Dividist Creed
Voting by Objective
How to Vote for Divided Government
Dividist Library & Studies
About The Dividist
Obamamann Oddball - Part Deux!
UPDATED: 27-JUN-08
A few weeks ago DWSUWF noted the glaring contrast between Keith Olbermann's coverage of Clinton and Obama on a similar issue. We compared classic high dudgeon Keith Olbermann "Special Comment" excoriating Hillary Clinton for failing to sufficiently denounce Geraldine Ferraro for her inappropriate comments, and two days later sitting down with Jonathan Alter to soft pedal Barack Obama's virtually identical response to a similar problem with Jeremiah Wright. Here we go again.
Hat tip to Glenn Greenwald and his column today "Keith Olbermann: Then and Now", where he analyzes Olbermann's remarkably similar and truly jaw-dropping hypocritical coverage on the FISA question. I won't even try to add to his commentary, Glenn says everything that needs to be said:
"On January 31 of this year, Keith Olbermann donned his most serious face and most indignant voice tone to rail against George Bush for supporting telecom immunity and revisions to FISA. In a 10-minute "Special Comment," the MSNBC star condemned Bush for wanting to "retroactively immunize corporate criminals," and said that telecom immunity is "an ex post facto law, which would clear the phone giants from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with [Bush's] illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass email." Olbermann added that telecom amnesty was a "shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of Fascism -- the merged efforts of government and corporations that answer to no government."...
Strong and righteous words indeed. But that was five whole months ago, when George Bush was urging enactment of a law with retroactive immunity and a lessening of FISA protections. Now that Barack Obama supports a law that does the same thing -- and now that Obama justifies that support by claiming that this bill is necessary to keep us Safe from the Terrorists -- everything has changed. Last night, Olbermann invited Newsweek's Jonathan Alter onto his show to discuss Obama's support for the FISA and telecom amnesty bill (video of the segment is here). There wasn't a syllable uttered about "immunizing corporate criminals" or "textbook examples of Fascism" or the Third Reich. There wasn't a word of rational criticism of the bill either. Instead, the two media stars jointly hailed Obama's bravery and strength -- as evidenced by his "standing up to the left" in order to support this important centrist FISA compromise..."
Read the whole column at Salon. I can't add to it, but I can do one thing that Glenn did not - post both video clips so you can witness one of the most gratuitous displays of world-class journalistic ass-kissing ever seen.
Damning George W. Bush for supporting the "fascist" FISA Telco Immunity provision:
Praising Barack Obama for "not cowering" before the left and bravely taking a stand in support of FISA, even with the Telco Immunity provision intact:
Excuse me. I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. What else can be said? This has to even be embarrassing for Obama. I mean, even messianic figures prefer their sycophants to display their devotion in a more subtle, restrained manner.
Back to Glenn for concluding comments:
"What's much more notable is Olbermann's full-scale reversal on how he talks about these measures now that Obama -- rather than George Bush -- supports them. On an almost nightly basis, Olbermann mocks Congressional Democrats as being weak and complicit for failing to stand up to Bush lawbreaking; now that Obama does it, it's proof that Obama won't "cower." Grave warning on Olbermann's show that telecom amnesty and FISA revisions were hallmarks of Bush Fascism instantaneously transformed into a celebration that Obama, by supporting the same things, was leading a courageous, centrist crusade in defense of our Constitution.
Is that really what anyone wants -- transferring blind devotion from George Bush to Barack Obama? Are we hoping for a Fox News for Obama, that glorifies everything he says and whitewashes everything he does? [...] The real danger is that those who defend Obama the Candidate no matter what he does are likely to defend Obama the President no matter what he does, too. If we learn in 2009 that Obama has invoked his claimed Article II powers to spy on Americans outside of even the new FISA law, are we going to hear from certain factions that he was justified in doing so to protect us; how it's a good, shrewd move to show he's a centrist and keep his approval ratings high so he can do all the Good things he wants to do for us; how it's different when Obama does it because we can trust him? It certainly looks that way. Those who spent the last five years mauling Bush for "shredding the Constitution" and approving of lawbreaking -- only to then praise Obama for supporting a bill that endorses and protects all of that -- are displaying exactly the type of blind reverence that is more dangerous than any one political leader could ever be."
