Why It’s “Un-American” to Call Your Opponents “Un-American” …

Dear Readers:

The following video is an interview from Chris Matthew’s Hardball on Friday. Some on the Left criticize Matthews because he is more centrist than some of the other pundits on MSNBC. I actually like him. He has a good heart, good mind and gets mad at some of the same craziness that I do. As I started watching this interview, I started to get agitated, as he wasn’t calling this woman on some of the misinformation she was spewing. However, as the interview progressed, I realized he was too focused on giving her rope to bother with contradicting her. By the end of the interview, she had plenty of rope with which to hang herself. It’s an interesting, albeit troubling look at what happens when you leave the echo-chamber and forget where you are:

Labeling people “un-American” because they disagree with you runs against everything that our constitution and that we as Americans stand for. Furthermore, it is divisive and not worthy of a member of the US Congress to do so. This nation is based on principles that include the freedom to express your beliefs without being attacked.

On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry began his famous speech, which inspired Virginia to join in the American Revolution with words reflecting this tradition:

“No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope that it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve.”

It is the very act of engaging in such a dialogue that distinguishes us from many other societies…not just because we are “free” to (there are many over the course of the years since 1776 who could attest to the fact that “freely expressed” ideas led to their persecution, and sometimes even death)…but rather because we are a people who consider it a responsibility to stand up for our ideas and ideals.

Representative Bachmann seems to desire a resurrection of the HUAC. Didn’t we learn many years ago that there are few things as “un-American” as the notion that someone should be investigated as “un-American” because they have differing political views?

Those are just my thoughts. I’m a registered voter and proud American.

Why Women Are Against Palin…

A friend just turned me on to a new site called, “Women Against Palin.” It’s an excellent site that’s worth checking out. I’ve added their blog to my blogroll, in case you’re interested in checking it out.

I also have a few videos to share with you that provide some insight into some of the reasons I’m against Governor Palin:

Why PUMA People Piss Me Off…

As my closest friends know, I am an avid consumer of political commentary. My television has the MSNBC logo burned into it. I get and read the New York Times everyday and; I actually think it’s “fun” to watch CSPAN. I love to talk politics more than anyone I know, so my friends and family often encourage me to post my own political commentary here. In part they do so because they believe I am fairly well-informed, given my new consumption. They tell me my thoughts would be a valuable contribution to the public political discussion going on in the world today. Mostly I suspect they would just like me to shut up about it and hope to channel this energy toward my blog and away from them =-)

Unfortunately, while I’ve written many a post in my head about whatever is pissing me off at the time, I’m often too distracted, busy and/or lazy to actually type out my thoughts. Well, not so today. Last night, while watching Hardball on MSNBC, there was a segment on “Hillary Clinton Democrats for McCain.” The guests really annoyed me so; I went online to find more information about their group, PUMA. What I found agitated me enough to actually post something about it, so here I GO:

There were two people included in the Hardball segment, Darragh Murphy, founder of PUMA PAC, and Will Bower, who started a PUMA website called “Just Say No Deal.” Both insisted that they were planning to vote for John McCain, despite being Hillary Clinton supporters in the primary. Bower and Murphy described PUMA as a “movement” driven by frustrated Hillary Clinton Democrats, like themselves, who are devoted to “righting the wrongs” perpetrated on Clinton and her supporters. They accused the DNC and the Democratic Establishment of “silencing” their voices.

It doesn’t take an Obama supporter to notice the absurdity of the sentiment that the voices of Clinton and her supporters have been “silenced,” given that the first two days of the Democratic Convention will feature speeches by both Hillary and Bill Clinton, not to mention the fact that Hillary’s name is even scheduled to be put into nomination for the first roll call. By the way, the last time a primary loser insisted on such a display, it was Jerry Brown in 1992, when he lost to Bill Clinton. Reportedly, it really pissed Clinton off. The reason going into this is moot is that Clinton’s candidacy really has nothing to do with the PUMA cause, at least as far as I can tell. Will Bower’s Just Say No Deal Website tells it all when it opens with the following statement:

“We are a coalition of millions with one thing in common: NObama”

Presumably, the site would at least say “we are a coalition of millions with one thing in common: electing Hillary Clinton.” That is, if there were any truth to what they’ve been claiming their motives to be in their media interviews.

