Fuck NBC's Today Show

[robertpaulsen]

Newt Gingrich, disgraced former Speaker, is apparently still considered relevant since he appeared on The Today Show this morning as the only guest to speak out against the horror that President Obama actually shook the hand of the President of a South American country over the weekend. No surprise, I expected him to take this tired tack. I'm not even extraordinarily pissed over the fact that The Today Show gave him an unopposed platform.

What really got under my skin is that the interview with Gingrich was prefaced by a story about the "controversial" handshake in which The Today Show showed their neo-con bias by referring to President Hugo Chavez as "anti-American". By doing so, this then gave Gingrich free reign to also refer to Chavez as "anti-American" no less than three times. Where does NBC get off legitimizing Gingrich's opinion as fact?! Call Chavez anti-Bush by all means, there's no argument about that! But not only is describing Chavez as "anti-American" an opinion, I would argue that opinion is baseless unless you equate calling Bush the devil with hating America. Shame on NBC & The Today Show for endorsing such an opinion.

[valerief]

1. This gets a rec just for the subject line! nt

[Supersedeas]

43. and a rec to stop watching them altogether.

[AndyA]

2. Didn't Chavez provide heating oil to families in the Northeast at a discounted rate?

That surely doesn't seem anti-American to me.

Your point about anti-Bush is well taken, as most of the people in the world could be described as anti-Bush.

[LiberalEsto]

3. Yes

And Newt told one of his ex-wives he was divorcing her when she was in the hospital with cancer. I wouldn't shake his slimy hand if they paid me!

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. He did that why colluding with his OPEC buddies to limit prodiction in order to jack up the price

Maybe if oil wasn't so expensive families in the Northeast could afford it.

[robertpaulsen]

14. Not sure I understand your point there, Freddie.

Is it that Chavez and "his OPEC buddies" are to blame for the record run-up of oil prices over the last eight years up until the crash this fall? Not Bush and the quagmire he created in Iraq? Funny how so many of his friends in the oil business made record profits, including Cheney's $9.2 million in deferred Halliburton stock. Not sure why you didn't mention the Carlyle Group colluding with their "OPEC buddies" to insure the same result.

Or is your point that you agree with NBC and Gingrich that Chavez is indeed "anti-American"?

[EFerrari]

28. Do you think he has that kind of power at OPEC?

Maybe. I've no idea.

[AlbertCat]

49. Listen to him diss Carter

That weak sissy Carter wanted to live in piece! Jesus!

If things got tense in the Middle East, it wasn't Carters fault. They certainly used it well to get Reagan elected. And look what we got. Imagine what things might be like if we had kept up the conservation and green thinking Carter tried to get going as the American zeitgeist. Instead we got "greed is good", trickle down economics and the Hummer. Just keeping the House of Saud in power instead of the pariahs they should be.

[tex-wyo-dem]

15. Yes, and...

Venezuela was one of the first countries to offer aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina...aid that, of course, the psychopathic chimp turned down.

[BattyDem]

4. Do any of these assholes have any concept of diplomacy?

What should Obama have done? Spit in Chavez's face? Kicked him in the knees? Maybe he should have ignored him completely because the "my way or the highway" routine used by Bush* for 8 years worked out sooooo well. :eyes:

[seemslikeadream]

5. robertpaulsen why have you been watching NBC?

:spank:

[robertpaulsen]

6. I was tired, I just woke up, I hadn't had any coffee, oh fuck, I'M GUILTY!!!

:rofl:

You got me!

:thumbsup:

[Jakes Progress]

27. But we have to watch them.

We need to know what they are doing. I watch ten minutes of Faux every other day to remind me how much work there is to do.

[femrap]

7. newt is getting ready to

run for prez in '12.

I hoping that the Mayan calendar is correct....then newt loses.

