A couple of different leading Democrats this weeked were speaking truth to power. Unfortunately, they were speaking the truth about Liberals.
First there was Rep. David Obey (D-WI) and his now infamous “Idiot Liberals” comment when confronted by anti-war moms in a hallway, which was caught on Youtube (see video below).
And now we have Democratic Presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich calling Democrats “cowards” for pulling out of the FOX News-sponsored debates in Nevada. As Sister Toldjah pointed out, “You know it’s gettin’ bad when Kucinich sounds like the voice of reason“:
“If you want to be the President of the United States, you can’t be afraid to deal with people with whom you disagree politically,†Kucinich said. “No one is further removed from Fox’s political philosophy than I am, but fear should not dictate decisions that affect hundreds of millions of Americans and billions of others around the world who are starving for real leadership.â€
Kucinich said “the public deserves honest, open, and fair public debate, and the media have a responsibility to demand that candidates come forward now, before the next war vote in Congress, to explain themselves.â€
The KosKids — who are the ones who pull John Edwards’ puppet strings — are furious, even going so far as to call Kucinich a weenie.
But Kucinich is right — the Democrats are acting like cowards here. And they are wrong to do so. It’s a dangerous precident for a major political party to try to decide which news organizations and which view points are allowable in the public discourse.
Kudos to Kucinich.
I have to say, I’d put Edwards at the very bottom of my list of any Democratic candidate I’d support. I think he better “Move On”
When the GOP holds a debate on Air America I’ll reconsider my opinion that the Democrats did the right thing.
I think a more apt analgoy would be “when the Republicans hold a debate on CBS, NBC, or ABC”. All of which have already happened, and will happen many times in the future.
In order for your analogy to be valid, the Dems would have pulled out of a debate being held on the Rush Limbaugh radio show.
So Roger Ailes compares Barak Obama to Osama bin Laden and performs some kind of stand up routine on Hillary Clinton’s marriage: it doesn’t sound like Jim Lehrer or Ted Koppel to me- a bit more like Al Franken or Janeane Garafolo.
But I think the question that sums up this ‘controversy’ for me is:
Do actual respectable “balanced” news networks issue press releases telling candidates and political parties what they are and aren’t supposed to do?
Tell me the last time that
oops. Scratch the last sentence.
Hardly anybody in this country even knows who Roger Ailes is. What he said may have been in poor taste, but the Dems have played that game time and time again. Even I didn’t know who he was until I happened to catch part of the awards presentation on c-span about 2 a.m.
In the end, all the general public will see is that the Dems are refusing to engage in debate on a well established popular news channel.
I don’t think it makes any difference who knows him- it’s simple: if you want a fair hearing for your ideas you don’t go on a network whose president who either libels your candidates or treats them like a standup routine.
I’d be happy for Democrats to reach out to Fox News viewers- perhaps that a part of why I come to this website- but do you have any doubt that Brit Hume’s first question would be, “Mr. Obama, when did you stop beating your wife?”
Of all people on Fox News, Brit Hume is definitely not the person who would do that. I have never seen him be disrespectful to anybody and I watch him a lot.
Believe me, I watch the other cable news channels as well and there are plenty of hosts who can match the best of sharp tongues on Fox News.
But, this will pass and is actually ridiculous to the point of being childish.
Robbie:
Scroll down to the graphs.
On none of the major Sunday news shows (ABC This Week, Fox News Sunday, Meet the Press, and Face the Nation) do the numbers of Democratic guests equal the numbers of Republican guests. On Fox News it’s a 2 to 1 difference. If GE, Viacom, Disney, and the News Corp. were actually interested in pushing a ‘liberal agenda’ don’t you think they might invite, you know, liberals?
Dianne:
Can you think of anchors of the mainstream networks calling a sitting congressman senile?