SIGN O' THE TIMES

SIGN O' THE TIMES

SIGN O' THE TIMES

CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES

Hannity and Bachmann Almost Apologize

The Nation Fri Nov 13, 3:14 pm ET

A fundamental tenet for both rightwing politicians and their media pilot fish is: Never, ever, apologize for the crazy. If you get caught exaggerating or even lying outright, simply respond by saying, "The left sees it differently" or "The mainstream media take their cues from liberals" or some such weasel-bite, even if the dispute is over widely accepted facts.

Yet in just the past couple of days, two of the loudest and most obdurate voices on the right have had to apologize, or at least feign doing so, for major bloopers concerning Rep. Michelle Bachmann's Tea Party rally held on Capitol Hill on November 5.

The most slippery mea culpa came from Fox News's Sean Hannity. On the day of the rally (a/k/a "the Super Bowl of Freedom"), he used fake footage to bolster Bachmann's absurd claim that the protest drew a crowd of 20,000 to 45,000--when reliable estimates stretch from 4,000 to 10,000, tops. Hannity's producers spliced scenes from the much larger 9/12 rally sponsored by Glenn Beck in between shots of Bachmann's much smaller turnout on 11/5, suggesting that her group had spilled out onto the Mall.

Journalistically a mortal sin, but in context the subterfuge was even worse, because Fox had been gaming Teabagger crowd sizes for months. Reliable crowd estimates for that earlier Tea Party of Beck's were around 70,000, though Beck and sympathizers willfully kept up a running dispute about police crowd counts, asserting at different times that there were 100,000, a million, 2 million (and counting!) protestors out there last September.

Hannity's film-flam probably would have gone unnoticed, adding yet another drop to the vast sea of fictions the rightwing media float upon, had not Jon Stewart's eagle-eyed staff found an oddity: In some of Hannity's clips verdant late summer greenery graced the November rally, while others were framed by the yellow and orange foliage of fall.

Whoops!

On Wednesday night, wagging his lantern chin as if to say, "Go ahead, take a poke at me," Hannity delivered a classic nonapology apology:

What a goof! "We screwed up." He "played some incorrect video." It was an "inadverent mistake."

It's curious, though, how inventoried video can click its way into a night's news some two months later.

But let's say it did. Hannity sleazed right through his "Sorry, folks!" without ever owning up to what was so misleading about flashing shots of a large rally for a smaller one in the first place: That without injecting the 9/12 footage like silicon into a boob job, it would have been much clearer that he and Bachmann were wildly inflating crowd size. Or that, as Stewart said in his hilarious follow-up to Hannity's apology, a truly honest Fox News slogan would be: "We alter reality. You are sold a preconceived narrative."

The day before Sean's nothing apology, Michelle confessed a little something too, though not about crowd inflation. Instead, she had been forced to admit that it was "wholly inappropriate" to use images of naked corpses from Dachau to symbolize Obama's health care reform, as a poster lofted right in front of her throughout the rally did.

Bachmann's admission, however, came a full five days after her rally and only after Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) embarrassed her in a YouTube video, saying, "I can't believe that Congresswoman Bachmann would stand where she stood, and see those images, and not have the common decency to say, 'I disagree with the use of those images.' I think that she owes the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust an apology." (Earlier and without a YouTube push, Minority Whip Eric Cantor, the House's only Jewish Republican, found it in himself, or rather in a spokesman, to call the sign "inappropiate.")

Of course, offensive posters, switcheroo video, and connivingly cropped quotes are nothing new, especially on Fox. Media Matters has assembled a small encyclopedia of Fox's cut-and-paste reality.

All this should make us consider the motive for the 50 or so townhall meetings that Republican lawmakers say they will sponsor this month. They obviously want to communicate the anger of astroturfized populism, but even more, they need a fresh supply of clips that can be sliced and diced into the rightwing noise machine.

But just as each Planet of the Apes sequel was worse than the previous one, the coming Townhall sequel (perhaps titled Townhall II: Escape from Obama's Tyranny) is likely to disappoint. After this round of apologies for overreaching, rightwing leaders are going to have to tell their people to go only a little bit crazy, maybe even to forfeit the Hitler mustaches. It's a difficult balance to strike; the tea parties may loose their cheery spontaneity.

And, though it may pain Sean Hannity, it may also become more difficult to lie about the size of crowds.

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Friday, August 28, 2009
From The Art Of Manliness

Ernest Hemingway Motivational Posters

Despite Hemingway’s flaws, he spent his life engaging in all manner of bad assery. I was so inspired by Chris Hutcheson’s article, “The Hemingway You Didn’t Know: Papa’s Adventures”, I decided to put together some Papa-themed motivational posters. Enjoy.

LM

IDIOCRACY

Packing Heat Near the President

By Stephen Stromberg

From the National Rifle Association’s Web site: “At the NRA, we're dedicated to the lawful, effective, responsible and above all safe use of firearms.” If the NRA were to take that commitment seriously, why wouldn’t the organization loudly discourage gun owners from, say, bringing loaded weapons to a presidential town hall, as several did recently? Or from threatening the president while wearing a packed leg holster?

