What a journalist coo it is to land an interview with the president of the US, to be able to sit down and interview the president must be equivalent to being the guest of honor at a State dinner.
Fox News was given this plum assignment to air on Super Bowl Sunday, surely one of the most watched football games of the year. Now, one would think that if given this prime time event, Fox would do it’s homework….they would be deliberate and wise when choosing the reporter who would conduct the interview. But, instead of being clever and careful when deciding on the interviewer, Fox went with their usual mindless decision of choosing a man who, in no uncertain terms, could be called anything other than a bombastic ignoramus.
Bill O’Reilly has been around for many years…..I remember him from the days when he hosted a half hour entertainment show…..that was before he found his true calling of radical rightwinger who is prone to rants, fabrications & conservative nonsense. This man made a sham out of his prime 15 minutes alone with the president, choosing to come across as a ego maniac who has the status to be offensive & discourteous to the leader of our nation.
O’Reilly’s interview with the president says much about the Fox network in general, besides their poor judgement in choosing O’Reilly to conduct what should have been an opportunity to discuss with the president the many problems we face in our country. If a person was being honest, they would have to admit that Fox News is no more about the news than any other entertainment show on TV today. To say they stretch the truth, or present distortions as fact, is well known. That this entire network is completely comprised of republican conservatives, is astounding. That so many people believe what these hosts say, is testiment to the failure of the educational system in this country.
Should anyone wish to do something for their country, find a person a day that watches and believes the Fox drivel and convince them that they are wasting good brain cells in their effort to be informed…..or, as the case probably is, a way to vent your problems of the day by throwing things at the TV in total frustration at those who choose to deliberately distort events of the day.
Arianna on Bill Maher last night:
1. HP is not a Progressive or political blog, 95% of articles are not on politics.
2. Arianna is not a Progressive, she is a centrist and doesn’t think that many issues are right or left.
3. She attacked Obama and said he doesn’t get it, he worked on HCR when he should have been working on jobs.
4. She said she may vote for a Republican in the 2012 elections.
As Edward G. Robinson said in The Ten Commandments, “Myah, where’s your Messiah now?”
BTW Maher was such a brown nosing lapdog to her, it was pretty embarrassing to watch.
Well if she says she’s a centrist, than why was she bashing Obama 6 mos. ago for being one also? She should have no problem with him and should be praising him… 😕
She’s now preparing to vote Republican in 2012. So being centrist is now a stage in that, 3 months from now she may call Obama a leftwing radical.
Now wonder even the thought of her makes me utterly sick.
Arianna is the modern definition of a “Sellout”, both literally
( via AOL) and ideologically ( flip,flop,flip so far…).
She is slowly coming to resemble a new creature henceforth to be referred to as:
Arianna Orly Taitzington 😉
😆 the resemblance of the two is not lost on me either.
It does make some sense since so many of her posts were about right leaning people. Even though many of them were somewhat unflattering they never the less kept those names in the news. The comment moderation might well have been her way of diminishing the impact of the story and maybe even allowed her to use it to her own advantage, oh well, gone is gone. I’m not surprised she is considering switching parties. I think she was a Hilary supporter and when she lost, AH decided to take out her disappointment the old fashioned way. Her comment regarding HCR and jobs was ridiculous. POTUS had no power with the senate locked down. How he could have ever gotten a jobs bill through is simply an impossibility as even a rube like me can tell. The republicans wanted no part of any success for this President. They should be ashamed at the way they betrayed the American people
You would think knowledge of this would doom HP but they have their hooks into people for understandably social reasons.
Faux Facebook?
KQ yes, and that’s why the heavy moderation is what will doom HP. Doom on her!
Khirad posts:
“Sometimes I play the game of: how long can I last through watching Beck’s show.
It’s sort of akin those people who will dare another to drink disgusting kitchen table concoctions.
Afterward, I feel the same nausea and sick coming up in my throat.
My record is about twenty minutes, though I’ve watched longer recently as he’s unraveled over Egypt.”
Gawd, your like my husband, he does the same thing…last night he had it on to see what he was going to say about Mubarak stepping down, I lasted only 10 min., had to leave the room…
Edit: I tried to do the block quotes thingy, but it didn’t work…maybe I should read the f’en manual!
It’s masochistic, or like watching slasher movies. This horror is true though. It’s a morbid curiosity.
This? http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Smilies
What was that link again? I missed it? 🙂
TruthWins, http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Smilies
Truth:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Smilies
Conspiracy sells well. Beck is a master of that craft.
I think he imagines himself to be somewhat of a modern-day Joseph Smith. Maybe that gold he’s hawking is from the sacred tablets that Smith “discovered”.
