David Forsmark
David Forsmark is the owner and president of Winning Strategies, a full service political consulting firm in Michigan. David has been a regular columnist for Frontpage Magazine since 2006. For 20 years before that, he wrote book, movie and concert reviews as a stringer for the Flint Journal, a midsize daily newspaper.
Keith Olbermann is worried about “violent†rhetoric, even if it’s in “code.†Unless it comes out of his own mouth, that is.
Last night, MSNBC blowhards Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz yowled about Joe the Plumber’s blustering after a question about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which Joe said that when he was a kid, people who lied and stole money usually got taken “behind the woodshed†and “slapped upside the head.â€
Shultz called it “dangerous psycho talk,†and said it was particularly bad at a time when “hate speech is on the rise.â€
Olbermann, similarly horrified, brought up Timothy McVeigh and wondered whether it had ever occurred to Joe that this was “an endorsement of violence.â€
Of course, both have been crying wolf about the violent tendencies of town hall protesters for weeks, enough to link to hours of video here. However, there is no proof that either was troubled by actual riots on the Left by anti-WTO protesters who trashed several cities in the past decade. Tut tut, they let their idealism get the better of them, yadda yadda.
When abortionist George Tiller, one of the few partial-birth-abortion practitioners in the country was shot, the fact that pro-lifers had pointed to the brutality of inducing a breach birth before piercing a baby’s head and then delivering the dead body– was blamed for Tiller’s murder.
Shortly thereafter on Rachel Maddow’s show, Frank Schaeffer, the son of the late Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer, apologized on behalf of the pro-life movement (that had never heard of him) for Tiller’s murder. He blamed his father for noting the similarities of eugenic goals between the Nazis and the abortion-rights movement, as responsible for current rhetoric. (The fact that Nazis regularly wrote for Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s publications should apparently be whitewashed from history. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion mill in the United States, and Sanger, in addition to being a radical feminist and a Marxist, advocated eugenics.)
For her August 7th show, Maddow dragged Shaeffer back from obscurity to comment on the town hall protesters.
MADDOW: Do you think that calling the President a Nazi, calling the President Hitler is an implicit call for politically motivated violence?
SCHAEFFER: Yes I do. In fact this rings a big bell with me because my dad, who was a right wing evangelical leader wrote a book called A Christian Manifesto which sold over a million copies, and in that book he compared anyone who was pro-abortion to the Nazi Germans and he said that using force to overthrow the Nazis would have been appropriate for Christians, including the assassination of Hitler… and that has been a note that the right wing movement—that my father and I helped start in the evangelical context—all the way.
So what’s really being said here is two messages: There is the message to these middle-aged white people who are trying to shut these meetings down, but there is also a coded message to the what I would call the loony tunes, the frootloops out there on the side that’s really like playing Russian roulette ah ah ah you put a bullet in the chamber, spin and once in a while it goes off. We saw that with Dr. Tiller, we’ve seen it happen numerous times in this country with violence against political leaders whether it’s Martin Luther King or whoever it might be, we have a history of being a well-armed violent country… and these people [the right wing] can be organized to go out and do dreadful things.
While Schaeffer claims to be a “founder†of the Christian Right, (his claims are effectively demolished here), his coming out party as one of the “pro-life leaders†endorsing Obama in 2008 got him considerably less than 15 more minutes of fame. In fact, outside of the Huffington Post and MSNBC, he garnered less press coverage than that other wannabe giant of the movement, Douglas Kmiec.
The title of Shaeffer’s memoir trashing his parents and their work, Crazy for God, is probably two words too long, and many doubt the stability of a man who has seemingly written from every side of the political and Christian spectrum and whose chief characteristic seems to be savaging the side he just left. While Schaeffer no doubt had a bigger impact on the beginnings of the pro-life movement among evangelicals than, say, I did, that still doesn’t exactly make him another Jerry Falwell—despite his delusional boast that “without my father, Dr. C. Everett Koop and myself, there would be no pro-life movement.â€
Maddow expresses all the appropriate horror at calling people who aren’t conservatives “fascists” or “Nazis.” Maddow, however, has no problem with fellow MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, whose first claim to fame after being fired by ESPN and Fox Sports Net for being loony was that he called Whitewater Special Prosecutor Ken Starr a “persecutor” whose face reminded him “of [Nazi] Heinrich Himmler, including the glasses.” But then, Starr was prosecuting an impeached President, not merely aborting babies, so that’s acceptable rhetoric.