In the Hardball interview, Darragh Murphy explains that P.U.M.A. stands for “People United Means Action.” However, in researching PUMA, I found that the original derivation of this acronym, is “Party Unity My Ass,” which is appropriate since it’s much more akin to a bowel movement than a political movement. The thing that most offends me about these people and their media coverage is that they are claiming to be “Democrats.” Democrats My Ass…

If you look up most of the people representing PUMA in the media on the campaign contribution tracking Website, NEWSMEAT, they’ve only given money to Republicans in the past, or not at all. Darragh Murphy, for example, gave John McCain $500 in his 2000 primary run. Kim Mann, a PUMA supporter recently quoted in a CNN article about PUMA, has only contributed once to any candidate since the 1980s. According to NEWSMEAT, that was $250 to Republican Jim Ramstad from Minnesota in 1991.

My favorite “Democrat” has to be Will Bower, who recently quit his job to spend all his time administering JustSayNoDeal.com. One of the main areas of this site is the “Oppo-research” area. If you have any doubt about the motives of this site, go there and you’ll find a list of links to right-wing blogs on topics that range from Obama’s “Muslim Heritage” to his “Terrorist Ties.” It’s hard to imagine any reason to foster false rumors and innuendos, meant to smear and “swift-boat” Obama, other than a desire to keep Republicans in the White House for another term. Pointing visitors to lies about Obama will hardly change the outcome of the primaries and make Hillary the Democratic Nominee. It might improve McCain’s chances of being elected. It’s certainly an effort to make people more afraid of things that aren’t true about Obama than they are about things that are true about McCain…like the fact that McCain has promised to continue numerous policies that have been unpopular under Bush if he, McCain, is elected.

I’m not saying that all the PUMA people are closet Republicans. What I am saying is that many of the founders of the group are. Furthermore, those who aren’t might as well be. They are more dedicated to destroying Obama than they ever were for the things Clinton stands for. If that weren’t the case, they’d be supporting Obama now, whose policy positions are close to hers, while McCain’s are MILES away from those of either.

Did I mention these people piss me off?

Why I Would Date Keith Olbermann…

Hello all!

I’ve decided it’s probably better not to publicly post about my real love life. It hurts feelings, engenders anger and mistrust and tends to scare away potential future dates, who fear our private lives may end up in this public forum. While I don’t think I’ve gotten that personal in my posts about the guys I’ve actually dated (as opposed to the guys who have just written stupid things to me from dating sites,) from here on out, I will be confining my dating posts to commentary on people I haven’t actually met…those are funnier anyway. In addition, I think I’ve been writing too much about my own navel…meaning, there are so many things going in the world today that are more important than whether or not some boy likes me. (Not to worry though, I’m still open to publicly mocking mean or rude idiots who send me stupid emails, without even knowing me.)

In other news, I just read a post on Miss Kitty’s blog called, “ann coulter is hate-filled.” That she is. Miss Kitty’s post reminded me that I want to share with you all a “news” segment I saw on television the other night about Ann Coulter.

Ann Coulter, for those of you who don’t know of her, is a right-wing pundit. She shows up on news talk-shows whenever Bush needs defending (or spanking, like when he nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court) or when there is a chance to criticize the Democrats for something. While she has plenty to do defending Bush these daze, there are few targets for her wrath on the Left at the moment…mostly because so few of them are powerful enough to be relevant enough to bother attacking (although I certainly hope that changes in November.)

