the left has no soul... only an ego
Posted on 03/10/2012 7:40:05 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
On paper, it was a great week for the left.
On paper, Rush Limbaugh swallowed hard and finally did get that piece of humble pie to go down.
On paper -- and HBO -- the cool kids, it turns out, aren't finished piling on Sarah Palin.
On paper, Newt Gingrich is still in love with the sound of his own voice, Rick Santorum still sees delegate math as one of those things only college snobs care about, Ron Paul is still the crazy uncle you left up in the attic, and what's left of a torn and tattered Mitt Romney is still being asked to apologize for winning battleground states and collecting delegates, meaning the Great GOP Slog of 2012 goes on. And on. And on.
Yep, the left had themselves a good week.
On paper.
But, as the inhabitants of the blogosphere never tire of reminding us newsroom dinosaurs, paper is dead.
And, upon closer look, so is a little piece of the left.
The left sold a rather sizable portion of its soul last week -- leaving both sides coming up significantly short on that score. When it comes to the Washington, D.C., reality show of Selective Outrage, it was the left's turn to have its hypocrisy exposed. This past week, they were the ones left out in the cold, longingly staring through the window at the warm, sensible reasoning inside.
The Big Chill started with Limbaugh's apology for calling a law student arguing for contraception coverage in health plans "a slut" and "a prostitute." It ended with Limbaugh's detractors stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that their side has many times dabbled -- apology free -- in that kind of misogyny, and worse yet, spinning that their brand of vile was actually acceptable.
Back to Rush. As apologies go, it wasn't much. To listen carefully was to catch about as much actual sincerity as was intended. That would be none.
But at least Limbaugh mustered up enough humility -- with the considerable jump-start of a bevy of fleeing advertisers -- to at least go through the motions.
That's more than the roaming band of apologists for left-wing pundits Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz and Matt Taibbi have been able to deliver.
Olbermann has never been shy about scraping the bottom of his thesaurus for Rush-sized vitriol toward Sarah Palin, or right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin, whom he called "a mashed up bag of meat with lipstick on it." Schultz, meanwhile, has called pundit Laura Ingraham a "right-wing slut."
None, however, compare to Maher who, once you get past his persistent streak of religious bigotry, has quite the misogynist streak himself. But it's apparently OK -- funny, even -- because he saves the brunt of his ugliness, with words that a blowhard like Limbaugh hasn't even dared use on the air, for ... wait for it ... Sarah Palin.
Maher went so low as to call Palin "the c-word" -- let's just say it rhymes with the term of sacrificing the runner in baseball.
And the outcry? The calls for apologies? Boycotts? Firings?
Still.
Waiting.
Maher can't lose sponsors, because he's on HBO. But where is the boycott talk? We're not sure if Olbermann's 13 viewers on Current TV qualify him for sponsors, but we do know there's been no call for boycotts there.
Why, the White House is so steamed with Maher, there's talk of senior adviser David Axelrod appearing on Maher's show, where he'll be joined by the usual parade of other voices -- outrage free --from the left.
The calls for apologies from the left aren't piling up, but the questions for the rest of us are. If Limbaugh is still considered to be an actual wing of the Republican Party, shouldn't Maher's $1 million donation to an Obama SuperPac -- you know, the SuperPacs President Perfect was going to have no part of -- at least give the comedian a metaphorical corner office in the Democratic Party?
The double-standard on the reaction to Limbaugh's language and the shrug at the venom of Maher and the rest is, if nothing else, comical. It's the actual attempt at reasoning that's the painful part.
Palin and Ingraham, you see, are famous. Or they're asking for it. I forget which, but I know each attempt at excusing the language directed at them comes out strained, yet with a gallant attempt at a straight face.
Here's the thing with the reasoning. It's actually worse than it sounds. Selective outrage, puffed up anger with an agenda, never truly works. Never has, never will. Oh sure, it flies high and mighty on the sets of Fox and MSNBC, but for the rest of us? Nope.
Once you've strayed where Maher's apologists dared go last week, and you've gone about the absurd process of carefully explaining just how it's OK for your guy to use vile, misogynist language toward women, but not their guy, well, there's no coming back from that.
Limbaugh, a stale cliché of a windbag, may well lose more advertisers. He may even lose his job.
But the left? This was the week they lost their credibility.
Obviously not part of the liberal Main Stream Media - maybe there is just a bit of hope yet. Of course they just may be catering to the vast majority of Americans.
The headline presupposes the left had a soul to begin with...
What soul?
The far left don’t have any souls, they never had any to begin with
Beat me to it...
I hope.
Bill Mahrer DOES have sponsors. HBO’s parent corporation is Time-Li(f)e-Warner-Turner.
BOYCOTT Time-Warner. Pull the plug on cable.
BOYCOTT CNN’s advertiser’s. For a mere “comedian” CNN (a news network) sure has him on for political commentary enough times. Does Chris Rock get quizzed on CNN about the issues of the day?
“But the left? This was the week they lost their credibility.”
You can’t lose something you never had.
Forget about it.
NOW defended Bill Clinton's sexual harassment of a young intern. Gloria Steinem defended Bill Clinton's sexual groping of a woman. His unwanted physical advances? No big deal. The very credible claims of violent rape on Clinton's part? [shrug] Why is that so wrong? Men have needs.
No, the Left crossed this line a long time ago. They can do anything they want. Republicans? We're animals and we don't deserve to have rights. We're sub-human, and the Left knows how to deal with scum like us.
It's only fair to point out that Schultz apologized. And unlike Rush, he made an actual apology for what he said, not just for a "poor choice of words."
IMO it is dishonest to report the Schultz slue without at least noting his apology.
There are, broadly speaking, two approaches to life: where reality is external and consists of timeless principles, standards and facts, or where reality is substantially internal and consists of preferences and passions.
A person whose reality is external seeks to bring his thinking and behavior into harmony with outside considerations. If an outside fact contradicts one of the things he desires, he rejects that desire. If an outside law tells him that coveting and theft are wrong, he rejects thoughts that lead him to covet or attempt to steal.
A person whose reality is internal only accepts events and facts from the outside that are in harmony with the world as he prefers it in his own mind. Indeed, his internal reality is malleable, almost plastic, and continually morphs and changes so that what was true and correct changes from one moment to the next. This reality must be maintained and protected. This reality is his very idea of himself.
Since such as person is human, while he devises and maintains his own morality, he also continually fails to adhere it it. So, he must continually excuse his failures and faults. He does so by making exceptions and even changes to the rules themselves. Such people reject the concept of sin because in their own minds they cannot sin, because every failing is excusable. Yet, giving themselves a pass causes deep dissatisfaction with their own human nature, and this is why these people project anger. They are often heard complaining that conservatives are “angry” when in fact they are just projecting their own anger with themselves.
People with internal realities are never constrained by any principles. If they don’t reject the principle, they will excuse why the principle doesn’t apply in the case at hand. Having rejected principles, they must respect power. Indeed, they become power-oriented. Only power restrains them externally, for nothing restrains their internal reality.
This explains the two main world views that we see struggling to control our lives today. This explains why we can see politicians who claim one thing in the morning and contradict themselves in the afternoon with equal sincerity. This explains why a politician can claim to be for something before he was against it. And it explains why they thing they can print and borrow their way to full employment and prosperity for all.
Slur, not slue.
the left has no soul... only an ego
this is no different to the double standard of “targets on map” and somehow a call for violence by gop, but not a call for violence when democrats actually call for their followers go punch people twice as hard or target sign on politicians faces
Seriously, what did Palin DO that warrents such an insult? Have the AUDACITY to think for herself? Run for VP? Who does she think she is, a WOMAN, considering herself an intellectual equal to a MAN like bigmouth Maher?
Whoopi On Roman Polanski: It Wasn’t ‘Rape-Rape’
http://jezebel.com/5369395/whoopi-on-roman-polanski-it-wasnt-rape+rape
Schultz, meanwhile, has called pundit Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut.”
“It’s only fair to point out that Schultz apologized. And unlike Rush, he made an actual apology for what he said, not just for a “poor choice of words.””
idiot
Or retire or run for office or do something else or do TV again or blog or become Breitbart or???
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