Greg Craig To Be White House Counsel

I don’t know about his qualifications but the name is AWESOME lol

Oh wait I do remember the guy. There are some pretty good stories about him acting like McCain in the debate preps. Ill see if I can pull that stuff up

Still off topic, and ranting up the TSA.
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The article Schneier refers to, Jeffery Goldbergs, is really quite good.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/airport-security/2

KT here–

SG: You may think you don’t know him, but you do. He was the guy who argued the impeachment trial in the Senate for Bill Clinton, also was a top State Department official before that, and a Kennedy guy before that. Has known the Clintons since they were dating in law school, and (have I mentioned?) was trusted enough by them to handle impeachment in the Senate, but endorsed Obama early. Also, Obama brought him on the overseas trip this summer to make sure that went well.

KT
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I do vaguely remember his involvement in the impeachment but the truth is I didnt even bother to read the whole post because I just know I am going to enjoy reporters saying the name “Greg Craig” for the next four years. Hopefully they won’t have to say it a lot though lol

KT here–

SG: Alas, he’s now in a job that requires him NOT to talk to reporters…Sigh.

KT
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Well I think we will hear about him a lot in reference to what they are going to do about GITMO. At least I am HOPING his name comes up in connection with that story. I would love seeing Journos trying to look somber and serious talking about shutting down GITMO and then having to say Greg Craig repeatedly without switching up his name

KT said Craig “Has known the Clintons since they were dating in law school, and (have I mentioned?) was trusted enough by them to handle impeachment in the Senate, but endorsed Obama early. “
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Refreshing isn’t it to be discovering these folks who actually have minds of their own.

I think this is a good pick. From what I remember, Craig is brilliant and no-nonsense.

KT here–

And have I mentioned the puppies? As I said in an earlier thread, I’m completely addicted. Way more fun than thinking about layoffs and the stock market:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shiba-inu-puppy-cam

It’s great when we can all come together around puppies.
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Karen – do you have thoughts about the releasing of all these names before they’re “officially” released? Has this become a leaky operation, or is this intentional?

From Newsweek about Greg Craig
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At Obama’s debate rehearsals, held repeatedly through the late summer and with increasing frequency and intensity in September, the role of McCain was played by Gregory Craig—the ace Washington lawyer dubbed as one of “the Kool-Aid boys” by a bemused Obama back in 2006. After urging Obama to run, Craig had become an informal foreign-policy adviser to him. A trial lawyer, Craig was agile and could, if necessary, come on strong. The expectation was that McCain would condescend to Obama as a wet-behind-the-ears rookie, so Craig played his role accordingly. “Do not lecture me about the war,” Craig-as-McCain said, glowering at Obama, in debate prep. “Do not tell me how to deploy men in combat. I was flying a jet over Vietnam when you were in grade school.”

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KT here–

Kathy: It’s still not very leaky. Dammit.

Also, I’m just watching my recording of the evening of November 4 (okay, I’m addicted – but I was also so tired that night from an all-night work stint on Monday that I couldn’t stay awake, so I recorded things).
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Anyway, Matthews is saying that “they”‘ve decided they don’t want retreads from previous administrations – they want people who are new and young, and bipartisan. So what’s with all the retreads? Was Chris just talking through his hat, or have they bumped up against the reality the prime Democratic names were all in the Clinton administration, or are we seeing mostly transition people?
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I remember a good many administrations where the people coming in were very new. At least in the cabinet, and that may still be true.

KT – teehee. But it does seem to me that everybody that’s been announced so far was announced before s/he was announced: Emanuel, Jarrett, Craig, Biden’s guy, maybe Clinton.

KT here–

Sort of OT: Once again, I want to repeat my offer to any Swampland commenters who make it to DC on inauguration day: I’m up for buying the first round at a time and place TBD. I’ve got a wine bar in mind around the corner from my office.

Oh, yes, he was an early convert,

Gregory Craig, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., was one of those Americans who wanted to believe again. Craig was not exactly an ordinary citizen—he had served and worked with the powerful all his life, as an aide to Sen. Edward Kennedy in the 1980s, as chief of policy planning at the State Department in the Clinton administration and as a lawyer hired to represent President Clinton at his impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate in 1999. He had seen the imperfections of the mighty, up close and personal, and by and large accepted human frailty. But, like a lot of Americans, he was tired of partisan bickering and yearned for someone who could rise above politics as usual. A 63-year-old baby boomer, Craig wanted to recapture the youthful idealism that he had experienced as a student at Harvard in the 1960s and later at Yale Law School, where his friends included Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham. In the late fall of 2003, he was invited to hear a young state senator from Illinois who was running for the U.S. Senate. Craig was immediately taken with Barack Obama. “He spoke 20 to 30 minutes, and I found him to be funny, smart and very knowledgeable for a state senator,” Craig recalled. Craig was so visibly impressed that his host that evening, the longtime Washington mover and shaker Vernon Jordan, teased him, saying, “Greg has just fallen in love.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/167582?tid=relatedcl

Also – since there’s been public airing of the increased threats (even on The Page) – is there a feeling among your colleagues that Obama’s going to be the heard but not seen President?
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I’m surprised there are more threats, actually. I guess a lot of the crazies didn’t think we’d really do this.
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I’m hoping somebody’s wrapping those little girls pretty tightly…

KT-
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There are rumblings of an atriot get-together for the inauguration. There is much overlap between here and there….

KT – I might end up making it to DC after all. My nephew lives near College Park. My sister and brother-in-law plan to come up from KY. I wasn’t planning on going, but I might end up with the best chance for tickets, since there are fewer Vermonters. I didn’t sign up until yesterday, and Leahy’s office said they’d had 900 requests, but I’m hoping the other 899 people signed up at all three offices, as I did, and that what with attrition etc. I might luck out. There was some talk in the paper about having a lottery for the tickets, though Leahy’s office thought they’d do first come, first served.
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But the long and short of it is I might be down, and will of course keep you posted. I think having the first Swampland reunion during the Inaugural week would be fantastic.

kathy
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Honestly I am not surprised at all. In fact I have to say if I am surprised by anything its that there havent been MORE arrests of people threatening harm to Obama. After the way they were whipped up into a frenzy in the last 2 months of the election by Sarah Palin and John McCain I actually thought we would have heard MORE about the crazies doing crazy stuff. It still makes my blood boil but I just keep praying that the SS knows what they are doing

KT here–

Jay: we definitely need to merge these ideas, though I don’t know if I could afford the first round of an atriot gathering.

KT -
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What’re your thoughts about tickets/no tickets. I’m assuming there are going to be millions there, per your last post on the topic. In fact being one of 240,000 with tickets would be bizarre enough.
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How many people does the mall hold, do you know?

Also offtopic-
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KT and Jay Rosen will be joining me this Thursday at my weekly <a href=”http://www.inworldstudios.com/vs” Second Life interview program simulcast on BlogTalkRadio. 6PM Pacific/9PM
Eastern. If you want to ask questions, you have to be in SL. I can’t handle a radio switchboard as well as IM questions.
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We’ll talk about the campaign coverage, and the future of journalism.
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And Twitter will come up, given how active Jay R is in that regard.

preview…
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www/inworldstudios.com/vs
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We miss you.

Jay: we definitely need to merge these ideas, though I don’t know if I could afford the first round of an atriot gathering
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Twas my point. We’ll see if the plans bear fruit. I’ve said I would go.

Yeah, Kathy, just as there was much ad hoc spontaneity here, there will there too. I’m thinking it’ll be like Marathon Sunday here, with groups of people lining the parade route.
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Happy people. Not expecting tickets.

I have a feeling that the Obama team will be competent. The mess they inherit may not make one think so.
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Speaking of the impeachment trial of Clinton, what kind of drugs was Rehnquist still taking to design that robe set? He had to be high right? Rehnquist’s mental issues and drug addiction were one of the biggest unreported stories of our days. Still is not widely known now.

The mall holds a lot of people. I was at a prochoice march years ago that had many hundreds of thousands. I really think the chokepoint will be the metro.

Rehnquist’s mental issues and drug addiction were one of the biggest unreported stories of our days. Still is not widely known now.
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People say “FDR could never happen today.” But Rehnquist did. And there are those closeted republicans who are somehow not newsworthy.
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The phrase “clinton rules” comes to mind.
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Was Douglas’ incapacity widely known?

JMart at Politico has this video up under the question “Was Obama prophetic”
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People say “FDR could never happen today.” But Rehnquist did. And there are those closeted republicans who are somehow not newsworthy.

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David Dreier is not gay. His gay room mate/chief of staff gives people the wrong impression. I am only using this bad joke because everybody in D.C. knows this one. Blitzer hinted at it when Dreier was passed up for leadership because of it. I found this one really odd, because he was passed up because he was gay, but this was not newsworthy, because he was gay or something.