In searching for targets of her venom, she has recently published a book that spews much of it at the out-spoken widows of 9/11, who have consistently fought for improving our National Security since the day they lost their husbands to the terrorists who smashed through a chink in that security. I actually think her point is well taken that 9/11 happened to all of us, and that the fact these women have suffered more personally from it doesn’t make their positions infallible, any more than losing someone in a war means yours is the only valid point of view on the topic. However, she loses even the most conservative ideologues when she moves beyond that particular point into personally attacking the widows and their right to speak out. She suggests that these women should leave it to the journalists and the politicians, as their status as widows doesn’t make them qualified to speak on such important topics as National Security.

What Coulter fails to acknowledge is that their status as citizens of this nation does qualify them…or at least gives them the right and some may argue the responsibility to stand up for their beliefs…just as both Coulter and I have the right to disagree with them or with each other because we’re citizens too. Coulter is actually quite bright and articulate, but her political agenda, predictably, has once again led her to crash headlong into a big fat impolitic mess. Last week, when she started pushing her new book, Godless: The Church Of Liberalism, on the circuit, her nasty attacks on these women created a public outcry (and probably a spike in the sales of her book.)

Of all the people who commented on Coulter’s malevolent rants, my favorite was a brief segment about her on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last Wednesday, June 7th. I really like Olbermann. He’s funny, bright and not a partisan hack. In the article by Liz Halloran, “Making Sport Of It All,” that ran last March in the Hartford Courant, he was quoted as saying:

“No matter what your political orientation is, if you don’t stick up for freedom of all opinion,
eventually the wheel will turn, you’ll be the minority and you’ll have written the rules by which you yourself are squashed.”

You can’t really argue with that…well you could, but I wouldn’t agree with you. So, he’s pretty cool and, as cable news shows go, his is one of the more entertaining ones. That being said, it’s also one of the more informative, since he spends more time reporting the news and less time pontificating about it…and when he does throw in his two to five cents, I usually agree with him. Oh yeah, and he ends each show by telling the audience how many daze it’s been since the President announced “Mission Accomplished.” (I didn’t say he doesn’t have a point of view, I just said he isn’t a hack about it.)

Anyway, here is the transcript of his Ann Coulter segment from June 7th:

KEITH OLBERMANN: Also here, Ann Coulter, the shrill, shill of the right has evidently run her mouth one too many times.  Outrage pours in across the country.  There have been complaints from everybody except the predators they caught on “Dateline.”

(OTHER NEWS ITEMS)

KEITH OLBERMANN: Ann Coulter takes her cold condemnation of 9/11 widows to an unexpected high and low.

(OTHER HEADLINES AND A COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN:
Honestly, if you were Ann Coulter’s attorneys at a sanity hearing, where could you possibly start?  Our No. 2 story in the COUNTDOWN, eclipsing even Bill O’Reilly and Malmedy, the Connecticut screech has continued her assault on 9/11 widows.  After calling them “witches who acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them.”  She’s now told Reuters News they are, quote, “professional victims,” all as part of the promotion of a book in which she claims liberals are, quote, “godless.”

(Video Clip starts in mid-interview between MATT LAUER, HOST OF THE TODAY SHOW and ANN COULTER, CONSERVATIVE SYNDICATED COLUMNIST…I’ve added the start of the 9/11 widows conversation for context.

LAUER: All right…on the 9/11 widows, and in particular, a group that had been outspoken and critical of the administration:

“These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently denouncing Bush was an important part of their closure process.” )

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AS SEEN ON COUNTDOWN)

MATT LAUER (CONT’): And this part is, is the part I really need to talk to you about:

“These broads are millionaires lionized on TV and in articles about them reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by “grief-arazzis.” I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ death so much.”

ANN COULTER: Yes.

LAUER: Because they dare to speak out?

COULTER: …To speak out using the fact that they’re widows. This is the left’s doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about the 9/11 Commission—about how to fight the war on terrorism—how about sending somebody we’re allowed to respond to? No, no we always have to respond to someone who just had a family member die…

LAUER: But aren’t they the people in the middle of the story?

