Limboob
Catch the Keith Olbermann segment on the whole Rush Limbaugh-Michael J Fox ad controversy. Keith Olbermann, the lone liberal "news" pundit in a sea of conservative "news" pundits, is a guilty pleasure of mine. Like a bit of chocolate at the end of the day, I listen to him as I drift off to sleep at 11. And his guest in this segment, Sam Seder, who I've never heard of before, is someone I now want to hear a lot more of. Mostly reasonable thoughts on the topic -- it makes the right's hysterics look pretty stupid.
Oh well... at least it appears that Limboob is following through on his WH obligations.
As an aside, I don't generally have a problem with famous people commenting on politics. I comment on politics all the time. So what if I only have an audience of 3? Anyone who knows me knows I'd be making the same comments if I had an audience of 3 million.
Besides, it seems that the people who find politic'ing celebs offensive are the people who happen to disagree with their politics. For example, loud mouth country singer Dixie Chicks=bad but loud mouth country singer Tobey Keith=good. Hollywood heavyweight Barbara Streisand=bad but Hollywood heavyweight Ron Silver=good. Michael J Fox campaigning for Republican Arlen Specter=good but Michael J Fox campaigning for Democrat Claire McCaskill=bad. Actor Sean Penn=bad but actress Patricia Heaton=good.
As always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Update: It occurs to me that I don't recall the left going after Michael J Fox for campaigning for Specter in 2004. I also don't think the left goes bonkers every time Tobey Keith or Ron Silver or Patricia Heaton open their mouths. This actually zeroes in on the one thing that sets me off the most: the right's insistence on ridiculing or dismissing opponents on superficial terms in lieu of dealing with issues. It's easier to mock someone (Howard Dean's "scream", John Kerry's "Lambert Field", "orangey tan", "manicures", Al Gore's "crazy beard", "angry speech", "kiss with Tipper", etc) than it is to deal with the substance of their ideas. In this case, it's easier to make a big deal out of Michael J Fox's appearance or whether or not he should become a political activist for his cause than it is to confront the issue of public funding for stem cell research. I saw kind of a similar trend with Michael Moore. I admit I never saw Fahrenheit 911 in its entirety (it appeared to me that the movie was taking certain liberties with the truth) but it seems that the right, instead of rebutting the content of the film, settled on something more like "Michael Moore is fat!" as a talking point. My point is, I rarely see the dialogue on the left descend into the kind of petty crap you hear from the right. The right seems to revel in this. Maybe that's why the left is so "angry".
Update II: I did notice on rewatching the clip that Olbermann and Seder make several mocking references to Limbaugh's Oxy and Viagra problems. So ok, there's some mocking on the left. Can you think of any other examples? Just curious if it's as lopsided as I think it is... maybe it's just me.
Oh well... at least it appears that Limboob is following through on his WH obligations.
As an aside, I don't generally have a problem with famous people commenting on politics. I comment on politics all the time. So what if I only have an audience of 3? Anyone who knows me knows I'd be making the same comments if I had an audience of 3 million.
Besides, it seems that the people who find politic'ing celebs offensive are the people who happen to disagree with their politics. For example, loud mouth country singer Dixie Chicks=bad but loud mouth country singer Tobey Keith=good. Hollywood heavyweight Barbara Streisand=bad but Hollywood heavyweight Ron Silver=good. Michael J Fox campaigning for Republican Arlen Specter=good but Michael J Fox campaigning for Democrat Claire McCaskill=bad. Actor Sean Penn=bad but actress Patricia Heaton=good.
As always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Update: It occurs to me that I don't recall the left going after Michael J Fox for campaigning for Specter in 2004. I also don't think the left goes bonkers every time Tobey Keith or Ron Silver or Patricia Heaton open their mouths. This actually zeroes in on the one thing that sets me off the most: the right's insistence on ridiculing or dismissing opponents on superficial terms in lieu of dealing with issues. It's easier to mock someone (Howard Dean's "scream", John Kerry's "Lambert Field", "orangey tan", "manicures", Al Gore's "crazy beard", "angry speech", "kiss with Tipper", etc) than it is to deal with the substance of their ideas. In this case, it's easier to make a big deal out of Michael J Fox's appearance or whether or not he should become a political activist for his cause than it is to confront the issue of public funding for stem cell research. I saw kind of a similar trend with Michael Moore. I admit I never saw Fahrenheit 911 in its entirety (it appeared to me that the movie was taking certain liberties with the truth) but it seems that the right, instead of rebutting the content of the film, settled on something more like "Michael Moore is fat!" as a talking point. My point is, I rarely see the dialogue on the left descend into the kind of petty crap you hear from the right. The right seems to revel in this. Maybe that's why the left is so "angry".
Update II: I did notice on rewatching the clip that Olbermann and Seder make several mocking references to Limbaugh's Oxy and Viagra problems. So ok, there's some mocking on the left. Can you think of any other examples? Just curious if it's as lopsided as I think it is... maybe it's just me.
posted by Logic101 at 10/26/2006 02:50:00 PM
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