This week, the North Carolina Republican Party has came out with a political TV ad that highlights Rev. Jeremiah Wright, specifically, his "God D___ America" rant. The ad, while making the case that Barack Obama was too extreme for America, was directly targeted at two Democrats running for governor of North Carolina since they had both endorsed Obama for president. As a result, liberals and Democrats are up in arms over the ad, even as the Hillary camp plays on the same points.
In the wake of the ad, John McCain and the RNC have asked the NC Republican Party to remove the ad as being divisive. Up to now, the state party has refused to comply. Notwithstanding his disapproval of the ad, McCain is taking heat from Democrats. Howard Dean is attacking McCain for his inability to force the NC Republican Party to take down the ad.
Then there is MSNBC's blatantly partisan Keith Olbermann, who, last night, called the ad racist and attacked McCain in his "Worst person in the world" segment for his "connection" to those putting the ad up.
What connection, Mr Olbermann? John McCain has disowned the ad and tried to have it taken down (something he does not have the authority to do).
John McCain should be praised for his attempt to conduct a non-divisive campaign (at least to this point). But was the ad racist, as Olbermann and others on the left are charging? I think not. Just because Obama has a pastor who cries "God d___ America" and rails about white people and the "US of KKK", does not make those who point out the truth racists. If anyone is racist, it is Reverend Wright. I would agree that the two Democratic gubernatorial candidates of North Carolina should not be saddled with Jeremiah Wright just because they endorsed Obama. That is another step removed. At any rate, I don't consider the ad racist just because it criticizes a black pastor who has said outrageous things.
Olbermann's charges of racism surrounding the ad are to be expected. While he rails against Bill O'Reilly and Fox News ("Fix News" as he calls it.) on a nightly basis, Olbermann is a hypocrite when he makes these statements. His own show is nothing more than a one-sided exercise in bashing of Bush, the Republican Party and all things conservative. Unlike Fox, which has debates between liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, Hannity and Colmes, as well as O'Reilly bringing on opposing voices, Olbermann debates no one. His guests every night are the same tired old faces, Eugene Robinson, Rachel Maddow, Chuck Todd, Jonathan Alter and others who agree with him on everything. So now, Olbermann is attaching the "racist" label on the North Carolina ad without any explanation or evidence.
In the wake of the ad "controversy", David Axelrod, campaign chief for Obama, has thrown in his two cents worth with a comment about "white working-class voters" who will vote for the white candidate (as opposed to Obama).
Then there is Joy Behar of "The View". This morning, she joined the fray in bringing up the "Republican Attack Machine", that "will do anything to hold on to power- anything." What Joy refuses to understand is that Obama is still engaged in fighting off Hillary Clinton for the nomination. It is the Clintons that are playing the race card against Obama, not John McCain and his campaign. It is the Clintons who will do anything to win-anything.
In short, the NC ad, while stretching to connect Jeremiah Wright to the two Democratic candidates for governor, are not racist. If they are, then any criticism of a black public figure is also racist. I would like to think we have progressed beyond that point.
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8 comments:
Gary, I'm with you on most of this, but come on - just because Olbermann is blatantly one-sided that doesn't make Hannity & Colmes a debate show. To suggest that it is would be to insult the very notion of what a debate even is. At best, it's dueling soundbites. At worst, it's a circus with monkeys flinging poo at each other. I honestly don't see how you can watch that show and not smash in the screen.
And O'Reilly is just as ridiculous - calling people "pinheads" and insulting his guests. The guy wouldn't know civilized discourse if it fell on top of him. I saw an interview where he called his guest a lunatic before he even allowed her to get a word in edgewise. Instead of discussing the issue, the poor woman was trying to defend herself from his ad hominems.
Just because Olbermann sucks, that doesn't make those guys suck any less.
I'm with on pretty much everything else. The ad was in poor taste, but that's not the same thing as being racist. Also, while I don't care for McCain too much (I actually used to like him a lot more at one time) there definitely is a lot of BS accusations being hurled at him. (Like the twisting of his statement about being in Iraq for another 100 years.)
No it's not racist and I'm glad NC is running it. I hope other states will follow.
Debbie Hamilton
Right Truth
Lance,
I'm not asking you to endorse Hannity and Colmes or O'Reilly. You may not like the format, but you must admit-there is debate. Colmes and Hannity agree on little, and there are opinions and guests coming from both sides. Last year, they had Wright on the show, and he was rather beligerant. O'Reilly has his faults. He shoots from the hip and sometimes doesn't get his facts right. Last night he said Ayres was a prof at Univ of Chicago and criticized them for having him, but he is at Univ of Illinois at Chicago. He also said that he was a convicted criminal. Not accurate. Charges were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct (I don't know what it was). Yes, O'Reilly picks fights and inflates his own importance. He is hot-tempered and confrontational. But he does bring on folks who disagree and debate with him-and invites others to do the same,
Who does Olbermann ever debate? Every night, he has the same 4 or 5liberal figures who agree with him.
Gary, if your definition of debate is simply that there are people who are arguing with one another, then yes, they do have debate. They do not observe any of the formal rules of actual debate though, as they'd rather shout slogans, ad hominems, and "When did you stop beating your wife?" types of questions that distract the audience from the issue at hand.
And I'm sorry, but if your opening comment to a guest is that he or she is a lunatic, then that's not debate. It may be the pretense of debate, but it's the intellectual equivalent of monkeys throwing poo.
I mean, do you honestly watch those shows and leave them with the feeling that you've learned something from the other perspective? Or does it all just confirm how you already feel? If it's the latter, then what's the point? To me, a good debate can teach you something. I feel slightly dumber after watching those shows.
If you're looking for somebody to defend Olbermann, look elsewhere. I know I praised him once, but that was before I spent any real time watching his show. I only give him slightly higher marks because he's more literate than those other guys. (I especially love his "Sisyphus of morons" comment about O'Reilly - must be the English teacher in me. I'm a sucker for classical allusions.)
And again, in all honesty, I've seen much more open, honest, respectful debate on the "fake news" shows like Jon Stewart's.
What you are saying is that you don't like the style of the debate. Maybe Bill Buckley's Show would have been more to your taste. It was held on an intellectual, less emotional basis. I admit that there is a certain show biz style on these shows, but it is still debate. Unfortunately, there are built-in time constraints that prohibit the discussion from going very deep.
As for "real" debates, many of those hinge on the debating experience of the debaters as opposed to the rightness of their positions.
Fair enough, that is what I'm saying. But I do think that I have some objective points about why their style of "debate" is not a good one. Their shows are debate shows in the same sense that a turd sandwich is still a sandwich.
Honestly though, I can understand why they do it the way that they do. If they had something that actually was thoughtful, they wouldn't get the ratings that they do. I think that there's a real climate of anti-intellectualism in this country, and these sorts of shows only cater to that sensibility.
Good golly Miss Molly! A turd sandwich?
Who are the intellectuals of whom we are so "anti"? Academians, perhaps?
Yup, turd sandwich - and honestly, I think that's putting it mildly.
As far as anti-intellectualism, I'd point to things like administrators telling English teachers to just teach excerpts of novels, the fact that many adults can't find Iraq on a map, the popularity of Paris Hilton, and anti-science "documentaries" as examples that come right off of the top of my head. Oh, also how many adults don't understand the concept of the apostrophe "s", and if you call them on it, they act like there's something wrong with you.
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