COULTER: …Because then if we respond, “Oh you’re questioning their authenticity.” No the story is…

LAUER: So, “grieve, but grieve quietly”…?

COULTER: …No, the story is an attack on the nation…

LAUER: And by the way…

COULTER: …That requires a foreign policy response…  That does not entail the expertise…

LAUER: …And by the way, they also criticized the Clinton administration for their failures leading up to 9/11.

COULTER:  That …oh …not, not the ones I’m talking about.

LAUER: No they have.

COULTER: No, no, no. Oh no, no, no, no.

LAUER: But is your message to them, “Just grieve” …?

COULTER: No, no they were cutting commercials for Kerry. They were using their grief in order to make a political point, while preventing anyone from responding.

LAUER: So, if you lose a husband, you no longer have the right to have a political point of view?

COULTER: No, but don’t use the fact that you lost a husband as the basis for your being able to talk about it while preventing people from responding. Let Matt Lauer make the point …let Bill Clinton make the point. Don’t put up someone I’m not allowed to respond to, without questioning the authenticity of their grief.

LAUER: Well, but apparently, you are allowed to respond to them.

COULTER: Well, yeah I did.

(END COUNTDOWN VIDEO CLIP)

(Here, again for context, I’ve included the end of the LAUER/COULTER interview, although it was not included in the clip shown on Countdown:

LAUER: Right, so in other words…

COULTER: But that is the point of liberal infallibility…of putting up Cindy Sheehan, of putting out these widows…of putting out Joe Wilson. No, no, no you can’t respond—it’s their doctrine of infallibility.

LAUER: But what I’m saying is they’ve…

COULTER: Somebody else make the argument.

LAUER: I’m saying, I don’t think they’ve ever told you, “You can’t respond.” So why can’t they make their point?

COULTER: Look you’re getting testy with me.

LAUER: No I’m not. I just…

COULTER: Ohhh.

LAUER: I think it’s, I think it’s, I think it’s your dramatic statement. “These broads,” you know are, are “millionaires stalked by grief-arazzi.”

COULTER: You think I shouldn’t be able to respond to them.

LAUER: (quoting her book again) “I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands deaths so much.”

COULTER: They’re, they’re, yes. They’re all over the news.

LAUER: The book is called, Godless: The Church Of Liberalism. Ann Coulter, always fun to have you here.

COULTER: Hey where’s Katie? Did she leave or something?

LAUER: She did. 7:17am. And now here’s Ann.)

(BACK TO KEITH OLBERMANN)

KEITH OLBERMANN:
Let’s return to this planet. To recap Coulter’s argument, the wives of those who died in the worst attack in this nation’s history enjoyed their husbands’ deaths and profited off them. They have publicized 9/11 …their positions as widows immunize them from any criticism or debate over their opinions …all of this stated by a commentator, much of whose income in the last four-and-a-half years has derived from her speaking and writings about the deaths of those same men on 9/11 …all this stated by a commentator who staunchly, repeatedly, and enthusiastically defended an administration that began to politicize 9/11 within a month of the nightmare, and has never paused for a moment since …all of this stated by a commentator who has called those who have criticized her and her party “un-American” and now “godless” …all of this stated by a commentator who is bitching that these 9/11 widows can’t be criticized, while she is writing a book and going on TV and venomously criticizing them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP OF COULTER ON THE SITUATION WITH TUCKER CARLSON)

COULTER: If people are going to use a personal tragedy in their lives to inject themselves into a national debate, I’m sorry, you can’t say, “Oh, we’re off limits. Oh, now we’re going to invoke the fact that our husbands died and you can’t criticize us.” They were specifically using their husbands’ deaths and there were, gosh, hundreds…

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST OF THE SITUATION WITH TUCKER CARLSON (duh): That doesn’t mean they are enjoying it.

COULTER: …In fact thousands.

CARLSON: I mean, their husbands are gone, and kids are there. I mean, geez, it’s so depressing.

