Dennis Miller sometimes allows his sarcasm to get the best of him and goes for the easy jokes but usually gives credit where he feels it is due and will quite often correct his guests, with varying degrees of tactfulness, if they go off the reservation towards birther or communistic territory.
He does join them all in occasionally excoriating the endless chaotic nightmare that is Canadian healthcare, though. And last week he had on an “intelligent designer” and either pretended to be or was so ignorant of evolutionary theory that he let the guy run roughshod over logic. But check out Dennis Miller Radio for more balanced perspective. He was downright happy on Obama’s Inaugaration Day and ready to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, and it lasted for nearly a month!
Yeah, I listen to Dennis Miller when I can (usually just snippets off his podcast), but he’s definitely a guy who was more than willing to give Obama every benefit of the doubt, and sometimes still does. I can listen to Dennis Miller, but I can’t listen to Beck or Rush. Miller’s brand of conservatism is much more thoughtful, even if he does occasionally pick up a wacky belief here and there.
Just from what I hear anecdotally (whether in the media or in day to day life), many Republicans hate Obama almost as if he were Satan in the flesh, and some folks actually have expressed wishes for death or injury to him with all seriousness. :mad::mad::mad:
Just to make clear- I’m pro-Obama. I don’t agree with everything he does. There just seems to be a double standard. While there were a few left-wing wackos who called for GW Bush’s head, they weren’t taken seriously. In contrast, folks can express all sorts of vile thoughts about Obama and they are regarded as “patriots” and even humorous.
That’s not necessarily a knock on Obama, though; calling opponents unpatriotic is standard right-wing practice, just as left wingers often refer to right-wingers as backward. I do think, in general, that the recent increase in militia-type activity is mostly a response to (misleading or fraudulent characterizations of) Obama policies, rather than to Obama himself.
There is some overlap between the Birthers and the teabaggers, but not as much as you might think. The former group are just batshit crazy; the latter are a mixture of batshit crazy and reasonable-but-upset.
I think Miller basically just plays a right winger for the money because his comedy career is dead and it’s the only way he can make a living. He’s one of the worst xenophic, pro-torture “war on terror” zealots out there, but is more moderate on social issues. The best that can be said about Miller is that he avoids most of the racial and homophobic bigotry of the right (well, except for hating Muslims and Mexican immigrants), but he isn’t very bright, despite his attempts to make himself appear erudite through the use of online thesauruses. Her sometimes trips himself up by mispronouncing the big words.
These are some old Dennis Miller jokes from his pre-conservative days:
[In reference to the NRA slogan "You’ll get my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands] “…whatever…in an ideal world.”
“I wouldn’t ask an abortion protester for directions, much less advice on a pregnancy.”
[On a GOP proposal to put Ronald Reagan on Mt. Rushmore] “They had to cancel the plans because they couldn’t find granite dense enough to accurately portray Reagan’s head.”
This is an insult, generally. Usually they try to disparage that his speeches resonate with people by saying basically he’s a great speechgiver who tranfixes you with his great oratory skills and manages to woo you with his bullshit. It’s a backhanded compliment usually at best.
The weird thing is that I never thought much of his speaking skills - he’s kind of stiff and boring a lot of the time. But the content of his speeches is usually good - he talks to people like they’re adults.
Well, a pundit can be centrist, but they’re very often dull as dirt and thus tend not to get put on TV/radio, etc.
There are a few libertarian pundits out there – Dennis Miller is one, Neal Boortz and John Stossel are others. They tend to get lumped in with the true conservatives, but listen for awhile and you’ll see a difference in ideas and tone.
A conservative pundit can’t have anything good to say about Obama. If he does, then he is, by definition, a liberal. At least according to the folks at The Corner.
Bill O’Reilly interviewed Obama face-to-face. While that’s not the same as praise, he did show Obama the proper respect due him, and didn’t turn of his mic or anything.
If Bill O’Reilly were to reach to cut Obama’s mike, and the Secret Service gunned him down, I would be quick to condemn such action. Of course, I would have review the video many, many times to be sure I had complete understanding…
Aaaand this MFer is notorious for hanging up on people on his radio show if they start making sense. It’s sort of an “Oh shit! How did this smart liberal get passed my screeners? Somebody’s getting fired!” type of thing, and it is hilarious. My favorite Hannity “Oh shit!” moment was when he brought on two Columbia students who had protested the minute men on campus. Three minutes of pure ownage by two 20 year old girls. When he couldn’t take the beating anymore, he yelled at them, and shut their mics off. I wish I could find a video of it.
Bill O is the non-crazy conservative pundit now… and I get the impression that his ratings are slipping because he isn’t matching Rush or Beck for vitriol.
And last week he had on an “intelligent designer” and either pretended to be or was so ignorant of evolutionary theory that he let the guy run roughshod over logic. But check out Dennis Miller Radio for more balanced perspective. He was downright happy on Obama’s Inaugaration Day and ready to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, and it lasted for nearly a month!