Each incident happened this month, and they’re scary -- even putting aside the fact that we're talking about disgruntled activists brandishing guns near the president. I'm an Eagle Scout trained in firearm use, and I can’t count the number of possible accidents that could result from lugging a heavy semi-automatic into a large crowd. That’s why one of the first lessons I learned about gun safety is that you never bring out your weapon unless you have to -- and, given that there’s no need to hunt game or defend oneself at a heavily policed political rally, none of these gun owners can argue that they had to. Perhaps the NRA’s directors need a refresher course.

True, the NRA probably can’t persuade the nutjobs to leave their guns at home, in their cars or, in some cases, even in holsters. But the organization can and should scream that this isn’t appropriate firearm use, regardless of whether it is legal. And if promoting responsible gun ownership were a priority, the NRA could use one of its most influential tools -- the scores it gives to politicians -- to get more of our leaders to repudiate such carelessness, or at least assure political figures their standing with the NRA won’t be hurt if they do so. That’s not an infringement or even a criticism of the NRA’s interpretation of the Second Amendment. It’s merely an exhortation to treat rightful gun ownership with responsibility.

Instead, though, the NRA uses its scores to do such things as drum up opposition to Sonia Sotomayor. Meanwhile, its implied position on the town-hall toters has cowed even the White House, which just defended the activists’ right to pack heat near the president.

HEY DEMOCRATS : Show A Little Backbone Will Ya ?

Democratic leaders should stop backpedaling, stop apologizing .

By Eugene Robinson

Here's the least surprising news of the week: Americans are souring on the Democratic Party. The wonder is that it's taken so long for public opinion to curdle. There's nothing agreeable about watching a determined attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

A poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center reports that just 49 percent of respondents have a favorable view of the Democrats, compared with 62 percent in January and 59 percent in April. This doesn't mean, though, that Americans look any more kindly upon the Republican Party -- favorability for the GOP has been steady at 40 percent throughout the year, according to Pew.

What it does mean, however, is that Republican efforts to obstruct, delay, confuse, stall, distort and otherwise impede the reform agenda that Americans voted for last November have had measurable success. And it means that Democrats, having been given a mandate -- one as comprehensive as either party is likely to enjoy in this era of red-vs.-blue polarization -- don't really know how to use it.

That the Democratic Party is no paragon of organization and discipline is almost axiomatic. That's not the problem. The Pew poll suggests that the Democrats' weakness is neither strategic nor tactical but emotional. To quote the poet William Butler Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

There's not enough passion on the Democratic side, not enough heat. There's some radiating from the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, too little emanating from the Democratic majority in the Senate, and not nearly enough coming from President Obama. Republicans, by contrast, have little going for them except passion -- but they're using it to impressive effect.

Step back from the health-care debate for a moment and survey the landscape. Democrats are within sight of a goal that has fired the party's dreams for half a century. They have the power to enact meaningful reform. Polls show that Americans are hungry for reform. The solid wall of opposition once presented by big business has crumbled. Even the insurance companies and Big Pharma are ready to deal. Yet somehow we've gotten sidetracked onto an argument about "death panels," while a provision that many advocates believe is central to effective reform -- a government-run, public health insurance plan -- is suddenly in doubt.

How could this happen? The Pew survey suggests, basically, that Republicans are more passionate about the health-care issue than Democrats.

According to Pew, those who would be "pleased" if health-care reforms proposed by Obama and Congress are enacted outnumber those who would be "disappointed." But when you look at those who feel most passionately about the issue, just 15 percent say they would be "very happy" if the reforms go through, while 18 percent say they would be "angry." Among Republicans, a full 38 percent would be angry if health-care reform finally passes -- but among Democrats, just 13 percent would be angered if it doesn't.

It's hard to argue that anger, per se, is something we need more of in American politics. But passion -- which sometimes, yes, finds expression in anger -- is a powerful and legitimate tool. Health-care reform is something the Democratic Party has been trying to achieve since the Truman administration, and only 13 percent of Democrats would be angry if it fails? Only 27 percent of Democrats would be "very happy" if reform passes, according to Pew, while 42 percent could only bestir themselves to feel "pleased" that the grail long sought by the most beloved Democrat of all, ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, has finally been attained?

One reason for this imbalance of passion about health-care reform, I believe, is that there is no single piece of legislation around which Democrats -- and others who see the need for reform -- can rally. But it's impossible to deny that the Republican strategy of generating anger and fear has also been a major factor.

Where are the millions who so passionately chanted "Yes, we can!" at Obama's campaign rallies? Where are the legions who cried tears of joy on election night and tears of pride on Inauguration Day? Is Sarah Palin now the only politician capable of inspiring "passionate intensity"?

Democratic leaders should stop backpedaling, stop apologizing and show their followers -- by words and deeds -- that the principle of universal health care is worth fighting for. They should even allow themselves to raise their voices at times -- not motivated by anger but by conviction.

Passion finds expression in anger, but also in hope. Democrats knew and felt that during the campaign. If they forget it, they might as well also forget about achieving the kind of fundamental change that the country sorely needs.