I Heart Chris Dodd

Chris Dodd is brilliant and he should have either increased leadership in the Senate or a position in the next administration. Seriously, I love this guy. That CNN article really doesn’t do him justice, so try to find the full press conference somewhere (I couldn’t). Even perpetual wuss Harry Reid got some good shots in.

Americans are really hating this bill. I spoke to a staffer for a member of the House leadership yesterday who said that 90% of their constituent calls over the past week have been in opposition to this bill. Seriously. 90%.

In other news, I will be suspending my blogging in a couple hours in order to go work on this financial crises at my Mom’s house in Florida.

Making My Job Easy

Blogging isn’t easy. Fellow bloggers, I’m sure you agree. For those of you who don’t agree let me explain. Unless you are one of the few who are lucky enough to do this for a living, we all have other lives. I have a wife, a toddler and attend school full time and also do volunteer work with a political campaign and a Veterans’ organization. When I have time in between all those things, I look for stories worth writing about that haven’t already been reported to death and that I feel I can add something substantial to the debate. Then, I actually have to find the time to write about it.

This is why I like when the reason-starved right brings their hilarity here. I don’t have to look for the story, and their arguments are paper thin so they are easy to rebut. For example, check out this comment from my piece on FOX “News”.

mom23girls, on September 11th, 2008 at 6:33 am Said:
IDIOTs…..someone has to speak for the Republican Party…..all the other media outlets MAKE UP LIES about Palin to make Obama look good, which obviously isn’t doing any good according to the latest polls.

What lies are you talking about, mom23girls? I see you have provided no references. I mean, I could give you a few.

That her husband is a Successionist? FACT.

That Sarah Palin exclusively supports abstinence only education that might have saved her daughter from an unwanted pregnancy? FACT.

That Sarah Palin, in fact, supported the “Bridge to Nowhere” project and only flip-flopped on the issue after it died in congress, but still kept the money for the project and built a road to a no longer existent bridge? FACT.

That she is embroiled in a corruption scandal in her home state for abuse of power? FACT.

That while mayor of Wasilla (Pop. 6,700), Sarah Palin hired a lobbyist to bring $27,000,000 in federal earmarks to her town, approximatly the same amounth given to Boise, Idaho, a town 29 times the size of Wasilla, and that lobbyist was an employee of lobbyist/corrupt felon Jack Abramoff? FACT.

I could go on, mom23girls, if you’d like. Just let me know

But if you want to talk about news outlets propagating lies, we can talk about the lie that Barack Obama is a muslim originating at FOX “News”.

Or we could talk about the fact that FOX “News” actually sued for the right to lie, so that they could continue to do so.

In the words of Biden…..Obama has no experience and the Office of President is not for on-the-job training.

I shouldn’t even respond to this, since you didn’t provide a reference. But since you are helping to make my job easy today, I’ll break my rule on that. I don’t remember Biden ever saying Obama has no experience. Biden did say that the Presidency is no place for on the job training. But like the rest of us, Joe Biden at the time did not know much about Barack Obama. In fact, I didn’t support Barack Obama at first. I was never opposed to him, but I knew more about other candidates who I chose to support. The more the campaign went on, however, it became apparent that no candidate had the quality of judgement that Barack Obama has, and as a combat Veteran, there is no one in the United States who I feel would be more capable to be Commander-in-Cheif than Barack Obama.

And to rebut your unsubstantiated assertion, Joe Biden agrees with me.

I think Biden is a little senile. He seems to have forgotten what he said.

Biden senile? Are you serious? You area a McCain supporter and you think Biden is senile? Maybe you should check out your own candidate.

Fox does show biased reports…

Agreed.

….but COULD EVER match MSN, CNN and the other national news outlets. I can’t even watch them. At least Fox tries to give a balanced view, by giving comments from both sides. The other media outlets have NO balance other than far left.

Really, are you serious? MSNBC gave Allen Keyes his own show. Joe Scarborough, who was actually a Republican congressman (my congressman, I might add) has his own show. And Patrick Buchanan, who is one of their lead political commentators, is so conservative that when he spoke to the Republican National Convention in 1992, a bunch of conservatives said “fuck that!” and bolted for Clinton like a scraped kneed little girl to her mother.

CNN? You are saying a network that gives Glen Beck and Lou Dobbs their own shows carries a liberal bias?

See, this is a product of is the Conservative M.O. of repeating a lie until its true. Back in the 90’s the right really played up this idea of a “culture war” (led by Patrick Buchanan) which included a left wing bias in the media.

The problem with this is that there never was a left wing media bias. The conservatives made it up and kept repeating it. True to their character, progressives never made an effort to counter the baseless allegations and just hoped they would go away. Of course they didn’t and after hearing it enough, the public began to think it was true. So what happened? Networks started a deliberate move to the right to counter the assertions that they were biased. You can thank that movement for the advent of Fox “News” and for radical bigots and wing nuts like Glen Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Patrick Buchanan even being considered relevant.

For Fox “News”, essential to maintaing this movement was to convey that they are “fair and balanced”. So, what do they do? They get spineless moderates like Juan Williams (Who must be a liberal, because he is black! Duh!) and Alan Colmes, who won’t actually put up a fight but will keep their mouths shut and perpetuate the idea that liberals have a voice on Fox “News”. Alternately, Fox “News” will bring on a real liberal, for example David Sirota. But these true progressives are being interviewed by water carriers of the radical right. So, this “fair and balanced” discussion becomes “So, token liberal, Why do you hate America?”. Yeah. That is a real balanced view.

At least FOX doesn’t make things up about Obama. The leftist media is so desperate they will make things up until they find out the truth.

Yeah, we already addressed this.

Journalist’s are supposed to find the truth and report the facts. Not find dirt, report it and then wait for the truth and facts to surface.

You are absolutely correct. Once Fox “News” hires some journalists and starts finding truth, reporting facts, and stops making things up, I’ll start respecting them as a legitimate news outlet.

SAD but TRUE., McCain/Palin 2008

Agreed again. It is sad but true that the best your party has to offer is John McCain and Sarah Palin