Comments on: That’s What I Was Trying To Say!

By: Realist

Realist — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:02:06 +0000

ditka said: “That interivew with Maddow was great. She is so self-righteous and annoying. Great to see you put her in her place.”I am glad commentators like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity aren’t “self-righteous and annoying”. That would be terrible.

By: JJWFromME

JJWFromME — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 12:40:59 +0000

cb55, I'm not surprised at David Frum. I'm just explaining where I'm coming from.

You see, that's what people like me do. We actually like to explain our differences, instead of just sneering, throwing out red meat and pretending that that's discourse.

By: cb55

cb55 — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:31:38 +0000

David, a lot of the people who post on here is why I have trouble taking you seriously. I see what I assume are mostly left leaning people commentiing on how you are one of the only “reasonable” republicans out there. But then you go and have something negative to say about a very left commentator, Maddow, and they become surprised with you. They are reading you, because they think you want to reinvent conservatism into the way they would like to see it, but when you take time away from telling conservatives how wrong they are about things, and blasting some of the movements voices and people, and actually take a shot at a liberal, or express your conservative take on some issues, they will not like you.

By: ktward

ktward — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:35:21 +0000

ditka: (as in Mike? Just wonderin')

You seem to be one of those who confuse 'self-righteous' with 'well-informed'.

Limbaugh is a much better example of self-righteous, where fact takes a back seat to demonstrably uninformed opinion.

By: ditka

ditka — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:29:59 +0000

That interivew with Maddow was great. She is so self-righteous and annoying. Great to see you put her in her place.

By: A.B.

A.B. — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:08:37 +0000

No distortions? Really, Otto? I managed to sit through a segment done on the canard about “90%” of the “drug guns” in Mexico being American-sold (Really? Automatic weapons? Where are those sold, here? Or are the “90%” just mostly handguns found in glove-boxes at the border?). Her schtick prevents discussion. All she has to do is go into her styley twelve-year-old mode, and that ends it…I do agree with you in one sense: she is earnest, and in that sense vastly different from her “colleagues.” So, there is that.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:47:30 +0000

David: To get back to the main issue--without newspapers, how can we get the news straight?--there is a simple solution:

Just go to the websites of the various wire services and browse them directly.

Here is the news page of the Associated Press:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/fronts/HOME?SITE=AP

There it is. No commentary, no editorials, just news.

It will always be impossible to eliminate all bias from news reporting. But at least it's news reporting without commentators.

For myself: I don't listen to Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Maddow, Olbermann, etc. And I haven't purchased a broadsheet newspaper in ages.

By: JJWFromME

JJWFromME — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:12:43 +0000

I thought Maddow herself explained her self well about the jokey stuff in this clip last night:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/30117559#30117559

By: ottovbvs

ottovbvs — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:23:22 +0000

I’ve never watched the entire Maddow show but have seen a few interview clips. I have to say she seems a refreshing change from most of these cable show hosts. No screamiing at guests(O’Reilly), no talking over them (Matthews), no extreme pandering(Van Susteren), no impoliteness (several), no utterly silly kite flying (Matthews again), no distortions (Hannity), no hobby horses (Dobbs), no obvious lunacy (Beck). What is there to complain about. Sure her shtick is a bit jokey and gossipy but it’s not particularly offensive and she’s obviously very bright and sharp as a tack. She also, I have to say, worsted you David as I suspect you know really. Having said all this what are you wasting time on this for.

By: JJWFromME

JJWFromME — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:25:45 +0000

Franco: Your point was what was discussed in the Maddow interview with Frum. There is no equivalence Maddow and Limbaugh.

Here is a list of Rush Limbaugh's recent statements that were off color, factually incorrect, over the top and inflammatory, bigoted, etc.:

http://tinyurl.com/d7jf5e

Even late night talk show hosts at this point know how awful Rush Limbaugh looks:

http://blogs.mspmag.com/brianlambert/2009/03/el-rushbo-and-the-self-knottin.html

If Rachel Maddow were to not change tone one iota and continued to defend a president who launched a lethal war with no clear justification, surpressed scientific findings, did nothing while a US city drowned, stood by while the world financial system swirled down the toilet, etc etc... and in fact shouted down dissent, if Maddow regularly said things that were untrue, bigoted, plainly over the top and inflammatory, defended torture as frat house pranking, fomented conspiracy theories...

Then you'd have a point.

But she doesn't do any of these things.

In fact, she raises the level of generally gossipy discussion that usually goes on on cable news. And she just does it with a touch of absurdist humor:

http://www.cjr.org/essay/the_sarcastic_times.php?page=all

So what? The past 8 years have been absurd times.

If you don't respond to that kind of absurdity in some way, then you don't have a healthy democracy.

BTW, she also has a radio show, so it's a bit more than 5 hours per week:

http://airamerica.com/maddow