State of the Union

Tonight the President speaks to the nation.. I don't envy him...hopefully he will explain a few things.. the endless war, the Health Care debacle, the national debt, but most importantly I hope he addresses the economy- and perhaps he will explain what the hell he is thinking by implementing a spending freeze....?


I feel his pain...passionately...I mean Barack's getting pretty beat up these days and not just by the usual suspects over at FOX, but by his own supporters. The frustration and anger felt by so many of his base has reached a crescendo. He must be feeling pretty lonely. I wouldn't want to be standing in his shoes and by the looks at how grey the guy's become - you know it's a stressful job.

The White House is really freaking out. The fact they made a big fancy announcement that Campaign Genius, David Plouffe is back on the job. Where has he been? Oh, writing a book....

This administration's low approval numbers, the election in Mass, and whispers everywhere you turn how the base is slipping away, even the exchange between Ed Schultz and Robert Gibbs the other day ending in a few choice "cuss words" must have unnerved the powers that be.
Hopefully, David will whip their image back into shape..if it's not too late...

None of this is good or can be good, though when so many threw their hopes, dreams and confidence into this wonder boy and his people..and speaking as one who gave her heart to help win the Presidency for Barack... I admit..I'm depressed, discouraged and yes, disappointed.

It's not that I don't realize what a difficult job this man inherited..I mean could Jesus himself take over after the last atrocious 8 years and "fix" things? I doubt it.

It's complex, there are so many players, all vying for their piece of the power pie, the Military Industrial Complex, The daycare of Congress and the Senate, the special interests, Corporate America... to name a few.

I have defended my new President at every turn because let's face it these problems aren't his fault. This disastrous economy took us 60 some years to get to this place.. and with that mighty extra thrust from George Bush Jr...things got really f'ed up. It's a mess and not an easy one to clean up. Perhaps it's high time we re-evaluate the benefits of the free market? Just a suggestion.

Logic dictates one man can't miraculously change things overnight... it's hard work and change takes time.... time....
and all of those out of work folks I met firsthand in Ohio? Well, the jobs of yesteryear are gone and they aren't coming back..and it's going to take time before wind turbines can be manufactured in your empty factories..and never mind China making them so cheap now...

So okay..while all these things are true..the reason I'm so let down?

It's just that I BELIEVED in Barack and the things he said during the campaign. Remember the massive crowds? The unprecedented amount of young people? The energy? The excitement? The HOPE? Was it just so bad with Bush that we overcompensated with our zeal?

I believed in this man enough to leave my family for months, go to Ohio and work tirelessly for the guy. I believed that he was that unique man.. that would stand up to the way things were done in Washington. That he was unconventional enough. Smart enough. Charming enough... young and healthy enough... remember that line? "we are the ones we have been waiting for"..my god that was the essence of the movement. It was real, alive and we were behind him ready to bring real change to our country.

I believed Barack had it all... the whole package..smart politician, good character, diverse background..he was all of us, black white, poor rich... those unique combination of characteristics to honestly relate to all Americans.The fact that he was so inspiring alone would create the change we needed. And ..I hoped he would be instrumental in healing our country from the near fatal wound of the Bush administration. To be fair he has done that.

But then he got into office..and got sucked into the insular politics of Washington that tend to smother and stifle ...surrounded himself with ex- Clinton "politicians" who seem more concerned with the next election cycle.....than "Change". That inspiration, and charisma seemed to fade. The speeches, though good weren't cosmic any longer. Yes, he's just a mere mortal man. A mere politician.

I'm aware that running a campaign is not the same as running the country..but what happened to all those innovative snazzy cutting edge youth that were going to bring to the White House, this new sense of efficiency, transparency, and a fresh way of doing business? Perhaps he should have hired all those kids instead of those ex- Clinton folks.

And what the hell happened to that state of the art PR? It was so signature of the campaign? Now? They have let Fox News run wild with the message....

Then there is the war....Barack was one of six senators who voted against the war initially...and ran his campaign as the true anti- war candidate.

Jobs, jobs, jobs... so how come this administration has aligned itself so closely with Wall Street who keeps flourishing and getting their obscene bonus's when more and more average Jane's are losing their homes and jobs? Remember that nifty movie on Capitalism by Mike Moore?

So tonight the Pres gives his State of the Union address..I will be listening attentively..as I always do. Let's hope there are no inappropriate outbursts... from the Peanut Gallery.