[robertpaulsen]

18. Scary thought.

Today's Clusterfuck column by Jim Kunstler calls it too:

Mr. Obama looked to be the man-on-a-white-horse -- on the exhaustion of Reagan-Bush Jesus-Republicanism -- but he's coming off more like Philippe Égalité (Louis Philippe Joseph d'Orléans, duc d'Orléans) in 1793, with perhaps Newt Gingrich waiting offstage to become Robespierre in 2012 -- and some obscure US Army captain now toiling in Kirkuk slated to become the American Napoleon of 2015.

snip

I don't like to be misunderstood. With the airlines in a business death spiral, and mass motoring doomed, we need a national passenger rail system desperately. But we already have one that used to be the envy of the world before we abandoned it. And we don't have either the time or the resources to build a new parallel network.

But grandiosity is just another way that we lie to ourselves about where we're at and what is really possible. Surely Mr. Obama knows that hope fades where the light of truth doesn't shine. He is a charming fellow. I don't especially want to see Newt Gingrich chop his head off.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/

[femrap]

50. newt certainly won't have the

women's vote...what is it up to...3 wives? One of them he dumped while she was in the hospital with cancer.

I can not stand the little newt.

[Jakes Progress]

30. Yup. He'll run.

The popular consensus here is that he hasn't got a chance of even getting the nomination. That line of thought requires us to believe that republicans are rational thinkers who actually believe what they say. That is not my experience.

And remember. This country elected reagan and bush one, and they allowed bush two to take the white house twice.

[femrap]

51. I'll never forget when Raygun

got the nomination. Months earlier I said: 'The American people are too smart to elect some B-rated actor as their President.' I lost $50 on that bet.

That's when I learned how stupid people can be. I was thankfully living in N. CA. at the time so I was removed from much of this ignorance...but now I'm in the midst of the rust belt and the willful ignorance is so glaring, I wear sunglasses all the time! B-) ;)

[amborin]

55. he said he was considering running, last week or the week previous

[Pacifist Patriot]

9. This morning I heard two idiots sneering, "Did you hear Obama met with Chavez and Ortega, OMG!"

I turned to them and said, "Yes it is refreshing to have a Chief of State who can perform his diplomatic duties without embarrassing our country, isn't it?" I have found I cannot help myself anymore.

[coalition_unwilling]

38. LOL - I have given up - n\t

[MADem]

10. Pick up the remote, find the button that changes the channel, and push it.

TODAY used to be the top-ranked show. It isn't any more, because people did precisely that.

Vote with your remote.

[Auggie]

11. ... AND spread the word that Gingrich and TODAY is full of B.S.

Our voices will help counter their distorted reporting and lies.

[spanone]

12. andrea mitchell just had the asshole on her show and he was spouting the same shit

and they still call the asshole....speaker gingrich....fuck him and gem$nbc

[MasonJar]

13. Chavez is doing immense good in his country for the poor. He is treating

the indigenous people as equals, and that kind of thinking is un-American to the Newt Gingrich's of this country. It is anti-Chavez propaganda that finds its way into the US press, not facts. Hopefully Obama is man enough to resist these continued GOPer lies. Obama might as well ignore PUGs because there will never be anything that he does that will suit them anyway

[ShareTheWoods]

16. Have you see what the hero Chavez is up to now?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3831852

[Binka]

25. "Have you see"

LMAO. You are a real gem. Keep it up champ.

[ShareTheWoods]

40. I ca 't fid the key

ow is ot th tim for spellig pedatry.

[Binka]

41. It Has NOTHING To Do With Spelling Dear

I have a pedantic bent when it comes to things that smell weird. Olfactory sensitivity.

[EFerrari]

26. It's always some new calumny that never works out.

And people fall for it every time. Geeze.