And nowadays, that bit of bombast would hardly make Olbermann’s top ten list of offenses.
Last week, in a particularly demented Special Comment, Olbermann called Sarah Palin a “clear and present danger to the nation.â€
OLBERMANN: Finally, as promised, a Special Comment on this terrible moment in American history, and those unfortunate and irresponsible Americans who have brought us to it.
Right, Keith, people yelling at members of Congress, and ObamaCare losing in the polls. It’s right up there with Antietam, Tarawa, and Pearl Harbor.
OLBERMANN: [to Palin] Madam, you are a clear and present danger to the safety and security of this nation. Whether the ‘death panel’ is something you dreamed, or something you dreamed-up, whether it is the product of a low intellect and a fevered imagination, or the product of a high intelligence and a sober ability to exploit people, you should be ashamed of yourself for having introduced it into the public discourse, and it should debar you, for all time, from any position of responsibility or trust in the governance of this nation or any of its states or municipalities….
And you might as well have told the vast unthinking throng that mistakes your ability to wink for leadership, that they should start shooting at Democrats. There would be no need to tell them to bring guns. Others have done that. Somebody left his at an Arizona Town Hall…
The only ‘death panels,’ Ms. Palin, are the figurative ones you have inspired with such irresponsible, dangerous, facile, vile, hate speech. The death of common sense. The death of logic.The death, perhaps, of Democracy, at the hands of mob rule. If someone is hurt at one of these Town Halls, pro-Reform, anti-Reform, or, most likely, as these things tend to play out in the real life you know so little about, Ms. Palin — if the hurt befalls an innocent bystander —you will have contributed to the harm.
You might very well become, Ms. Palin, the very thing you have sought to create in the lurid imaginations of those spoiling for a fight, waiting for an excuse, looking for a rationalization of their own hatred, their own racism, their own unwillingness to accept Democracy. You, Ms. Palin, may yet become the de facto chairman of a Death Panel. Your higher calling, Ms. Palin. God forgive you, Ms. Palin.
While the phrase “clear and present danger†was first used by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. as a legal reason to suppress speech in wartime (and even to consider it treasonous) today It’s more commonly used as a justification for lethal force—usually military–against an imminent threat to the nation. John F. Kennedy famously used it in his speech to the nation at the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
One does not have to read between the lines or look for “code†to find a call for violence there.
When the Democrats call the town hall protesters violent mobsters, or President Obama tells his side to “get in the face†of the other side, or brags about “the Chicago way,†when confronting political opponents, is that encouraging this?
So far, the only violence committed at townhall meetings outside the fevered imaginations of the Left has been by pro-Obama union thugs against peaceful attendees.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for a Maddow or Olbermann rant condemning that.
You’d think that if he’s going to anchor on MSNBC, a network that was started as a joint venture with Microsoft, Donny Deutsch would learn how to email or at least use MSN’s search engine.
But it’s been 2 weeks since Donny called National Review’s John Miller “ignorant†and promised to email him the proof. So far, not a peep from Donny.
Actually, ignorance is not his excuse. He was caught in a lie, and used the dodge to get away.
Donny blasted out of the gate with non-sequiturs, mangled metaphors, factual misstatements and bloviating worthy of Keith Olbermann, reacting to Miller’s observation on National Review Online that G.I. Joe is no longer an American, and that “Joe and his friends look like heroes without a country.â€
DEUTSCH: John, I want to kinda toss something out at you that might put a little salt on your fire there. There’s one reason they didn’t put him in red white and blue. Because they want to sell this movie internationally. It’s a business. They want to make money. You’ll never see a movie Captain America, they can’t sell it overseas. Got it? It’s not that it’s un-American, it’s a business decision. Have you not figured that out, sir?