More Reactions:
Generik is keeping score.
Big Test Democrat agrees.
Damozel wonders if Olbermann is lying to his viewers or himself.
Don Surber is amused.
UPDATE: 27-JUN-08
Keith Olbermann says he did not read Greenwald, but responds to Glenn with a diary on Daily Kos anyway.
Greenwald reads Olberman's diary and dismantles Olbermann's response.
Olberman says, "Lets change the subject."
Many bloggers take note.
Finally, on today's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" Keith announces that Obama will be the subject of an upcoming "Special Comment" on Monday saying "Senator Obama wants his cake and eat it too". I think that means that Olbermann is throwing in the towel.
More importantly, as Greenwald notes:
"Two Democratic Senators actually fighting against the FISA bill -- Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd -- succeeded in blocking a vote in the Senate until after the July 4 recess (the vote is now scheduled for July 8). Jesselyn Radack -- the DOJ lawyer who became the whistleblower concerning the Bush administration's treatment of John Walker Lindh -- writes here about this success. It's only a temporary reprieve, but delays of this sort can enable further opposition to build and/or allow unanticipated events to intervene."
Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.
Technorati tags: Keith Olbermann, 2008 election, Democrats, Barack Obama, FISA
Posted by mw at 6/26/2008 06:25:00 PM
Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Democrat, FISA, Keith Olbermann
Brilliant analysis. Olbermann's hypocrisy isn't surprising. He drank the Kool-Aid a long time ago and he's been hooked ever since. He's every bit as dangerous as the neoconservatives he rakes every night on his show.
But what really appealed to me was the systematic way Olbermann pimped Obama. First there's Obama's: "Yeah, I don't do cowering." Then there's Alter speaking of Obama: "He's always been a politician; he'll always be a politician," to which I add my own little soundbite: "Yeah, that's precisely what scares me."
As for Olbermann, it's hard to believe that this guy is pulling down six figures a year for being a bad over-actor who reads well. He's also a hypocritical, melodramatic, tripe vending, neo-liberal buffoon. But then that fits MSNBC's modus, doesn't it? Too bad he's not even entertaining. Perhaps since he, along with Chris Matthews, believes the sun rises and sets in Barack Obama's shorts, they might consider throwing themselves under the O'Train as it makes its way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I think it would be a fitting tribute to the incoming prez. And from a purely pragmatic point of view it's not a bad way to grease the rails, so to speak.
http://lovenshector.webs.com
Olbermann's full-scale reversal on how he talks about these measures now that Obama — rather than George Bush — supports them. On an almost nightly basis, Olbermann mocks Congressional Democrats as being weak and complicit for failing to stand up to Bush lawbreaking; now that Obama does it, it's proof that Obama won't "cower." Grave warning on Olbermann's show that telecom amnesty and FISA revisions were hallmarks of Bush Fascism instantaneously transformed into a celebration that Obama, by supporting the same things, was leading a courageous, centrist crusade in defense of our Constitution.
WELCOME TO THE DIVIDIST™ PAPERS
Divided Government Is Better Government.
DIVIDIST FEATURED VIDEO:
Antonin Scalia Ruling - Gridlock Is A Feature Not A Bug.
Justice Antonin Scalia explains the virtues of our divided government with the insight, clarity and simplicity of language that made him a giant on the Court. If you understand the Framer's intent with checks, balances, and separation of powers, you'll understand that divided government and gridlock is what really protects our freedoms, and makes our system exceptional.
