I’ve read a lot of those WaPo chats since DougJ started having fun with them and have mainly concluded they are a waste of time, but I have to say this Eugene Robinson chat was well worth the read. He pulls no punches.
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Anonymous At Work
The Cooking one ain’t bad. I hit them up for pointers and recepie links, and I get quality back.
Indie Tarheel
The chat was good; his article was better.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
I love Eugene Robinson. I feel that he is one of the few people out there who manages to consistently be smart, passionate, perfectly honest and yet unfailingly polite.
TR
Fucking awesome. I love that guy.
Kryptik
Some of those questions were depressing, but I give props to Gene to confronting them.
Particularly the ‘Japan and Germany bear the stains of WWII, Islam should bear the stains of terrorism!’. Thankfully, a later question points out the whole fallacy of that.
In any case, barring inclement weather, I’m probably gonna head down there after lunch, bearing signage. Wish me luck and health.
Joel
That was a man’s performance.
RedKitten
Beautifully done. Cuts through the bullshit. Now why can’t CNN give HIM an hour-long slot?
Nom de Plume
Jesus, that man has the patience of a fucking saint. Literally bombarded with fucking idiotic question after idiotic question, from the most pig ignorant dumbasses, and he hangs in there.
TR
@Indie Tarheel:
You’re right, as good as the chat was, the column was better.
Mister Colorful Analogy
@Kryptik:
DougJ, is this you? :)
If I had to put money on it, I’d say no, because you tend to be more subtle with your use of wingnutty language. Still, there’s just something about it that makes me wonder if the master has made an appearance!
Carry on.
Violet
I love Eugene Robinson. From the chat, this ties into the discussion in a previous thread today:
THIS. The progressives, left, Dems, whoever have been woeful in defining issues. The let the right define everything and then have to play defense.
TR
@RedKitten:
I hate to say it, but he’s got a bit of a Kermit the Frog voice. I don’t think he’d wear well in the shallow, shiny objects world of cable news with more than short appearances.
Stooleo
Man, Eugene must be exhausted smacking down so much stupid.
Rosalita
Very enjoyable read…he zings them and does it with smarts and class
Chad N Freude
I posted this on the Lebanese synagogue thread, don’t want it to get lost in the shouting match that’s going on there. It seems reasonably on-topic here.
eWeek.com has a report this morning entitled Trojan May Have Played Part in Spanish Plane Crash. (It’s short and non-technical if you care to read it.) One of the comments attached to the article is
There is, needless to say, no mention of Islamist extremism in the report.
Tone In DC
@Stooleo:
Teh st00pid… it burns!
Gene’s a great journalist. Kermit voice or no.
Mister Colorful Analogy
@Joel:
This. Couldn’t agree more.
RedKitten
It’s such a basic, elementary debate tactic. If you define the terms before your opponent does, you get to frame the entire debate and usually wind up winning it.
danimal
How hard is it to recognize that the best way to counter RW hysterics is to punch the bullies in the face? That was a great article, knocked ’em out cold.
bemused
I’m grateful Robinson is on msnbc regularly. Most of the time, he is the only person on the set who actually sounds like a reasonable adult, especially on Morning Joe.
JR
The problem with these WaPo chats (though I suppose the paper might argue that it’s a feature, not a bug) is that they’re mostly populated by the same people who would comment on newspaper web sites. And those guys are the shithouse rats of the online crazies.
evinfuilt
That was great to read. I love it when someone in Journalism can plainly say “they lied.”
Joel
@Chad N Freude: I had two thoughts on reading your link:
1) Errant condom.
2) Unruly USC player.
Violet
@RedKitten: Yep. And with all the lawyers in the Democratic party, you’d think one or two of them would have learned a few debate tactics.
Chad N Freude
@Joel: I was hoping the level of discourse wouldn’t descend to that, but I guess I forgot what blog I was on.
Frank
@Mister Colorful Analogy:
Wow!
Using the same logic, then ALL Christians must bear the responsibility and wear this stain on themselves for generations for the Oklahoma city bombing and all the abortion clinic bombings.
Do these people ever take a step back and ponder what they are saying?
Chad N Freude
@Frank: NO. SATSQ.
The concept of “ponder” is beyond them. “Pander”, not so much.
RedKitten
@Violet:
True, but as a general rule, lawyers are not renowned for their pithiness.
batgirl
Disgusting! And Jews, like Abraham Foxman, who have explicitly and implicitly endorsed hate like this, should be embarrassed.
stuckinred
@bemused: Yea but Joe trotted out his ” the left was just as mean to W” bullshit this morning in response to Gene’s piece.
gex
@RedKitten: It seems to me this sort of direct speak is more likely to help him lose a platform rather than find a bigger platform.
stuckinred
“Joe Scarborough has, once again, bitten the hand that feeds him.
This morning on “Morning Joe” he was talking with Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson about Robinson’s column in which he criticizes Republicans for using the lower Manhattan mosque project as a scare tactic and as the American people “being victimized by [Pres. Obama], by the democrats by the muslims, whoever,” said Robinson. Scarborough’s response:”
DougJ
@JR:
When I look through recent ones I trolled, I can no longer distinguish my own crazy questions from those the other people are asking.
DougJ
@Mister Colorful Analogy:
No, that wasn’t me. I like do to short ones with insane idiocy stuck in in small doses.
stuckinred
Great comment on that Joe story from mediabistro
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/msnbc/joe_scarborough_knocks_msnbcs_primetime_171592.asp
Sarcastro
I liked this statement:
Please read about what “Cordoba” was…it was one of the most bloody conquests of Muslim history against Christians in Europe. </em
Just. Making. Shit. Up.
A quick battle with the Visigoth forces that held Hispania in 712 caused the entire kingdom to collapse. Al Tariq didn't have to fight any more major battles, Spain just fell into his hands since the Visigoths he defeated had such a weak hold on the peninsula.
Cordoba proper surrendered without a fight!
JR
@Sarcastro: The best part about the “Cordoba was a CONQUEST!!!1!” trope is that the conquest was a very quick event in the grand scheme, followed by over a century of interfaith and intercultural trade and diplomacy. That’s like saying my life is entirely defined by the hospital where I was born, regardless of anything that happened afterwards (like, you know, living).
El Cid
Did as many die in the Muslim conquering of Spain as were killed in the French Catholic massacring of divergent religious sects such as the Huguenots?
ppcli
What a great performance. Discouraging, though, that merely pointing out the obvious in unambiguous terms is such a rare feat that it deserves applause. I was also quite fond of this moment:
“In “Christian” Argentina, where I was once The Post’s correspondent, pious, church-going generals and admirals murdered tens of thousands of people whom they suspected of being leftists. This was in the 1970s, not back during the Spanish Inquisition — and the church sat idly by. If you think the Christian world has a monopoly on morality or civilized behavior, you need to keep that quarter.”
And “murdered” is too mild a way to describe the disappearance and sadistic torture of thousands (not even mentioning the elements so diabolical that you would roll your eyes at the heavy-handedness if you encountered them in fiction – keeping disappeared pregnant women alive until they gave birth to infants that could be adopted by well-connected childless military families, for example.) There were of course many individual priests and nuns who behaved with courage, and many were disappeared themselves as a result. But the church hierarchy was well aware of what was going on and did nothing but cover itself with shame.
El Cid
@ppcli: Throughout Central America the formal Catholic Church inveighed against the awful heretics of “Liberation Theology” who preached that the Church should favor the poor and their uplift in this world, and backed the death squad / genocidal regimes who murderously eliminated the movement, of course with US backing.
The Guatemalan generals who carried out genocide against the nation’s hill-dwelling Mayan population also were promoted to Ronald Reagan for their strong and impressive evangelical Christian values.
Cat Lady
And yet the elephant in the room that Eugene Robinson and every other Dem still haven’t mentioned is the Fox/Saudi connection that Jon Stewart just gave them the pre-made bumper sticker for already – Fox funds terrorists. The Dems just suck at messaging.
PeakVT
@Violet: I agree that liberals/progressives should improve their framing skills. But let me point out that one reason that conservatives are good at framing issues is that they have no compunction about making shit up. Personally, this progressive likes to look into an issue and weight the evidence a bit before taking a stance. It doesn’t ever occur to me to jump to an incorrect but pithy conclusion for political gain. A willingness to lie allows conservatives to create controversies where, on closer examination, there is none, or where the issue is far more complex that the sound bite that the media is repeating. I don’t see any way for progressives to get ahead of conservatives on issues like “death panels” or “anchor babies” or “ground-zero mosque.” They simply don’t exist.
Mnemosyne
@Sarcastro:
Notice that the same people who are still indignant about Cordoba over 1,000 years later are the same ones who wonder why the Iraqis are pissed off that we invaded them in 2003 or why the Iranians don’t trust us just because we’ve been screwing with their country since the 1950s.
El Cid
@PeakVT: Also, Bush Jr. held hands with and kissed this Islamic terror funder!
cleek
@Frank:
want to stop this line of thought dead in its tracks? three words: reparations for slavery.
El Cid
@Mnemosyne: Don’t forget the Gates of Vienna!
NonyNony
@Cat Lady:
Except that the purpose of Stewart’s bit isn’t that Fox funds terrorists, it’s that Fox is full of liars. Because Stewart doesn’t really believe that the Saudi prince who owns a chunk of Fox is funding terrorists, and he doesn’t believe that the dopes at Fox & Friends believe it either. Hence the Evil vs. Stupid connection in the bit.
If you go down the road of using “Fox Funds Terrorists” as a legitimate idea (instead of as a piece of mockery against Fox) then you’re not helping. Not all Muslims are terrorists, and not all funding from Muslims is “terror money”. Which, I think, is the point that Stewart was trying to make while also mocking Fox (because, hey, who doesn’t like to mock Steve Douchey?)
El Cid
By the way, the HuffPo had some quick context for the poll result that 1 in 5 Americans (I suspect overwhelmingly Republicans, but I’m not sure I saw) believing Obama is a Muslin.
For example, 1 in 5 also think the Sun orbits the Urf.
NonyNony
@cleek:
That’s different because SHUT UP THAT’S WHY!!!!
You could also put our treatment of the Native Americans into that mix. Same answer. American Exceptionalism is always the trump card.
brendancalling
@JR:
you know, if there’s one thing that always gives me a chuckle. it’s when the wingers start getting all “dungeons and dragons” with their language about “conquest” and “beheading” etc. it just makes me laugh. i imagine them carrying those little bags of multi-sided dice everywhere they go.
Cat Lady
@NonyNony:
Accuse Fox of funding terrorists, and let every lying Fox clown try to make the more nuanced argument you’re making. That’s how to play the game – make them play defense. The teatards’ heads will asplode.
Surly Duff
@Violet:
Many people become lawyers because of their inability to determine what else they want to do with their life and future, and the fact that the profession can be lucrative doesn’t hurt. For every intelligent lawyer I have met, I’ve met three that couldn’t do much more than write down billable hours on a sheet of paper or enjoy hearing themselves speak.
Midnight Marauder
@PeakVT:
You know, taking the time to look at an issue and weigh the evidence beforehand should not preclude you from eventually coming up with effective messaging. And that is the problem.
It’s not that liberals have compunction about being blatant liars and vile propagandists. It’s that our side fucking sucks at framing. We are fucking terrible at messaging. We are fucking horrible at not only refuting an argument, but using that refutation to reframe the argument in favorable terms. We are fucking abysmal at simplifying complex issues into potent, memorable phrases. We are just fucking terrible at all of these things.
Conservatives have been kicking liberal ass for decades because liberals haven’t learned a goddamn lesson about framing over the last 14,000+ days of existence.
NonyNony
@Cat Lady:
And meanwhile every innocent Muslim in the country gets slandered while the game is played.
Forgive me if I’m more interested in defusing the rock-throwing than in finding reasons to have “both sides” throwing rocks at Muslims. Even if one side is only bouncing the rock off of Muslim heads to hit Rupert Murdoch.
Frank
@cleek:
Very good!
bemused
@stuckinred:
Joe constantly plays the left is just as bad card and at the same time, he is getting increasingly critical of R’s pushing stupid wedge issues and going along with extreme rightwing nuttiness. Saying the left does exactly the same thing is quite a stretch these days but I don’t expect Joe to stop trying.
Paula
@PeakVT:
While this is a flattering write-up about the community, I would go with the idea that progressives have no understanding of both their existing and possible constituencies and therefore have no coherent platform to push. And because of this they have no coherent strategy. On health care: sure, there was a “loud” group calling for single payer or bust, another calling for public option or bust — but were they backed by unions? By local and national advocacy groups like the NAACP? Did all registered Democrats understand the difference between single payer, public option, and the bill we eventually got? Were they ever given a reason to mobilize if certain parts of the bill were cut? If they did, were they given leadership in order to mobilize? How many were willing to mobilize, for how long, and where?
The RIght also took decades to build up a reliable base that could become “single issue” voters fairly quickly. But it took decades of talk radio and direct mail parroting the same ideas over and over. Neither of which progressives are anywhere near mastering.
flukebucket
I liked that response a lot.
Mnemosyne
@Midnight Marauder:
No, I think PeakVT is right — Republicans keep beating us on framing because they have absolutely no compunction about lying their asses off. They know it’s virtually impossible to re-frame a lie, because first you have to explain that it’s a lie, and then try to apply the new frame.
Reframing a lie is like polishing a turd — it can be done, but it’s ultimately pointless.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@RedKitten:
Because he works for GE/NBC/Newsweek/WaPo?
Midnight Marauder
@Mnemosyne:
But I’m not talking about reframing a lie. I’m talking about obliterating a lie and reframing the terms of debate entirely. That’s the step that’s been missing from the liberal equation forever, going beyond just exposing the lie as a lie.
What you have to do is not only expose the lie and the liar, but demonstrate why it is a lie and what is the actual reality of the situation at hand. You have to reconstruct the entire way that the public is perceiving and decoding messages when they come across them. You have to alter their entire frame of reference so that when they come across something that is an outrageous, blatant lie, they have the knowledge base and tools to recognize, “Hey, that’s not actually true.” You have to give them a frame of reference that doesn’t allow outrageous lies to take root in the first place, and one way to do is that is with aggressive refutation and reframing.
We know that the other side is always going to be filled with shameless liars. We know that their default is going to be know-nothing demagoguery; we know this. So, realistically, the best way to combat this is to educate the populace as to not only the standard issue lies the other side is going to offer, but you also expose how their entire organizational framework is conducive to that lie.
You attack them as liars, and when they inevitably lie in response (because they are liars by nature), you never let the public forget the fact that they are exactly who you said they were.
JR
@brendancalling: “I’m a Level 14 demagogue!”
HyperIon
@TR wrote:
And Nancy Grace’s corn pone accent doesn’t drive you up a wall?
orogeny
@NonyNony:
Seems like the better slogan is:
“According to Fox News, Fox funds terrorists.”
PeakVT
@Paula: I don’t disagree that the left sucks at framing issues they (should) want to frame. Lack of coherence certainly is a major reason. But the left’s failures don’t account for all of the difference between the effectiveness of the two sides, IMHO.
orogeny
@NonyNony:
Seems like the better slogan is:
“According to Fox News, Fox funds terrorists.”
cmorenc
I referee lots of high school soccer for both public and private schools, including some of the more fundamentalist Christian academy high schools. Any time I’m assigned to a game involving a private school I’m not already familiar with, I always check out the school’s website to get some background sense of the people and players I’ll be working with. This includes not just seeing information about their soccer team and athletic program, but I’ll also check out what the school promotes as their mission and their educational offerings.
YESTERDAY one of the things that jumped out at me about the host school was that they specifically mentioned that ALL their textbooks for their science curriculum were from a series produced by Bob Jones University. Now I’m perfectly fine with private sectarian schools stating that their core mission is giving students an education with a Christian perspective designed to develop their character and Christian spiritual growth, etc. – it’s possible in principle to accomplish that harmoniously with promoting a broad-minded, tolerant perspective (another school whose game I worked last week stated such broad purpose more or less just like that). HOWEVER, it makes me uneasy to realize how many youth across the land, particularly in the southern United States, are learning science from the “Bob Jones University” perspective, which is that science is only valid to the extent it can be rendered consistent with the literal wording of the Bible (King James version? Revised Standard version?). One other characteristic of the more fundamentalist Christian schools is a strong tendency to view fundamentalist Christianity as the ONLY valid religion worthy of respect against a plethora of false religions out there which mislead people away from any possibility of salvation, etc.
I will say this: their coaches and players (and usually fans) are unfailingly polite and hospitable to visiting referees, including some obviously Arabic-ethnic ones extremely unlikely to be Christian. I found it charming that immediately preceding yesterday’s game between two fundamentalist Christian schools, in the prayer circle players and coaches from both teams form around the center circle of the soccer field, the home school coach’s prayer included asking God that “may the referees have clear vision today”. BTW, even the most ardently fundamentalist schools never put any pressure, explicit or implicit, on the referees to join the pregame prayer circle – though we’re always welcome (natch).
IF ONLY the general influence of these schools on American society was toward the sort of tolerance and behavior I generally see on the soccer field, as opposed to the political field, these private Christian academies would be a huge positive influence for American society. There’s a huge disconnect between many of these people’s attitudes dealing with others face to face, and how they treat strangers who are more abstract.
Mnemosyne
@Midnight Marauder:
And your plan to do that when you have one major cable network that’s completely controlled by Republicans and two others that usually go along with whatever Republicans say is … what exactly?
When the media’s attitude towards Republican lies is “Earth flat or round? Views differ,” what’s your plan for exposing the lies as lies?
Take a look at the Snopes page for Obama. Every one of those lies is still circulating through e-mail every day. What’s your plan to combat that?
LGRooney
Anytime we point out a right winger getting pedantic without noticing the lack of grounding for said preaching, we should add a tag “keep that quarter.”
Paula
PeakVT, Mnemosyne: A lot of this sounds like “But they ain’t playing fair!”, to which one could only answer: “Are they supposed to?” When, in the course of human history, has political opposition been expected to respect truth and fairness? Your side is the only side whose behavior you can control if you want to “win” the contest.
El Cid
@HyperIon: Nancy Grace was great playing herself at her worse in the movie “Hancock”.
Midnight Marauder
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not saying it’s going to be some kind of cakewalk; we are talking about fighting almost half a century of incredibly efficient propaganda and demagoguery. But what I am saying is that the Left does itself no favors in terms of how they approach combating the shameless liars and the lies they tell.
In regards to the media, I think you have to differentiate between the Village at the national level and more local media, like state newspapers and local television news. It’s always going to be an uphill battle against the Village, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go to battle against them and still use their platform as a way to counter-message. I am reminded of this recent example provided by Sherrod Brown:
Now that seems like it was incredibly easy, but let’s be honest, the media in this country (at pretty much all levels) are not that intellectually sophisticated. If you have your shit together, you can run this kind of game on them all day. The reason being, they will present you with softball after softball in an interview setting like the one Sen. Brown was in, especially at the national level.
The opportunities to transform the conversation are there. Our side just doesn’t have even the most basic ability to capitalize on them in a consistently substantial fashion.
asiangrrlMN
Love Gene. Love when he’s on the TeeVee, and I would gladly watch an hour with him as host. The only thing is, he’s too polite to be an effective host. If he could talk the way he writes, then he would be great. Regardless, both the chat and the article were excellent.
@Midnight Marauder: I would disagree with you. I have seen snippets of Democrats doing exactly that without getting any play or getting excoriated for using bad tactics. Remember Grayson’s Death Panel moment? Or Wiener’s “The gentleman from wherever is correct in sitting!” moment? Hell, Al Franken has spoken eloquently on many of these issues, but he gets no attention at all. Mind you, I agree that many Dems suck at stating a forceful, coherent message, but not all.
Midnight Marauder
@asiangrrlMN:
And what do they say when they get accused of using “bad tactics?” Do they stick with something resembling a coherent message from party leadership, from party activists and grassroots campaigns? Or do they scatter at the first sign of a serious opposition/pushback?
That was good. It got a lot of play. Too bad no one else in the party got on the bandwagon and flooded the country with similar messages of indignant fury.
I agree with the people who say this wasn’t nearly as effective as it could have been since it was largely about parliamentary procedure.
Then let’s get him some fucking attention.
Mnemosyne
@Midnight Marauder:
Who’s gotten more coverage in the last two weeks, Sherrod Brown or Pam Geller? Paula seems to have her finger on the pulse of what people are thinking: you look like a whiner if you point out that your opponent is lying about you. Sad, but true.
Think back to high school with the rumors about which ones were the “slutty” girls. How successful were any of those girls in getting those lies turned around? Heck, you probably still believe those stories to this day no matter how the girls tried to combat them.
When you have one side that’s trying to sell policy and another side that is willing to do nothing but bald-faced lie about that policy, you have a problem, and it’s not going to be fixed by a few Democrats handwaving the problem away
debbie
He’s right. “Sigh.”
asiangrrlMN
@Midnight Marauder: I think the examples I cited have pretty much stuck to their guns in those cases. As for Franken, how? Remember when he sponsored the anti-contractual rape bill (yes, I know that wasn’t what it was) and the Republicans accused him of being all mean to them? He didn’t back down, and the story was quickly dropped. Again, I’m not saying that more Dems couldn’t take a page out of these examples’ book (and Sherrod Brown’s, as a matter of fact), but the reality is they simply won’t get the same play as demagoguing Republicans.
Tax Analyst
@DougJ:
Aha! Giving away valuable Trade Secrets.
Midnight Marauder
@asiangrrlMN:
But here’s the problem with that example. It wasn’t Democrats versus Republicans, it was Al Franken against pretty much the entire Republican Party establishment. And I get it, the Democratic coalition is a fractious, nebulous entity. But goddamn, at some point, this kind of rationale:
@Mnemosyne:
has got to be put to rest. What we have been doing fucking sucks. It hasn’t been working and it needs to be overhauled entirely. We can’t even get a goddamn toe hold in the conversation and we should be RUNNING THE FUCKING DIALOGUE. It’s that kind of mentality that has been missing from Democrats over the years.
And no matter what that overhaul looks like, you are still going to be faced with an unscrupulous opposition that will spout egregious lies and demagogue like there is no tomorrow (because in reality, there isn’t for them). It can’t just be one sane, rational person taking on the entire Right Wing Noise Machine. It’s never going to work like that.
All I’m saying is that the Left needs to do a better job of not only coordinating its attacks, but coming to the support of its supposed allies when they are taking fire on all sides.
Corner Stone
@Midnight Marauder: “Nothing can be done!”
Linda Featheringill
From the wapo chat with Eugene:
ER:
It was a minority of Germans and Japanese that brought the horrors of WWII to the world.
Reader:
What?! It was the governments and the armies and navies of those governments that brought those horrors. That’s not “a minority.”
Me.
The crimes were probably committed by a numerical minority. But the problem was that society as a whole let them get away with it.
The Nazis, by the way, were verty sensitive to street demonstrations and tried to avoid them. Sometimes by changing their behavior and at other times by simply hiding their actions. But it is good to think that the unarmed “little people” can actually have some effect.
Mnemosyne
@Midnight Marauder:
That would be nice, but I have pretty much zero hope of that ever happening given the ongoing bitching about the stimulus and the healthcare bill. Every time someone points out that maybe a little unity would be helpful, three other people scream about how they’re not mindless zombies and aren’t going to support Democrats just because it would be politically useful.
Republicans are great at “divide and conquer” techniques, and they’ve figured out how to get Democrats to use them on each other.
Linda Featheringill
@Mnemosyne:
I agree with Midnight in that we probably could do a better job of lending support to people who agree with our positions. Emails, letters, phone calls, etc. etc.
To use a revolutionary phrase, we need to encourage our brothers and sisters.
morzer
I’d vote for, donate to and campaign for Grayson and Franken at the drop of a hat. It will, however, be a cold day in hell before I do either of those things for Ben Nelson or the Blue Dogs.
General questions:
People seem to agree we should get the good guys more attention. How do we do this?
Could we create an anti-Drudge that actually distributes honest news or some such?
MaryRC
@ppcli: The “Here’s a quarter, buy a clue” guy also commented that “The next time a group of Christians blows themselves up in the name of Jesus we can talk about equivalency”.
IRA, anyone? As another reader pointed out, somehow the Troubles never seems to fit into the script.
I remember getting into a discussion in 2004 (?) when there was a brouhaha about that British journalist who was detained, hand-cuffed, body-searched and deported when she arrived in LA without a press visa. My correspondent huffed that the British couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to live under the threat of terrorism in your own country!
Morbo
Speaking of pulling no punches, The Onion absolutely eviscerates Time. And it kicks Joe Klein in the balls for good measure.
Mike P
@bemused: Well, the funny thing about Joe’s fainting couch routine is that he doesn’t have to unleash a 5 min screed on “Oh the Dems are so bad too!” every time it crosses his mind. Point out bad on both sides and move on.
But yes, Joe won’t really acknowledge that while they may be using some hyperbole in doing so, Dems aren’t making up the fact that the GOP really DOES want to get rid of social security. The GOP seemingly IS (or wants to be) at war with Islam. The GOP DOES think there are “death panels” in the health care bill, etc.
gene108
Why the right can frame a debate is because first and foremost is they agree on shit and second the shit they agree on are things most people agree on or be convinced maybe a good idea.
Scary ass men, who are in jail, like Willie Horton shouldn’t be gettin’ no furloughs to rape and pillage. I think most people can agree someone getting a prison furlough to rape and murder another person is a bad thing.
Liberals can’t agree on a damn thing, can’t stand the people they elect to run things and so framing a debate just ends up with some group of liberals getting pissy and taking their ball and going home and calling the rest of the liberals, who are still in the game a bunch of sell outs.
Until liberals get with the idea that to win a fight against an organized opponent, you have to more organized than them and not crap over the people you elect to run things because the didn’t give you everything you want the way you wanted it, there’s no way the Left can frame a debate in this country.
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
I think we should be doing a MUCH better job of supporting our side, but notice morzer‘s post right under yours with a list of Democrats that s/he will and will not support. It’s that selective support that’s killing us.
Look at John Ensign on the Republican side. The guy is being investigated for corruption by the FBI, but do you ever hear a Republican say a bad word against him?
Eric Massa was forced to resign for saying assholish things and unwanted touching. Ensign is totally secure in his office and he paid his mistress’ husband $100,000 in campaign money to keep his mouth shut about the affair.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Morbo: The kid talking about how he’d graduated from reading Time was a nice touch.
Mnemosyne
The other favorite Republican trick is to co-opt liberal talking points. How long have liberals been calling for Summers and Geithner to resign?
Well, the media is going to start to seriously ask if they should resign, because John Boehner is calling for them to resign. Now it becomes a conservative crusade to save the country from failed liberal policies and not a failure of the Fed and Treasury to go far enough to the left, because Boehner is co-opting what liberals have been demanding for months now.
Joel
@Paula: Looking at the leftists who have succeeded at framing issues in this kind of hostile environment, and it’s not an inspiring list.
The best liberals can do is the right thing, as best we know, and to lead by example.
sistermoon
Amen, double amen and triple amen. It is a media tragedy that clowns like Rick Sanchez have a forum when people like Gene Robinson don’t.
I don’t know what was more amazing about that chat – the rudeness and ignorance of some of the participants, or the aplomb and intelligence of his responses.
debbie
@ Mnemosyne:
I hope today’s Boehner moment today is just the first of many “pronouncements.” Michael Steele’s been too quiet lately.
I love that, after more than a year of pouting in the corner, Boehner’s asking for grown-ups to rescue the country.
Batocchio
His chats are usually great. He features a fair amount of comments from people who disagree with him, and takes them on well.
BruinKid
@Joel: As a UCLA student, I couldn’t agree more. :-)
Dave S.
The Post’s non-political chats are pretty good, especially Gene Weingarten, restaurants (Sietsema is top-notch), and sports (Wilbon and Boswell in particular). I give Gene R. a lot of credit for patiently dealing with the restraining-order types but I wonder how representative they are of the submitters, although JR @ 21’s observation about whackadoodle commenters is a good one. On that note, even the best of those chats have their fringe elements, e.g. “Redskins SuperBowl 1!!!!11!!!!!1”.
Jon Ames
Just want to say that Sherrod Brown is the most mild mannered, run of the mill, common sense Dem out there right now. Would vote and donate to him in a heartbeat. It’s probably the rumpled suits and probability of him being a smoker that put me over the edge.
Sammy
Gene Robinson- the perfect example of everything that is wrong with the Village media- he says his little piece, doesn’t really offend anyone, and then runs to the bank. “Pulls no punches” indeed.