But this time I will be listening a bit more halfheartedly... I'm hanging on..I'm trying....I haven't given up all hope....

Glenn Greenwald on Blaming the Left.

As the bloggers go ape shit... and Op-eds are teeming this morning with analysis of "what went wrong for the Dems" after yesterday's special election in Massachusetts..Glenn Greenwald offers a great defense of the left- to the left. Not to leave the Right out of it..but their consensus from the get go to be the "Party of NO" and unworkable comes as no surprise as they smugly celebrate Brown's victory.


Worth reading....

Wednesday, Jan 20, 2010 08:21 EST

Blame the all-powerful left!

By Glenn Greenwald

AP/Salon

(updated below - Update II)

I have a contribution this morning to the New York Times examining the Scott Brown victory, and I'll post the link to it once it's up. But for the moment, I want to address two equally moronic themes emerging over the last couple of days which seek to blame the omnipotent, dominant, super-human "Left" for the Democrats' woes -- one coming from right-wing Democrats and the other from hard-core Obama loyalists (those two categories are not mutually exclusive but, rather, often overlap).

Last night, Evan Bayh blamed the Democrats' problems on "the furthest left elements," which he claims dominates the Democratic Party -- seriously. And in one of the dumbest and most dishonest Op-Eds ever written, Lanny Davis echoes that claim in The Wall St. Journal: "Blame the Left for Massachusetts" (Davis attributes the unpopularity of health care reform to the "liberal" public option and mandate; he apparently doesn't know that the health care bill has no public option [someone should tell him], that the public option was one of the most popular provisions in the various proposals, and the "mandate" is there to please the insurance industry, not "the Left," which, in the absence of a public option, hates the mandate; Davis' claim that "candidate Obama's health-care proposal did not include a public option" is nothing short of an outright lie).

• Continue Reading

In what universe must someone be living to believe that the Democratic Party is controlled by "the Left," let alone "the furthest left elements" of the Party? As Ezra Klein says, the Left "ha[s] gotten exactly nothing they wanted in recent months." The Left wanted a single-payer system, then settled for a public option, then an opt-out public option, then Medicare expansion -- only to get none of it, instead being handed a bill that forces every American to buy health insurance from the private insurance industry. Nor was it "the Left" -- but rather corporatist Democrats like Evan Bayh and Lanny Davis -- who cheered for the hated Wall Street bailout; blocked drug re-importation; are stopping genuine reform of the financial industry; prevented a larger stimulus package to lower unemployment; refuse to allow programs to help Americans with foreclosures; supported escalation in Afghanistan (twice); and favor the same Bush/Cheney terrorism policies of indefinite detention, military commissions, and state secrets.

The very idea that an administration run by Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel and staffed with centrists, Wall Street mavens, and former Bush officials -- and a Congress beholden to Blue Dogs and Lieberdems -- has been captive "to the Left" is so patently false that everyone should be too embarrassed to utter it. For better or worse, the Democratic strategy has long been and still is to steer clear of their leftist base and instead govern as "pragmatists" and centrists -- which means keeping the permanent Washington factions pleased. That strategy may or not be politically shrewd, but it is just a fact that the dreaded "Left" has gotten very little of what it wanted the entire year. Is there anyone who actually believes that "The Left" is in control of anything, let alone the Democratic Party? The fact that Lanny Davis -- to prove the Left's dominance -- has to cite one provision that was jettisoned (the public option) and another which the Left hates (the mandate) reflects how false that claim is. What are all of the Far Left policies the Democrats have been enacting and Obama has been advocating? I'd honestly love to know.

And then there is the "Blame the Left" theme from Obama loyalists, who actually claim that the Democrats' problems are due to the fact that the Left hasn't been cheering loudly enough for the Leader. I recall quite vividly how Bush followers spent years claiming that the failings of the Iraq War were not the fault of George Bush -- who had control of the entire war, the entire Congress, and the power to do everything he wanted -- but, rather, it was all "the Left's" fault for excessively criticizing the President, and thus weakening both him and the war effort.