Jay – I’m assuming that too, about the metro. Figuring very early morning. I keep thinking it won’t be worse than Boston in ’04, though I wasn’t there. But it sprawled. 3million.

RE: puppy cam
I appreciate the link, but I have a report due Monday and puppy cam is so wonderful. This is a problem.

Figuring very early morning.
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Could very cold. Standing still for hours before and just after sunrise.
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Fortunately, Obama has people. And an online social network. They’ll solve this.

“White House Counsel” does have a better ring to it than “Greg Craig”. Congratulations to Mr. Counsel.

Most interesting stat of the night – in Frank Rich’s Sunday column:

“The Republicans lost every region of the country by double digits except the South, which they won by less than double digits (9 points). They took the South only because McCain, who ran roughly even with Obama among whites in every other region, won Southern whites by 38 percentage points.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/opinion/16rich.html?ref=opinion

Wow. That makes me feel good about the rest of the country but, damn, what a crazy regional difference in the south.

Since we are citing all the Greg Craig parts of the Newsweek article, here are some more:

“Obama was tutored to seem stern and unflinching, to treat McCain respectfully but to stand up to him. He rehearsed a moment when he could turn to McCain and counterattack—to begin by saying, “You were wrong about Iraq …” and work through a litany of McCain’s misjudgments. The Obama team was sure that McCain would criticize him for having said, in a Democratic debate in the summer of 2007, that he would be willing to meet with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Obama was instructed to point out that McCain was so averse to personal diplomacy that he had declined to meet with the president of Spain. Obama can be a little bloodless and dull in his preternatural calm, but his goofy side showed up at debate prep. He would appear very somber and emphatic when he accosted Craig/McCain for refusing to speak to the president of Spain. “You wouldn’t even talk to the president of Spain!” he would intone with mock gravity. Then he would begin to giggle. He was told that he should attack McCain for saying that it was enough to “muddle through” on Afghanistan. “Muddle through!” Obama would exclaim and dissolve into giggles. It was as if he refused to take the theater of mock indignation too seriously.

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“I’m worried,” Gregory Craig said to a NEWSWEEK reporter in mid-October. He was concerned that the frenzied atmosphere at the Palin rallies would encourage someone to do something violent toward Obama. He was not the only one in the Obama campaign thinking the unthinkable. The campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and very disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October. Michelle was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. “Why would they try to make people hate us?” she asked Valerie Jarrett. Several of Obama’s friends in the Senate were shocked by the GOP rabble-rousing. Dick Durbin, the U.S. senator from Illinois who pushed for early Secret Service coverage for Obama, called Lindsey Graham, who was traveling with McCain. (Graham scoffed at the call as “an orchestrated attempt to push a narrative” about McCain going negative. He said he told Durbin, “OK, buddy, but remember—that goes both ways.”)

For the first two debates, the Obama campaign asked members of focus groups to turn dials to measure their response to the candidates. Every time Obama seemed to quarrel with McCain, or even criticize him, his readings went down. For the third debate, the word went out: no “Crossfire”-type wrangling. The Obama campaign had been bracing for attacks on his relationship to Bill Ayers for months (in the spring, focus groups had been assembled to gauge how those attacks would play to the public). The format of the third debate brought the two candidates almost side by side, seated at a table, so Obama would have a more difficult time keeping his distance. But he prepared, as always, to keep his cool. In rehearsal, Craig-as-McCain was so over the top in his efforts to bait Obama that both men dissolved into giggles at one point. ”

The word “giggles” stands out to me. They should have used laughter. Grown men don’t giggle. It is a weird word usage.

Lindsay Graham was an idiot to not take Durbin’s concerns seriously. Were the Republicans truly clueless about the crap they were stirring up during their hate rallies? They better hope nothing even happens to him because we wont forget what they did.

Jayack -
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of course they’ll solve this. Why didn’t I think of that? Do you suppose it has anything to do with nothing being solved for eight years? Will have to get used to new way of thinking. This really is like the Sox winning after 86 years; my outlook on life has to change.
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By the way, have you seen that Steinbrenner has basically decided to buy every free agent this year? Reportedly offering Sabbathia 140 for 6 years lol. more at boston.com, follow to red sox page.

Peter Beinhart’s cover story is well worth the read.
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I’ve been amused by conservative commentators insisting we’re still a center-right country. Electing Obama was a fundamentally liberal thing to do, expanding the size of the tent- and a good many people voted for fundamentally liberal reasons, tired of the intolerance and pinched limitations on what’s acceptable that the Republicans preached.
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One thing that Beinhart didn’t mention is that the 60′s radicals saw only that they wanted more freedom, but didn’t see that they were becoming intolerant in the process. Thinking back, they resembled Sarah Palin’s crowds more than I’m comfortable with.
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So the challenge for Democrats is to wear the win lightly, and not try to enforce our version of freedom once again.

Thanks for pointing out Beinhart’s story Kathy. It was a good read, and that’s coming from someone who really dislikes him.

Amazing story, one with implications for a potential purity purge in the Republican party. Be sure to listen to the short audio clips and try to fathom the evil it takes to urge parents to abandon their children. I am pretty low-drama, but that floored me. Can you imagine? You’re up every day like everyone else trying to do what’s right for your family and your church is actively working to tear it apart? I’m stunned.

The pastor from pour’s link-
“We’re not looking to build moral, successful children. We’re looking to build Christians.”
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What a world.

Obama will get a slight honeymoon until the Clinton rules go back in effect. We should be getting a CSPAN wankathon soon with members of the usual suspects suggesting that giving Bush a free ride for 4 years was a bad thing, and now they mean business again. They will even ask follow up questions!
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American Spectator to Drudge to Talk Radio to Fox News to print in the NY Times because “it’s out there” will start back up again. Then in 7 years, we will hear about “Obama fatigue”.
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Sigh.

Hi kathy, I see you remember how to the embed a link from the discussion in then last thread. Congratulations! KT, I think James’ suggestion of putting a Notepad a href template on your start menu was a good one, assuming you actually don’t have a right click function (which still seems impossible to believe).
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I’m thinking about a trip to DC for the inauguration as well. No ticket, for sure, but those predicting millions have surely got it right and I just want to be there to soak it in.
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I’m 55 years old, and didn’t go to any DC protest or celebration events until Nov 2002 and the first anti-stoopid-Iraq-war demonstration. No one knew if anyone would show up, the msm assumed it would be a few thousand because “everyone knew” the country was “fully behind” Bush’s war. But when we got on the metro way out in Vienna it was already apparent that there would be crowds. A stream of people with signs getting on, with more and more at every stop. The station closest to the Mall, was very crowded, and the streets were full of people heading toward the Mall who were astonished and gratified to see so many had come to try to stop the insanity. The ultimate crowd was certainly much larger than 100,000 – which the media did its best to ignore. They also ignored the fact that the crowd was a cross section of America, not just a bunch of dfhippies.
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I look forward to seeing the same cross section of the American people again, this time – instead of a desperate effort to stop a foolish war – this time for a celebration of the best in America, a celebration of hope for our future.
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And it would be a hoot to meet some Swamplanders. We bottled some elderberry wine last night – I could bring some.

pourme
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As incredible as it sounds that pastor sounds almost EXACTLY like Jim Jones did. Thats pretty scary. Although they haven’t said anything about him having a death wish, the fact that they discipline members with paddles and call them out from the pulpit or order excommunications within families all while the pastor demands a certain level of their income all they while spending how ever much of the church’s money as he likes leads me to believe that he may well be headed over that deathwish cliff. I hope that story opens some eyes up at his church and for those who used to be in the church and still have relatives there.

Speaking of Jonestown, for those who may be unfamiliar Maddow did a Witness at Jonestown
segment Friday night.

yet another venture into Palinese
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http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/the-wild-wordsmith-of-wasilla/

For those who may be unaware, Maddow did a Witness at Jonestown segment on Friday.
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I think it is fair to suspect the crazies will be out in full force for the next several years. The McCain campaign gave them permission to indulge their delusional, paranoid fantasies.

Blogger ate my posts. Testing?

Hmm, it ate my posts with embedded links to Maddow’s Jonestown story Friday. Here it is unembedded:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/27727348#27727348

Blogger eating posts with links.

wvng
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Did the link have h t t p at he beginning? If so they will get eaten. I know from past experience unfortunately

pourme,
I don’t understand how any pastor can get away with having a race car ministry. The kind of control the pastor exerts over his congregation made me think of the FLDS (without the polygamy).

Less crazy, more greedy than Jones – but I see your point. I just can’t get over those audio clips and how he willfully seeks to start a war within families. If your faith is the force that is tearing your family apart, something is terribly, terribly wrong.