Apparently it's a difficult concept for many Prog Pundits
SEARCH ME: Go ahead. It's not like we have any 4th amendment protections any more.
FOLLOW ME: Via E-mail
TWEET ME: I said I would never tweet. I lied.
Tweets by @Dividist
LIKE ME (on Facebook):
UNDERSTAND ME: Featured Post
Why do Americans vote for divided government?
UPDATED: 01-January-2019* Since the end of WWII, including the 2014 2018 midterms, there have been 36 federal elections in the United ...
JOIN ME: Stand in Solidarity with the United Coalition of the Divided!
Want to join The United Coalition of the Divided? Just write anything supporting Divided Government and let me know. I will link you, blogroll you, favorite you, tweet you, paint your house and walk your dog.
DIVIDIST ARCHIVE:
Through the looking glass with Obama, McCain, the ...
Friday Flotsam - Naked Ambition Edition
Meme Me:
Reason - Hit and Run
Inauguration Day Forum -
Contra O'Reilly
On January Text Messages Between Amazon and Parler Clearly Showing that the Former Didn't Have a Beef with the Latter's Content Moderation but Were In Fact Exceedingly Concerned About the Possibility of President Trump Joining the Platform (this Right After Trump Had Been Bounced by the Fascist Shits at Twitter) - https://legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Parler-v.-Amazon-Web-Services-Parler-Reply-In-Support-1-13-2021.pdf - While I'm certainly not an expert on antitrust laws, it does seem to me that two monstrous companies (Twitter and Amazon) conspiring to devastate a small...
A "Garden of National Heroes"? - This was presumably my last Bloomberg column about a policy from President Trump, here is the setting: On his way out the door, President Donald Trump is...
Mischiefs of Faction - Vox
Donald Trump just issued a surprise pardon for the man at the center of an epic fight between Google and Uber - [image: Ex-Uber Engineer Accused Of Stealing From Google's Waymo Self Driving Car Project Appears In Court] Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The ful...
In The Mailbox: 01.19.21 (Evening Edition) - — compiled by Wombat-socho Silicon Valley delenda est. OVER THE TRANSOM 357 Magnum: So What Did Draconian Lockdowns Do For California? EBL: King Fishers – ...
From The Tea Party To Trump: Reflections On The Eve Of Inauguration - Inez Feltscher Stepman joins Emily Jashinsky to reflect on Trump's presidency and how the institutional distrust he harnessed goes back to the Tea Party.
Christian Thugs at the Civic Center Garage - On Sunday afternoon, a Christian evangelical group held a maskless, in-your-face service in front of the elevators to the underground Civic Center Garage....
League of Ordinary Gentlemen
About that 1776 Commission Report - [image: The 1776 Commission]A bunch of knowledgeable folks on the subject of American history have thoughts on the 1776 Commission's final report. Read f...
Not PC
Trump's Fall and the Rise of the Tribal Collectivists - *Richard Ebeling surveys the cultural and political wreckage in the aftermath of Trump. Friends of liberty must gird themselves, he says in this guest pos...
Libertarian Republic
Important things to remember when buying chairs and supplies for your office - Suitable office chairs has features that we thought it necessary to inform you to consider essential points when buying them. You can buy the best office...
Glittering Eye
The Triumph of Politics Over Policy - In a New York Times column in defense of a $15 national minimum wage, Paul Krugman paints anyone who doesn't see the unalloyed benefit of a $15 minimum wag...
Free the People
Who Is to Blame for the Capitol Riot? The Answer Is Simple and Complex - The public seems to agree on the liability of the mob, but we shouldn't just rest on individual responsibility and call it a day. The post Who Is to Blam...
Jonathan Turley
Incitement Or Free Speech? Comey Calls For the Republican Party To Be "Burned Down" - There is an interesting interview this week with former FBI Director James Comey. He states that he now believes that…
Lazy Aphorist
A Paradox of Immortality - Dying young is the only way to live forever.