[amborin]

56. he did some good

but he's also an idiot

he ruined the p de vesa well-functioning bureaucracy, by putting his cronies in positions of power

and he's got a bit of a fascist streak

he's been kept afloat by the high oil prices these past several years...but now prices are down and so are V's revenues....and he's alienated even his former supporters

[progressoid]

17. Hey Newt...

[personman]

19. Chomsky on "anti-American"

From Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, by Noam Chomsky:

"In such pronouncements, the term "anti-American" and its variants ("hating America", and the like) are regularly employed to defame critics of state policy who may admire and respect the country, it's culture, it's achievements, indeed think it is the greatest place on Earth. Nevertheless they "hate America" and are "anti-American" on the tacit assumption that the society and its people are to be identified with state power. This usage is drawn directly from the lexicon of totalitarianism. In the former Russian empire, dissidents were guilty of "anti-Sovietism."

[dorkulon]

32. More from Chomsky on that subject, from an interview with buffalobeast.com

Why do you hate America?

I realize that the question is not intended seriously. However, there is a serious point lurking behind it. A crucial totalitarian principle is that the state is identified with the people, the culture, the society. For those who adopt that principle, criticism of the state is hatred of the country. In the old Soviet Union, for example, dissidents were condemned as “anti-Soviet” or “haters of Russia,” because they condemned policies of the Holy State. We, however, rightly regarded them as the people most dedicated to the welfare of the Russian people. The concept has biblical origins. King Ahab, the epitome of evil in the Bible, condemned the Prophet Elijah as a hater of Israel because he denounced the crimes of the evil king, who, like all totalitarians, identified state power—himself—with the society and people. Where there is a democratic culture, such a notion would be ridiculed. In Italy, for example, if someone were to publish a book called “the Anti-Italians,” denouncing people who dare to criticize government policy, people would collapse with ridicule. It is rather striking that in the US, such a book (of course full of outlandish lies) is reviewed seriously and treated with respect. The US is alone, to my knowledge, outside of totalitarian states, in that concepts like “hate America” or “anti-American” are adopted in the style of King Ahab and his totalitarian successors. That should trouble us.

[Olney Blue]

20. Newty is so last century.

[underpants]

21. The tea bagger thing was his doing

he is trying to grab all the power in the REpub vacuum

[Cha]

22. How about some real

news on the Summit of the Americas, today show? Instead of fucking newt giving his whinesleaze?

Tell the today show what you think..
[e-mail]

[pacalo]

23. I gave up watching it during the Clinton administration & haven't turned back.

From what you've described, it hasn't changed. Good riddance.

[autorank]

24. I second that emotion k*r

This conference in Trinidad was the best thing Obama has done so far. So naturally fools
like the cunningly lingual disgraced former speaker show up and trash talk the effort.

The right and the media define themselves, entirely, by those they hate. Sad but true and
very damaging when they're in power.

[Canuckistanian]

29. You're so right on so many levels

Chavez always said he was anti-Bush, not "anti-American"

Didn't he once provide free fuel oil for poor Americans? That's not what I'd call "anti-American"

[EFerrari]

31. To blur the boundaries between Americans and the corporati

is how vampires like Newt try to drum up support.

Chavez has never been anti the people of the United States, just against the vampires like Exxon and the BFEE.

[spanone]

33. i've always felt the today show dumbed down it's political coverage

i quit watching, i'd rather swear at mourning joe

[Rhiannon12866]

34. K&R. And another question...

Why the hell is Tom DeLay still showing up on news shows?! I thought he was headed for prison... :shrug: x(

[Control-Z]

44. I thought he was in prison. n/t

[Rhiannon12866]

53. Obviously, not. He keeps resurfacing on the news shows...

And is as opinionated, argumentative and overbearing as ever... "The Hammer" :eyes:

[Control-Z]

54. I wonder how it is he

is managing to stay out. I thought he'd been sentenced. Am I mistaken?

