"You don't want to listen to the right and the left -- the extremes," he said. "You don't want to listen to Keith Olbermann and Rush Babe [Limbaugh] and Rachel Minnow [sic] or whatever that is, and Glenn Beck. They're entertainers. They couldn't govern their way out of a paper sack -- from the right or the left. But they get paid a lot of money from you and advertisers -- thirty, fifty million a year -- to work you over and get you juiced up with emotion, fear, guilt, and racism. Emotion, fear, guilt, and racism.
Frankly, that's a lot of Horse Hooey!
In no way, shape, form, or fever dream delusion are Rachel or Keith equal to Rush and Beck. As stupid as the "Greediest Generation" line was - this was even dead doornail dumber.
For starters Keith and Rachel don't LIE!
I've written about this phony false equivalency before when Anderson Cooper false equated Dailykos with Andrew Breitbart, but it bears repeating.
Cooper : I mean, I don't -- I don't get -- as somebody who is not particularly partisan on the left or the right, I try not to view things through the lens of being liberal or being conservative. I don't get -- it just seems like, whether you're a conservative or whether you're a liberal and you have a blog, it doesn't seem like the truth really matters. It's just, you say whatever you want to say, whether you're on the left or the right, to prove your point, and if you're wrong, no one ever says they're wrong. No one ever seems to apologize.
The first problem with Coopers construction is that it's based on a false premise, that those on the left - writ large - are deliberately engaging in factionalism where truth and facts becoming secondary to ideology and partisan gain.
Anyone whose spent more than 30 seconds on any major progressive site, particularly this one, knows that's not true because We Self edit and Self Correct. We do point out mistakes, we do even Take Down Posts which other members find racially, religiously or otherwise offensive. I understand Cooper's effort to remain "non-partisan" by proclaiming "both sides do it" - but the effort to achieve False Neutrality often leads to creating a False Reality.
Cooper has Smeared us as Liars as bad as Brietbart and he deserves a response.
Certainly, anyone can make an honest mistake, anyone can have an intemperate moment and shoot off the cuff, the question is - can you admit and fix that mistake or do you double-down on it because your ego and ideology demand it?
Can you admit it when you're wrong?
Anderson's charge is that both the left and the right equally fail in this test.
I submit He. IS. Wrong. Not everybody does it. Not everybody lies.
You CAN NOT FIND a prominent Blog on the left that has cherry picked and unfairly edited video as WRONGLY as Andrew Breitbart has done repeatedly. Those people Don't Exist. You can't point to LIES said by Rachel or Keith that amount to anything even approaching the regular drivel that comes drooling out from between Beck and Limbaugh's lips.
Beck has claimed that Jon Stewart Keeps People like "Sheep", and is like a "Drug"
Rush has said "60's Progressives are now in positions or power and think average Americans are Pigs"
Beck says that Unionizing the TSA would create a Private Army for Obama. (Besides the Actual Army he already has?)
Rush says that Net Neutrality would "Limit the amount of Conservatism you could find on the net"
Beck: China may " Rape Our Mountains for Coal" (Before or after Rand Paul's campaign contributors do?)
Rush says A Bunch of Native Americans "Scammed Us, when they sold us Manhattan"
Keith and Rachel are NOT Equivalent to that nonsense.
It's fair to say Keith and Rachel have a point of view, it's fair to say they have an opinion and they do express that opinion - but they also take pains to challenge their own opinion with the facts. Not everyone they bring on their shows agree with them, they rarely get into verbal shouting matches, but they also don't only espouse their own view, they reach out to learn other views as well.
Rachel recently sat down with Jon Stewart, who displayed similar falsely equivalent images during his Washington Rally and discussed the issue.
Keith and Rachel criticized Bush when he deserved it. Similarly they've criticized Obama When he deserved it. It is a fair criticism of Bush to call him an unindicted War Criminal because his actions and decisions were in direct contradiction to the War Crimes Statutes as his own Attorney General Alberto Gonzales specifically warned him that it could be.
But to call Obama a "Racist", a "Socialist", a "Kenyan", a "Muslim", a "Marxist", a "Communist" or a "Terrorist" is flat out ridiculous and not grounded in any facts what-so-ever.
Those accusations and criticisms are not fair. But we heard exactly those claims coming pouring out from the Right like a River during Glenn Beck's 9/12 Rally Last Year:
It's also not fair to accuse Rachel or Keith of this...
they get paid a lot of money from you and advertisers -- thirty, fifty million a year -- to work you over and get you juiced up with emotion, fear, guilt, and racism. Emotion, fear, guilt, and racism.
The fact is that Beck and Limbaugh LIE For a Living, and Rachel and Keith Catch Them Lying for a Living.
They do the exact Opposite of what Simpson claims, and they both deserve a deep serious apology from Alan Cat-food Commission Simpson.
Now.
Vyan
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