The O’Reilly Fracture
Obama made a mistake by going on Bill O’Reilly’s show. O’Reilly is a provocateur not a journalist. Not only is O’Reilly pitifully biased, he’s also a rude and disrespectful egomaniac. As such he ignores his job as an interviewer, which is to ask questions that may lead to informative answers and instead argues with the subject of his interview.
Sure he has a point of view but this wasn’t a debate. Obama had no reason to debate this second stringer who had the gall to argue with and repeatedly interrupt the President. The arrogance of this clown telling the President that he; ”doesn’t want to hear,” something. Who the hell does this little piska think he is?
Compared to the 2008 interview he has toned his act way down but a leopard cannot change its spots. He is still rude and disrespectful and that is due to his ego, which led him to mistakenly assume that he was the social or intellectual equal of the President.
Mourning- Not what it used to be.
Janet Napolitano the head of Homeland Security, commented at the Memorial Service in Tucson that this heinous act was not representative of the city off Tucson, of the state of Arizona or of the country. Is she kidding? If that act was representative of any state in this country it was representative of Arizona where a climate of hate, fostered by rampant bigotry and non-existent gun laws, made such a catastrophe inevitable.
A Times editorial, Arizona in the Classroom, tries unsuccessfully to make the point that the problem with Arizona, the last state to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day, is not with their citizens but with their politicians. Oh, yeah? Who voted for these bigots? Or were they appointed by somebody’s version of God?
Obama gave an impassioned speech insisting that we must love each other or at least treat each other with respect and that we must learn to disagree without vitriol. He’s right, he’s absolutely right but that doesn’t mean we should go blindly into the night.
Governor Jan Brewer, who preceded Obama is one of the reasons I make the above statement. She is one of the principal hate mongers in the country and her cynical comments were as low as it gets. If there is anyone responsible for establishing the climate that nurtured the act that was being mourned, it is Governor Brewer, who heads a state where gun laws don’t exist and mental health treatment is non-existent.
I was also more than a little disturbed by the audience at the service. They sounded more like a crowd at a rock concert than mourners. The screaming, shouting and interruptions of speakers by undecipherable comments from this rude group undermined the tone of the service and displayed a distinct lack of respect for both the speakers and the occasion itself. What the hell is wrong with the people of Arizona? I spent some time down there a number of years ago and at least then they were walking upright.
Of course, some people are just too stupid to walk upright. Sarah Palin allowed the morons on her Political Action Committee to place cross hairs over the locations of her political opponents. Then when Gabrielle Giffords, one of those opponents, was shot by a maniac who no reasonable person thought was actually influenced by Palin or by her tasteless communication, she doesn’t have the brains to keep her mouth shut and ride out the Democratically-manufactured storm.
No one doubts that Palin can be charismatic, when she isn’t being annoying, or that she possesses a certain animal cunning that has stood her in very good stead, but she will never be mistaken for a member of Mensa or even the smart one at the bowling league. It is, however, her animal cunning that should have alerted her to the hole in the road, into which she fell this week, when she decided that she had to inform the country of her innocence in the shooting.
Of course, when she used the term “blood libel” without completely understanding its historical significance she simply proved that she is too dumb to be a dog catcher let alone president. Maybe Sarah will just have to be satisfied with being rich. If she really wants more face time in the media, the smart move would be to talk Linda McMahon into putting her on the card at the WWE, where she could bill herself as the “Quitter from Alaska.”
A letter to Meet the Press on Social Security
Mr. Gregory,
I have been watching Meet the Press for many years and have always appreciated the honesty and integrity, with which it has been conducted. That is why I have been surprised lately by the attitudes of two men, whose intelligence I greatly admire, yourself and David Brooks, in your approach to Social Security.
Having read both the Social Security Act and much commentary on it, I have been of the opinion that the monies involved in Social Security in no way impact our Federal Budget. The funding of Social Security comes from payroll deductions and employer matching funds, which are wholly outside other tax considerations.
Federal law, as I understand it, states that the funding for Social Security and its Trust cannot be invaded. Despite this any number of former administrations have, in violation of said Federal Law, removed funds from the Social Security Trust to fund necessary or favored expenses that those governments could not otherwise afford.
If these illegal acts had not occurred, Social Security would currently be doing fine with any number of conflicting estimates projecting its health far into the end of this century.
If this is true, if my understanding is correct, and from all I have read it seems to be, why is it constantly under attack from informed people like yourself and Mr. Brooks? Is it a lack of understanding on your part or is it just too easy a target to be ignored?
I have written about this on my own political blog, urbancurmudgeon,com and I bring it up here because it seems to me that if w waste our time considering options that are not realistic, we will not have enough time or resources to deal with the options that are.
Sincerely
The Urban Curmudgeon