To insist that the Democratic Party's failures are not the fault of Barack Obama -- who controls the entire party infrastructure, its agenda, the news cycle, and the health care plan -- we now hear from Obama supporters a similar claim: it's all the Left's fault for excessively criticizing the Leader. A couple of days ago, Josh Marshall promoted -- and Kevin Drum endorsed -- a post that made this claim:

And we can look no further than Howard Dean, and MSNBC, and Arianna Huffington, and, yes, some columnists at the Times and bloggers here at TPM--you know, real progressives--who have lambasted Obama again and again since last March over arguable need-to-haves like the "public option," as if nobody else was listening. They've been thinking: "Oh, if only we ran things, how much more subtle would the legislation be," as if 41 senators add up to subtle. Meanwhile the undecideds are thinking: "Hell, if his own people think he's a sell-out and jerk, why should we support this?"

The reason "the Left" criticized the Iraq War was because . . . they thought it was a bad thing and thus opposed it. The reason some on the Left have been criticizing the health care plan and other Obama policies (the ones I listed above) is because . . . they think they're bad things and thus oppose them. For instance, health care opponents believe that forcing Americans to buy private insurance that they can't afford and/or do not want is bad policy and will harm the Democrats politically. That's what rational citizens do: they support proposals that they think are good and oppose the ones they think are bad. What are people on "the Left" supposed to do: go on television and into their columns and lie by pretending they support things that they actually oppose, all in order to sustain high levels of affection and excitement for Barack Obama? Someone who would do that is what we call a dishonest propagandist and party loyalist, and, in any event, is unlikely to have any credibility with anyone beyond already-converted, fellow Obama admirers.

A political party is actually much healthier and stronger when criticisms of the Leader are permitted. Ask the Republicans circa 2005 and 2006 about how a party fares when party-loyalty and leader-loyalty trump all other considerations. Moreover, if a political party adopts a strategy of ignoring its base, as the Democrats routinely do, it's an inevitable cost that the base will become dispirited and unmotivated. As Darcy Burner put it yesterday: "Perhaps if the Democratic base doesn't show up to elect Coakley, party leadership should consider *trying to appeal* to the base." There's a reason it's called "the base" -- it's because it's the foundation of the party -- and, as the Republicans never forget, there is a serious cost to ignoring or spurning them.

As I note in my NYT contribution today, the reasons for the Democrats' failings generally -- and the Scott Brown victory specifically -- are complex, and shouldn't be simplified in order to declare vindication for pre-existing beliefs (Obama loyalists: it was all about Coakley!; right-wing Democrats: it's all the Left's fault!; Republicans: it's a rejection of liberalism!). But whatever else is true, the Left, as usual, has very little power, both within the Party and in general. Blaming them for the Democrats' failings is about as rational as the 2006 attempt to blame them for the collapsing Iraq War. The Left is many things; "dominant within the Democratic Party and our political discourse" is not one of them.

* * * * *

All that said, and as horrible as the Democrats have been all year, the most amazing -- and depressing -- aspect of all of this is how Americans have so quickly forgotten how thoroughly the Republicans, during their eight-year reign, destroyed the country. Whatever the source of our national woes are, re-empowering that faction cannot possibly be the answer to anything.

UPDATE: The NYT forum on last night's election is here; my contribution is currently at the top.

UPDATE II: Noting that even reasonable conservatives like Stephen Bainbridge are saying things like: "Obama and the Congressional Democrats (especially in the House) governed for the last year as though the median voter is a Daily Kos fan," Andrew Sullivan writes:

This must come as some surprise to most Daily Kos fans. But if one had traveled to Mars and back this past year and read this statement, what would you assume had happened? I would assume that the banks had been nationalized, the stimulus was twice as large, that single-payer healthcare had been pushed through on narrow majority votes, that card-check had passed, that an immigration amnesty had been legislated, that prosecutions of Bush and Cheney for war crimes would be underway, that withdrawal from Afghanistan would be commencing, that no troops would be left in Iraq, that Larry Tribe was on the Supreme Court, that DADT and DOMA would be repealed, and so on.

Exactly. Of course, none of those things has happened, precisely because the Democrats under Obama (and before) have been doing everything except "governing from the Left." But our political discourse, as usual, is so suffuse with blinding stupidity that this clichéd falsehood -- Democrats have been beholden to the Left -- will take root as Unchallengeable Truth and shape what happens next. That's already happening.

• More Glenn Greenwald

• Close

Martin Luther King Day!

Today is Martin Luther King Day, where we pay tribute to this great man..and in a couple of days we will mark Obama's first year in office as the first African American President. Pretty cool!

Whatever your feeling about the job the President has done so far or currently is doing this- fact alone is amazing! Huh?

Thought I would post a great article from The Nation on how Martin Luther King Jr. and President Obama are similar but very different!