MILLER: Well, I didn’t say it was un-American, but I was struck by the imagery here. The G.I. Joe remember growing up had a red white and blue logo, he wore green army duds, he looked like a guy who actually fought in World War II or Korea
Miller then pointed out that billions of dollars have been made internationally selling G.I. Joe with the slogan “A Real American Hero,†and that while checking out trailers and promotions for the movie to see if it would be good for his kids, noted the difference.
Deustch then returned to his “un-American†canard (no word on what he thought of Nancy Pelosi and Stenny Hoyer’s USA Today Op-Ed last week using that term for town hall protesters.)
DEUTSCH: It’s strictly business, and to suggest it’s un-American is just naïve, sir.
MILLER: If I were an investor, what I would NOT do is make anti-war movies which have flopped time after time as we have seen Hollywood do. I would make a move about American heroes fighting in Fallujah, I would make a movie about Medal of Honor recipients fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq. I would make a movie about real American heroes…
DEUTSCH: Unfortunately sir—you know what sir…
MILLER: And by the way, “the Real American Hero†is the tagline that G.I Joe used to use
DEUTSCH: Unfortunately sir, they have made movies like that recently and unfortunately Americans turn it off
MILLER: I’m sorry, which movie were you referring to?
DEUTSCH: Real life fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan, they’ve done documentaries…
MILLER: I’m sorry, I missed that movie, which is the movie Hollywood did about Marines in Fallujah?
DEUTSCH: A lot of movies in the last few years that hit on the very topical subjects and Americans turn it off right now, unfortunately and it is sad.
MILLER: I’m sorry, what’s the title though, I don’t recall the title.
DEUTSCH: I’ll email the titles, you’re ignorant sir, there have been several, okay?
Trying in vain to keep her ignorant co-host from digging any deeper, Deutsch’s co-anchor then stepped in and tried to discuss with Miller the actual topic of his original post — that G.I. Joe the film is trading in nostalgia for the brand name, while stripping him of his spirit.
Donny Deutsch and Hollywood execs who scrub G.I. Joe’s Americanism from him, or who refuse to make pro-American films, are not telling us very much about the audience. They are telling us about themselves. They are so uncomfortable with displays of patriotism, so deeply ashamed of their own country, that they can’t imagine anyone would pay money to see it on the big screen.
However, this flies in the face of the evidence. Pro-American heroes sell much better than anti-war cynics on the big and small screens.
Spiderman spends more time posing with flags than Nancy Pelosi, and is one of the most successful franchises of all time. Meanwhile, Superman Returns did pretty blah business after dropping “The American Way†from the things he’s fighting for and getting all introspective on us. Live Free Die Hard (Die Hard 4) was the most successful earth-bound action movie in the last few years. Bruce Willis’s John McClane is as American as John Wayne — and gives a “rah rah†speech to prove it. On cable’s biggest summer show, Burn Notice, framed spy Michael Weston is fighting to get his old job back because, as he speechified to his skeptical girlfriend recently, saving American lives and protecting his country is what he’s great at, and all he wants to do with his life.
More subtly, last year’s biggest hit, The Dark Knight, featured a hero who temporarily engaged in an unprecedented level of surveillance and endured public scorn because of the collateral damage that occurred because he stood up to the bad guys. In Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood had his biggest hit in years, for portraying a very old kind of Americanism in Korean War vet Walt Kowalski, who was imperfect yet ultimately heroic.
Over at Big Hollywood, in response to this topic, resident film critic John Nolte prepared the following list of “anti-rah rah” flops:
Lions for Lambs: $43 million
In the Valley of Elah: $22 million
Rendition: $17 million
Stop-Loss: $291 thousand
Body of Lies: $75 million
A Mighty Heart: $9 million
Grace is Gone: $887 thousand
Nolte forgot Brian DePalma’s execrable Redacted, which vanished without a trace at the box office, despite raves by the likes of Roger Ebert. It portrayed American troops in Iraq as rapists and murderers in the crudest possible terms.
