October Low Political Content Thread

[TomVeil]

Originally Posted by RollinHand

I like turtles

Filmed in Portland!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMNry...layer_embedded

[adios]

Originally Posted by DVaut1

....
And this is one reason why: essentially, the crowd of people that took visceral offense to Rush Limbaugh getting smeared by fake quotes because the media was lazy wasted their energy defending a guy who shows absolutely no restraint engaging in the same behavior.
....

Who exactly are you referring to and please be specific regarding "visceral" reaction.

[Ineedaride2]

Originally Posted by ElliotR

This needs to be independently highlighted imo.

That's like something I would do, right here.

"Hey guys, check out what I just read on neverheardofthisplacebefore.com! There's a 97% chance that it's not true, but this 3% would be awesome. I'd look for more info, but I gotta make a peanut butter sandwich!"

[DVaut1]

Originally Posted by JackWhite

Seems irrelevant. When Rush Limbaugh was smeared with fake quotes, it doesn't make it more or less awful if Limbaugh then did the same type of thing to someone else. The anger was directed as members of the MSM who showed atrocious journalistic standards by not doing the slightest amount of fact checking.

I guess I hold journalists at major newspapers and news channels like CNN to a higher standard than a self promoting talk radio host. Limbaugh is not a journalist, but Rick Sanchez claims to be. Because Limbaugh might have done that same thing, it doesn't lessen the journalistic malpractice of CNN, MSNBC, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Washington Post, among others than ran with the "James Earl Ray should get the Medal of Honor" type stuff.

These points are all fair enough, and I should hope that claiming I don't have much sympathy for Rush doesn't imply that I'm excusing journalistic malfeasance. I said in the post you quoted that the media treated Rush unfairly by criticizing him for quotes that were fictional. You should hold the media to a higher standard. I'm just not shedding any tears for Rush, who's an equivalent no-fact-check-smear-merchant when the opportunity arises.

I'd also point out, as the right does often, that no one watches Rich Sanchez, or really watches CNNMSNBC, or reads bankrupt dying newspapers like the Post and the St Louis Dispatch, relative to Rush's 8 digit audience, so even though Rush is entertainment and not news, the number of people who are walking around right now thinking Barack Obama wrote some college thesis claiming the Founders failed to include resource distribution in the Constitution but missed the part of the show where Rush admitted it was a hoax probably far outnumbers the number of people who think Rush Limbaugh believes James Earl Ray deserves a Medal of Freedom or that slavery kept the streets safer at night and missed the retractions.

[Borodog]

8 digit audience? they might not have all their teeth bust most probably have all their fingers IMO

[ElliotR]

Originally Posted by Borodog

8 digit audience? they might not have all their teeth bust most probably have all their fingers IMO

8.0

[Huehuecoyotl]

Going after the lucrative octo-digit market. A market Rush beats CNN at imo

[Vecernicek]

Originally Posted by Borodog

8 digit audience? they might not have all their teeth bust most probably have all their fingers IMO

Originally Posted by ElliotR

8.0

I just started to write a response complaining about how biased mods are biased and that Boro deserved at least a 9.0 ... and then ISWYDT. I'm an idiot.

NHs both.

[vulturesrow]

Originally Posted by ElliotR

Don't worry now that we know you're a David Lee Roth fan we know this can't possibly be the case.

Man law allows for being totally gay for David Lee Roth.

[vulturesrow]

Originally Posted by DVaut1

Re: Douthat quote.

It's not as if "Institutional support for reproduction" is some especially deep, irrefutable argument gay marriage opponents invented, and that Douthat quote is some awfully pretentious and condescending bull****.

Poor Ross Douthat, who can't make handwaving appeals to his esoteric religious beliefs about who to grant civic licenses to without the reality that the policies he advocates actually cause immense pain and suffering. Nobody takes the standard secular arguments against gay marriage seriously because they're frankly both illogical and cruel.