He learned grifting from the best.
But even his conspiracies are not coherent, it’s like he has ADD, he can’t seem to finish a thought or sentence…now I like to think of myself as somewhat of an intellengent person, but if I can’t follow where he is going with his point, I highly doubt that some of his lesser informed and intelectually stunted viewers are following it either…many in my husband’s family were dedicated followers of his until lately…they say they couldn’t understand what the heck he was talking about and have stopped watching him, saying that he was just “nuts”.
You have to remember that many of his biggest fans spent their childhood crawling under their school desks practicing for a nuclear attack. No wonder we are so paranoid.
I tried posting his rant about Egypt and a bunch of people got mad at me! “We can’t stomach that” etc. It was a really funny rant, especially if you could set aside the fact that millions of people actually take him seriously.
Indeed, it’s only funny if you can forget the people that hang on his every word. THAT’S what frightens me.
It’s difficult for me to set aside that little fact.
It really is.
I can dig that.
Can something be both hilarious and terrifying at the same time?
Oh sure.
I think Beck is the very definition of that. I may even look for that Egypt rant you mentioned.
‘Cause now I’m curious.
“THOSE PEOPLE ARE ORGANZIZED!!!!”
As far as I’m concerned, anyone can post anywhere they want. I like posting on multiple sites. And if people want to poof their HP accounts, that’s up to them, and if they want to stay, that’s up to them. Personally, I find it an exasperating site with the moderation and the willfully ignorant trolls.
I’ve seen people on HP “unfanned” and even attacked — sometimes quite viciously — behind their backs simply for the sin of posting on certain sites. I am not making that up.
There’s been an exodus there because of the AOL thing, the exasperation with the moderation, and because of the out-of-control cliques (which hopefully are finally being broken up). I don’t begrudge anyone who stays there, or who posts anywhere. I don’t feel the need to control others.
I still go back from time to time because I miss some of the people. No other reason.
Believe me most members here surf and/or post elsewhere and we have never discouraged any member from doing so. A main theme here is freedom of expression and diversity. You cannot promote either if you “punish” people for surfing and blogging on the sites they like.
So you need not feel like you have to explain yourself here.
BTW love your avatar. I’m an Anime fan as well.
You go to deviantART.com, there’s a million drawings of Haruko. Many of them are quite clever, but some of them are kinda sick.
I just “avert my eyes” from those. 😀
PS — and the thing about “punishing” and attacking people because of where they choose to post … grrrr, it still makes me really angry.
Cheers I love the deviantART site.
I think they’re just being douchenozzles.
I really don’t begrudge anyone deciding for themselves where to and where not to post, but that is some major asshattery.
Arianna’s not your girlfriend, peeps.
[I threw up a little in my mouth at that]
Former Fox News employee: ‘Stuff is just made up’
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/fox-news-employee-stuff-up/
Is Right-Wing Talk Dying?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-02-09/glenn-beck-sean-hannity-ratings-drop-right-wing-talk-is-dying/
Is Right-Wing Talk Dying?
One can only hope.
I’ll go and read “Is Right-Wing Talk Dying,” but before doing that, I have to say that I think that it’s too much to hope for. Right-Wing talk seems pretty entrenched from where I stand.
Maybe it’s because where I’m standing is in the State of Georgia, here in the deep South. I know plenty of people who call Rush Limbaugh’s show “the news.”
I’ll read that article, and I thank you for providing a link to it, but I’m going to be hard to convince.
Oh no, I’m with you on that.
But, we can hope, right?
But, I do hope Beck at least has marginalized himself even more.
I’ve heard others say that they stopped listening to Hannity after he put down Egyptian protesters and shilled for Mubarak.
There’s always hope.
I didn’t know that Hannity supported Mubarack, but I’m not surprised. I’m glad you heard people say they stopped listening for that reason.
That’s a good thing. I’ve heard Sean Hannity before, and he’s just awful.
He’s the ultimate hack.
I heard from my dinner guest last night (a former news producer for CBS and a former director at TNN) who is now a communications professor. He said Becky has lost 39% of his viewing audience, and he feels he is on the short list to be canned. One can only hope.
BTW: The conversation started when I shared Patsy’s “Mock the Dummy” video find with him.
I hope that’s true, AB. It would be so wonderful if Beck got sent packing. They could replace him with Ed the Talking Horse and have a better quality of programming.
Ok for some snark: Isn’t Becky Glenn the Talking ASS?
I trust my source, Ecat. Let’s hope his source was as reliable.
Wow.
Some long-timers over at Huffington are really dissing the people who left there and are posting here and other sites.
