The second installment from liberal guest blogger Leah. There are a lot of statements I disagree with here, but for now I'll let it sit:
0:00 “Why would Time magazine run this story?” So, here’s a question? Does Limbaugh consider himself an unbiased journalist? Does he consider himself a conservative commentator and pundit? His current argument seems to be that the only reason Time magazine is writing a story regarding a faltering stimulus package is because it shows balanced journalism on one of the major stories of the day. That is to say, they’re covering themselves from appearing liberal.
Are there any “Main Stream Media” sources that Limbaugh and other conservative commentators view as neutral? This is a genuine question. From an outside perspective, it seems that the feeling is that everyone who doesn’t reach the same conclusions as they do must be shilling for the other side.
3:47 “The tactic here is speed and deception” Limbaugh is citing an article from CNN Money that states that the latest polling numbers show that the public is behind the idea for national healthcare, but history shows that their love of it will soon wax and wane. The article is here.
Limbaugh goes on to say that Obama is pushing through health care now so he can get it through before the economy tanks. What if the tactic is speed for the sake of pushing through a policy while the public is still behind the idea? Wouldn’t that be a more logical and politically savvy move, though less sexy in that Evil Mastermind sort of way? If you know support for an idea dropping as time passed was what killed your legislation last time around, wouldn’t you want to get it through as quickly as possible? Not to mention, while your poll numbers were still good and you still had political capital to spend?
4:22 Okay, I’ve never heard of Mort Zuckerman before, but apparently he’s the editor of U.S. News and World Report. So, I have no idea why Limbaugh’s pronouncing his name “Thuckerman” as if he’s someone to be ridiculed. It’s a great article that would play into his current rant. I can’t understand why he doesn’t cite more of it.
5:29 Now, he’s citing a Newsweek article to make his point. This, when 2 minutes ago he was railing against how all these mainstream papers are “in the tank” for Obama. Sorry, Rush. You don’t get to have your Liberal Media Cake and eat it too.
8:55 Apparently, all average Democrat believes that anyone who makes more than they do is a “selfish bastard” if he complains about taxes. What happened to all that talk about ‘east coast elites’ and ‘real america’ out of the Republican Party during the election or… I don’t know, yesterday on this program? Limbaugh is saying that only Democrats hold resentment or jealousy towards those with higher incomes or education. Really?
And Obama and the democrats are taxing for their own interest, not the nations. Really? How do you pay for government if not through taxes? How do you rise out of a national debt drastically increased by a previous administration (who also happened to be Republican) if you stop collecting taxes? Also, other than agreeing to allow the Bush tax cuts to lapse in 2010, where has the current administration raised taxes? I would rather see a so called tax and spend administration than a cut taxes and keep-on-spending-anyway-while-we-pile-on-the-debt administration.
9:56 We’re back to Obama the Evil Mastermind who wants to destroy the middle class. In the middle of all of it is a fundamental misunderstanding between conservatives and liberals.
Yes, we liberals believe that some of the actions our country has taken over the decades have been “unjust and immoral.” We will say so. We speak truth to power and criticize our country, and would love to see these things change or even get “fixed.” However, this does not mean we don’t love our country and we get really annoyed when conservatives say that it does. We see it as loving our country enough to tell her we know she can do better.
11:11 An impression of the “voice of the new castrati” who believe that taxes are a civic duty. Why do they have a lisp? This rings homophobic in my ears and I have a hard time hearing anything else he’s saying. This is a shame, because he actually has a semi fair argument in there for once. Eric, quick! Mark the date and time! Check and see if hell has frozen over!
How ironic from a man who only the day before railed against prejudice and racism. Hypocrite. Preaching hate is fine, as long as it’s the people I hate.
14:22 Obama did not say we have to get rid of all missiles. He said we need to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. I believe we have over 10,000 at this point. Surely 1000 would be enough to destroy our planet if we really got a hankering to do so.