If the state has an interest in raising children, limiting marriage to heterosexual couples and only heterosexual couples is both over-inclusive, in that provides the "benefit" to couples who choose not or cannot reproduce, AND underinclusive, in that denies the benefit to everyone else -- single parents, gays, whatever.

When a state policy is crafted such that "rewards" are doled out in such an overinclusive and underinclusive manner, that's pretty much textbook definition of terrible state policy, which Ross Douthat would certainly happily point out if we were instead talking about race-based compensatory affirmative action programs designed to right past wrongs and level the playing field instead of gay marriage.

Since the patent and obvious absurdity of Douthat's position has probably been pointed out to Douthat no less than 102434385385 times, I'd guess that, far more being shouted down by emotional gay people, is why he's not bothering to talk about it anymore. And since Douthat isn't an idiot, this actually also lends credence to the notion that Douthat's insistence on clinging to nonsensical secular justifications as if they're meaningful is probably because all he has left in the tank is his arbitrary religious preferences that he'd like to foist on the rest of us.

Of course, Douthat does the standard right wing pundit thing, which is to claim that he can no longer make his stupid argument NOT because it would get laughed out of any introductory logic class at any community college but because he's the victim of demagogic gay people.

I have as much sympathy for Ross Douthat being unable to make his argument as I do American Muslim men who can't publically advocate their very-deep-but-unfortunately-too-abstract-for-all-the-stupids "Institutional Support For Virtuousness" argument that entails a policy forcing women to wear burqas because all these emotional women out there keep shouting them down claiming they want to wear whatever the **** they want.

To the liberal blogs out there that are all like "aww, sensitive Ross Douthat, at least he sounds like a nice guy!", I'm guessing they ignored the completely condescending part, where Douthat's claims his faux substantive argument just isn't listened to anymore by an impatient, crude, stupid and emotional public.

You dont like Douthat very much do you? I remember you taking him to task in this forum before. I have more to say about this since I'm indicted by proxy here but I need to get to sleep. Getting ready to move is hard work!

[DVaut1]

Originally Posted by vulturesrow

You dont like Douthat very much do you? I remember you taking him to task in this forum before. I have more to say about this since I'm indicted by proxy here but I need to get to sleep. Getting ready to move is hard work!

He's fine. Like I said in my post, he's a smart guy.

As for taking him to task, I'm sure I might have done it if he said something I thought was wrong. But I wrote this before, in a thread about pundits:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...01&postcount=5

Ross Douthat is good.

Because he generally is.

[JayTeeMe]

Originally Posted by JackWhite

Seems irrelevant. When Rush Limbaugh was smeared with fake quotes, it doesn't make it more or less awful if Limbaugh then did the same type of thing to someone else. The anger was directed as members of the MSM who showed atrocious journalistic standards by not doing the slightest amount of fact checking.

I guess I hold journalists at major newspapers and news channels like CNN to a higher standard than a self promoting talk radio host. Limbaugh is not a journalist, but Rick Sanchez claims to be. Because Limbaugh might have done that same thing, it doesn't lessen the journalistic malpractice of CNN, MSNBC, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Washington Post, among others than ran with the "James Earl Ray should get the Medal of Honor" type stuff.

Haven't those fake Rush quotes been out there for years?? Seems like I remember hearing them >5 years ago.

[istewart]

Ah, Hannity.

During his Fox News show on Tuesday night, right-wing pundit Sean Hannity attacked a new ad campaign soon to be appearing in New York City subway stations that raises awareness about atheism. The ad, sponsored by The Big Apple Coalition of Reason, reads: “A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?”

Sensing an opportunity to exploit the ads for political benefit, Hannity told his audience that a Christian group could never get away with airing ads like that:

"Can you imagine the outrage if a Christian group put pro-God ads in the New York City subways? What outrage."

Of course, in New York's biggest subway station, Times Square, there are Christian lunatics chanting and proselytizing 24/7, with signs and racks galore.







You'd think that as a lifelong resident of New York, Hannity might know better. It couldn't just be blatant partisan disingenuousness...

[RollinHand]

Hannity is a troll though.

[The 13th 4postle]

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