Ship of Fools

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You were alive in Republican Rome?

 

@JE: aren't there some now? I get the feeling that neither Democrats nor Republicans are completely united, and both side has moderates and radicals, among other groups.

 

I think that, wile both parties have polarised elements, only the Republican party has brought forth elements like Anne Coulter who think along the line (if they think) that Republicans are always right and Liberals are always wrong, no matter what they say. In getting applause for such lines she proves that there is an audience receptive for that sort of message. It is not difficult to see where. She expresses a certain spirit that has manifested itself in D.C. under Bush Jr.

The Republicans have extensively relied on wedge issues, which sole purpose was polarisation, and the '50,1% are a majority that rules' mindset has done its part. There was no palpable effort that Republicans to even talk with Democrats about politics, to the contrary, if your aim is polarisation you talk at them, yell probably. Worse, when under Bush the GOP held both houses there was only a rubber-stamp parliamentary process, obedience was all that was required from a GOP partisan, err, politician. In his first term Bush didn't face more obstacles in congress or Senate than Hitler at the Reichstag: That whatever legislation he proposed would pass was guaranteed in advance.

Tom DeLay's simple rule was: Either you hire Republicans or you're out. He made lobbying a job generating racket for Republicans exclusively. His K-Street project that easily exceeded the worst excesses of corrupt Democrats in their heyday.

The Bush/ Rove team certainly set a new standard as far as corruption is concerned, and in respect to side-lining oversight. Not that the GOP controlled houses, being genuine team players, wanted to hear much of anything, much less conduct oversight of 'their president' - which makes me wonder what they did do in these six years.

I know, the Dems did do a lot bad things and the things I mentioned, too. The only question is the 'how much'. Either you're one of us, or you're against us. That is new, and that for all practical purposes suffocates the voices of moderates and bi-partisans by pushing such treasonous infidels out of the party and punish them.

But of course, the distinction of being 'the worst' is a 'challenge cup'. Thus far the GOP firmly holds it.

 

fftopic:

You don't think I became jaded and cynical overnight, do you?

(I'd add more meaningful & topical discourse to the thread, but I'm late for work...)

 

That's a very good description of what I'm like too. While I am registered as a Democrat - and have been since I was 18 years old - this last election was the first time I voted exclusively along party lines. In the past, I HAVE voted for republicans - although I must admit that in every Presidential election dating back to 1992 (the first in which I was old enough to vote) I have gone with the Democratic canidate.

I have to agree with what Chandos said. While both of the major parties have wackjobs among their ranks, up until recently, it wasn't the wackjobs that were running the party. I don't know if the Democrats even HAVE someone as nuttly like Culter among them. (Actually - the meida domain seems to be dominated completely by conservatives - there is to my knowledge no liberal equivalent to Rush, Hannity, O'Reily, et. al.) Instead, it seems like the liberal wackjobs are the actual politicians - people like Kucinich and Sharpton.

 

I would hardly say that the media is dominated by right wing nutjobs -- there are plenty of left wingers coming over the airwaves.

I just re-read the article that kicked this thread off, and am given to ponder the concept of slant. This guy certainly makes all those people look like idiots, doesn't he? But that's his GOAL -- just like the conservatives he mocks, he serves up what his audience wants to hear. Some of the quotes he made sound like what people might say at parties. You know, stuff like "they bombed the Twin Towers, lets nuke Mecca, ha ha" People don't mean that stuff seriously, they say it in the heat of the moment or when their tipsy and spouting off to impress their friends.

Please don't take this as a defense of the ultra-right positions -- most of their publicy articulated positions are reprehensible, no doubt, but I just don't see this article as written to be anything more than a carefully crafted smear job -- something both the Left AND Right are fully capable of.

 

I know of no left-wing source that has a national radio program/tv show. Although I suppose with the advent of satellite radio, even a local show can now be considered "national". About the closest I can come up with is Al Franken - he has a radio show that is broadcast in the New York area, so I suppose he can theoretically have hundreds of thousands of listeners. That still doesn't come close though to someone like Rush Limbaugh, who is heard dialy by millions.

I'm not saying that the left doesn't have nutjobs. It just seems to me that on the left, the nutjobs are actual politicians. It appears that the talk shows are much more dedicated (and have been for years) to the right - that the nationally known people are from right.

 

One possible reason for this is that the Right is traditionally made up of people who perceieve themselves as "the common man". They view the Left as elitest snobs (see the thread on Hillary) who need to be knocked down a peg. So they are more likely to call into and support such shows. They see the shows as a chance to throw off the stifling chokehold of political correctness (though I'm the first to admit that the Right is more than willing to throw chokeholds of its own, as illustrated in the article under discussion)

As for politicians and radio shows, though, I think the Left expresses itself through entertainment -- comedy shows (I'm thinking here of Colbert and Stewart) seem to be staffed by lefties, and I'd say that the plurality of Hollywood stars lean to the left. That's where they get their exposure, it's just a different venue.

 

To be completely honest most of the entertainment establishment leans somewhat to the left. There just arent any or many pure political demagogues like the right got.

 

Perhaps the base, but definitely not the pols and pundits.

It's one of the great ironies of American politics that the party most blatantly catering to business interests (and, to be fair, claiming that in doing so it's benefiting all Americans) is also the party 'of the common man'.

 

I would generally agree with that - especially regarding Hollywood. With Colbert and Stewart (I do watch their shows) I think it isn't so much that they are staffed by lefties, but rather that the basis of their shows is political satire.

The Daily Show - although it wasn't originally done by Stewart - has been around for a long time. It dates back to the time Clinton was still in office - and I can assure you they had a field day with the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Recently Stewart has definitely been throwing more shots at the right, but that's because of the current administration. Whichever political party happens to be in power at the time is naturally going to be on the receiving end of most of the political satire.

As for the Colbert report, that's much newer, and can even be considered a spin-off of the Daily Show (Colbert acted as one of the Daily Show's "correspondents" before getting his own show). While I cannot say for certain when Colbert started doing his show, I am confident that it has only been existence for a couple of years - so certainly only since Bush has been in office. Again though, since it's political satire it's going to focus on the party in power. The fact that the Colbert Report hasn't been around long enough to see how it handles a Democratic administration does not necessarily mean it wouldn't take shots at Dems if they were in power.

 

@Aldeth: Actually, the Colbert Report is specifically focused on satirizing right wing media pundits.....specifically Bill O'Lielly.

 

@Drew - but that only reinforces what I was saying earlier - the left doesn't have a Bill O'Reilly equivalent on TV. Although I have to admit, the way that Colbert always pretends like he's taking the extreme right-wing position would have to be specifically satirizing only the right wing in American politics.

 

Colbert and Stewart are on a comedy channel and Jon has often made the point that it is NOT a serious "news network," as say FOX News claims to be. Colbert has often said that his TV character is based on Bill O'Reilly and that his show is largely a satire on "The Factor."

 

I sincerely hope that no one here thought I was foolish enough to believe that the two shows under discussion were "real" news programs. However, I cite them, and other entertainers and entertainment venues, to argue against the assertion that the left in America has been muzzled. In fact, the resurgence of the Democrats in the House of Reps would seem to me to indicate that the right does not have the stranglehold on politics that others accuse it of having (or that they might LIKE to have!)

 

I give you more credit than that. Of course they aren't "real" news programs, and I know that you know that. We can through HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher in there as well. I guess my point is that as satire they are meant to be funny, and therefore, they aren't expected to be taken seriously by anyone.

On the other hand, the conservative radio talk shows run by Limbaugh, and the conservate TV shows run by O'Reilly are meant to be taken seriously by their audience.

So I think that the audience gives more weight to the opinions expressed in serious shows than those opinions expressed in non-serious shows. That's why I feel that the left wing lacks media equivalents that the right has.

 

Yeah, I hear you there, Aldeth, but (and remember this is a right winger saying this) I have found that the few times I was able to hear Rush Limbaugh's show I found at least as entertaining as Colbert. Limbaugh scares me!

 

Perhaps there are more "right wing" television news (opinion) shows because that is what sells. Even CNN, which is definitely not a conservative network, has conservative news shows (Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck). Is it that the left simply doesn't have the charismatic, persuasive opinion show hosts that the right does or is it that the left's message is so fundamentally flawed that it needs to be disseminated in a different, more subtle manner? Personally I think it is the latter.

I don't care for Rush either. He is nothing but a shill for the Republican party.

 

On the flip side, you can actually find more real, accurate news from Jon Stewart's show than you get from Bill O'Reilly.

Regarding what Stewart has to say about his show, I don't buy it for a second. Jon is just being self-deprecating. He is well aware of the political power he holds at Comedy Central. He a political animal, and he knows he's it.

 

Well, I say - I'm just on the edge of my seat waiting for you to explain what you mean by "fudamentally flawed." I just love when the right tries to explain "the message" from the other side. Please, Dinsdale, tell us....

Are you saying that Comedy Central is more "news worthy" than the "professionals" are at Fox News? I could not agree more.