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Applauding That We Once Despised

By Big Tent Democrat

Bob Somerby has been documenting how we on the Democratic side have come to applaud that we once claimed to despise - unthinking stupidity in the Media. While my feeling on what Keith Olbermann has become (in essence an O'Reilly for the Left), Somerby discussed a few days ago one of the most outrageous pieces of offensive nonsense seen in some time from persons not named Rush or Bill O:

This may have been the dumbest two weeks we’ve seen in eleven years at this post. It’s also the week in which the pseudo-liberal world made an important announcement. Officially, we’re just as dumb as the other tribe has always been! . . .

. . . Olbermann had already spent his entire third segment with another comedian, Janeane Garofalo. Garofalo had been asked to discuss Rush Limbaugh’s 37 percent approval rate among women. . . . We wouldn’t know how to edit this mess—but this is the pseudo-liberal brain on reptile-grade dumb. Bright blue scrotums to follow:

OLBERMANN: Joining me now to revel in the fun is comedienne, actress and activist Janeane Garofalo. . . . So then, I’m going to see if I can do this with a straight face. What must Rush Limbaugh do to attract women?

GAROFALO: I want to say a couple things first. 37 percent is a shockingly high percentage of—I’m shocked by that. Secondly, this transcends gender. He is an unappealing person. The problems with Rush Limbaugh, as we were discussing during the break, it would take a neuro-scientist and a behavioral psychologist to sort that out. But failing that, let’s you and I discuss.

He is a narcissist who also struggles with self-loathing. That’s clear. That’s his prime mover. That’s the issue. He pretends it is politics. But there is something very, very wrong with Rush Limbaugh.

OLBERMANN: Agreed.

GAROFALO: He knows this. Most other, quote/unquote, “Republicans or conservatives” don’t have self-awareness. I think he does. He really dislikes himself. And the type of people that respond to his message have a whole bunch of other problems, too. But he’s—I think he’s trying to get women, I think he is trying to meet somebody right now. This whole charade that we are going through—and we are even giving it too much credit discussing it. But I think he would like to meet a nice lady right now.

OLBERMANN: Your 24 and formerly Larry Sanders Show colleague is no longer in the picture?

GAROFALO: Mary Lynn Rajskub. I think she actually just thought it would be funny to learn more about him. She said that he did suffer from low self-esteem. That was her impression of him.

OLBERMANN: It seems like that’s a long way to go to find that information out.

[BTD - and so on . . .]

You can watch the tape of this cosmic inanity at the Countdown site (just click here). But there you see, in a way we could never invent, the essence of tribal, reptilian thinking. We’ll only say this: Quite plainly, Garofalo wasn’t joking. It’s fairly clear that she really believes the various things she said . . .

To the extent that we think that way, we are Olbermann’s “target audience.” He is paid $5 million per year to attract our eyes to a screen. But then, Olbermann is now running the rubes in truly remarkable ways. . . . We’ll only say this: This is what the other side did, all throughout the 1990s. They invented endless tales about the ways the deeply vile Clinton and Gore had lied. If the facts weren’t there, they invented some facts. When required to fake it, they did. Like Pogo, we’ve now met the enemy. . . .

Somerby yesterday made some good points on the silliness surrounding Bobby Jindal:

Yesterday, we said we’d respond to one part of Frank Rich’s Sunday column. And so, away we sail. As usual, Columnist Rich was grandly posed as the world’s Most Racially High-Minded Man. With his standard clairvoyance, he just knew why Jindal was being promoted by his party:

RICH (3/1/09): If you’re baffled why the G.O.P. would thrust Jindal into prime time, the answer is desperation. Eager to update its image without changing its antediluvian (or antebellum) substance, the party is trying to lock down its white country-club blowhards. The only other nonwhite face on tap, alas, is the unguided missile Michael Steele, its new national chairman. Steele has of late been busy promising to revive his party with an “off-the-hook” hip-hop PR campaign, presumably with the perennially tan House leader John Boehner leading the posse.

. . . [A]ccording to Rich, Jindal was being thrust forward for one reason only—because he has a “nonwhite face.” . . . Of course, the Republican Party has a lot of bad racial history. But then, Rich has some brain-damaged history too. For example, he spent the entire year of 2000 insisting that Bush and Gore were two indistinguishable peas in a pod. Our question: Given his proven, world-class bad judgment, could there be currents within the GOP that have escaped his ken?

Let’s consider the path by which Jindal first achieved political prominence. It happened in January 1996, when Jindal was just 24. At that time, Louisiana Governor Mike Foster appointed Jindal secretary of the state’s Department of Health and Hospitals; the post gave Jindal control over 40 percent of the state budget. Years later, when Jindal was elected governor, the New York Times’ Adam Nossiter recalled this remarkable episode. . . .

. . . As far as we can tell, we’d never vote for Jindal ourselves. But his appointment and subsequent elections are part of a great American story, a great unfolding American story which also includes the recent success of the current American presdient. It’s just like Rich to insist that this story has to be built around racial bad faith. In fact, the evidence suggests that Republicans have always liked Jindal for what they see as his giant competence.

. . . Jindal gave a very poor speech in response to Obama last week. But the story of his appointment and subsequent election is a tale of American progress—and it involves the conduct of a lot of southern white Republicans, starting with [LA] Governor Foster. People like Rich will always insist that you should feed on the most bitter gruel. You see, Frank Rich is one of the world’s worst persons. Readers tend to get dumber, and more ugly, by reading his crab-hearted work.

These are good points I think from Somerby. And here's an important additional point I think, besides making Olbermann (and Limbaugh) a lot of money, is there a political point to this? Do we really think in these times, with the economic crisis we are facing, this is helping Democrats do anything? I do not think so.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 05, 2009 (boomark / email).