Ed Schultz channels Dan Ackroyd
There is no question in my mind that, whether Ed Schultz is aware of it or not, that’s what was happening when he called Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut.”
Part of the humor of the old SNL bit was that this sort of insult was so over-the-top at the time. Broadcasters and pundits were far more polite back then, despite whatever seething anger they might be harboring. Nowadays, of course, the seething anger bubbles over freely, and insults such as the one Schultz directed at Ingraham would have been considered mild if they had been directed at Sarah Palin. The surprise is not that Schultz said it in the first place, but that he received any sort of slap on the wrist for it and felt the need to issue an apology.
My first reaction is why is there so much anger on the left? We’ve seen it with Palin in spades, and there was Bush Derangement Syndrome. Those people are nuts and dangerous.
“”My first reaction is why is there so much anger on the left?””
Mr Frank
Because liberals are morphing into whackjob fundamentalist who will soon be enraged by cartoon likenesses of Obama.
I, for one, have generally gone out of my way to refer to the adversary in polite terms, so that when I ^do^ (for example) criticize Him, I refer to Him as President Obama. [My sarcastic capitalizing of Him is confined to forums such as this one.]
My reason is that if I refer to Him as “that fraud” (for example), it tends to discredit whatever point I’m making. If I talk to some liberal and address Him as President Obama, then whatever I say next will be that much more difficult to pass off — rightly or wrongly — as a leftie-imagined form of an Obama Derangement Syndrome.
Anyway, I guess Schultz figures he’s preaching to the leftie choir, so why bother? — Although, even then, to refer to someone like Schultz did is so ^very^ unbecoming of the refer-er.
Hey, whatever happened to all those lectures on civility, anyway?
M J R: they were ignored by ignorant sluts.
Don’t you think that Shultz did this on purpose to get attention, in hopes of attracting at least a few like-minded viewers back to his failing network?
As for why they’re so angry, I confess I’m stumped. Could it be that the degree to which their President is failing is beginning to dawn on them? Maybe all that steam results from the effort of concealing this humiliating revelation from themselves and their cronies.
One can always hope, anyway.
He was suspended for a week without pay. Olberman was fired. Why after so long? New owner.
MSNBC was owned by GE which used MSNBC as a loss leader to endear itself to the Democrats who controlled Congress and the money spigot. Viacom is in the entertainment business. They don’t do loss leaders.
Viacom did not buy MSNBC for its talent or content. It bought the infrastructure. I suspect that NETFLIX has driven them to seek new ways to get to market. Viacom owns Paramount pictures and has lots of access to content. I kind of expect MSNBC to bring Showtime (also owned by Viacom) in a new form very similar to the NETFLIX on-line streaming product and price it competetively.
Comedy, being the bow of the ship, runs slightly ahead. The vulgarity, which is the supposed funny part, hides the tactic: dismiss rather than refute.
Breaking new ground in the 70’s, this tactic has now become the norm and the left uses it merely by teaching our students to think “You believe that because you are a [fill in the blank.]” We call it identity politics now and its much more than vulgarity. It is unconsciousness, programming, in a word: zombie. Why have frontal lobes anymore? Let me just take those away from you.
Such a tactic would have been unthinkable before the corruption of education. Education taught manners and manners were based on rationality. It’s only fair to hear a man’s arguments. That’s the essence of democracy.
But rationality presents problems to social programmers. Rationality requires argument which requires facts and logic and sources. And rationality presented the problem of intellectuals deserting to some form of conservatism, or, at the very least, criticizing other progressives. Consider Richard Hofstadter as an example. Or Christoper Lasch. Rationality and social programming could not co-exist.
The answer was to dismiss rationality. In fact, Hofstadter led the way by reducing what an intellectual does to moralizing. Gone is the emphasis on scholarship, on original sources, on the really hard work of being an intellectual–that is on digging for the truth.
Nowadays, the left is able to dismiss whole parts of society. When a mass movement elects a new set of representatives, the “people” just don’t get it. With Obama, the dismissal has obtained greater and deadlier parameters. In his mind, the argument runs, “You say that because you are an American.”
Maybe, maybe, the reason he didn’t want to release his birth records were because he didn’t want to confess he is an American. It cheapens his pedigree.
It’s because they’re all in such lockstep that there’s nothing for it but to top each other in faux-outrageousness. The outrage is utterly safe, of course, and therefore fails to thrill, so they push it further.
I’m so tired of it. Ordinarily I keep my political views to myself, because when I try to be candid all I get is a spray of spittle in the face and a lot of shouting. I try to work around politics, or under it — to find common ground on a deeper level, but sometimes my friends, or friendly acquaintances, get suspicious. Just such a person has asked me to have a drink this evening. I think he’s laying for me, looking to flush out my real views, and it fills me with dread.
How did we come to this pass? Not that it’s anything new. The Updike piece that Neo mentioned the other day talks about his actual physiological response to defending his views — the flush, the increased heart rate, the palpitations. How well I understand that!
Mizpants just tell him your views are pretty much opposite his and propose a toast to diversity. 🙂
MSDNC is the asylum broadcast and Ed Shultz is best described as a pig ( How very European of me )
Mrs Whatsit
They were pretty angry during Dubya’s time in office. Recall BDS?Anger is more theraputic than thinking, at least in the very short term.
Think 3 year old melodrama and self-centeredness and you will understand 99% of the left. They become angry when all the toys are not their’s to horde and control.
I do remember, Gringo — but I thought they’d calm down when they got what they wanted. For a little while, they seemed to — but now it’s worse than ever.
MSNBC, along with the rest of NBC Universal, is being acquired by Comcast rather than by Viacom. It will be pretty interesting to see what they do with it.