The posting here is vastly superior to the high-school drivel that most (I said most, not all) seem to prefer over there.
david p… Those may be the folks that have not been Kicked Out yet?
I saw that last night before I came here, that’s too bad that that is happening, but am not surprised. To me, the ones that are left there are there for the social aspect of it. You probably have noticed that they are the ones who have their little clique of friends. With lots of inside jokes, who bash anyone that dares to poke their nose in, whether they are right or left leaning.
Over the last year or so the posts became just “one liners”, serious discussion was a thing of the past, as you stated “drival”. That’s when I started coming here, was never one to be part of a clique.
BDM, I find that you are quite correct.
And as we’ve discussed, HP promoted that back and forth one-liner stuff by pending anything longer than a tweet.
When they started pending one word responses you just knew it was going south
Yep.
Buddy, so glad to see you here.
🙂
I always loved to read Hume, Abby, Coboltblue, yours and other oldtimer’s posts way back when, I learned so much, and the writing was exellent…
Whatever happened to CobaltBlue? He went AWOL some time ago. Or maybe just changed socks?
He’s still around. You will find him at “The Realm” from time to time.
He also hangs out at Matt Corbin’s and LTTL’s blogs, (Southpawbeagle).
Ummm…Arianna doesn’t fancy herself the “Queen of New Media” fer nuthin’, Khirad.
I, for one, refuse to indulge her fantasy, or to support a site now owned by a company (AOL) that boasts Pete Peterson as a board member.
I did notice that HP made NO MENTION last night of the latest go-round in Teathuglical budget cut proposals…they’ve upped the ante yesterday from $35 billion to $65 billion. That strikes me as a “sin of omission” on HP’s part. Not that I’m at all surprised.
That’s especially interesting as something like two or three days earlier there was for a full day a large Obama article, accusing him that he would scrap heating for the poorer people.
Yup.
I found myself copying everything to notepad if it was a long post, then tweaking it over and over to avoid all the “buzz words,” (like “cow.”)
Stupid.
You are as OCD as me! Yeah! Someone else who copied, tweaked and posted, then it still went to pending. Argh
It happened to all of us. It was just weird.
I had to go to one-liners there because I grew tired of writing my tripe and having it go to moderation and never getting past the censors. So what good is that for learning? I’ve learned more here in a week than the time I spent at HP. Granted I was only there a tad over two years but still, more knowledge in a week?
To each their own
JD, agreed. I never write thoughtful posts over yonder. It just gets scrubbed! I generally only post quips over there.
Not true, escribacat, you wrote very thoughtful posts. Why else would I have fanned you?!? But over time all of us got fed up with the constant scrubbing and resorted to one or two-liners.
I agree with that. I think there are a lot of people here who I fanned because of their thoughtful words. Hell, I even fanned David P. That was the old days though. The last few months when the mods went wild I noted the posts went quieter and shorter and it was disappointing. Then the last weekend, when people were kicked off and they posted several inflammatory stories really started me wondering. Then Monday came and the whole site shut down. I left and came here to behold the words that had been missing for months from some of my favorite people.
Well put BDM. Those who clearly continue to act with a clique mentality have been doing so along the way and are part of the problem with HP.
The “Us and Them” philosophy with people of the same sensibilities is for high school cheerleaders, not for enlightened adults.
HP is the only place for such people to continue their childhood mindsets. Those who feel free to blog here, at HP or wherever they wish are likely bewildered by such emotional soap operas.
Notice how the reverse is not evidenced here? I have not seen a single comment at The Planet insulting or attacking anyone who chooses to stay at HP. Many here still blog over there and some of our friends have chosen to stay there.
They are still our friends, just because we like chocolate ice cream and they like strawberry, they are not insulting or spurning us.
Oh well, so be it. Such people wouldn’t fit in well at The Planet because cliques, group thought and provincialism are not permitted here.
This is the neighborhood bar for any and all adults in the neighborhood to drop on in and have friendly conversations and arguments. We act here as if we are all part of the same community that are friends at HP, DailyKos, etc. are part of.
A house divided and all that.
AdLib. I agree. 😎 By the way, when’s Happy Hour around Here?
AdLib, I’m very new here, but this is so palpable, and I breathe it in deeply and joyfully.
The neighborhood bar? Like in Cheers? I dub “Carla”. If Cliffie wasn’t such a Repubelickin, I’d be Cliff. Cross gender OK?
Cool.
Well they can kiss my ass, as I’ve been doing both for a long time.
With everyone here now, what need is there to go back?
And to each their own. I don’t care if they’ve stayed.