[Rhiannon12866]

57. I don't remember him being sentenced, but I do remember him being indicted.

But that was in September of 2005... He was forced to step down because he could have gotten up to two years... :shrug:


Posted 9/28/2005 10:00 AM Updated 9/29/2005 8:42 AM

DeLay indicted in campaign finance probe

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury Wednesday on a charge of conspiring to violate political fundraising laws, forcing him to temporarily step aside from his GOP post. He is the highest-ranking member of Congress to face criminal prosecution.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-09-28-DeLay-investigation_x.htm



And he's definitely still around: x(

Hurray! Tom DeLay is back and as whacked out as ever!! More, please!!!
April 17, 2009, 10:13AM


Just when you start to become concerned the Republican Party is taking the nation's problems seriously, Tom DeLay pops up to save the day. DeLay is the face of GOP corruption and the more often he is on television, the more often people are reminded why they hate the Republican Party.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/mrs_panstreppon/2009/04/hurray-tom-delay-is-back-and-a.php?ref=reccafe

[screembloodymurder]

35. Don't watch!

It's a right-wing entertainment production.

[H2O Man]

36. Nomination #37.

Newt is planning to run in 2012.

RP: I'm going to be posting something about the neocon/AIPAC espionage scandal later today. I'm hoping to get the current DU community focused on this, much in the manner that the "Plame Threads" once united people here. Hope to have your imput.

[robertpaulsen]

46. Thanks. I'll keep my eyes open.

I wouldn't want "this conversation doesn't exist" to be standard operating procedure anymore, among other things.

[Highway61]

37. Today Show is nothing more

Than glorified People Magazine on the air. Can't stand them...a bunch of hot air spewed by "full of themselves" hosts. It isn't journalism....They're a joke. Big K & R!

[lunatica]

39. Bottom feeding scavenger describes Newt to a 'T'

Loathsome piece of putrid oozing shit does too

[glitch]

48. It also describes NBC's Today Show.

IOW a perfect match. How many people actually watch that crap, anyway. Other than RobertPaulsen, before he's fully awake and knows what he's doing, that is. :)

[whopis01]

42. I am so disgusted and the outrage over a freaking handshake.

When has it ever been a good foreign policy strategy to pretend that someone or some country doesn't even exist?

Shaking a hand with someone doesn't mean that you agree with them or that you are going to give into them or that you are going unconditionally accept their point of view. It is just a damn handshake. Do people really think that giving another country the 'silent treatment' is accomplishing something. Why can't we just sit down at a damn table and discuss the issues instead?

I don't even care if Chavez is anti-American (not saying he is - just pointing out it doesn't matter to me), he is a leader of a nation and he has views. So what? Obama is the leader of a nation and he has his views as well. The two people shaking hands doesn't change that one bit.

It is such a damn distraction technique to harp on this. If Obama refused to shake hands with him, these people would be complaining that he smiled too much while he was around him and didn't sneer at Chavez enough. Or perhaps ask the daring question "was Obama wearing his flag lapel pin when he was there?".

I was going to finish by saying I am so sick of these idiots... but I honestly don't think that people like this are idiots. They are just convinced that the majority of the American population (or at least enough to keep supporting them) are idiots.

[Uncle Joe]

45. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, robertpaulsen.:thumbsup:

[blueworld]

47. Love the subject line also but doncha think Newt is a true diplomat?

Considering it was the Today Show, it could have been much worse.

They could have been interviewing the slimy salamander about his other diplomatic values & skills. You know, the ones where you cheat on every woman you marry, phone in a divorce request to your wife while she's terminally ill in the hospital, borrow money to pay off fines for ethics violations incurred as a US Congressman...you know? Apparently, he thinks he has some moral credibility left with someone other than Tom Delay.

NBC will probably set him up with his own reality show.

[and-justice-for-all]

52. Republicans need enemies...

the more, the better. The need things to hate, its the fuel for their engine. Repukes think that every country on the planet should kneel before the US and do what ever we tell them to do, never giving any respect to whom the people of that country elected.

You may not like what that leader does, but it does not mean to go in and bully them around or threaten them with occupation or sanctions. There must be dialog and diplomacy, not everything can be resolved at the barrel of a gun; which is what repukes think, because they have no understanding of diplomacy.