How Barack Obama is like Martin Luther King, Jr.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem. –Martin Luther King, Jr.

Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for the presidency on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's historic "I have a dream" speech. He was inaugurated the day after our national holiday celebrating the life and accomplishments of Dr. King. Many asked if Obama's presidency was the realization of King's dream. Cultural products, from t-shirts to YouTube videos, linked Obama's election to King's legacy.

Some observers have made far less complimentary comparisons between the men. Some self-professed keepers of King's legacy have insisted that Barack Obama is embarrassingly anemic on issues of race. Remembering King as an uncompromising paragon of progressive politics, these "black leaders" judge Obama as a wishy-washy sell-out, unwilling to stand firm for his constituency.

This sentiment was perfectly captured last week in the outrageous comments of African American Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson. Lost in the din surrounding Harry Reid's "Negro dialect" comments and Rush Limbaugh's scandalous tirade about Haiti, was Dyson's assertion that "Barack Obama runs from race like a black man runs from a cop."

Dyson's comment is both offensive -to President Obama and to black men in general- and false- no other American presidential candidate paused in the middle of a campaign to deliver an exquisite commentary on race. Still, Dyson's sentiment is indicative of a small, but vocal group of black public intellectuals who have regularly criticized Obama during his campaign and his presidency.

Often comparing Obama explicitly to Dr. King, they conclude the President lacks the moral courage or Leftist determination of the civil rights icon.

I disagree. Barack Obama is stunningly similar to Martin Luther King, Jr., but to see this similarity we must relinquish the false, reconstructed memories of perfection we currently project onto King.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a political philosopher and dedicated freedom fighter, but he was also a pragmatic political strategist. Seen through the perfecting lens of martyrdom, King appears to be to be an uncompromising progressive leader, undeterred by seemingly insurmountable challenges, willing to risk all to achieve the goals of his movement.

To see King exclusively in these terms requires active, willful revision of history. In his political work, King was surprisingly like President Obama. And I don't mean the oratory.

Consider this. Martin Luther King Jr. turned his back on Bayard Rustin. Rustin was his dear friend and trusted advisor. Rustin was the architect of the March on Washington. A fierce, lifelong pacifist, Rustin shepherded a young King through his first non-violent, direct action protests. Without Rustin there would have been no March on Washington and no national audience for the articulation of King's great dream.

Yet when he was pressed, Martin Luther King Jr. eventually disavowed Rustin and ejected him from the movement. Rustin asked King for his support, but King turned his back on Rustin. King rejected Rustin because Rustin was gay and socialist.

Faced with the political realities of homophobia and America's red scare, King chose to silence Rustin. King decided defending Rustin would distract the movement from its central goal of achieving an end to racial segregation.

Consider this. Martin Luther King, Jr. undercut the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party.

Black, rural laborers in Mississippi endured brutal beatings, death threats, loss of property, and exile from their homes because they wanted to vote. Despite these dangers, they formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Under the leadership of Fannie Lou Hamer they brought a delegation to the Democratic National Convention in 1964. There they demanded to be recognized and seated in protest of the racial disfranchisement in their state. Hamer's testimony before the DNC credentials committee remains a powerful witness to the brutal conditions black Americans faced in their struggle for first class citizenship.

It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who brokered a deal with the Democratic leadership that cut Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democrats out of the Mississippi delegation. King knew that Johnson still needed the Southern segregationists to hold the majority. King needed Johnson to pass civil rights legislation. Johnson needed the Southerners to get elected. So King undercut Hamer. It was a strategic calculation.

Consider this. Martin Luther King, Jr. worked closely with many African American women, but staunchly refused to address gender equality as part of the larger movement for civil rights.

Women like Ella Baker, Diane Nash, Daisy Bates and Fannie Lou Hamer are dimly remembered compared to the shining beacon of King's legacy. This invisibility of women activists is neither accidental nor inevitable. Despite his sweeping, visionary, social theorizing, King had surprisingly little imagination about how the extraordinary women in the movement could share leadership and accolades with the male leaders. He often relegated his women peers to supporting roles and backstage efforts. King refused to publicly address gender discrimination and often argued that women's issues were distracting to the work of civil rights.

Deriding King and his legacy is not my goal in retelling these stories. We must remember that Martin Luther King was no earthbound deity, fearlessly pursuing an uncompromising agenda; he was a strategic political leader. He was a realist whose choices were often upsetting and unpalatable to those on his left.

Martin Luther King Jr's charismatic, audacious, courageous leadership dramatically altered the trajectory of American history. His leadership lasted just over a decade. In that decade he helped bring to fruition more than a century of struggle first inaugurated when black persons became free people in the United States. No personal or political shortcoming can erase or even tarnish King's contributions.

Remembering King's own strategic choices is not an apologia for President Obama. Barack Obama's legacy will ultimately rise and fall on the strength of his own accomplishments, not primarily on his comparative skill relative to other leaders. But a more clear-eyed assessment of King should make us more careful about how we judge our own imperfect President as he navigates his own complicated historical moment.

Barack Obama is not the leader of a progressive social movement; he is the president. As president he is both more powerful than Dr. King and more structurally constrained. He has more institutional power at his disposal and more crosscutting constituencies demanding his attention. He has more powerful allies and more powerful opponents.

We remember King as the beloved and revered leader of a nation-changing movement. We forget that King was widely criticized during his life. The American media derided this Nobel Peace Prize recipient for speaking out against the Vietnam War. Many argued King had overreached and had little right to weigh in on international matters. Despite braving vicious attacks, unfair incarceration, and attempts on his life, many young leaders mocked King for being insufficiently radical, overly tied to existing institutions, and inadequately brave in the face of racial attacks. One of the most gifted speakers of any age, in the final months of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. had trouble filling an auditorium for a public address.

I have criticisms of President Obama. He has not sufficiently championed the basic civil rights of LGBT Americans. He has escalated rather than ended our country's war effort. His health care initiative is not going to include a public option. But I am grateful that extraordinary change can be achieved even through imperfect leadership.

I see King in Obama: a leader who is imperfectly, but wholeheartedly groping toward better and fairer solutions for our nation.

I have a question..or two....

I have a question or two for my "conservative" friends.

Since when did they begin to allow their tv pundits and talk radio guru's to represent them? To be their mouthpiece... And secondly when did conservative and the religious right become the antithesis of love, compassion, acceptance and Holiness? At least in the public forum. And thirdly where are those who make up half the country in the conservative movement to push back loudly and boldly against this type of behavior and rhetoric?

It really stumps me. Truly. As I listened to the outrageous remarks by Evangelist and 700 Club Pat Robertson, on Haiti..and then to Rush Limbaugh having the fucking, yes FUCKING audacity to seize upon the tragedy in Haiti only to politicize and attack our current President defies all reasonable and rational intellect. Not to mention ... defies the basic humanity we all share in moments like these. When the world's citizens actually put aside their conflicts and differences to come together in a show of extraordinary compassion and concern. I guess hundreds of thousands of Haitians that are dead and suffering don't qualify for a nanosecond of..hmmnnn... compassion on Rush Limbaugh's radio program. Where is the love? Certainly not in any fiber of Rush Limbaugh's, sorry ass of a body. Perhaps all that Oxycontin stripped away the last vestige of warmth and humanness from his tiny heart....

As far as Pat Robertson..well, I can chalk his evolving insanity up to his old age..he appears a bit senile at times... but really....as a Christian man.. he really is irrelevant in the National spotlight.

Equally outrageous is that the conservative publication, The National Review (the same one that had it's employee's cheering at the failed Olympic bid for Chicago) could seriously defend any of Rush Limbaugh's remarks. What would have been a moment of supreme integrity for this organization would have been it's captains taking center stage and renouncing and admonishing the vile and sickening sludge coming from Rush. This should have been the last straw for fellow conservatives. Hasn't he demonstrated over and over, time and again his true lack of character? Spewing hate and intolerance in the name of? What? Conservatism? Values? Ratings? More millions for his lavish lifestyle? How can the religious right and conservatives "tolerate" this? I mean he has 2 million listeners or so... It really stumps me. Because there is so much else they don't tolerate. Gay marriage.... choice....lack of moral values in media culture...the government...liberals, socialists... isn't hatred and unloving, unkindness and uncompassionate behavior equally as "sinful" and unacceptable? The Bible says so.
Since when did it become okay to be mean spirited to the point of despicable?

The contempt and covert racism that people like Rush and some of his cronies over at Fox espouse certainly for this President is apparently greater than humanity itself. And... speaking of Fox, the fact that their three top rated programs, O'Reilly, Hannity, and Beck spent a combined total of less than 7 minutes of coverage devoted to the Haitian earthquake..instead choosing to air Glenn Beck's interview of Sarah Palin (OMG- Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum..but that's for another blog....) and O'Reilly discussing the perils of The Daily Show..astounds the mind! Appalling...it's such a sorry state of affairs for our country.