That’s what’s different, I guess. I’m capable of more than cliquish behavior and puerile snark.
Khirad, Good Morning, Well Said…
And a good mornin’ to you, as well KB.
😎 Khirad, since you are here, what are your thoughts of the military now being in charge in Egypt?
I echo your opinion.
It’s refreshing to spend time with people who can put more than two words together to make a sentence.
Even though I may often not agree with the content of the sentence.
But that’s the power of dialog, neither of us have to agree but in disagreeing their is knowledge and even wisdom. Every time I read a post from someone who presents an alternate view it changes me however slightly. I don’t necessarily change positions but I am more accepting of someone else’s reasons for having theirs. That in an of itself is very powerful and oddly even unifying.
I went there today to post to a friend from there about this site. She and two other high fanners were talking to each other about how they were staying because of all their friends. I am not surprised they are dissing the departed. It sounds like my memories of High School when someone leaves a clique then you really know how the remaining members felt about them. Yawn, for me I’m much happier with the dialog here.
When you’re provoked long enough, you start posting shit that you don’t even believe, just to try to even the score.
(speaking only for myself, of course)
With all due respect David, I would never post something that isn’t true to what I really believe.
I believe you.
Har.
Just kidding. I wasn’t able to be that strong. Good for you.
Sometimes I became a very nasty person over there, so much so, that I couldn’t believe that it was “me” posting that shit…that’s why I had to leave last year and take a break from it all.
I’m guilty of the same, BDM.
I actually think they wanted that. Instead of helping us find ourselves unified I think it paid for them to drive the wedges deeper.
Show me the money.
Controversy sells, dear.
Exactly, that was very much a concerted effort. (More of my thoughts about Huff on Off Topic in a lengthy comment in case you’re interested.)
BDM, I too was feeling the same way. It seemed like the only time I was having Fun there was during the holiday season.. Everyone was soo much more nice to one another and soo much closer to the ground. I thought after the first of the year to just not go there anylonger. I am soo glad that I bumped into SueInCA, who gave me a bit of info, I registered here maybe two minutes after she told me about the Planet.
Yup, it turns you into a different person. One that will lash out at people for making an honest point, because you thought they were taking a shot at you. That’s not a person I like.
I can’t tell you how many times I would write something and have someone write back and call me a troll and I should go back to Fox News. I would be astonished and write them back and ask them what it was I wrote that gave them that impression. They never answered but I found I was trying to be so clear, or sarcastic and sly to avoid the mods I couldn’t get my points out clearly. I haven’t posted anything here YET that has people writing me back and asking WTF. I say YET because I sometimes write distracted and then I can even outsmart myself
David, I agree with your self assessment. I noted many times your measured responses some times gave way to less than gracious comments. I had the same problem and was often less gracious. Here I can just be me. Very freeing.
Thanks for noticing.
Often when I was subject to abusive responses I didn’t take them seriously because I knew the poster was far more intelligent than the comment would lead you to believe.
Hey, if you don’t lose it now and then, you’re probably not human. The key is recognizing a failure (like I had to do on many occasions), apologize, and move on.
David, I found myself sometimes defending a position I didn’t really feel passionately about. For example, if someone was bashing Obama about his deal on the tax cuts for the rich–which I opposed–I sometimes took the other position, but not to be argumentative. It was that there was no place for nuance or any shades of gray. I would argue FOR the deal because I really do see the pluses and minuses, and get impatient with the “throw the baby out with the bath water” mentality. The tax deal was a perfect example of that. Again, I was opposed. But to declare that that was the final straw–well, that just seemed ridiculous to me. So I would argue against the black/white position. Huffington forces people to take sides because of the built-in opposition to any subtlety. It’s the nature of posting there.
The firebaggers thrive on poutrage.
I’m liking you a lot more on here, I must admit.
And, I can understand that.
So David, are you going to “come-out” over at huffy puffy? If so, when? I’d like to witness the fallout.
Thanks…
David, it is disappointing but it is not unusual human behavior. They have a sense of being abandoned, even though their reason is telling them that the people who left did so out of principle and it is in no way a reflection on them.
When people do things that are not reasonable, they are usually driven by blond emotion.
Why would anyone feel they were “locked” into only blogging here or there? Why couldn’t such people expand the variety of their experiences? They could, of course.
I am a bit surprised at those who in effect are acting as if they have to show loyalty to a corporation first and their friends second. It is a form of provincialism that bewilders me.
So only true friends choose to live in their neighborhood and just because friends choose to move to a neighborhood they are now traitors?
And there are those who send messages over here as if trying to sneak out something across the Iron Curtain. It is kind of silly, there is no iron curtain, it takes no more time or effort to come to The Planet and visit friends here than it does to go to HP and visit friends there.