We were discussing Michelle Bernard on another thread. Evidently Media Matters and Crooks and Liars are on the case!
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http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/michelle-bernard-hardball-hillary-clint

uhmmm pourme
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I was reminded by the CNN report last night on Jonestown that Jim Jones had old folks sign over their social security checks to the church and he made young people work and turn over 25 percent of their money to him. I think their level of greed is comparable. By the way the reason for tearing families apart is practical. You have to figure that the more people in a family the higher the likely hood that SOMEBODY will have good sense and say that whats going on isn’t right. By thinning out the family and isolating a few of them then for one you make it likely they won’t leave because their pride will keep them from admitting they were wrong, and secondly by isolating them you can make them feel like there is no way to get out ala jonestown. Its what pimps do to runaways to make sure they never go back home or reach out to their family

sgw, yes it/they did. But they weren’t eaten last night. Let’s see if they just didn’t like something in the url itself. Here it is tinyied: http://tiny.cc/oaWHI

Senator Dorgan seems to be on board to strip LIEberman of his chairmanship. To Senator Kyl I say please please take him off our hands!
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http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/16/dorgan-lieberman/

wvng
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I think its http plus www but I am not sure. Someone said it was http yesterday and I noticed that mine were eaten when I had http in the link but now I just don’t know anymore

Former McCain advisor admits we are probably a center-left country:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/13/AR2008111303550_pf.html

Each of us owes Barack Obama our gratitude. …………

http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/10/29/senator-obama-to-sir-with-love-2/

By the way Senator Kyl makes the best case for taking Joe Lieberman’s chairmanship. He says that Lieberman will continue to vote the same way even if he switches parties. So what is the harm then of stripping him? Because I can definitely think of the harm of allowing him to keep the chairmanship

sgw, Thanks for the link to Crooks and Liars with the Media Matters embed. I saw the segment in real time and thought it terrible. I’m glad it caught their attention. As I said last night, I think people like Bernard are the worst because (except when she’s talking about Hillary) she sounds fairly reasonable if you don’t listen closely.
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This morning on Chris Mathews Show they pointed out what Rush is saying about the recession being Obama’s fault because the possibility that he might be elected caused the market to crash in September. What nonsense. However, most of them said that Rush would be the leader of the Repub party until the politicians settled themselves out.
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Of course, they don’t mention that Limbaugh wasn’t able to keep McCain from being the nominee, nor was he able to make him the winner. Nevertheless, they give him all the power. Ain’t it grand.

ivb
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In that vein politico has a pretty good article about Hispanics and the Republican party.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15665.html

Speaking of Rush, here’s a peak behind the RW talk radio curtian, via Benen.

Hmmm, that one worked. Maybe it’s saying Maddow. Testing: Maddow Maddow Maddow.

Funny typo.
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Double entendre.
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Viagra jokes lurking.

Nope. Not Maddow. I don’t know what kills links – really no idea at all.
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In the meantime, a question for KT:
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“Josh Marshall noted the other day, “The bookers and producers of the Sunday shows are committed to the continuing dominance of conservative/Republican marquee guests. No question about it.”
. . .
7 Appearances by Republican current elected officeholders
3 Appearances by Democratic current elected officeholders.
2 Appearances by Republican former elected officeholders.
1 Appearance by a Bush Cabinet Secretary.
T. Boone Pickens
Ted Turner.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015679.php”
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The question to KT being – Why?

Drudge out. Rush in.
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But, you know something?
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Nobody watches those shows, besides the Villagers and those who document their atrocities.
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And their relevance will approach little Tommy Friedman’s (Jeebus what a stupid collection of collected drivel today) if they don’t look around, and notice that things are no longer as they were.

jay, I responded to your forlorn “no one will read me I’m all alone” post in the Obama video thread. You are not alone.
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And the video now has 517,766 views.
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Still no puppies.

I think long links get eaten.

Maybe all long strings.

qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq

Nope.
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It wouldn’t hurt to post some guidelines….

At least we can assssssk quesssssstions using wordssssss with more than one “ssssssss” again.

In case you all didn’t see it, Anonymous Liberal has a wonderful post titled “The Palin Bubble in Real Time” that tracked “that brief burst of enthusiasm than our very own frequent commenter, Virginia Conservative.”

Well it would seem the Iraq war is officially over. Is TIME magazine gonna be brave enough to say it like Spencer Ackerman has?
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http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/16/iraq-security-agreement-approve/

ivb
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Evidently some other people have been questioning Michelle Bernard’s conservative bonafides also.
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http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh032108.shtml

sgw, I saw that note of Somerby in the Crooks & Liars link you posted, but didn’t go to it earlier. I just did and remember reading it at the time he wrote it. It’s usually worth another look at Somerby.
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I wondered about her full on support of Obama during the primary and thought perhaps it was because he is black. Now I think that it was because she hated Hillary more. That would explain why she dialed back her support the moment Hillary conceded.

ivb
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In all honestly I do think that her being black had something to do with it. But I also think judging from some of her writing AFTER the primaries that she thought McCain would have a much easier time beating Obama than he would Hillary. That combined with the fact that she has some kind of deep hatred of Hillary I guess made her show support of Obama at first. But I do remember her irrational support of Sarah Palin and how she would be the only person many times saying that McCain still had a chance. I thought she was just doing it to keep playing into the horserace meme. Now I see that she probably actually believed it

wvng. Hail, and thanks for the encouragement re my nascent linking skills. Here’s my guess about the preponderance of Republicans on the talking heads shows. Those shows generally prefer to excite conflict – the old crossfire model. You can generally count on more Republicans saying outrageous things. Look at all the press Matthews has gotten this year for Bachman, and earlier for that sap who didn’t have any idea what appeasement meant. The Republicans have had a lot of message discipline the last few years, so you can generall count on their being loud and bombastic when they don’t have the facts on their side, and guess how often that is.
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Democratic officeholders may find themselves conflicted early in this administration with Obama wanting to be conciliatory to everybody.
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sgwhite and ivb – uhoh, I really kind of like Michelle B. She’s neither fish nor fowl, and seems to actually speak her mind. She was unusually negative about Hillary though. saw it in real time, and was surprised. There has been a general agreement across the spectrum that Hillary would be a good idea, which means – I think – that the Republicans are excited at the prospect of getting her out of the senate.
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kathy
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I was actually making the case that Michelle Bernard isnt a righty yesterday to ivb but if you go to her independent women’s forum website you will see that she is DEFINITELY a wolf in sheeps clothing. All of the people on her board are consumite righties and the articles on the website are townhall ish. So she has fooled us all this time but I think we will start seeing the conservative come out more and more as Obama takes office. And I wonder why Tweety never introduces her as a conservative

kathy, I was going to tell you the same thing sgw did. I think she is definitely fowl (in the fish / fowl metaphor) and her mind is a deep conservo speak. When she first began appearing on Hardball, he identified her as a conservative, but that stopped fairly soon and after that she became an MSNBC political commentator similar to Pat Buchanan and appears on a number of their shows. I have no problem with her having a particular viewpoint, but think it should be identified.
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Similarly it took me a while to realize that the other woman is also pretty far right wing as she is identified as a journalist.
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sgw, I think he doesn’t identify MB as a conservative because she is now one of the “staff” and they are trying to pretend they are all just truth tellers.

sgwhite and ivb
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But that’s to suggest that conservatism is some kind of disease she’s hiding from us, isn’t it?
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She has no power except what she says, and if what she says is favorable to our way of thinking, what’s the problem? How often does Matthews identify Buchanan as the right-wing radical he is? (and even he makes sense occasionally) If you were a conservative, would you hire her to come say to your group the things she says on Hardball?
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I think she’s very favorable to Obama, and I’d prefer the formulation that “If you’re not against us you’re for us,” (Jesus) as opposed to “If you’re not with us you’re against us” (Bush)
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The Obama ideas tent is large enough to include Michelle Bernard, I think. I also think we’d better resign ourselves to seeing more conservative voices on the talk circuit for awhile. But I think that will depend in the long run on the audience. I remember that for quite a long time the cable networks showed every single speech that GWB gave, and they hardly do at all anymore. At the moment BHO is very popular (How long before he appears on the cover of the new Food Network Magazine?) so the networks will do what they need to do to keep viewership.
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And, BTW, I think CNN etc are headed for some hard times. Advertising dollars will almost certainly plummet, and of course the easiest kind of program to put on is “let’s have politicians come talk to us,” because they don’t pay politicians. Last week Matthews commented on the Today show sending Matt to Alaska to interview SP when their budget was so tight.

I should clarify that he seemed to be implying that they had been extravagant to send Matt on the trip, rather than that they were saving money by interviewing SP.

