Posted on 11/05/2004 5:21:26 PM PST by Timeout
Lawrence O'Donnell on McLaughlin was calling for secession of blue states -- and he was quite serious.
You're absolutely right. My fiance is agnostic, and he feels the same way.
I agree. A leftist friend asked me if atheists were welcome in the Republican Party. My response was that there are atheists and agnostics and non-religious people already in the party, but that unlike Democrats, they actually respect other people's religion, and don't mock them for believing in God. For all the talk of "tolerance" among liberals, they don't really have much tolerance, do they?
Shouldn't this color business be opposite? "RED" America ought to be the liberal side who wants socialist values. "BLUE" America should be the one who has republic values. I noticed all of this on election night...GW was always in RED and Kerry in BLUE. Almost every network carried their map like that.
It's the Character issue in my mind. Bush is a man of conviction - Kerry a man of the polls.. Plus the SOB made his career bashing the US military.
I think you give the original poster way too much credit.
Also, the unpaid internships that prevail in media jobs work to keep out people who need to earn a paycheck. And let's face it, so much of punditry is subjective and intuitive. You don't always make a name for yourself by knowing facts and bringing them to bear on the matters under discussion. Sometimes, striking a pose, cultivating a certain style or creating a character is enough.
Jim Warren certainly has the last part down. He's doing the worldly, rather cynical, entertaining leftist routine that got Gore Vidal or Nicholas von Hoffman so many free dinners and lunches a generation ago (though with a rougher edge). Warren tends to rely on "attitude" and wit to dodge hard questions. Still, I would rather watch him than Eleanor Clift or Lawrence O'Donnell (son of a big Kennedy honcho).
There certainly is a loop of old Moynihan and O'Neill staffers in media jobs (Russert, Shields, O'Donnell, etc.), and yes, Democrat operatives do tend to move back and forth between campaigns and commentatorship -- indeed, they don't always have to move, but can do both at the same time. Conservatives have done it too, and gotten burned -- George Will, for example. But most of the liberal or Democrat commentators can blend into the background of the media culture, so fewer questions are asked about their activities than about Republicans or conservatives.
I have no idea what to do about this, save to say that if someone is really single-minded about rising in that media world they may have a shot at beating out the hangers-on, relatives, and courtiers. But such single-minded devotion to making a career carries its own penalties and punishments.
Why? What would be the point of such an assault? We proved Tuesday that the power the MSM weilds is without consequence, and that's the best victory. Anything more, would be a waste of our time.
Well Chris, in your state of ignorant bliss you've been doing that for years.
I still think Matthews should suffer penalties under the consumer protection act.
Exactly, and wink and all, we should be above that.
"Two word, Mr. Matthew: Sexual nihilism."
Are you saying - in a round about way - that everyone who voted for President Bush never engages in sex for pleasure?
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Apparently you don't know what the word "nihilism" means. It comes from the Latin word "nihil" which means "nothing". Nihilism is the belief that there is no right and wrong or good and bad.
Sexual nihilism is the uprooting of sexual behavior from all moral context and therefore all moral consequences. That it is or should be done for pleasure is irrelevant to my point. The thinking that sex should be divorced entirely from moral, family and social obligations and considerations is responsible for the atomization of society where grown men and women don't even know their neighbors' names and behave as if they are 12-year-old street urchins with no sense of connection to the community, and they behave accordingly.
People now think of sex as primarily a vehicle for pleasure and of pregnancy as an unfortunate if not flat-out tragic side effect. A culture of narcissistic isolationism, hedonism and death is the inevitable result.
Contrary to what some may think, God is not against sex. Hey, he INVENTED it. He very much intended for it to be pleasant but only in the context of commitments of love and family. Outside of that context societal death and self-destruction. This principle applies to everyone, no matter who you voted for.
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