It is very unProgressive behavior. After all, we all remember who famously quoted, “You’re either with us, or against us” and adopting the philosophy of a radical Republican is hardly sensible.
PS: I tried to click the thumbs up for your comment but clicked the thumbs down by mistake, will correct that mistake shortly!
My favorite typo of the week!
“blond emotion”
Sorry, AdLib, but I got a chuckle out of that one too.
Maybe he was having a “Blonde Moment”?
That’s it, I’m heading back to HP and taking my peroxide with me!
Check AL below. Always suspected he was a “bottle blonde”.
Funny thing is, we are so used to not having the ability to edit our posts over at HP, that you get used to reading posts with typos, know what the word should have been, accept it and move on.
Unless the post is so riddled with typos and you have no idea what the heck the poster is trying to say, that will be the only time I would reply with a, “WTF?”
LOL Those were the posts that usually elicited my canned response…
“Bang your helmet against the wall…you’re breaking up.”
😆
Thanks for the laugh!
😆 Aliens!!
Good response!
Yeah, I’m not a spelling Nazi, we all do it when we’re typing so fast and furiously, but there are some that have real deficiencies in the spelling and grammar department – and thus almost always deficiencies in logic and all around basic cognitive skills.
Unless your dyslexic or something, on HP, it’s usually a bottom feeder troll.
And, I’m especially embarrassed when the offender is from the left…
Though invariably, it is usually not.
Khirad, I only correct someone’s spelling or grammar when I want to annoy the poster! Hehe.
I’ll correct some troll’s spelling or grammar if they go on a rant about how stupid liberals are. 😀
There’s this one troll that I be arguing with furiously and If I happen to write there instead of they’re or your instead of you’re they’ll claim, in their power as high school teacher that I’m stupid and don’t know the difference.
Of course, this was on a Pakistani flood page where they couldn’t bring themselves to sympathize with those affected and I’d chewed them out over being a stone-cold bigot.
So yeah, it’s fun to annoy trolls with sometimes, but being on the other side is really annoying as well. I started shooting back and criticizing their improper use of ellipses!
Aren’t you just glad that here we can type “Nazi” and not have encode the word so that it would get by the Mods?
N@zzi
Naaassi
N-_a_z-z_1
Notsey
Nazz1
How many friggen variations did we all have for words and we all just accepted it!
Exactly, HH.
That’s mostly when I do it.
And, those posts are very common from them.
You’d think they’d be more careful when writing something like that and opening themselves up to such an easy retort.
BDM: I was thinking that as well as I wrote it!
I just feel like, “have some self-respect and proof your post and use spellcheck.”
I mean some of the posts are in third-grade English or worse. I don’t like being a grammar Nazi, but it really is a issue of self-respect in my book. How do you expect anyone to take you seriously if you write gibberish?
Sometimes a post is worse than just riddled with typos.
The worst ones are so jumbled that they have become unintelligible, and the only meaning that comes through is the intention to be insulting.
I saw a very good description of such a post: to say that “That’s not right – that’s not even wrong.” The RationalWiki page explains: “the phrase implies that not only is someone not making a valid point in a discussion, but they don’t even seem to understand the nature of the discussion itself, or the things that need to be understood in order to participate.”
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
I’m remembering that!
You’re not even wrong!
I can’t tell WHAT you are!
Just for you, I’ll leave it uncorrected!
You must!
“Blond Emotion” I resemble that remark/typo Hhmmph!
AdLib–you have mail. 😉
Back at ya!
Got it–thanks!
AdLib, I was quite sure you think along those lines. Glad that you confirmed it.
I confess to getting caught up in the emotion from the other end: I feel slightly angry at those who defend HP. I wouldn’t be angry if those who are there simply want to be able to comment, and who know the nature of the site and yet say to themselves, “Well, it is a busy site and I really like their software with its ease of use. And besides, it IS still where there are a lot of readers.”
What annoys me is the denial. I am impatient with people who delude themselves and think it is a Progressive and honest place. I still post there–although rarely now. I am not judging anyone who posts there for whatever reason, as long as they have some intellectual honesty about it.
But those who feel they must defend their posting by claiming that nothing has changed, and that Ariana is a decent and credible pundit–I have no use for them. To me, that is the same willful ignorance exhibited by many on the Right who insist Fox is Fair and Balanced. At least have the guts to simply say, “It’s fun.” or “I like the nasty back-and-forth. I like to bait the trolls.” or I still have friends here I enjoy posting with.” None of that upsets me. And no, there is no reason to be on ONLY one site.