14:52 Limbaugh’s mad that the Democrats say not catching bin Laden’s indicates failure. Wait. The Bush administration and the CIA didn’t catch Osama bin Laden after 8 years and more than 4000 dead soldiers and tens of thousands of destroyed lives and minds,and they’ve… succeeded? Really?
18:46 “You have to be very careful here, because he doesn’t mean that. If he wanted better circumstances or people able to find work and good wages, he wouldn’t be doing the policies he’s doing.”
I am dumbfounded and flabbergasted by the paranoia indicated in this statement. What if Democrats just have different ideas than Republicans about what stimulates an economy and supports a society? Why does there have to be an evil intent behind Obama’s actions for people to be afraid of? Go ahead and say Obama’s wrong. Say he’s making the wrong choices for this country and the wrong policy decisions. I can respect that argument, even if I disagree with this. But, this theory of an evil conspiracy? No. I cannot respect it. “All of this is by design.” Please.
22:04 First off, Joe Wilson surfaced before the US entered the Iraq war, and was quickly attacked by the administration. There was this whole grand jury investigation? You might have heard about it. Second, it’s been proven, PROVEN, through primary source documents via the Freedom of Information Act that the Bush Administration deliberately ruled out dissenting intelligence opinions in the lead up to the war in Iraq and cherry picked which information they would share with Congress and what they would not. To say Congress was misled by the administration is truth, not an example of whining or weakness.
Beyond that, Biden is saying we misread, we misjudged the state of the economy. He is not blaming the Bush administration. In the interview Limbaugh cited yesterday, he says precisely this. While he does speak of the “economy we inherited” his next sentence is “It’s our responsibility now.” To say the administration is saying, ‘we were lied to again’ is a complete fallacy.
Bush lied. He lied to Congress, the UN and the American people. So did the CIA. And their lie was a bigger deal with greater consequences than a blow job from a 21 year old. Deal with it. You don’t have to love your country less in order to believe it. Honest.
23:56 Obama’s approval numbers. Sigh. I’m trying to find this great graph I saw the other day of Obama’s approval numbers in relation to other presidents at similar points in their terms. I cannot. Here’s an article that makes the point well, though I apologize for the source:
By the by, Democrats are pissed at Obama for many different reasons, including the economy. The LGBT community and civil libertarians are PISSED at him. I wonder how much of the Republican approval rating he’s actually keeping as he’s thrown those promised progressive policies to the wind.
28:52 Let’s paint everyone with one brush and call it a day. Let’s make huge generalizations, assume everyone on the Other Side is the same and thinks the same and believes the same. That way, we don’t have to think or justify our reasoning. We can just hate. Lovely.
31:52 Sotomayor didn’t say her quote was taken out of context. She said that the context made the quote. She’s referring to the groups she was speaking to as the context and “attempting to inspire.” This is not about “reversing power,” as Limbaugh accuses. This is about making the playing field equal and “using law to do it.” It is often necessary, believe it or not. Brown vs. Board of Education springs to mind. Society wasn’t ready for the changes it brought. Society STILL isn’t ready in many parts of the country. You should hear the fights going on in my nephews/ school district in the small town of Jonesboro, LA. All hell is being raised regarding the consolidation of the school district as it would effectively desegregate the school district for the first time in history. It’s 2009.
“This minority mindset.” To deny racism and prejudice and discrimination has an effect on a person and the way they perceive the world is naïve at best and callous at worst. And Sotomayor is not blaming Justice Sandra Day O’Conner. She is aligned herself with Justice O’Conner’s sentiments.
Here’s my take on Sotomayor’s wise Latina comment, in response to a comment on my last post:
Leah, is the following statement, if spoken by a white male, racist:
“I would hope that a wise Caucasian man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina female who hasn’t lived that life,”
If “yes”, then please explain why Ms. Sotomayor’s statement (exactly the same with 5 word changes to show the inverse) is not being called on the carpet by MSM.