“The Obama ideas tent is large enough to include Michelle Bernard.” This sounds dirty.

I know we’re past the election, but there’s been practically no live stuff on msnbc today. And at night they’re doing “doc bloc” again instead of rerunning hardball, countdown, and rachel through the night.

kathy, my original complaint was that after the primary Bernard quite noticably turned against Obama. She is subtle and you have to listen carefully to hear it, but it is there.
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The current flap was over her attack on Hillary. See Hatin’ on Hillary
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Bob Somerby discussed her during the primary at the bottom of this entry. Bernard Howler
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My point is not that she doesn’t belong in the Obama tent, it is that she isn’t really there and is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Did you look at her group’s web site as sgw suggested?

Since the GOP would love to have Liebermann, why don’t we just work out a trade?
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That or maybe a higher draft pick…

ivb – sigh. and my point is that we shouldn’t be making people guilty by association any more than we want others to do that. Yes, I know that her group and her web site are very much on the right.
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I saw the attack on Hillary live, and she didn’t sound any different than many of us (including, I’m afraid, me – as you may remember) sounded during the primary.
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What do you have to do/be/say to “belong” in the Obama tent?

ivb – would you think she was a wolf in sheep’s clothing if you didn’t know her associations? If you only listened to her? Calling her this makes it sound like you suspect her of malign intentions, and I don’t think she’s got them.
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Put another way, this is the sort of reasoning that left a lot of people thinking that Barack’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, because of what his pastor of 20 years thought.
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I am not, by the way, trying to defend Michelle Bernard as I’m wanting to talk about how/why we label people. I don’t want us to suddenly become exclusive now that we’ve won. If you look downthread at my my comment at 8:01 you’ll see what I mean.

I don’t know much about Bernard in particular, but I think there is a general pattern of some Obama supporters from the primaries thinking that people who criticized HRC were, basically, on our side. They weren’t; They just for whatever reason hated HRC more, or thought that Obama would be a weaker candidate in the GE. People like David Brooks and Peggy Noonan were suddenly praised by self-described progressive Democrats. Then in the primaries they were often appalled by the McCain campaign – sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes not – which made us maintain this delusion that they’re fair, reasonable moderate conservatives.
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All of us need to look beyond the micro debates of primaries and intra-party fighting in the wake of the Palin pick, and examine how media figures think, not just what they say in the midst of 24-hour news cycles. There was a particular kind of Hillary Hater in the primaries – not all of them, just some of them – who suddenly became popular with too many Obama supporters. I’m sure it would have been the other way around if there were any high-profile quasi-centrist Republicans who backed HRC. But now the primaries are long over, and the Republicans are in the rebuilding stage so conservatives have no reason to stay estranged from their party. Obviously the tent needs to be open and welcoming, but clearly people like Bernard were never really in the tent. It’s not that we’re throwing her out.
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I saw the attack on Hillary live, and she didn’t sound any different than many of us (including, I’m afraid, me – as you may remember) sounded during the primary.
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True, but you’ve moved on. Isn’t it interesting that Bernard apparently hasn’t?

When I say pathetic, you say loser. Pathetic.

Rose – I think your point about looking at her thinking is fair. But I also think it’s important to take people at face value to a certain extent, and not go looking for ideological purity.
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I think – not sure – that Obama doesn’t think you have to be a Democrat or a liberal to be in his tent.
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Yes I’ve moved on and Bernard hasn’t, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t. I’m curious whether you and ivb have a bright line (which I would understand, by the way) that involves response to Hillary as a kind of sign of whether a person belongs in the tent.

BTW, I think the most amazing thing about Bernard is the substance of what she said. Parallel government?! That’s crazy talk. I wouldn’t want to listen to anyone who is saying that kind of paranoid gibberish, even if they’re on my side. It’s why I stopped watching KO, even before he turned against HRC (I’m not comparing KO to Bernard; he’s not that crazy).

Rose – I should add that I’m a Democrat and Michelle is not, and I’m not trying to read her comments as if she is.

This is the sort of comment (from Kissinger) that makes me nervous about Republicans liking Hillary as SOS. If he thinks it takes a lot of “courage” to name Hillary, why isn’t she a risk?

“I believe it would be an outstanding appointment. If it is true, it shows a number of things, including great courage on the part of the President-Elect. To appoint a very strong personality into a prominent cabinet position requires a great deal of courage.”

kathy
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The point I think both ivb and I (and I hope I am not speaking out of turn) is that Michelle Bernard may turn out to be a Manchurian pundit of sorts and we are already seeing small signs of it. What I mean is she is doing a HELLUVA job right now convincing the average everyday person who sees her on Hardball that she is an independent or perhaps even left leaning. By doing that she is building up her credibility. However you can see by going on the group that she is the CEO of and reading her OWN words that much of the stuff she says on Hardball are NOT what she truly believes. So the question becomes why is she saying one thing on MSNBC but publishing articles on her website that are totally opposite. And thats where I/we see the danger of her being a sheep in wolves clothing. See if we didn’t know her background and next year this time she started criticizing Obama’s tax policy most of us would actually hear her out because we would think its a reasoned thoughtful response. But if its Bill Kristol making the exact same argument we would take it at best with a grain of salt and at worst just dismiss it out of hand. But the truth is, according to her articles on her website, Michelle Bernard shares the exact same conservative principles and values that Kristol does. And she promotes bullsh!t on her site ala the hot topic on there now is how schools “indoctrinate” kids to be leftist libruls. Of course the title isnt that explicit but the content is.
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In short Michelle Bernard has positioned herself to come off as a credible person who is open minded when she is not actually open minded and because of her subterfuge not truly credible. And the problem with that is because she has played the role so well I am sure there are people going around at this moment repeating her opinion that HRC will create a shadow government if she is SOS. Which in and of itself would make it seem as if Obama’s judgement should be questioned. I mean seriously when I saw her make that comment she actually sounded like a black Ann Coulter talking about world leaders would think Hillary is the president. Who da phuck is she kidding?

kathy, Actually I found things Bernard was saying a little odd and I did think there was something wrong, which is why I started looking into her background. I am not judging her based (originally) on her relationships, but on what she says. I was very suspicious of her support of Obama in the primary because of other things she said, but decided perhaps it was because he was black. Now I think it was because she hated Hillary more.
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A friend of mine thinks David Brooks is just fine because he is so reasonable. I think we need to be alert to people who project that kind of image because they do subtle damage with people who don’t pay attention.
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I agree that we should not limit people because of presumed stands, but I do believe we should be wary, if need be, based on what they actually say. I remember very clearly after the primary when Bernard started taking subtle stances against Obama for the general.
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As usual, rose has stated it well above.

rose83
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Since you brought up KO again, did you ever get to watch that clip to see if it was the one you were referring to about KO naming Katie Couric the worst person in the world and if so what was your beef about it again?

kathy: “What do you have to do/be/say to “belong” in the Obama tent? . . . I’m wanting to talk about how/why we label people. I don’t want us to suddenly become exclusive now that we’ve won.”
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I think this is an essential conversation. I got into this over at WV Blue in a post titled “Why debate the right when they’re always wrong?”. Down thread a bit I said: “There really is a distinction between turning this site over to wingnuts and encouraging substantive conversations with people who bring actual facts to the table, be they of the conservative or Dem persuasion. There actually are intelligent, principled conservatives – you just don’t hear much from them because the wingnuts drown them out.
“THEY don’t discuss, they pontificate.” Wingnuts and their sorry enablers pontificate and lie and smear and don’t deserve the time of day. But all conservatives are not wingnuts. Really.
This is a great time to have substantive conversations with the non wingers. Many of them are disgusted with their party and more than ready to listen.”
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Perhaps the best way to avoid labels is to judge people on their actions to the greatest extent possible. For example, I am perfectly happy to label Lieberman a sanctimonious, dishonest a$$hole based on his actions. Content even. Agnostic on MB.

And, I was interrupted in writing my last response, so it took me a while to finish it. Before I posted I should have looked and I would have seen how well sgw expressed exactly what I have been trying to!

I’m curious whether you and ivb have a bright line (which I would understand, by the way) that involves response to Hillary as a kind of sign of whether a person belongs in the tent.
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Kathy, no, this is my test: I try to imagine if I would respect the person’s thought process, logic, honesty and civility even if I disagreed with him or her. I almost wish there were a lot of Clinton supporters who were motivated by prejudice, or tactical aims for the general election, so I could express my disapproval, but I can only think of Geraldine Ferraro! Who I’ve criticized numerous times…
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Rachel Maddow – who seems very different now that she has her own show – easily passes that test, as do people like Paul Krugman and Chris Bowers. I even have a grudging respect for Patrick Ruffini, because his logic is transparent. People like KO or Andrew Sullivan, OTOH… Wouldn’t you hate them if they disagreed with us?
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And my point about the moving on thing, isn’t that Bernard is unable to move on (I should have worded it more clearly), it’s that it’s a non-issue for her, since she is clearly motivated by partisan concerns. Her dislike of HRC was never the same as yours – yours was honest. And saying that Obama is asking someone who would run a parallel government to be SOS is an insult to Obama. It’s almost more of an insult to Obama than HRC; She’s implying he’s a naive idiot, and HRC is an evil genius. I’m not sure which is worse…
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sg, I’ll do that right now, if my struggling internet connection allows me…

I need to correct this sentence: I almost wish there were a lot of Clinton supporters in the media and political worlds (correction) who were motivated by prejudice, or tactical aims for the general election, so I could express my disapproval, but I can only think of Geraldine Ferraro!
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Of course there were a lot of Clinton supporters motivated by prejudice, especially among the white working-class, but they were almost entirely unrepresented in the media.

We have been able to attract few conservatives as regular commenters here because most who come here don’t seem to want to discuss. Before the crash we had Robert Sullivan who I think was very reasonable. I found kaybeel difficult to have a discussion with.
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I grew up as a Republican with principles that are now where the mainstream Democratic party is as opposed to the current Republican party, which is why I finally changed my registration.
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As wvng said, this is a good time to have substantive conversations with conservatives because their party has moved away from them and I don’t think it will get back as long as the extreme right rules.

rose83
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Here is what I really want to know about KO is what bugs you about him. I agree that sometimes he is over the top but again I chalk it up mostly to two things, one being in my opinion he got worse about being of the top the closer we got to the election so I think it was the stress of it because since Nov 4th he has been pretty much back to his old self, and two his ongoing rivalry with Bill O which can come off as petty most nights but I absolutely LOVE it because KO has been and still is the only person willing to poke Bill O over and over and you can tell its really getting to him too. He keeps saying he wants an investigation into the FCC because his ratings are falling and KO’s are going up. Straight hilarious to me especially because he is such a bully and a sanctimonious azzhole.
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I give KO respect though because as I said on another thread he was truly a voice in the wilderness for most of his career over at MSNBC. You can’t name another primetime host on a major cable network who was pushing progressive policies night after night other than KO. And initially NOBODY thought it would work ie Air America’s bad run. But he did it and made it work and made it happen and thats the primary reason Rachel even has a show and thats real.

pourme
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I have those loser’s what for by the way lol

How many times does Keyes need to get beat before slinking away in shame? I think I could run Mel Carnahan against him and win. Carnahan/Tupac 2012.

gave=have
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preview, wherefore art thou

sgw, I got tired of listening to KO during the primary and pretty much stopped because he was so anti-Hillary and he so often had Gene Robinson on, who really grated on my nerves.
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I had liked him thinking, as you said, he was a progressive voice in the wilderness. But during the primary I gave some thought to Atrios’ position that he is really anti-Bush and that’s why we all liked him. He hasn’t really taken progressive positions on issues.
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Toward the general election I began watching him again and except for the over-the-top-every-night-is-special commentaries, I generally find him ok. I do appreciate that he can laugh at himself as he did with the parody of his comments.

ivb
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Well he certainly spoke out against prop 8 in his special comment in a way that I didn’t see anyone else doing. And the truth is going against Bush on everything but immigration reform pretty much makes you progressive when you think about it. And he has advocated some for universal health care especially when Michael Moore was on. I can’t honestly think of a stance Olbermann has taken that was conservative but maybe I missed something.

sg, yeah I’m still appalled. There’s a special irony of an MSNBC anchor claiming that the idea of “pronounced sexism” in the campaign is “nonsense.” It’s like a Fox News anchor claiming the idea of pronounced racism in the coverage of Obama is nonsense. I get that he likes his network’s correspondent – enough to massage the context of his quote to make it seem more legitimate – but no matter how you look at it, naming Couric as the worst person in the world is a manifestation of the most old-fashioned kind of sexism: Shut up about the prejudice you face, or else.
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And I know that there are some people who still deny that Clinton faced pronounced sexism in the media coverage – Kathy? – but there’s a difference between not seeing it, and attacking the people who do see it and comment on it in a very reasonable manner. Insensitivity to complaints of prejudice is a huge problem. Disagreeing is fine, ridiculing and attacking is not. Especially when any reasonable person can see that sexism is still a problem – even if he was going to criticize Couric, he needed to at least acknowledge the reality of sexism as a general problem. It’s the same with people who deny that Obama faced any racism in his candidacy. That’s fine, but they need to acknowledge that racism remains a very real problem.
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Did you see the Couric clip?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyjEGZSM83Y I believe that was actually after KO’s special comment, which was in response to comments Couric made at another event: http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/television/couric_gets_honored_in_dc_86823.asp
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Anyway, Rachel Sklar says this better than I do: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/12/katie-couric-is-rubber-an_n_106714.html
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What I find most amazing is that if you google this, you’ll find all these people claiming that Couric blamed the media for Clinton’s loss, although she didn’t. (Even the Media Bistro comment is not a direct quote, so I’m suspicious about it) I’ve faced the same problem. As soon as you mention media sexism, people accuse you of blaming sexism for her loss.

I can’t honestly think of a stance Olbermann has taken that was conservative but maybe I missed something.
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Glenn Greenwald had to push him to criticize Obama’s FISA vote. Otherwise, I think he is fairly progressive.

Here’s my guess about the preponderance of Republicans on the talking heads shows. Those shows generally prefer to excite conflict – the old crossfire model.

That’s not clear. Tucker Carlson, in his book about his time at CNN, says that the producers do indeed yell in your ear to get to say more extreme things.

But Cliff Schecter, who does great, cutting funny television stuff, got axed from his gigs because he was too effective, and it was pissing off a right wing guest he’d been decimating.

The Hannity and Colmes combo seems to be the norm. And, as Glenn G frequently points out, there is almost nobody to the left of the New Republic on the teevee, while you’ve got mouthbreathing nativists like Pat Buchanan and all those batsh!t crazy neo-cons.

rose83
sg, yeah I’m still appalled. There’s a special irony of an MSNBC anchor claiming that the idea of “pronounced sexism” in the campaign is “nonsense.” It’s like a Fox News anchor claiming the idea of pronounced racism in the coverage of Obama is nonsense. I get that he likes his network’s correspondent – enough to massage the context of his quote to make it seem more legitimate – but no matter how you look at it, naming Couric as the worst person in the world is a manifestation of the most old-fashioned kind of sexism: Shut up about the prejudice you face, or else.
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I have to say I totally disagree with you on this one but you are totally entitled to your own opinion. In my opinion it wasn’t just that Katie Couric talked about sexism, it was more to the point that she called out a fellow journalist and said they should find a new line of work because they were actually honest about how hard it was for them not to be biased. Thats as personal an attack as there can be and I thought KO did an admirable job of sticking up for a fellow employee at NBC. The truth is Katie Couric’s assessment that sexism played a role in HRC losing is an opinion not a fact, the same way saying Obama losing the primaries in Pennsylvania and Michigan were a product of racism would be an opinion and not fact. So it was to me pretty hypocritical for her to slime Cowan when she was pushing a meme herself. The one point in the primaries where most people thought HRC would lose because of sexism because she broke down a little bit when talking about how she keeps going on turned out to actually be a bright spot for her and she won that primary. The question I have for you is this. Had it been say Charlie Gibson who made the exact same statements that Couric made and then KO said the exact same thing but instead subsituted Charlie Gibson’s name in for Katie Couric would you still think it sexist? I ask because KO HAS called male pundits out for being sexist before. Here is a clip where he called Bill Kristol out for his hypocrisy on HRC. Again there are quite a few things to criticize KO about but I think he is pretty far from being sexist.

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On KO-
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I think progressives are going to discover that people they now think of as allies, like KO, John Stewart, Josh Marshall, aren’t really politically motivated.
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Watching the evolution of JMM from good government centrist to apparent partisan was interesting. But when the Democrats start doing corrupt or stupid things, these guys will report on them.
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This will be different from the heat that they will get from the bulk of the left blogosphere, which is going to be “What? That’s it? We’ve got all the keys to all the cars, and this is what we get?”
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Labels like sexist and racist are improperly affixed to entire people. They are prejudices that exist, in varying degree, in all people and manifest themselves in different ways at different times. It’s near meaningless to debate if someone “is” one of the “-ists.” It’s not a toggle switch; it’s a dimmer. Could KO have considered more carefully the extent to which sexism was at play in the election? The answer to that and similar questions will always be yes, no matter who is the subject and what is the situation. The disconnect comes when a thousand people are looking at the same situation through a thousand microscopes and shouting, “how can you not see this?!”

Josh Marshall I believe self identified as a neo-liberal. It was the horrors of the Bush administration that made him seem shrill.

Also, Rose, this last week KO rightly called out the McCain campaign (Rick Davis was the worst person) for sexism because they hadn’t prepared SP for the Couric interview because they expected soft questions because Couric was a woman. KO called that sexist and condescending, as it was.
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Sure I think there was sexism against Hillary, but I think her partisans complained about it when it wasn’t there, as well as when it was. I came to think that if Hillary was criticized for annoying habits or her personality then the critic was being sexist. I don’t think I’m sexist, and I found her insufferable at times. So I’d differ in whether there was “pronounced” sexism.
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I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree a bit about Bernard.
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The good news is practically nobody watches these programs – at least practically nobody who isn’t otherwise informed.
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You’ll notice, perhaps, that my complaint about Kissinger was just the sort of complaint I was complaining about – failure to take him at face value.
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As this discussion has progressed I think some of my discomfort is that it feels to me that we have a different responsibility now that we’re in the majority. Complaining about those who are in power when you’re out might be very different from complaining about those who aren’t in power when you’re in the majority.

sg, KO wasn’t criticizing Couric for blaming Clinton’s defeat on the media – something she didn’t do – he was criticizing her for simply claiming there was pronounced sexism in the media coverage. That’s not even close to the same thing. Second, if he was merely upset about the Cowan criticism – which I said I understood – then why didn’t he simply defend Cowan, instead of labeling Couric’s statement of the obvious as nonsense? The answer is that he was upset by her other comments, not just her brief reference to Cowan. Also, the intentional stupidity of KO is really irritating. She was being nice when she didn’t specifically name Cowan, it’s not that she can’t do basic research.
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Had it been say Charlie Gibson who made the exact same statements that Couric made and then KO said the exact same thing but instead subsituted Charlie Gibson’s name in for Katie Couric would you still think it sexist?
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Obviously. I’m a genuine feminist – you won’t find some blind spot where I miss it! I could write a thousand words about the media sexism against Todd Palin, or Maureen Dowd’s sexist attacks against Barack Obama.
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KO’s criticism of Kristol is interesting. I think they’re both very similar on the subject of women: sexist when it suits them, and faux-outraged by sexism when it suits them. He’s essentially attacking Kristol for doing the very same thing he’s doing.
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Labels like sexist and racist are improperly affixed to entire people. They are prejudices that exist, in varying degree, in all people and manifest themselves in different ways at different times. It’s near meaningless to debate if someone “is” one of the “-ists.” It’s not a toggle switch; it’s a dimmer. </i.
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pourmecoffee, brilliant metaphor. I kept trying to make this point during the primaries, but never so eloquently. Yes, it would be more strictly accurate to say that KO is more sexist than most men of his age and education, and most journalists. But then my posts would be even longer…

Jayack, rose, ivb, sgwhite, et al:
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It occurs to me that we also have sorting out to do and exploration as to where we all stand on issues. We’ve been pulling in the same direction for months, but now that Obama’s been elected we’ll perhaps notice more that we aren’t all on the same page about everything,

That’s another way to put it, trifecta. IMO, he thinks of himself as a journalist. People got irked when he covered the Patrick Kennedy DWI thing. They will find themselves irked more often.
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Which I’m okay with. I too am a good government centrist radicalized by Bush. And also aware of reality. The role of the public sector needs to increase in citizen rather than shareholder/management interests.

I’ll check in later or the morning.

Here is when KO jumped the shark on HRC and I dont think it had ANYTHING to do with sexism. Notice the praise he gives the Clintons at the beginning AND notice that he places the majority of blame at the feet of HRC’s advisors and not at her. Again he aint perfect and he did go over the top for about 2 months but I still think KO has the best show on cable news at 8pm est so if I am going to watch news at that time it will probably be him.
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Kathy, I actually share the same concern about Kissinger’s reaction. I think HRC is too much of an extremist on foreign policy – the difference is that I feel the same way about Obama. If I believed that he would have voted against the Iraq war if he had been in the Senate, I would have supported him in the primaries. It would have been an easy decision. I always wanted to believe his supporters’ promises of a new kind of foreign policy, and even now I’m disappointed to be proven right. Still, she’s no Cheney.
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And one last comment about sexism. If I could change one thing about my comments in the primaries it would be to more explicitly differentiate between media and voter prejudices. I remember that once you thought I believed that sexism is more of a problem than racism, and I was genuinely shocked that I had been misunderstood by someone as intelligent and aware as you are. That’s the last thing I would say. The truth is that I always believed that prejudices vary across class, gender, age and of course racial categories – I guess we all agree on that. And sexism happens to be more common among wealthier, better educated white men than racism, while racism happens to be more common among working-class white men than sexism. It’s what I’ve found in my own experience, and it’s also what that study AMC linked to a couple of months ago indicates. Both Palin and HRC found some of their strongest supporters among white working-class men. And it just happens that the media is filled with rich, white and educated white men, so sexism is more of a problem there than racism. But when HRC and Obama walked into a Scranton town hall, he faced more prejudice than she did. His election is just as historic as hers would have been, and he faced just as many obstacles. It’s just that he faced different obstacles.

kathy
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I KNOW we don’t all believe the same things but I wouldn’t really expect us to. If you go on a “progressive” website right now and ask what it means to be a progressive you will get many different answers. I identify as a progressive not because I agree with everything all progressives believe in but I agree with them more than any other political affiliation. Jay and I disagreed the other day about the military. But I for one welcome reasoned disagreements. If its about opinions I respect other peoples but at the same time I will try to convince them that my opinion is the right opinion. In the end usually there is some middle ground to be had as long as the debate never gets personal.

rose83

oops
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rose83
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I just am trying to understand how you came to the conclusion that KO is more sexist than the average man of his education and age. Thats what I don’t get. Even if you think that his statement about Couric was sexist though I still disagree, what else has he done to garner such an honor as being more sexist than the next guy. I guess one thing to ask would be what is the litmus test as the average guy. But bigger than that I just feel that labels like racist and sexist are harsh labels not to be thrown around haphazardly. Again ill say to each his own but once again I am just trying to see it from your perspective

It occurs to me that we also have sorting out to do and exploration as to where we all stand on issues. We’ve been pulling in the same direction for months, but now that Obama’s been elected we’ll perhaps notice more that we aren’t all on the same page about everything,
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Kathy, I somehow missed that comment. Yes, that’s probably true and it’s a good thing. Politics is supposed to be a competition of ideas.
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sg, yes I don’t think KO’s dislike of HRC had much to do with sexism. And I became exasperated with KO before he turned against HRC. I keep saying this and I’m really not lying! Also, I find his sexism is more directed at vulnerable young women than strong women like HRC. Perhaps his sexism is a manifestation of the quality I initially disliked about him: Once he decides someone is a political opponent, he really doesn’t care if his attacks are fair or well-reasoned. Maybe in 4 years we’ll be talking about his racist attacks against Bobby Jindal.

Cliff Shecter isn’t allowed on tv because he is too effective. Imagine him with Hannity. Hannity would stroke out. Some of his appearances on MSNBC are youtube hits.
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Semi-off topic but how is MSNBC a liberal network? You have Joe Scarborough on in the morning. Pat Buchanan apparently lives there in the studio. When 2 liberals get shows at night, it’s a great tragedy to cable news and the nation. Why? CNN has been staffing up with every conservative that Fox couldn’t put on their budget. I mean going to Christian Broadcasting Network and hiring Stephen Hayes. Really?
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I would just love for Cliff Shecter to be on all day like Buchanan. On all 3 cable networks. They could throw up any conservative they wanted all day. Heck, make it 3 against one.

I just am trying to understand how you came to the conclusion that KO is more sexist than the average man of his education and age.
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sg, Oh, that was just in response to pourmecoffee’s dimmer metaphor. He was saying that this binary definition of sexism (or racism) is flawed, and of course he’s right. Everyone’s on a spectrum of sexism and racism, so simply saying that someone’s sexist is a a rather absurd statement.
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Given this misunderstanding I guess pourmecoffee’s accurate, but complex, definition is impractical!

trifecta
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Thats how I feel about James Carville
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Yes I know he is an azzhole, but he is OUR azzhole and I have yet to see a conservative hold a candle to him.
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I would pay good money to see FoxNews pair him up with Sean Hannity for a week.
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But I like Shecter also

Semi-off topic but how is MSNBC a liberal network?
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trifecta, I think with Chris Matthews’ possible plans to run for the Senate, it’s three primetime shows hosted by liberals. But I agree with your larger argument. During the primaries it was actually more pro-Obama than during the GE, because the Republicans like Scarborough and Buchanan backed Clinton. Which just reinforced the perception that HRC was a reactionary candidate – for a Democrat in a primary, it’s better to be attacked than praised by Buchanan. But after the primaries they switched over to McCain.
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And what’s with Alex Castellanos on CNN? His Fatal Attraction comment got some attention, but that disgustingly racist Huffington Post blog he wrote about Obama was pretty much ignored. That man makes Scarborough and Buchanan look like Josh Marshall and Chris Bowers. I actually find him unpleasant to watch.

I know this is just an HBO movie interpretation but supposedly its pretty accurate. Go to the bottom of this kos diary and watch the video clip. If this doesn’t put the nail in LIEberman’s coffin as to his chairmanship I don’t know what will!
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/16/18220/829/545/661516

@sgw – This is you.

pourme
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he would need to be several shades darker but yeah thats my sentiment
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Did you watch the video clip?

@sgw – I don’t want to let the merits of the issue spoil the fun I’m having. It’s like re-reading Moby Dick. From hell’s heart, you stab at him!

Now that we have taken this subject as far as we can…

Has anyone thought to tell the out to lunch Republicans who are against the bailout of Chevy, Ford and Dodge, that if they eliminate the American auto makers they lose their last voting block (NASCAR)?

These are the same men and women who decided Hispanics were the enemy and lost their votes by a landslide and then declared John McCain lost because he didn’t follow Republican principals.- what ever they are?

If we on the left are smart we begin a huge phone campaign starting tomorrow telling our Republican Representatives and Senators to stop the auto bailout bill. If we can get them to fillibuster the bill and impead it’s progress it will send a great message to their NASCAR voting block that Republicans really do not support NASCAR! All we need is Dale Ernhardt Jr. or Jimmy Johnson making some statement about the Repuublicans trying to run Chevy out of business and millions of voters walk away form the Republican Party.

pourme
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In this case the clip was from the HBO movie “recount” about everything that happened during the recount of 2000 and how everything went wrong. It was a pretty good movie and I had watched it several times when it first came out and was just amazed at how many dirty tricks had never really been exposed from that period that gave us Bush 43 in all of his mediocrity. But I had honestly totally forgotten about how LIEberman stabbed Al Gore directly in the back on Meet the Press with Tim Russert and the coldest part was they used the actual footage from his appearance on the show in the movie. Seriously he was a gutless wonder who actually might have single handedly sunk any chance of the recount working in Al Gore’s favor by undermining the rule of law as it pertained to overseas absentee ballot. Now remember that the movie came out well before LIEberman had given his RNC speech and really I want to say it came out before LIEberman endorsed McCain so they were not trying to smear LIEberman for the purposes of turning folks against him. But it shows the contempt that everyone had for that turncoat son of a beyatch.

@sgw – Hey, early Christmas present!

pourme
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LOL good one!

Dan Rather is crushing the librul media bias myth
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/media/17rather.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/media/17rather.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Via atrios, re the General gets a report on the nature of the Village.

Just wanted to say that I’ve enjoyed reading the posts in this thread and in the others in Swampland. It’s easy to turn nasty in blogland, and lots of bloggers eat their own. So when I read sg and rose debating intelligently, respectfully with one another without getting personal (like that cwp-whatever guy from earlier, calling everyone who disagreed with him “perverts’)…well, it’s refreshing as hell. Let’s hope the next four years go something like this.

It occurs to me that we also have sorting out to do and exploration as to where we all stand on issues. We’ve been pulling in the same direction for months, but now that Obama’s been elected we’ll perhaps notice more that we aren’t all on the same page about everything.
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We will have honest policy disagreements. But we will air them out, and then deals will get made, and we will pull together to support them.
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Unless we decide to pull together to oppose them, as so many people did of the Obama MySpace FISA group.
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Just as we pulled together to support Obama, and would have pulled together to support Clinton. Because while the progressive blogosphere would have preferred other candidates, they recognize that these candidates are on our side.
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The policy disagreements are a strength, not a weakness. The lockstep, bloc voting enforced on the Republicans hurt them tremendously as Bush drove them over a cliff. We’ll get mad, express views, organize some primary challenges (buh-bye Steny) and then pull together on the best we can get.

Cliff Shecter isn’t allowed on tv because he is too effective.
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That’s his view. He won’t say it too directly, out of modesty, and the unprovability of such a claim. But there is no question, in my mind, that this is true. He’s said as much in my public interviews with him.
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He would make mincemeat of all those mouses. And, hence, he can’t be on.
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Chomsky would too.

Oh, and if you haven’t bought Schecter’s The Real McCain. you should. I can arrange to have it autographed, I think, if that would make a difference. Email me (jay@ackroyd.org) if that interests you.

Shakes–
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One of the good things that happened, this cycle, was the commenters here avoided the pie fights, and worse, that broke out all around the blogosphere on Clinton vs Obama.
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Strong disagreement was expressed, at times, but respect was maintained. .

Watching Obama tonight on Sixty Minutes really excited me. The prospect of having a President (and his wife) who can think and respond to questions without simply reciting talking points is such a refreshing change. I haven’t felt like this since Clinton’s first term.

Shakespeare, one of the reasons I have stayed with Swampland from the beginning is that we have been able to express strong opinions (I was a Hillary supporter in the primary) and disagree, but the regulars never called names. There were arguments on positions, but a community rule seemed to be that positions were supported with facts or citations. When I looked at comments on other sites (even ones that agreed with my position), many were nothing more than screaming names at someone who disagreed. Swampland was always better. I always learned a lot from the commenters.

ivb
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He and Michelle were remarkably genuine. Not to mention clean and articulate.
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Biden paid for that, but one thing about Obama is that he is remarkably, as politicians go, clear. He uses the right words in the right places, (“frenetic” was remarked upon here.) and seems to be saying what he really thinks. Which has the added virtue of making sense, and being grounded in reality.
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But this is a test with a very low bar, following eight years of an inarticulate president who never seemed to say what he really thought, and whose most very basic precepts are grounded in a rejection of reality.
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It is so goldarned refreshing that it’s hard to not get carried away. You can’t address problems if you don’t recognize them for what they are, and don’t see that there are interrelations between the difficulties we’re facing. Obama gets this.

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Rose -
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That’s an interesting take (in your 2nd paragraph, 7:31 comment) about sexism and racism. Sounds right to me.
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On the other hand, Hillary didn’t have people thinking she was the antichrist. Newsweek actually has an article with the title Is Obama the AntiChrist? Well no, so why would you ask that in a headline???
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Early this morning I saw a very interesting panel discussion on the election, and Howard Dean’s answer to a woman who asked about the role of women in Obama’s win would have pleased you, I think. I’ll try to find a citation later today. It was a Smithsonianassociates.org event, and aired on C-Span at 5:am.

ivb – I loved the CBS interview too. Michelle especially (loved her saying “don’t mind me” when Steve and Barack started talking about college football). So glad you’re getting excited.
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Now you’re going to have to tell me what you don’t like about Gene Robinson, who’s a real favorite of mine.

Evidently haven’t gotten the hang of the linking yet. one more try (with the link below it if I don’t succeed.)
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Is Obama the AntiChrist
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http://www.newsweek.com/id/169192
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The original route I took to the above article had disappeared so I had to search for it on the Newsweek site, and although it found it the first thing it asked me was “did you mean Is Osama the AntiChrist?” Media’s going to have to work on their search defaults.

sgwhite -
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Nate Silver has this to say as a result of watching the Frontline Special on Lee Atwater (which was apparently replayed Saturday, or maybe that’s just when Nate sees it in Chitown)
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One of the questions triggered by the Frontline program is what would have happened if Atwater were still alive today; might he have had more success in undermining Barack Obama than Steve Schmidt apparently did? My answer is very probably not, because the blogosphere serves as the fact-checkers that the mainstream media is too negligent to employ. On the contrary, I think that Mr. Atwater would have been smart enough to realize that he’d be eaten alive by Daily Kos and Media Matters and Keith Olbermann, and would be thoroughly enjoying himself in retirement playing in a blues band in South Carolina somewhere.
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Also, here’s his link to the page about the program. There are chat groups etc. Thought it might interest you, since seemingly no one here watched.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/atwater/

Somewhere way up above, in a discussion about KO and Stewart and ilk, jay said: “Watching the evolution of JMM from good government centrist to apparent partisan was interesting. But when the Democrats start doing corrupt or stupid things, these guys will report on them.”
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That is a key distinction between progressives and honest conservatives, and the RW rabble – our side has this thing about truth. We think it exists, we find it important, and we think news (and fake news) reporting should seek it. I am sure progressives generally expect to see good honest reporting on the Obama administration by our faves. And I have no doubt we will get it. I can already hear the KO Special Comment if/when Obama caves to political expediency on some core issue.
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The RW expects to see stenographic reporting of RW talking points at all times, with no effort to provide context and no assessment as to truth. And I have no doubt they will continue to get far too much of that in the msm.
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Note the preponderance of RWers on the Sunday shows yesterday. I know jay says no one watches those shows anymore except the Villagers, but the Villagers matter because they set CW. Did you know that Al Gore said he invented the internet? They all do. Still.
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Note that MSNBC is now labeled the “crazy liberal network ” because they now have one liberal and one honest shouter in a stable of center right and RW hosts and commentators. Scarborough, Gregory (always quick to put a RW frame or use a weeks old poll on any issue), Matthews (political junkie highly susceptible to RW spin), etc.
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And wasn’t 60 Minutes fine last night.

Hi Kathy,

On the Newsweek article you linked to, I can’t believe this stuff ends up in a mainstream publication. Most of my friends and relatives have religious beliefs, but none of them think the President-elect is the A-C.
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Aren’t a group of religious extremists encroaching on individuals’ right to individual religious expression? Does this type of coverage only give legitimacy to some outrageous and extremist claims?
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Where are the mature (aka Adult) journalists who will take a stand and challenge these religious extremists?

Am I the only one out there who feels this way?

I guess I have a lot of energy about this.

Hi kathy. You pretty much have the embedded link thing down now. Me too.

Lil Debbie prioving my point “Conservatives squeal and wail, and we respond. We can’t just be balanced, we need to be perceived as balanced. How non-reality based conservative readers figure out what to make of this is driving the process, same as always.”

oh, and credit DemFromCT at Daily Kos, who wrote that trenchant summary of Lil Deb.

wvng — I think the conservative view of “balanced coverage” is:

Conservative = always correct, must never disagree with us.
Liberal – always evil

Benen on Lil Deb.
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She really is the perfect exemplar of the “balance” problem. She demonstrates the decision making process that goes on in msm newsrooms right out there in the open where we can all see it. And it ain’t pretty.
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It simply doesn’t occur to her that balance for balance’s sake is, as Steve says: “an unusually bad idea. Worse, it’s an unworkable solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.”

kathy
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I think Nate might want to rethink this. The thing about Lee Atwater was that he was an innovator. Its hard to even put him into the context of a Steve Schmidt or even a Karl Rove because when you watch that special you see that both of them just recycled Atwater’s smears. Atwater used the same smear on Bill Clinton as a governer that Rove used on McCain in 2000 and it shows how smart Atwater was because he was attempting to undermine Clinton BEFORE Clinton ever announced his plans for the presidency. The other thing about Lee Atwater was he made sure that he was the one doing the majority of the dirty work not the candidate. Seriously seeing that special pissed me off that he was such a scum bag but also made me give him a LOT of respect for being the best at what he did.
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Now lets think about something for a minute. Even with the blogosphere and factchecking websites even to this day 25 percent of the people in Texas think Obama was or is a muslim. We also have another lawsuit over Obama’s birth certificate this time by a “candidate” Alan Keyes and judging by the responses on the website that pourme provided quite a few people still think Obama is from Kenya. And lets not forget the spike in gun sales because supposedly Obama is going to take everyone’s guns. With as sorry a campaign as McCain’s people ran there was still some bullsh!t that stuck. Now I am not saying that Lee Atwater was some kind of magical figure but I just think that instead of playing the game like he was back in 84 and 88 he would have changed the game like he did back then. He probably would have owned the internets and the blogosphere and he would have rained down so many rumors that even the blogosphere wouldnt have been able to chase ALL of them down. I also am almost positive that if McCain would have said that Rev Wright was off limits that Atwater would have found a way to get the 527s involved a lot sooner with ads about Rev Wright and they would have tied him to muslim extremist and compared their rhetoric. Don’t forget that Atwater claimed all along that he had nothing to do with the Willie Horton ad and he would have done the same thing this time.
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Also think about this, if Atwater never got sick we probably never would have gotten Bill Clinton. Don’t forget that George H W Bush got elected at a time when the lid had just been blown off of the Iran Contra scandal but Atwater was able to help him turn the conversation away from that and onto all of the things the opposition had supposedly done. With Clinton’s shady background of being a fillanderer Atwater would have had very fertile ground to mine. The guy was an evil genius and I am glad we will never find out how thing would have turned out had he been involved in this campaign but I think that Nate is being way too simplistic in his thought process about Atwater not having any effect. Lee Atwater of today would surely have not been the Lee Atwater of over 20 years ago
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Like anything the far right does:

Yell a lie really loud. Repeat often until others accept the lie as a truth.

kathy
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I forgot to mention that Lee Atwater invented the push poll. Here is the only substantial youtube clip I could find on the special. I don’t know if they are just that strong on their copyrights or if nobody cared enough to put any clips up but this 2 minute clip has some goodies in it.
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Andy: “Like anything the far right does: Yell a lie really loud. Repeat often until others accept the lie as a truth.”
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Get it on Drudge, echo throughout the RW noise machine, make it a story the msm just has to cover. We will know we are making progress when the story is the process the noise machine uses to push lies into the public consciousness.

SG: I didn’t watch the Lee Atwater program, but have read the postings with interest. I think Mr. Atwater did extremely repugnant things. He infected the world of politics and public discourse with a particularly virulent form of cancer.
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It was a cancer that metastsized itself on this past campaign and ironically, and perhaps appropriately, onto Atwater himself.
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I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but in the end he reaped what he had sown.

Andy
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I agree whole heartedly although I hesitate to be his judge and jury. Surely he is getting his just rewards now and I think thats more than enough. And the way he died was truly horrific and I wouldn’t want to wish that on anyone. But Ill tell you what, if you should ever get the chance to watch the special which I HIGHLY recommend to any and every one you will have to come away with some respect for the guy. He wasnt just some bumbler who used race or religion as a wedge issue. He took a wedge issue and make it a nuclear weapon. He had a candidate one time who was running against a jewish guy. So instead of going after the other guy directly he supposedly hired a third party candidate who was an over the top redneck holy roller who called into question the jewish guy’s lack of belief in jesus christ. Now think about that for a minute. The straight forward thing would have been for Atwaters candidate to wear his christianity on his sleeve and challenge the other candidate because of his jewish beliefs. But Atwater was smart enough to recognize the blowback that would come from that kind of straight forward attack. So he hires some blow hard who can say basically whatever in the hell he wants to say because he isnt planning on getting elected anyway. And it worked because the people in that town turned against the other candidate when he admitted that as a jew he didnt not believe that jesus was the messiah. That guy was truly a boogie man because he didnt just use smears, he used them to perfection.

kathy, I’ll fuss about Gene Robinson another time, but in response to your comment about the Newsweek story, Is Obama the A-C — that was widely promoted by right wing e-mails and talk radio. At my high school reunion, someone said that and she was utterly serious. I’m sure they would have done a story with that title if the same propaganda had been going around about Hillary. However, that particular statement wasn’t a lie that could have as easily been spun about her.

ivb, kathy, et al. Can you, in your wildest imaginings, imagine that Newsweek cover story being written, and published, about a repuglican?
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I mean, seriously. Lil Debbie is having vapors because even conservative columnists wrote nice things about Obama’s magnificent campaign and bad things about McCain’s despicable campaign.

wvng, No. Simple answers, etc…
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Seriously indeed. I’ve tried not to let myself get too into the business of positive / negative coverage because I think it is so stupidly calculated that I get really irritated. Living in PA I saw lots more negative ads by McCain, but it was calculated that if Obama mentioned McCain’s name simply by stating something like McCain’s position on this is… that was a negative ad by Obama. In the meantime, McCain’s ads were showing horrible pictures of Obama, calling him a terrorist, someone you can’t trust, etc. etc. The same thing applies to articles.

wvng – I wasn’t surprised or even disapproving of the story as written – it was the headline that got me – the teaser that maybe the answer was yes.

sgwhite (and Andy) re: Atwater “Surely he is getting his just rewards now and I think thats more than enough.” If you’re speaking in a religious sense, as in “for sure he’s being punished by God,” I just want to put a word in for the left-wing Christian version of God, who does not keep score or keep a ledger. Atwater’s repentance was by all accounts genuine. My own fantasy (only marginally scripturally based) is that “just rewards” includes having to face the awfulness of what I’ve done in the presence of the people to whom I’ve done those things. But grace is “unmerited favor,” emphasis on the unmerited part. The “good news” (what “Gospel” means) is that salvation doesn’t depend on what I do, it depends on what God does. I have to “work out my own salvation” as Paul would have it, but I can’t earn it. We really are all in the same boat.