Maybe that is what Donny Deutsch had in mind about “Real life fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan.â€
Oh, and Donny, they ARE making Captain America. “Who is ignorant?”
Meanwhile, John Miller reports that he is “still waiting†for his email.
NewsReal Sunday: Annenberg "Expert" Echoes Judas Iscariot in Criticizing Youth Outreach by Churches on Fox News
On Friday night’s Special Report with Bret Baier (Chris Wallace anchoring), correspondent Anita Vogel had a nice little story about some successful youth outreach programs by the United Methodist Church and the U.S. Catholic Church. The gist of the story was that there was enough spiritual hunger among increasingly unchurched youth, that a little effort could go a long way.
But, of course, one always looks for the contrary voice. This time, the “expert†unwittingly echoed a source she would likely not want to be associated with.
There is no video available for this report, so here is the complete transcript.
ANITA VOGEL, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Most Americans believe in something, but a growing number are reluctant to identify with any specific faith according to the Pew Center for Religion and Politics. Their research indicates the only growing segment among religious Americans are those who self identified and unaffiliated with any denomination.
DIANE WINSTON, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: People are opting out because they feel like they’re giving more than they are getting in a lot of mainstream churches.
OLIVIA BARHAM, NON-DENOMINATIONAL WRITER: It’s limiting when you define yourself as a certain thing, whether that’s Buddhist, Christian.
VOGEL: Organized faiths say they’re aware of the trend and are taking action. The United Methodist church has launched a $20 million campaign to get people back into the pews, including slick television ads and volunteers handing out iTunes gift cards in Times Square. Â The Roman Catholics have a similar effort aimed at bringing young people into the church, and the results, they say, have been nothing short of miraculous.
TOM PETERSON, CATHOLICSCOMEHOME.ORG: People are coming back by the droves, in many cases for less than $2 a soul.
PETER HOLON, UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: We’re asking people to rethink their understanding of church and why they participate in church. And we are also offering many different ways to become involved.
VOGEL (on camera): But experts say this kind of outreach carries a risk as glitzy marketing might offend the devout, and $20 million could do a lot of good work.
“Experts say?†The oldest dodge in the book. Vogel shows her prejudice in the assumption that “the devout†would hate anything that appears modern or new. The only on-air contrary voice is that of Diane Winston, who holds the “Knight Chair in Meida and Religion†at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication, the media’s favorite source on the media
However, one would hope that Ms. Winston had no idea whose sentiments she echoed in her somewhat cynical commentary which ended the segment.
DIANE WINSTON, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: You could feed a lot of hungry mouths and do a lot of good with that. On the other hand, if you’re looking for an investment, if that’s going to bring in a million new converts or a million new people, that’s very helpful.
JOHN 12: 4-6 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages. He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
Jesus himself rebuked this familiar evasion, which is still used today whenever someone—particularly liberals—do not like the way someone or some group is spending their own money.
“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. ” It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
Similarly, these denominations are spending their funds in the presumably Christ-honoring task of outreach, a primary purpose given to the Church by Jesus in the Great Commission. While charitable acts can be part of this — and often are — the Church is to have more eternal goals in mind.
Of course, considering the worldwide reach of Catholic Charities, from adoption agencies to hospital networks,  it’s particularly galling — but telling — that Ms Winston would choose this particular, and very old,  line of argument.
For once, Sheila Jackson-Lee was channeling Groucho Marx instead of Karl Marx.
But then who could swear she knows the difference? After all, this is the Houston congresswoman who, while on a visit to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, famously asked if the Mars rover could send back pictures of the flag planted by Neil Armstrong.
Houston, you have a problem.
Jackson-Lee also once brightened our moods in the wake of disaster, by complaining that hurricanes are only given “lilly-white names,†and suggested that in the future the weather service should “try to be inclusive of African American names such as Keisha, Jamal and Deshawn.”
