In Honor of Bill O'Reilly

Last week, Jon Stewart showed a little clip of Bill O'Reilly actually debunking conservative propaganda designed to delegitimize President Obama. This is definitely a good thing. One issue that occassionally is fretted about amongst liberals and progressives is how to get information to people who only live within the FoxNews closed loop.

Admittedly, I should acknowledge that many conservatives presumably share the same consternation about those who they say only get their news from the "liberal media". I would, of course, generally call bullshit on that and argue that we're getting into the false equivalency debate all over again. But that is sooo Fall 2010! and this post has a different boogeyman than Fox News.

So it was a Free Trial Weekend for HBO on DirecTv this weekend. I took advantage of the opportunity to watch Real Time With Bill Maher. The subject came up of Jon Kyl lying about Planned Parenthood on the floor of the Senate. Bill seemed to argue that it was such an egregious and blatant lie that it basically took the cake as the worst of the worst of all political lies.

Ed Schultz, the firey MSBNC host, was all too eager to agree and he claimed that the only thing that might compare was Sarah Palin saying she "could see Russia from her backyard". A crowd-pleasing line to be sure.

The problem is that Sarah Palin never actually said such a thing! Only Tina Fey said that.

Sarah Palin merely said that one could see Russia from land in Alaska... which is 100% true. It is, of course, a comment worthy of parody because of the implication that it somehow gave her foreign policy credentials. However, it was a not a lie and Ed Schultz deserves to be called out for being the actual liar in this instance.

Old Enough To Know Better

There is a quote that I often recall from Bill Maher - I don't know for sure that he is the first to make this observation but he is certainly the person I associate the comment with:

Don't become so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance.

I think when he uses it, it would often be used in the context of making sure liberals (in particular American liberals) don't accept, for example, something like Muslim oppression of women as just a legitimate part of their culture. I consider that good advice (for me) considering I am someone who took several classes in anthropology and have a natural tendency to accept cultural differences and view them all as equally valid. It's good to keep in my mind that, in some instances, cultural norms can be judged as "better" or "worse".

I thought of that comment yesterday while watching The Daily Show and seeing Jon Stewart casually defending a UCLA student who posted a racist rant on YouTube. Jon referred to her as an "18 or 19 year old kid (who) maybe doesn't understand what she was saying".

Come on! That is rubbish.

How does someone reach age 18 or 19 and not realize that racism is frowned upon and that even if you do have those feelings, it's probably a bad idea to broadcast them on the internet unless you can do so anonymously (and preferably in an "appropriate" forum)? (Which is to say that I assume there are racist websites all over the internet for people who want to bitch about minorities and immigrants... for example, www.foxnews.com.)

Also, by the way, UCLA is not necessarily a place for idiots. Although I concede I am hesitant to guarantee someone is as smart as their alma mater might suggest considering a mental midget like George W. Bush earned degrees from both Yale AND Harvard.

So, while I agree with Jon that the young lady is not necessarily "unredeemable"... how the hell would I know? In my opinion, Jon is going a little easy on her considering how repugnant her opinions are.

Richard Holbrooke Pulls A Clinton

No need to worry, this has nothing to do with sex with interns.

Let me preface this by saying I mean no disrespect to the recently deceased. While I acknowledge I am not a long time foreign policy junkie who can fully appreciate the career of Mr. Holbrooke, I have seen him interviewed several times over the past two years and I certainly found him to be intelligent and thoughtful.

That said, I was a little taken aback this morning when across the MSNBC ticker, it said the last words of Mr. Holbrooke (according to his family) were:

You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan.

Seeing as how in all the interviews I have seen of Mr. Holbrooke since his appointment as Special Envoy to Afghanistan & Pakistan in 2009, I did not ever recall him being a strong voice for ending the war, I found this a little surprising.

What does this have to do with Bill Clinton you might be wondering?

Well, Bill Maher has on occasion pointed out that - after leaving office - President Clinton has said that he thought marijuana should be legalized (I will acknowledge here that a google provides no evidence of that). About the former president's stance, Mr. Maher has quipped "Great! Wouldn't it be nice if you were in a position of power and could do something about it?!"

So this is reminiscent of Mr. Holbrooke. He was The Man when it came to Af-Pak. He had Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's ear and would certainly have had some influence on President Obama as well. As far as I can tell (who knows what was going on behind the scenes? Well, I suppose we all might soon enough given the WikiLeaks situation!), Mr. Holbrooke never spoke out against our ongoing war/occupation in Afghanistan until it was too late.

Sometimes carpe diem isn't just a cliche people.

I Have Nothing To Add To This

Let's not forget this douchebag, Tim Tebow...

...whose habit of wearing bible verses on his face sends a powerful message...

...and that message: I'm home-schooled.

--- Bill Maher