Well, I for one am thinking for myself; that’s why I’m disagreeing with you. I find it bizarre that you are getting so hung up on who deserves to debate whom when the real issue is that of a particular network’s commentators repeatedly hyping fake news stories designed to push a partisan political viewpoint, then reporting on them in their straight news segments as if they were legitimate issues. OTOH, FOX’s lack of journalistic rigor is a legitimate news story in itself and worthy of highlighting. O’Reilly didn’t have to respond at all but chose to do so with his childish “My ratings are higher” claims.
The real debate in this thread is Maddow banging her spoon on her high chair about Bill O dissing her ratings instead of responding to her attack on its merits. In this thread I have said unflattering things about Miss Maddow and she has not seen fit to respond. This must mean that she has better things to do than respond to nobodies or she is frightened by my superior intellect and rapier wit. I tend to think her non-response to me means the same as Bill O’s non-response to her, a rational response to relative positions on the pecking order.
I will have to admit that Bill O’ is the bigger pecker of the two.
It’s hard to tell if you’re really that deluded or really that intellectually dishonest, but every syllable of this “argument” (using the term as liberally as possible) is 100% pure unadulterated nonsense. Pathetic.
Considering the over-the-top responses, I’m beginning to suspect that “puddleglum” is really Al Franken.
Without the wit.
This is why I had requested the thread to be closed and why I typically don’t participate in Great Debates…not worth the time dealing with, as **AG **says, intellectual dishonesty…
What IS it about politics that just shuts off a person’s Ethical Discussion portion of the brain?
I mean, how can a normally rational person start thinking “Aha, if I sidestep the actual topic of discussion and pull out an entirely different pissing contest that I know I can win, then my enemies will suddenly come around to my way of thinking!”?
I mean, I’ve caught myself responding with small-mindedness to a topic, but I stop, look at what I’m doing objectively, say “Wow, I’d better watch it or my need to ‘win’ this argument is going to turn me into an ass.” And, IRL, apologize, or here, delete my post before you folks find out how petty I can be.
(Unfortunately, religious topics have the same effect. Where the effect is even more ironic: “I’m gonna be a jerk to you to prove God loves you!”)
You can insult me all you want, Mr. Guy, and you’ll be right that you are bigger for now and maybe forever. You are the undisputed champion. But even if no one understands me at all, except for my mom and my pet rock and people who forgot to turn off the TV after Keith, you are still wrong on what really matters and that would be the facts, your highness.
Rachel’s quote is a very good one, except in this case you are wrong on the facts try harder.
Not exactly. If Starving Artist were to post in regard to this issue (which he has thus far held off doing out of respect for the OP :)), he’d point out that Fox was hardly the only network news outlet to report the Sherrod story as it appeared on Breitbart.
And he’d point out that Maddow was, at the very least, incorrect in stating as fact that Fox deliberately designed this story in order to “make white Americans fear black Americans”, as the point of the story was to counter the NAACP’s decision to officially label the Tea Party as racist by showing racist attitudes on the part of the NAACP itself. Fear had nothing to do with it, and in my opinion Maddow was engaging in a little dishonest gamesmanship in claiming that it did.
Also, Starvey doesn’t really phrase things in the same way that puddlegum does, nor is he generall inclined to defend Bill O’Reilly or the Fox network as he watches virtually none of either. And while he is at something of a loss to understand the love for Maddow and is inclined to view it primarily as the result of partisanship, he has seen very little of her too.
So all in all, neither puddlegum’s post nor your interpretation of it are very much like me at all.
Fair point. While Teabaggers clearly have racism issues coloring (heh) their brand, the NAACP didn’t do itself any favors. And sure Fox can report on that aspect of the story.
It doesn’t make O’Reilly any less of a douchebag in his dealings with Maddow.
Actually, fear had everything to do with this strategy if you think it through. Breitbart (and Fox after they were handed the ball) created a misleading video and “news” reports “to counter the NAACP’s decision to officially label [ELEMENTS OF] the Tea Party as racist” precisely to inculcate fear into whites that Blacks have a powerful voice, were capable of taking a strong stand, and the NAACP (a Black organization) and others would actually be listened to for the truth of what they were saying about the Tea Party (Smith proved it by his website and interview comments later).
Breitbart and the Gang were so desperate to incite white people into believing that they were now being oppressed that they actually used and altered video that, if shown in its entirety and for context, depicted Ms. Sherrod, her audience and the NAACP in general, as displaying what was the very opposite of racist attitudes.
If that wasn’t fearmongering, I don’t know what is.
The facts, eh? You really want to hang your hat on that one? So, here are the facts, specifically alleged by you.
As analogies go–> Bill O’Reilly : Rachel Maddow as Rachel Maddow : puddleglum
This is what you claim. And for anyone who is non-deluded or intellectually honest, the fact is that this comparison is indeed pure 100% unadulterated nonsense.
And of course, that’s also ignoring the specious straw man (or sorry, “parody”) that your post also represents. Did I say pathetic? I was being too kind.