coulter, and friends do. They are not trying to seize the middle. The difference I see is that the far-right is much more monolithic in their viewpoints (often quite Christian, often white, often rich, often male, often from the south and midwest, not that I am trying to disparage anybody) than the far left (which ranges from the anti-WTO guys to Nation of Islam to radical feminists to back-to-the1960s hippies to American Communists). So where the far right radio host needs only to cover relatively few bases (prayer in public, anti-entitlements, anti-gun control, America-First, “family values”) , there is no common ground for the far left radio host, except for being anti-Bush. And I can’t see how that makes for a successful long-term enterprise.
Possibly true. But I don’t necessarily think the conservative world view can be boiled down by Michael Savage either. Which is why I don’t listen to or respect him.
Make a deal with me if you like. I won’t take this Garofalo person as the spokesperson for the Left if you don’t take Coulter or Savage as the be-all and end-all for the Right.
Both sides have their share of harpies (of whatever gender). But idiots migrate to the extremes. This doesn’t say anything about the real positions of either side.
Regards,
Shodan
I realise you weren’t talking to me, but I’ll drink to that. I’ve been tempted recently to try starting a thread where we can “trade in” partisan cliches; e.g. liberals will stop mentioning Bush’s AWOL episode if conservatives will stop mentioning Clinton’s dick, down to more trivial ones like Bush’s daughters versus Gore inventing the internet. I think it’d be great. The only thing that stops me posting such a thread is that I’m sure it would devolve into a partisan slanging match within 5 posts :).
However briefly this truce lives, y’all have made this libertarian happy. Nobody wants tyranny and the loss of civil liberties — not Democrats, not Republicans, and not the rest of us. Well, maybe a few exceptions but still.
While I’m liberal and you’re conservative, Shodan, truces on our level mean nothing. Of course I know that Coulter and Savage don’t speak for the right (and of course you know the opposite). I think it almost goes without saying – I would never cite Garofalo as an informed opinion for a GD, you I should think would probably not cite Coulter.
It is the other people, to whom Rush or Michael Savage or Janeane Garofalo represent primary sources of information, about which we should worry.
Unadulterated bollocks.
The fact is that “Bush bashing” as you term it, is an inevitable consequence of the disciplined application of intellect and reason to the facts thrown up in the past 42 months.
It’s not that these discussions are strongholds of leftism. The fact is that the rightward inclined have lost a proper rational and evidence based footing in their support of the current US administration.
There simply isn’t much for partisans of the right to say. Contrariwise, left partisans needn’t rely on partisan argument when the facts and simple reason speak for their cause so eloquently.
Am I wrong, or was the above truce an acknowledgement of the fact that people gravitate to what they believe in? You think the left opiners are eloquent, I think they tend to be shrill. Just having a biased opinion doesn’t make you right.
One thought on Mike Savage. Anyone that thinks he’s a shill for the Republicans is grossly misinformed. Read the books and listen to the show. He hates the Rep’s as much as the Dem’s. Or as he calls them, Republicrats and Demicans. Arguing he’s a conservative is like saying Nader is the spokesman of the Democrats.
Hell No! Many on the left cannot be outdone for shrillery. The looney right specialises in mock-sombre.
No, I was observing that the bare facts speak for themselves so eloquently that the left inclined don’t need to tax themselves in opposing the current administration. By contrast those same facts spread, over so many months, are mighty dispiriting to right partisans, which is why there are less posts of that flavor.
An ounce of smarts and a pound of stupidity. What you need to do is win the election.