Loops, the Limits of Language, the Paradoxical Loneliness of "I Love You," and What Keeps Love Alive - "The very task of love and of language is to give to one and the same phrase inflections which will be forever new."
JustOneMinute
Two More Days - Here we go again.
Death of a Million Trees
Cal Fire grant has created fire hazards in the East Bay Hills - Hoping to get the public's attention, I will begin this story with its ending. This is the concluding paragraph of my formal complaint to Cal Fire about i...
Bill Gates, UN Launch New Climate Agenda - Who elected Bill Gates? Which voters, in which countries, approved these measures?
Fix Pacifica
Planning Commission meeting, Tuesday January 19, 2021 - This Planning Commission meeting may be viewed and virtually participated in on ZOOM https://zoom.us/j/99091160676 , or through the City website lives...
Cato @ Liberty
The Good and Bad of Biden's Plan to Legalize Illegal Immigrants - Alex Nowrasteh Recent news reports suggest that Joe Biden will propose a series of immigration bills for Congress to consider early in his administration...
The Unbearable Whiteness of Being - You can't listen to them. You can't take their word for it. You can't stroll into that midwest diner, ask them what's up, expect them to know their own s...
America Is Business
The Way I See It - How We Solve the Social Media Debacle - It cannot be argued by anyone paying attention that social media has become something to fear rather than admire. In it's infancy, it allowed people to...
Jack of Kent blog
A few thoughts on Forex brokers and trading in the UK - My long time readers would know that I don't normally comment about financial matters, but today I will make an exception. According to FT, forex trading h...
Sabato's Crystal Ball
The Objectors Versus the Rejecters - Dear Readers: Last night, UVA Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato interviewed Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) about last week's chaos on Capitol Hill, the m...
Skating on the underside of the ice
Of Passion And Compassion - After I wrote my most recent piece about wandering around in the world of the homeless, called "Fixing The EGR", some folks accused me of being compassiona...
Reflections of a Rational Republican
2020 Writing Statistics and Revenue - Check out my 2020 Year in Review on my other site. Happy New Year!
New Moderate
Looking Past the Apocalypse - If you've ever dreamed about living in a dystopian sci-fi novel, 2020 was your year. Combine a rampant plague with social isolation, race riots, economic s...
More Fun and Games with UFOs - Ever since the term "centrism" became a euphemistic, "dog whistle" term for corporatism, I have been distancing myself from the ranks of so-called Centrist...
PostLibertarian
How can we use our resources to help others the most? - This is the fundamental question of the Effective Altruism movement, and it should be the fundamental question of all charitable giving (and indeed, this p...
Last Best Hope of Earth
Constitution Sunday: "Mark Antony" - "Mark Antony" Independent Chronicle (Boston), January 10, 1788 The original sin in America's Constitution was how it addressed—or failed to address—the iss...
Eternal vigilance
Agenda for community control of the internet - The Internet is an odd industry. On one hand, there is often a low cost of entry for service providers which favors small firms, but there is also immens...
Hankster
Good news from New York! - More New Yorkers reject political party labels, becoming second largest voter group https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/election-2020-blank-voter-unaff...
Noahpinion has moved to a new website! - Well folks, it's been a fun 10-year run at this little website. I'm moving on to a new platform: Substack! Here's the new Noahpinion: https://noahpin...
Gruntled Center
There is No Necessary Connection Between Conservatism and Profit - The conservative parties in all the developed world have become the great protectors of profit-making against all forms of regulation and compassionate l...
Morpheus Sailing
re: I`m interested in your offer of Social Signals - hi blogging-target.htmlnoreply Glad to hear that, here are the details below More information here: http://www.realsocialsignals.co/buy-social-signals/...
Update On My Situation - It's been two and a half months since I deleted the blog, so I owe all of you an update on recent events. I haven't heard anything from the New York Times ...