Jackson-Lee is once again front and center thanks to this video of her talking on a cell phone while a constituent who is a cancer survivor asks a question.
So, when Lee appeared with CNN Newsroom’s afternoon anchor Rick Sanchez — master of the inappropriate comment, prince of the emotional outburst, and king of the non-sequitur —  hilarity, as they used to say in old movie reviews, was bound to ensue.
Sanchez opens his cross examination assuming a fact never entered into evidence when it comes to Sheila Jackson Lee: “I gotta ask you, what were you THINKING, Congresswoman?â€
Jackson-Lee tries to filibuster and talk about everything except the actions in question, rambling on about how she loves Youtube and wonders if the people who like to post things care about “ a robust public option,†and “eliminating pre-existing diseases.â€
An increasingly exasperated Sanchez cannot get Jackson-Lee to respond directly to any questions about her telephone call. He asks her if it is “rude†to be on the phone while someone is asking a question, then points to the irony of her unresponsiveness, considering the subject matter: “Congresswoman, you’re absolutely ignoring my question. I don’t think that’s very nice.â€
Finally, Sanchez puts it so simply and directly that Jackson-Lee is forced to respond.
SANCHEZ: I say to my children it’s impolite to text — it’s wrong to be on the phone when you’re talking to people, and it’s rude to do that especially when you’re dealing with adults. Here you have people who have come to hear you speak. They are asking you a question, and it appears on the video like you’re not giving them their due. How do you explain that?â€
JACKSON-LEE: I’m so glad you said it. It “appears†on the video. Maybe it’s a doctored video.
An amazed Sanchez tries to press Jackson-Lee to address this astonishing assertion to little avail.  ”Do you think the video was doctored? Do you think the video may have been doctored?†as Jackson-Lee tries to talk over him.
JACKSON-LEE: Let me say this — we who are members of Congress who believe in democracy are not going to focus on distractions. We’re really going to focus on giving the people the opportunity to express themselves in any way they desire.
SANCHEZ: Well, well, look at it. I mean — let’s — I’ll tell you what — let’s play it and you tell us if this is you or not you and if we’ve made a mistake by showing video — that may have been doctored — is there anything about this video that isn’t reflective of what happened?
JACKSON-LEE I know nothing about the video- I know nothing about the video, Rick, and I’m not going to comment on it.
Too late, Congresswoman; but thank you for providing some of the proverbial “best medicine†to the health care debate.  In cell phone text parlance: LOL.
The tingle in Chris Matthews’ leg is turning into a chill up his spine. The cause? The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy which is shuttling people to Congressional Town Hall meetings, apparently by black helicopter.
At first, Democrats charged that business groups were planting people they called “Brooks Brothers Brigades†because they were somehow deemed too well-dressed to attend town hall meetings. This charge didn’t fall flat so much because of its illogic, as it did because all the video coming out of the meetings showed attendees who more resembled those at a union retirees’ gathering.
Last week, the George Soros-funded and John Podesta-associated ultra-left wing Think Progress blog fabricated a web of right-wing organized opposition to the Democrat health care takeover. Think Progress claimed to have discovered nefarious memos from Right Principles – a conservative group led by libertarian activist Robert McGuffey and connected to former Congressman Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks – giving instructions on how to disrupt a meeting by a right wing group.
Any town hall attendees who heard about the report were no doubt scratching their heads and asking “Who?â€Â People actually involved in conservative politics were wondering when FreedomWorks got to be so powerful. By the evening news cycle, the White House, the Democratic Party and the mainstream media were talking about “astro-turf†(i.e. fake “grassroots”) and lamenting the dark conspiracies to shut down honest debate.
“How DARE the community organize!â€Â became the new refrain of the left.
The problem is, the dots they supposedly connected really don’t connect. As Mary Katherine Ham reported in the Weekly Standard, this is all made up. McGuffey doesn’t have many readers. At the time of the big exposé, Right Prinicples had 23 friends on its facebook page (now up to almost 300 with all the publicity). McGuffey once posted on a Tea Party website which has a link to FreedomWorks’ home page. Wow.