If “no”, then please explain why any adult white male in the political arena would be crucified in the MSM for making such a statement.
As I said in my original post, the life experiences of a Latina woman and a white man are different. Though we aim in America for all to be equal under the law and all to be equal in our society regardless of race or gender, it has not yet come to pass.
They are loaded terms, but there are such things as ‘white privilege’ and ‘male privledge’ in our country. White men are not followed in department stores, they are not pulled over in black neighborhoods or for driving ‘too nice’ of a car, their names are generally not enough to stop a company from returning a call on their resume, and white men are not more likely to go to jail than to college.
These are just the statistical facts of life based on the color of a man’s skin. We haven’t even touched on the privileges, overt and not, given them due to their gender.
Given, both race and gender can and are used against white men. As far as race, the 2nd Circuit on which Sotomayor sits ruled in a unanimous verdict on such a case, which is up for review by the Supreme Court. There’s an even-handed breakdown of the case here (I know, Eric. The Slate is ‘liberal.’ Read the breakdown and then tell me if it’s not even-handed.) As for gender, in the industry he is in, my husband would be looked at as uncommitted to his job if he took full Family Medical Leave when our baby arrived and he would have risked his job, regardless of the law.
Flip side of the coin: my friend the recently-engaged-but-yet-unmarried teacher was told by her principal that she should give some of the more prestigious AP classes she developed to her male colleagues next year, as she was sure to be taking maternity leave within the next few years while they would be working on advancing their careers.
So, let’s go with yes, the statement is racist. The MSM is covering the controversy extensively. A simple Google search will prove that. The story is all over the MSM, local, statewide and national. A YouTube search will come up with video of debates between right and left pundits/representatives on all MSM networks. If it is not receiving the amount of coverage the right would like to see, there is the fact that Judge Sotomayor has been on the federal bench for 17 years. With all her record out there for the public to see, why would all debate on her need to focus exclusively around one sentence from one speech?
And if the answer’s no? Why would a white man be crucified? Because a white man has a different life experience than a Latina, and there are aspects of the world that he has viewed from the outside, but has not lived himself. Because his statement would indicate that he was unaware of the world around him, and did not realize the privileged position he held in it. It would show he was unaware and unfeeling of the doors that had been held open for him simply because of the color of his skin and his gender. Because his statement would call up all the old demons of the days when prejudice and bigotry were acceptable and fashionable and could be worn proudly. Because we are not all equal under the law or in our day to day lives, and his statement would be racist.
In conclusion, we hope, both on the right and on the left, that judges will put aside personal biases and base their rulings on the letter of the law and the constitution. We also hope, however quietly in the pit of our stomachs, that they will bring some of their personal experience and beliefs into the courtroom. To say otherwise would be disingenuous. The right often hopes that a nominee’s religious belief that all life is sacred will influence their feelings on the abortion debate, regardless of the current written law of the land. The left often hopes that a nominee’s religious belief that all human beings are created equal in God’s eyes, and with the feelings about who they will love already hard wired in by that same creator, will influence the nominee’s feelings on gay marriage, regardless of the written law of the land.
My belief as a white, Jewish woman, raised in a privileged up bringing? As a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, I can understand antisemitism. I know that I do not wear my faith on my features, and I know there have been times I would have been treated differently if I had. But I cannot hide my gender and have been mistreated because of it. And if I was black or brown, I could not hide the color of my skin.
I know I did not understand poverty or the day to day slights of racism until I worked with people who lived it. I still cannot know what generations of self hatred because of dark skin or generations of poverty can truly do to a family, any more than I could truly understand what it was to be a parent before I had my daughter. If I was a judge, I would hope that I would have the honor and self awareness to admit what advantages my life experience gave me and what disadvantages it created.
Do I agree with Sotomayor’s statement? Maybe. I think it would depend on the white man.
I’m sorry for the lack of a definitive black and white answer. As strange as it may seem in this discussion about race, I just don’t think there is one.
Read Day 1 here
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