Now Posting At Substack - I'll be writing at The Popehat Report at Substack, and (generally) not here. This blog will remain as a historical artifact and collection of writing. Not ...
Marshall Power Locke
MY FAILURE AT IN-N-OUT BURGER - The other day I got into my car (mostly just to drive it to keep the battery charged) and drove to the closest In-N-Out Burger to get some tasty cheeseburg...
Rad Geek People's Daily
June Jubilees and Two Versions of General Order No. 3 - To-day is Juneteenth. Celebrations on June 19th began as a Jubilee Day festival by freed African-Americans in Galveston and around abouts in Texas in 1866....
Izuru
The North Were Not the Good Guys, Part Two - Last year I wrote a post responding to a video I saw which asks if we should still be watching the classic movie, Gone With the Wind. A couple days ago I h...
MW Mobile Blog
Spring Shag Lake Summary - This post is a placeholder. After three weeks at Big Shag Lake, I'm back in EssEff and determined to properly document all aspects of our (un)usual sprin...
Musings from the Den Mother
The Plague!!! - [05/18/2020: Minor text edits for clarity and image edits for size. -DM] It took a global pandemic to get me back here, so first things first: I'm coronavi...
The 'Cost-Effective' Coup and Other Myths - Engineering the overthrow of a foreign government that poses absolutely no threat to the U.S. is the definition of gratuitous. The post The 'Cost-Effecti...
The Corona Virus: What Questions Should Trump Ask? - In my previous post, I revisited the effort by another president – Gerald Ford – to address a different potential pandemic. This was the 1976 swine flu ca...
theflyingalmond
Lessons From 1917's Successes - "While movies set in the Second World War remind us why we fight, movies about the First World War force ourselves to ask that same question"
Mrs. Maisel goes full Alinsky on Mrs. Schlafly - This article was first published at Da Tech Guy Blog SPOILERS AHEAD Alinsky rule #13"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Pamela G...
Questions and Observations
Observations, The QandO Podcast for 04 Oct 19 - After a two-week hiatus, we try to catch up with everything that's happened since we last spoke. Nancy Pelosi announced that the Congress has started an "Imp...
RedStateEclectic
It's Been a Long Time... - I'm in the process of writing a book--a memoir of sorts of my time in the Nebraska Legislature, as well as a "manifesto" (maybe you can call it that) for L...
Black Leadership Summit 2019 Adult Confirmation - The post Black Leadership Summit 2019 Adult Confirmation appeared first on Turning Point USA.
Significance of a Good Reseller Panel - Web host reselling thru the use of a reseller panel is a good online profit source. This holds true only if you will take time studying the ins and outs of...
Rants and Reason
What is a Constitutional Crisis? - https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-h5ike-b322fe Karen and Chuck attempt to define "Constitutional crisis." They fact check a meme. Chuck chats (also kn...
Hit Coffee
Free Med School - Why Medical School Should Be Free We estimate that we can make medical school free for roughly $2.5 billion per year — about one-thousandth of what we spen...
Bankrupting America
Why Is Positive Sentiment About Obamacare Increasing? | Twitter Trends - Following last week's revelations concerning President Obama's broken promises about the benefits of Obamacare, the president's poll numbers have fallen ...
Asymmetric Information - Megan McArdle
We've moved our RSS feeds - Thanks for reading! Copy and paste this link into your feed reader to subscribe.
Free Wheel Media
North Korea Denuclearization – Trump or Timing? - Trump's hardline approach on North Korea has gotten a lot of headlines. First, the mainstream media made it feel like we were on the cusp of World… Read mo...
Politics From The Middle
PLAYERS IN THE NFL TAKE A KNEE! - It is curious that President Trump and others are so upset at football players taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem. These football play...
RestoringHistory.US Blog
A Test of Endurance at Dunkirk - In Operation Dynamo, 338,000 Allied troops were evacuated from Dunkirk to England in less than 10 days, pushing the troops and the rescuers to their limits.