As conspiracies go, this is beyond laughable.
Matthews, however, is all in. Remember, Matthews is the man who was oh-so certain that sleazeball congressman Gary Condit had murdered his former lover Chandra Levy, but then assiduously ignored the arrest of the illegal immigrant who eventually confessed to the killing. Matthews is also the man who announced daily that Karl Rove was about to be indicted in the Valerie Plame affair, only to be proven wrong again. And now, Matthews sees this nonexistent connection as the equivalent of a signed confession and a smoking gun.
In a Hardball segment called “Standing Up to Town Hall Hijackers,†Matthews grilled Milt Pappas, Vice President of FreedomWorks, who no doubt was hoping for the kind of tenfold growth that Right Principles was enjoying thanks to Democrat slam efforts.
“Youre going to every town meeting in the world and blowing them apart!†Matthews charged.  (Pappas probably takes a little too much credit, but does point out that FreedomWorks only has 18 paid employees.) Then Matthews hyperventilated:
“You’re basically plotting this stuff… You basically know what’s going to go on at all these meetings… people aren’t spontaneously getting up in the morning and reading the paper and saying, ‘I better go to the congresssman’s meeting, I’m all upset about health care.’”
In his usual hectoring style, Matthews mocked FreedomWorks’ tax status as a nonpartisan organization, and asked if Pappas was “Astroturf or grass roots.†Absurdly, Matthews did this while Pappas was sitting next to Gerald Shea of the AFL-CIO, the ultimate in manufactured protest and the abuse of “nonpartisan educational activity†with restricted funds, and an organization which actually does what FreedomWorks can only do in Chris Matthews’ fevered imagination.
Community organizing is sure going out of fashion fast.
I bet we won’t be seeing the fake Thomas Jefferson quote, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism†ubiquitously bandied about for awhile.
Chris Matthews Deliberately Dishonest About Limbaugh's Nazi/Democrat Comparison Monologue
It must really rankle Chris Matthews that the biggest audience he has ever had—or will ever have—was as a guest host of the Rush Limbaugh radio program. Matthews, who really hit his stride during the Clinton scandals, made a name for himself as an honest, independent Democrat who was willing to take it to his party when his moral sense was offended. His show, Hardball, had the best roundtables and became appointment TV for conservatives. That landed him a guest host spot on the EIB Network when Rush took a day off.
Since the failure of the Clinton impeachment, Matthews has been working overtime to prove he is not a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, and to get back in the good graces of even the hard Left. And to try to erase from their minds his Limbaugh gig, Matthews will take any gratuitous shot at El Rushbo, no matter how dishonest.
On Hardball’s lead segment Thursday night, Matthews turned the discussion with Pat Buchanan and Bob Schrum from President Obama’s slipping poll numbers, to a slam of Limbaugh by saying, “Let’s take a look at somebody who might not agree with our sort of democratic view of politics, where one side wins an election and governs for a while, then the other side challenges their accountability [in the next election] did they do the right thing or not. Let’s take a look at Rush Limbaugh, today, and what he had to say about the Democratic Party.”
Matthews then played a clip from the Limbaugh Dittocam, that begins with Rush’s lips moving over Matthews talking, then cuts in at “…that’s right out of Adolph Hitler’s playbook. Now what are the similarities between, the Democratic Party of today, and the Nazi Party…†Rush then goes on to list comparisons from economic policy to fanatical devotion to environmental and physical purity. One can certainly argue about Rush’s list and interpretations.
What is unarguable is that Matthews deliberately left out of the clip — and the discussion– the context, which was that Limbaugh was furious because of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s insinuation that the town hall meeting protestors against Obamacare had Nazi ties. (Of course, this was by no means Pelosi’s only recent descent into the realm of lies and slander.)
