Now, if the threat stayed in their caves, we’d all be fine, wouldn’t we. But they don’t. And Americans who might be swayed be greater vigilance are rubes? I love it. Please contact Obama and try to get on as his speechwriter. These mutterings might do well here in this poor facsimile of reality, but not in reality itself.
Now why do you think that this might sway votes? What are you so afraid of? Maybe because people recognize that murderous religious fanatics want to kill us and that one party takes that threat more seriously than the other? One party reminds people what were up against, while the other doesn’t even mention radical Islam. People expect their government to protect them. If one party is afraid to even offend murderous barbarians by calling them what they are—radical Islamic terrorists—that doesn’t build a lot of confidence that they’ll do all that is necessary to protect us. Here’s a thought, if you guys want to be taken seriously as protectors of the U.S., start talking about it. Step one: identify the enemy. There. I just gave you a blueprint to take the advantage away from the Republicans.
To the contrary. I think it’s a mistake to assume that those who attack (or would like to) have a set level of hatred and motivations, and that once set off nothing can make that any worse. If those mistakes fuel the flames, then they have everything to do with how vigilant we should be.
It seems somewhat ironic of you to say that the only purpose of seeing the coffins is to weaken the stomach for war, whilst upholding the idea that frequent mentions of 9/11 are acceptable and of purpose.
I think that the Democrtats have identified the enemy; certainly Obama has. The enemy comprises organizations such as al Qaida that want to actually attack the U.S.
The enemy was not (and has never been) a secular dictatorship run by a contained nut that had been demonstrated to pose no threat before we ever launched our first Tomahawk. Referring to insurgents opposing the occupation of their country as “radical Islamic terrorists” is stupid because it is false. (There are “radical Islamic terrorists” in Iran–now, since we destroyed the security force that was keeping them out–and the current administration finally began to get some of the Iraqis to begin to oppose them (after four and a half years of fumbling that situation), but the few “radical Islamic terrorists” that we have spent our time fighting in Iraq were the ones who entered after we breached the Iraqi security, who initially fought alongside the Sunni minority until they began to irritate those folks. The majority of our opponents in Iraq have been from the Shia majority which does include a few people who might be described as “radical Islamic terrorists,” although folks like Muqtada al Sadr seem to be much more concerned with re-establishing power in their own country than they do wandering around the world attacking others.
So I would have to say that the party that led us into an utter disaster that had nothing to do with actually fighting the people who attacked us (and who created far more recruits for our enemies in doing so) would be the party least likely to provide for our defense as they have already demonstrated that they have no clue what is going on among our actual enemies.
Göring: Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
They all speak to a national audience and are invited to comment in the mainstream media. Rush Limbaugh is a mainstream conservative commentator; he can hide behind that “harmless little fuzzball” crap all he wants, but he is a well-known media figure; the NY Times Magazine did a cover story on him recently for chrissake! His style of right-wing commentary is what passes for mainstream conservative thought.
Brit Hume’s daily Special Report–which draws 2 million viewers–includes a “Fox All-Stars” political roundtable that is heavily conservative; among his regular commentators are Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, Mort Kondracke, Charles Krauthamer–the usual gaggle of neo-con apologists–with the occasional corresponded from NPR to provide “balance”. He has a commentator role on Fox News Sunday–the Fox Network’s equivalent to Meet the Press, Face the Nation, and ABC’s This Week–where he routinely spouts Limbaugh-esque views such as this little rant about whether or not Congressman Jack Murtha was senile (I guess veterans are only respectable if they’re on the Republican ticket). Yet Hume is given a free pass as a “news anchor”; I wonder why?
Countdown with Keith Olberman is MSNBC’s highest-rated show with 1.3 million viewers nightly. Now that is smaller that top-rated The O’Reilley Factor’s 3.6 million, but it is a sizeable audience that is more than triple what Glen Beck earns on CNN. Yet Olberman is demoted, while Beck continues to waste two hours of prime-time every weeknight; again, I wonder why?
As for Air America, Rachel Maddows is now hosting a program on MSNBC, and the network’s biggest program (The Thom Hartman Show) draws 1.5 million listeners on the terrestrial radio network. I agree that’s not in Limbaugh league, though the network’s horrible business practices probably have more to do with its recent failures than a lack of interest among potential listeners.