To Russia With Love - Conspiracy theories are dangerous things and should generally not be believed. OTOH, if the most benign among the plausible interpretations is not all th...
The Bric
The Last Close Election - Clinton won the popular vote by about three million in November, about 2.1 points better than...
Something to Consider
How Did Russia Manipulate US Voter Opinion in the Election? - The news is focused, for good reason, on the CIA's report on direct Russian hacking of the DNC and Podesta servers. We don't know the details, but the CIA ...
Crossed Pond
The Era of Fear - Today I made myself sad. During work this morning I listened to the entirety of Donald Trump's acceptance speech. It was not easy, but I plowed through the...
Independent Rage
Time's Come to Call Out the gop-er Talking Heads (Like Krauthammer) on Their 2015 Declaration That This Was "The Best [gop-er] Presidential Field in a Generation!" Hardly... - All in all, the 2016 gop-er class has turned out to be little more than an analogous group of rummies to the 2012 assortment. To wit: - Marco Rubio: The...
Govt Access Project
- *Homeless Inc's 3/7 Hearing Ignores Tent City Sweep* A key component to address homelessness in San Francisco is highly dysfunctional, consists of Homeless...
Clintons Re-Promise Transparency - Six years of tax returns and one little "oops."
Mischiefs of Faction
We've Moved - The Mischiefs of Faction is now located at mischiefsoffaction.com. Here's how to follow us: All our posts will appear on our new homepage, here. You can...
Fear, Fear Everywhere and Never a Stop to Think - Waiting my turn at the barber shop, looking at the magazines: Field and Stream, Coastal Angler and things like that. Hot Rod, American Iron: all manly thin...
The Right to Try, 3D Printing, the Costs of Technological Control & the Future of the FDA - I've been thinking about the "right to try" movement a lot lately. It refers to the growing movement (especially at the state level here in the U.S.) to al...
Julian Sanchez
A CryptoFiction - Here's a micro-story I started with the Access Crypto Summit flash fiction prompt in mind, left half done, and then belatedly finished off anyway, because ...
Scalawag Mobile Blog
View from my office today -
RINO Hour of Power: Baltimore Riots: Are we in for a long, hot summer? - You won't want to miss the next episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and co-host JR Dunn of the American Thinker. The worst urban ri...
Ketchup Economics
Misunderstanding Singapore - Lee Kwan Yew memorial edition - Predictably, there was a lot of irrelevant noise after the passing away of Lee Kwan Yew. Nearly all the obituaries I read were wide of the mark, The Econom...
No Water Economists
My idea of good (academic) leadership reading - Along with questions about turning to the Dark Side and embracing admin work, the other question I'm often asked these days is what I read or what have I r...
Your 2014 Iowahawk Earth Week Cruise-In Grand Champion Carbonator - All the entries are in, and once again it's been a bang up year for the Earth Week Cruise-In with 70 entries from around the world. Thanks again to all par...
Flyover Notes
Capital Flight: Micro and Macro - First the Micro, another tale of someone with lots of money actually wanting to pay less of it in taxes. Paulson Said to Explore Puerto Rico as Home With L...
Poli-Tea
Record High Independent Identification: 40% - From Gallup: The percentage of Americans identifying as political independents increased in 2011, as is common in a non-election year, although the 40% who...
The Cranky Critter
Having Trouble Posting On Threads? - I've received word from someone who says Blogger won't accept his posts. If anyone else is having trouble, let me know at cranky_critter@yahoo.com. It's be...
Mental Detritus
St. Louis Good Friday Tornado Update - As we watch tornadoes flatten Joplin Missouri, Oklahoma City, and now the Joplin area again, St. Louis county is still recovering from its own EF4 tornad...
Pragmatic Center
Fly Bottle
THE DIVIDIST HAS YOUR BACK:
On your bumper
GOOGLE PAGEVIEWS: