The best interview EVER...

Bill Clinton was and is one of the best examples of a true partisan, which makes for some very entertaining encounters. He contributed a great deal to the unmasking of the formerly "we report, you decide," "fair and balanced" Fox News.

... but why insult Al Sharpton?

Politico has an interesting article today airing lamentations of old-school conservatives regarding Sarah Palin's ever-increasing penchant for casting herself and her family as victims. Apparently, this is anathema to Palin's "blue blood" critics and they liken her to their other favorite old-time nemesis, Al Sharpton. What, of course, is left out of this comparison is that Sharpton (at least, the new Sharpton) airs mostly legitimate concerns. As well, as Slate points out in a response posting on their blog, it's not exactly breaking news that Will and company don't fancy Ms. Palin. Probably the most insightful aspect of the article is the ending... does Sarah Palin really care about the hate coming from that camp (who could probably learn a thing or two from Palin about rousing the house)...apparently, not much.

Here, Ms. Palin complaining about "50-year-old bully" Kathy Griffin:



...And Ms. Griffin's response

Clueless in Wisconsin...

So, This guy says that he can't understand why the Democrats left Wisconsin and, later, that their leaving was an absolute insult to the hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites who are struggling to find a job, much less one they can run away from and go down to Illinois -- with pay.

The hypocrisy is astounding!

What's wrong with this picture?

Just another reason to get rid of the death penalty. Illinois recently came to its senses. Thank goodness. There is still hope for the world.

Woe for NPR...

Statements made by Schiller:

The Republican Party is anti-intellectual.

Actually, Republicans depend on media's competing interests and lack of attention and the lack of critical thinking within the populace. This is fertile ground for the acceptance of the hypocrisy of many of their core positions such as their favoring of deregulation which nearly destroyed the U. S. economy; disastrous wars paid for on credit; decrying tax cuts for the wealthy but then screaming about the budget deficit, etc.

The Tea Party aren't just Islamophobic but are really xenophobic.

Besides being a generalization, what is really untrue about the statement? The tea party membership does tread very heavily in that territory. Really, what else unites them besides the obvious?

Conservatives are uneducated.

As said before, Republicans and, by extension, many conservatives expect that individuals will not possess or embrace the ability to think critically and argue logically beyond war and sports metaphors.

Again, I say, what did Schiller say that was untrue?

BTW, NPR should really get a spine and realize that no matter what they do or say, the Right is still going to hate them (flashback: John Kerry in hunting garb).

Interestingly, Andrew Breitbart said the best coverage of the NPR scandal is on NPR. This is instructive and says volumes.

Who you callin' educated?

The terms “educated” and “elite” are being confused with “wealthy.” The term “elite” has been used for a long time by right-wing conservatives as a put-down of college-educated liberals. These “educated elite” include many teachers and professors who shop at Marshalls and get hair cuts at Supercuts. As for the other end of the political spectrum, “fair-and-balanced” Fox News is funded by a billionaire conservative. Somehow I doubt that he shops at Marshalls, and gets his hair cut at Supercuts.

The term “educated” is subject to debate. Consider such icons of the right as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich (who thinks Obama grew up in Kenya) and George Bush (who never would have gotten into an Ivy League school without his daddy’s money). The truly educated person has a working knowledge of history, geography, science, English grammar, and current events. I do not consider a person to be educated if they don’t know the difference between North and South Korea, don’t know where the current U.S. president was raised, or can’t form a coherent answer when asked a question by the press.

NPR exec calls tea party members racist, xenophobic in secretly recorded video

As they say, if the shoe fits...

The former head of NPR's fundraising arm says in a surreptitiously recorded video by a conservative activist that members of the tea party movement are xenophobic and racist and that NPR would prefer to do without subsidies provided by the federal government...more