Matthews–who I wouldn’t necessarily classify as a liberal–was demoted because the Republican establishment didn’t like him. It’s the same reason MSNBC fired Phil Donahue in 2003–then hosting the network’s highest rated program (yes, even higher than Matthew’s Hardball)–when he started questioning the Iraq war. Donahue’s particular liberal viewpoint turned out to be the right one and was apparently popular at the time; if people were allowed to hear about it amid the conservative-dominated blather/cheerleading than passes for reasoned commentary on cable news, perhaps Iraq wouldn’t be the mess it is today.
The conclusion to me is obvious: Major media in the US is a business, and business interests are more in tune with the Republican party, and so they have an interest in appeasing republicans. Sumner Redstone admitted as much in a 2004 interview with Time magazine, in the wake of Rathergate:
How can anyone read this an still believe CBS–or any media giant–has a liberal bias? It’s simply a fantasy the right uses to rally the base.
Thanks for your speechifying. Maybe next time you respond to what I write you can make it relevant. But I have great news for you Mr. Broad Brush, George Bush’s numbers in the polls for the coming election are zero! That’s right, zero.
But regardless of who does win, after this election is over we will have an ex-Senator in office who voted to authorize military action in Iraq. I certainly hope that realization doesn’t keep you up at night. and what does this say of Holy Obama? His judgement? On the very important issue he selected a man who voted with Bush and all his evil cronies and minions in the senate. Tsk, tsk. That halo looks a little tarnished to me.
Just what is your point? You whine about Rush and other successful right-wing talking heads. I point out that they’ve tapped into an interest in the market. You show that the market does work in this regard, by citing the audiences for Olberman and bringing up Maddox’s show, thereby agreeing that the market does work in the way I explained. Then, then, then I don’t know what. Seriously. What is your point?
Not a war at all. What country is radical islam. Terrorism is it a tactic which can be fought by CIA , infiltration ,bribery and cooperation between nations. It is an intelligence operation. Iraq is not about radical Islam.
I’m not talking about Iraq. I’m talking about the larger war of which Iraq is merely a component (rightly or wrongly). Afghanistan is a component in that effort, as well. We should use the CIA and all tools that we have to bear.
I’d say that now we’re just trying to leave the country in as good a shape as possible after all these years of a botched effort. The original reason we went, as I’m sure you know, was 1) we believed Saddam had WMD and 2) that he might trade these WMD to the type of radical Islamic murderous barbaric assholes that delivered harm to us on 9/11.
Here’s the thing. I could almost believe this if it weren’t for a few problems. One is that Saddam Hussein cared almost nothing for religion; his interest lay in his own power. He hated Al Qaeda, which was the Sunni extremist group (and he was a Sunni), and he certainly wasn’t going to support a Shiite extremist group. The next is that we had thought for years that Iraq was trying to get nukes. But suddenly, two months before the 2002 midterm elections, it became a crisis. This “crisis” was one hundred percent manufactured by the White House; it was not based on any newly acquired information. The administration then had to go to work on the intelligence agencies, and eventually Dick Cheney had to create his own intelligence agency to get the stuff he wanted to support this war. Now read that again, slowly. That’s how slim the data was, when they actually went looking for hard data; Cheney had to bring in his own people to look at the data “his” way in order to get the results he wanted. Neither the military nor the CIA supported his belief of any kind of near term threat.
Third is that across the world we had North Korea, another state in our so-called Axis of Evil, waving its hands, jumping up and down, and shouting “Hey, over here! We’ve got nukes!!!” For Pete’s sake, they even tested them. And we didn’t do one darned thing.
So no, I don’t think we went into Iraq because we were afraid that Iraq would sell WMD to Radical Islamist groups. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure that the people who supported it know why, although I think it’s probably closer to the Domino Theory so prevalent in the time of Viet Nam. Worked out real well then, too.
That the business implications of political commentary in the mainstream media often trumps actual audience analysis.
Far from showing “the market does work in this regard”, I’ve shown that the will of the market is deliberately thwarted in several cases. Olberman and Matthews are simply the most recent; they were clearly demoted because they criticized Republicans in a large forum, despite the fact they are two of MSNBC’s most popular on-air personalities (as the ratings prove).
I am also willing to bet–given the Olberman decision and the cancellation of the high-rated Donahue show–that the first time Rachel Maddow says something controversial–i.e. something the right doesn’t like–she will be censured by her employer in a similarly public way.
To be fair, CJJ*, note that Olberman and Matthews continue with commentary shows. They simply will not be anchoring what are supposed to be straight news presentations. The Phil Donahue cancellation, on the other hand, seems much less innocent.