In her slander of the town hall participants, Pelosi, after saying these Americans were bought and paid for by the dastardly insurance companies, then dismissed them by saying people were “carrying swastikas and symbols like that†to the rallies. Her clear implication was that Nazis were showing up in America’s heartland to oppose health care reform. (To date, the only picture of a swastika brought to a health care meeting was a woman with a home made sign of a swastika in a circle with a line through it, the very opposite of what Pelosi intimated.)
Limbaugh began his monologue by talking about Pelosi, and the fact that he was sick of conservatives being called Nazis and fascists for as long has he could remember.  Matthews and his producers dishonestly began the video later in Limbaugh’s monologue.
Ironically, it was left to Pat Buchanan, whose last book posited the notion that World War II was Winston Churchill’s fault (somehow this does not disqualify Pat in Matthews’s mind) to defend Rush’s use of Nazi analogies, and he did not. To be fair, it is possible that Buchanan had no idea Rush was directly responding to Pelosi. However, unless he’s been locked in a bunker all week, he must know that Nancy Pelosi is the one who introduced Nazism into the health care town hall discussion.
But after Matthews’s “HAH! Now I’ve heard everything!†and Bob Shrum’s, “It’s despicable drivel,†the best Pat could manage was a weak, “You should never bring the Nazis into the argument…,†though he at least pointed out that: “It’s usually conservatives who are called fascists and all the rest,†at which point Matthews changed the subject.
Chris. We get it. You’re not a conservative — or even the blue collar moderate you once tried to project yourself as. Stop trying to live down your brief flirtation with bi-partisanship, and try to act with some integrity while you have a shred of dignity left. Some of us still hope, recent evidence to the contrary,  that you can be better than Keith Olberman.
Part 1: The Art of Madness
Part 2: Older, Whiter, More Stupid
Part 3: The Hustler
Part 4: Slimedog Millionaire
Part 5: Presumed Innocent: Not for Southern White Males
Part 6: Monkey Business
Part 7: The Stopped Clock: Correct Twice in One Day
Part 8: This Time It’s Personal
Part 9: Ultimate Mismatch: Churchill Vs. Olbermann
Part 10: Oliver Twisted
Part 11: Healthcare Reform, the Fight for the American Dream
Part 12: Rather Clueless: Meltdown with Keith Olbermann
Part 13: The Three Stooges, Healthy Wealthy and Dumb
Part 15: Enemy of the State: Michele Bachmann?
Part 16: Sleazebags Talk Teabags
Part 17: The First Amendment Does Not Apply to Glenn Beck
Part 18: “Stop Making our Troops Suffer in Order to Make our Generals Happy.”
Part 19: Censoring Sarah Palin
Part 20: Joe Lieberman is “Embarrassing Humanity!”
Part 21: Kill Bill, Volume 1
Part 22: Kill Bill, Volume 2
Part 23: Kill Bill, Volume 3
Part 24: Made for Each Other, Levi and Keith
Part 25: Save the Tiger
Part 26: Losing it Over Massachusetts
Part 27: “My God, He’s Still Talking!”
Part 28: A Bridge Too Far? Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 28
Part 29: Mea Culpa Maybe: Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 29
Part 30: “My God, He’s Still Talking!” Redux: Meltdown with Keith Olbermann, Part 30
Part 31: The Final Countdown? Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 31
Part 32: Dumb and Dumber—Wolffe and Olbermann: Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 32
Part 33: Tea Partiers are Like the Founders—Racists! Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 33
Part 34: Worst Research in the Wooorrrrllld! Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 34
Part 35: “Where are the People of Color”– in MSNBC’s Lineup? Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 35
Part 36: Some of My Best Guests are Black: Meltdown With Keith Olbermann Part 36
Part 37: Opponents of Government Health Care are “Sub-human” and “Ghouls”
Part 39: Protecting The New Victim Class—Democrat Members of Congress
Part 40: Worst Demagogue in the World!
Beginning with Part 41 NRB bloggers Jeff Hedgpeth and Mark Meed joined in.
Part 41: AZ Immigration Law, Run, Run by Mark Meed
Part 42: AZ Lounge Act Boycott — The Horror by Mark Meed
