Pay Attention

[Mythsaje]

There's a reason Thom Hartmann has always been my favorite progressive talker. He GETS this stuff, and can explain it in a way that is easily digested by just about anyone. I'm not sure there's anyone better to take on the idiocy and insanity of the RW economic ideology. Now that Ed and Rachel have their own show on MSNBC, I think it's time to give Thom one as well.

Who's with me?

Oh... this was prompted by this video interview.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=321184&mesg_id=321184

[pnorman]

1. I'm with ya!

n/t

pnorman

[Jane Austin]

2. I have noticed a change in Thom lately.

He's starting to use a tactic I've previously only associated with RW talkers before.

That is, to set up a straw man and then go on a rant about how awful the straw man is. By the time the rant is over, you're supposed to forget the man was just a straw decoy.

This week he jumped off on his show-opening piece by saying that, though we don't have a health-care bill yet, here's what he thought the anti-public choice people were going to do. He said that although he didn't have any inside information, that this is what he thought they'd do.

Then he launched into a list of horribles, how it was typical of each of the players, how they always get away with it, how "The Dems" will aid and abet them, and so on. He was shouting, talking faster and faster, really raising the alarm as if this had all already happened.

I thought we, the left, were fact-based. His rant was pure speculation.

Another day he launched a rant against Obama for not having already taken care of Medicare, Part D - the prescription drug benefit. He told us (again) how bad it is, because it was dictated by the drug companies and "the Dems".
He proclaimed that it was clear that Obama had no commitment to reforming health care because he hadn't already fixed Part D. Say what?

Indeed, part D is bad in that it doesn't allow the government to negotiate the price of drugs with the drug companies - something the VA does every day for the drugs it provides to veterans.

But for now it is providing life-saving drugs for millions of seniors and, as part of Medicare, it will be revised when the "entitlements" come up for review, something everyone knows is in the queue after we manage to avoid a greater depression.

For now, Medicare and Social Security are not on the table, whereas getting health care for all is right there on the plate in front of us.

Yet Thom excoriated Obama for not having already fixed something that isn't even in the on-deck circle yet.

The things he said and the volume and speed at which he said them were enough to get you really pissed off at Obama - and especially to doubt his commitment to health-care reform - until you remembered that his premise was baseless.

In another interview this week, he was talking to someone, again about health care, when he referred to Obama as "this guy", as in "This guy wants to . . . yada yada yada"

In all my years of listening to every moment of every hour of Thom's program by pod cast, the only people he ever refers to as "this guy" are the people for whom Thom has no regard. Coming from Thom, "this guy" is a very dismissive way of referring to someone.

Another thing he's begun doing that isn't up to what I thought were his standards is to take something a caller says and then repeat it as if he knows it were true.

Someone will call in and say something that fits nicely with Thom's point of view, but that I have already read here or elsewhere is not true, but Thom will them repeat it to another caller. That's just not up to his standards.

He has adoring listeners, and they call in to thank him for educating them, and I share that gratitude. I know a lot more about FDR and Thomas Jefferson than I did before I listened to him.

Yet, he shouldn't believe everything his callers say. One caller this week asked why no progressives talk about health care except Thom. He answered her by accepting her premise.

I realize he can't do his own show and watch everyone else, too, but good grief. Ed Schultz talks about it constantly, as do Ron Reagan, and even Richard Greene. And those are the only ones I listen to, besides Maron and Seder.

He also referred to himself as "The leading progressive talker". I think there are several candidates for that title, and it just doesn't sound like the old Thom to say that.

This comment may sound like I don't like Thom Hartmann, when in fact I do and have for many years.

The reason I noticed and remembered each of the above instances are because they were in such contrast to what I was accustomed to hearing from him.

His efforts had always been based in logic and factual arguments.

I sense a change and it's one that makes me very uneasy.

[Mythsaje]

3. I think he's really pissed off.

He really worked hard to get these people into office and they're ignoring the realities of the situation. I can't say for sure, since I haven't listened to him a lot lately, but that's not his normal m.o. by a long shot. They're doing everything backwards and it's going to make an even bigger mess than it would have otherwise. I think he's afraid that if they don't really get on board real reform, the Republicans are going to take advantage of it.