Which brings me to this point. I've had lots of friends on the right and socially conservative acquaintances respond to my rantings about the right wing media and talking heads, etc. Their point to me is that during the Bush years the "liberal" factions in this country were just as bad, just as mean... they constantly harp on the fact the press ripped George Bush apart on a regular basis. Calling him fascist, stupid and an idiot.

Lets see... the name calling wielded at Obama...Terrorist, Socialist, Communist, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Anti- Christ, mockingly a Messiah, Racist, non- citizen, baby and grandma killer all this even before his first 100 days in office.

Yes, it's true George Bush was the brunt of late night comedy shows. And it's also true he was and still is the target of left wing loathing primarily for an unjust war his administration waged, along with implementing policies that undermined our Constitution, the stripping of habeas corpus, breaking the Rule of Law, lending his unwavering support to Corporate America and basically causing the country to lapse into a economic crisis not seen since the likes of the Great Depression. And yes, he was mocked for the way he walked and talked.
Well, all of these things did happen under his watch and certainly justifies rational criticism...the last two, okay- entirely unfair.

So... while it's true ole 43rd took a beating, nothing compares to the vitriol and nastiness coming out out of the right conservative outlets currently. Sadly most of this is coming directly from the Republican Party itself and it's political wing- FOX news. Their target Operation Obama. No other candidate in modern political history had to endure what this man has..and he's the first Black Pres. Interesting.

This thought that somehow the left wing is saying things just as nasty and the notion they are equally culpable- there is no equivalency. I just don't see it. The left isn't out there shooting up museums, churches, crisis pregnancy clinics, conservative gatherings, or cops.

You have to go all the way back to the 60's or 70's to find anything like that kind of covert political violence coming from the left. Remember Bill Ayers? But beginning in the 80's..the good ole Reagen years.. we've had waves of it coming out of the right- now including nine violent right-wing attacks on innocent Americans since Obama was inaugurated! Militia groups are up 50% and the threats on our Presidents life are up 400% since taking office. It's the right, at present, that has reared it's ugly head. And it just isn't "fringe" any longer. It's unleashed on conservative radio and FOX to millions of listeners each night.

Okay, so the commenters are not goody two shoes on liberal sites either, but the problem has nothing to do with the commenters..it has everything to do with the Opinion leaders who are driving the conversation. It's actually shockingly difficult to name a single major voice on the right who hasn't called for the outright silencing, or harassing- even joking about the elimination of liberals . Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck. Sean Hannity. Bernie Goldberg. Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham,, Michelle Mailkin, Michael Savage. Dick Morris (remember his foot fetish prostitute scandal?) Fox is like the Safe House for those who commit indiscretions or worse.... crimes. Pretty soon, Ted Haggard will be seen with his own line up ....

When Sean Hannity runs a poll on his website asking whether his viewers prefer a military coup, secession, or armed rebellion to overthrow the Government..and armed rebellion wins. This is cause for some concern. Right wingers have built their careers on demonizing the left and liberals. But when they flirt with specific steps that should be taken to deal with them-that is something not to be ignored. Tea Parties and Tea Baggers (do they not still know what that term means?) A conservative Revolution? Taking back the country? Armed rebellion?

Smells a lot like Bill Ayers and his revolutionist actions back in the 60's. Bill Ayers and his ilk also felt to the core they needed to fight an evil corrupt government they couldn't trust. Radical? Yes! Thankfully Bill Ayers didn't have a his own talk show back in the 60's that reached millions of people like Sean does. History could have been very different.

What's so hard for my mind to grasp is that conservatives, and certainly Christians, hold themselves up to a much higher standard. These right wing media pundits don't hide the fact they elevate themselves way above the evil "liberal" media. The thing is they have lowered their standards so low in fact, that they become the very thing they claim to not be... hateful, anti American, bigoted, intolerant, uninformed and I'm throwing this one in- not loving.

The regular diet of venomous anger and hate, floating conspiracies, name calling, dripping sarcasm, and disseminating outright lies and slander make them completely abhorrent. This model should make them completely irrelevant as well. Equally baffling is that conservatives, who boast about their loftier standards, seemingly look the other way at this truly bad behavior. Why?

It really stumps me.