COULTER: And so are the thousands of widows who are not cutting campaign commercials for Clinton. These women got paid, they ought to take their money and shut up about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP, BACK TO KEITH OLBERMANN)

OLBERMANN:
The way Ann Coulter always does when she’s criticized. Ms. Coulter’s monthly walk on the swaying tightrope of her own emotional stability did not end there. In her book she also wrote:

“And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren’t planning to divorce these harpies. Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they’d better hurry up and appear in Playboy.”

OLBERMANN (CONT’): Appearing in Playboy and getting divorced, neither of those being scenarios Ann Coulter is ever going to have to deal with in her life. Five of the most politically active of the 9/11 widows, including Kristen Breitweiser and Lorie Van Auken have responded in a written statement:

“Contrary to Ms. Coulter’s statement, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them everyday. It is in their honor and memory, that we will once again refocus the nation’s attention to the real issues at hand:  Our lack of security, leadership, and progress in the five years since 9/11.”

OLBERMANN (CONT’): And lastly back to my illusion about the nightmare of having to defend Ann Coulter at a sanity hearing… that was inappropriate, because that was insufficient. Imagine, in fact, defending her on Judgment Day…trying to find her soul.

Funny, smart, kinda cute and not a Republican…I’d date him.

Speaking of funny, I have to leave you with this picture I found while I was looking up quotes for this post. It’s the “Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure!” OMFG, it’s hilarious…gotta love it!

Just what every little girl needs—indoctrination!

She says 14 different phrases, including:

“Liberals can’t just come out and say they want to take more of our money, kill babies, and discriminate on the basis of race.”

“At least when right-wingers rant, there’s a point.”

“Swing voters are more appropriately known as the ‘idiot voters,’ because they have no set of philosophical principles.”

“By the age of fourteen, you’re either a Conservative or a Liberal if you have an IQ above a toaster.”

“Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?”

“Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like Liberals do. They don’t have the energy. If they had that much energy, they’d have indoor plumbing by now.”

Quote from National Security Expert on National Pastime.

Last night on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” former counter-terrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council, Richard Clarke, was one of the guests. When the topic turned to the Bonds-Babe home-run debate, this is what he had to say:

“Well, they say, you know, you can’t compare him to Babe Ruth. Well, yeah, you can’t. ‘Cause the ball was a different size, the bat is a different size, the field is a different size…you know. As far as I’m concerned, I go to baseball games to see people hit home runs. If they want to take pills that shrink their balls and lose their hair and it makes them better hitters, that’s fine with me.”

Words & Quotes of the Week

I spent much of the long weekend transfixed by the news. I watched abject misery rise in the streets of New Orleans with the flood. As chaos pervaded, LIVE on CNN, a few words started running through my mind.

WORDS OF THE WEEK:

“AMERICA,” as in: “Is this really happening in AMERICA?”

“POVERTY,” as in: “If you live in POVERTY, you don’t have an SUV to drive out of town before the hurricane arrives.”

“LEADERSHIP,” as in: “People aren’t frustrated by the lack of LEADERSHIP, they’re dying because of it.”

“WATER,” as in: “The streets are filled with WATER!” and “Where the fuck is the food and WATER?”

The aforementioned words inspired the following QUOTES OF THE WEEK:

AMERICA:
“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
—James Arthur Baldwin
“If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone ‘America died from a delusion that she had moral leadership’.”
—Will Rogers
“I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch.” (…unless you’re poor.)
—George W. Bush

POVERTY:
“It is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends $500,000 for every enemy soldier killed, and only $53 annually on the victims of poverty.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The mother of revolution and crime is poverty“
—Aristotle
“Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of good sense is the father”
—Jean de la Bruyere
“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

LEADERSHIP:
“One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.”
— Arnold H. Glasgow
“The only safe ship in a storm is leadership.”
—Faye Wattleton

WATER:
“You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there”
—Edwin Louis Cole
“Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge