Posted on 10/15/2003 3:18:27 PM PDT by kattracks
Back in March of this year, way before Rush Limbaugh and ESPN, Esquire ran an interview with a liberal journalist an interview that, outside the Internet, made only a few ripples.In the exchange with Esquire, Eric Alterman, who writes a column for the Nation, a far-left political magazine, charmingly told the interviewer, I hate to say it, but I wish the guy [Rush Limbaugh] would have gone deaf. Call me crazy, but when Alterman says, I hate to say it, I have the funny feeling that he really means I love to say it.
Anyway, its not just Rush Limbaugh that hed like to see go away. Its also all those hopelessly ordinary, not-too-smart Middle Americans who find Rush so interesting that Alterman has no use for, either. America, Alterman tells Esquire, would be better without Rush Limbaugh and his 20 million listeners.
The interview gives no clue as to whether Alterman wishes the 20 million Americans would also go deaf or just drop off the face of the Earth. But we do learn that in Eric Altermans America theres no place for Ann Coulter, either. I debase myself every time I say her name, he told Esquire.
At about the same time, he was telling the Los Angeles Times, I dont have to my house for dinner anyone whos not pro-choice, pro-gun control pro-campaign finance reform.
If Eric Alterman (who later apologized for the shot at Limbaugh) were the only liberal who forgot how to be liberal, this would merely be amusing. But hes not. He is part of a new kind of liberal: smart, well educated, articulate but mostly angry the kind that is doing far more harm to liberalism in America than Rush Limbaugh could ever do.
Once liberals were like John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. They were upbeat and enthusiastic and mainstream. These days theyre more like Eric Alterman and Michael Moore and Al Franken. Theyre closed-minded and nasty - and fringe.
Speaking of Mr. Franken, hes got a new book out called "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them." As I understand it, I am one of the liars, along with the president of the United States, the vice president, Bill OReilly, the aforementioned Ms. Coulter and tons more. Joe Conason, a left-wing journalist in New York, also has a new book out, and his too is about a bunch of liars (again, of which I am one). But this one isnt just about your run-of-the mill little lies; its about Big Lies.
Liberals are mad as hell these days, and theyre not going to take it anymore. A lot of them detest President Bush, whom they believe stole the election that put him in the White House. They despise Attorney General John Ashcroft, whom many are convinced is a bigger menace to America than Osama bin Laden.
They hate the fact that even though their ideological brothers and sisters control the editorial page of just about every big-city newspaper in the country, some Americans actually like to watch Fox News and listen to Rush Limbaugh.
Janeane Garofalo, another angry voice of the new liberalism, has shed some darkness on the subject with these observations: The Republican Party, their message and their politics of exclusion appeals to the dumb and the mean. There is no shortage of dumb and mean people in this culture. ... The dumb and the mean find a nice home in the GOP.
Just in case thats not clear enough, she went on to say, What you have now [are] people that are closet racists, misogynists, homophobes identifying [themselves] as conservative.
Ms. Garofalo is a tough act to follow, but Ill give it a try: Heres a word of caution for the Left: Youre driving a stake right through the heart of liberalism. Youre betraying everything liberals supposedly stand for.
Conservatives, basically, are about smaller government and lower taxes and individual responsibility. Liberals, on the other hand, are supposed to be about the free exchange of ideas, without the name-calling. Liberals are supposed to be the good ones, the smart ones, the sophisticated ones and mostly the better ones. I know this, of course, because my liberal friends keeping telling me how good and smart and sophisticated and better they are.
Too often we talk right past each other in our culture, and no one has clean hands on this one not liberals or conservatives. Incivility is a two-way street. Still it seems to me that liberals the very people who take such pride in seeing themselves as compassionate and open-minded have, in a sad kind of way, become precisely what they have long accused conservatives of being: mean-spirited and closed-minded.
Which brings us back to Rush Limbaugh, who got into trouble with the P.C. police for suggesting the media were cheerleading for a quarterback because hes black. Right or wrong, does that make him a member of the Klan? Well, yes it does, as far as some liberals are concerned. A cartoon in the Dayton (Ohio) News and reprinted in Newsweek shows a man in KKK regalia at the ESPN desk, the anchorman next to him saying, That was Rush Limbaugh with his color commentary. There were others just like it. Liberals should be embarrassed at this kind of vile, but the best I can figure, theyre not.
The fact is that liberals, more than anything else, need to remember how to be liberal - and not let the angry fringe hijack a philosophy that once, a long time ago, was something to be proud of.
Bernard Goldberg is the author of "Arrogance: Saving America From the Media Elite" (Warner Books) and "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News" (Regnery).
I hate to say it, but I despise all liberals and dislike moderates.
Present company excluded, there is a lot of truth in what Goldberg says.
Too many of today's "liberals", in particular those in the media, are putting a mean-spirited face on the persuasion.
And many people who think they are liberal actually have more in common with conservatives than with those who claim to speak for them.
But I don't consider this making me "as bad as them." Because how you fight is not what makes you better. What you fight for is. I'm sure they feel the same way, but that doesn't mean that this is, then, a deadlock. One has to look and see whose policies, when implemented, have done what over the years. It's evident what Marxism has done. Therefore, my side is objectively right, and I don't have to be charming about it to be on the correct side.
But that's JMHO.
Oh, no.
I don't think he "wishes they would drop off the face of the earth".
This is what happens when leftists come to power:
If he and his ilk get his way and turn this fine land into a socialist, quasi-communist country, he may get his wish because governments of those types have a tendancy to imprison and/or execute those who don't graduate with high grades from the re-education camps.
What he also doesn't realize is that those governments force bootlickers like Alterman back into anyonymity (sp?) as just another worker for the State.
Maybe, but no one but them is drinking their Kool-Aid.
The Democrat Party is definitely the "liberal" party in America, but the problem for them is that liberalism is basically bankrupt. Beyond its liberalism, the Democrat Party has become something akin to the incarnation of evil in American society. It's a sick, cancerous, depraved political institution, mainly because it is the refuge of angry lefists.
I used to think that the Democrats might purge themselves of their evil, and return to being a party of integrity and principle, but of the liberal persuasion. Now I see that because of the bankrupt nature of their ideology, all the Democrats have at their disposal are lies, hate, race-baiting, class-warfare, fear-mongering, politics-of-personal-destruction, and appeals to folks who hate America. Our unifying objective should be to crush the Democrat Party, to choke the life out of it, and to throw it on the ash heap of history.
Watching the Democrats, it's clear that power is a narcotic (only remedied by a humble attitude of public service while in office), and the Democrats are suffering from severe withdrawal. The Dems remind me of a heroin addict with the shakes who will do and say absolutely anything to get another fix. They've lost all sense of propriety and dignity. They don't even put up a civil front any more. They're just a sick, pathetic group of junkies who would sell their grandmothers' jewelry for another fix. They are self-absorbed, and self-destructive. They should all be in rehab. I don't think the majority of Americans are so codependent that they'll give these addicts access to the White House in the near future.
Berie, me lad, yer just a'whistlin' past the graveyard on this one.
American Civil War II bump.
It's on the mark!
I don't know. We saw just the opposite happen in California.
Seems like there is MORE anger at the lib/dems. And precisely for their outrageous hateful rhetoric we see itemized above.
Once liberals were like John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. They were upbeat and enthusiastic and mainstream. These days theyre more like Eric Alterman and Michael Moore and Al Franken. Theyre closed-minded and nasty - and fringe.
Regards,
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