O'Reilly tries to create an exciting segment by gasping over a sexual depiction of Lieberman's devotion to Bush and emoting about the extreme leftiness of Daily Kos, and Dodd provides a stolid demonstration of the conventional strategy of standing his ground and not getting riled no matter what. Dodd's point is mindcrushingly obvious: DailyKos represents a large number of politically engaged citizens who are likely to vote in the Democratic primaries. O'Reilly's stance is equally obvious: Make the Democrats look bad -- for any connection to something that might shock viewers.
I first saw this clip on Crooks and Liars, but it ends with O'Reilly saying Dennis Miller is going to talk about it. That sent me looking for a longer clip, which is what I've linked here (on Hot Air). [ADDED: But the Crooks and Liars clip -- now linked -- is longer and has more of O'Reilly's overheated goading.]
Miller gets so overheated he makes O'Reilly seem mild mannered. Why is he so angry at Dodd? He's going "This guy had nothing" over and over, but then, why get so upset? It's that Dodd -- despite the fact that he's boring and way behind in the race -- was able to take advantage O'Reilly's high profile to gain some stature with the YearlyKos conventioneers.
Miller's attitude is that O'Reilly is so great and YearlyKos is so insignificant. He says: "That convention is a loser-fest. I mean, there are hookers who have put an embargo on that convention."
No one seems to notice that Miller is indulging in sexual humor... which is exactly what Kos did with that depiction of Bush and Lieberman that O'Reilly wanted Dodd to condemn.
ADDED: And here's a WaPo article on YearlyKos:
Last year in Las Vegas, the conference attracted 1,200 participants, including current Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark. This year at the McCormick Place Convention Center near downtown Chicago, more than 1,500 participants are expected, including the entire Democratic congressional leadership and all the Democratic presidential candidates.I'm surprised there is such a small increase in participants since last year. You'd think the proximity of the election and the glitziness of the guests would have much more effect. [MORE: I'm told in email that a cap was imposed on the number of participants.]
Posts
54 comments:
I guess O'Reilly only likes populism when it is his brand of populism.
about whether DailyKos is so vile that the Democratic candidates should not appear
Are you capable of representing anything accurately? I mean is that a club you have in your bag, or not?
Dodd rejects O'Reilly's (and your) characterization of DailyKos as "vile." That's what the whole argument is about, not merely the degree of vileness.
Good point. IOKIYAR.
"It's OK If You Are A Republican."
I did think both the picture and Miller's hooker comment were funny. Why hookers boycotting a convention is a bad thing is the funny part.
Beyond that, depicting web sites that disagree with conservatives as "hate sites" is simply a disingenuous argument. Especially coming from Bill O'Lielly who invited terror attacks on San Francisco and is silent on Coulter's hateful speech.
p.s. Checking out the HotAir segment and it looks like they've edited out a lot of the O'Lielly interview. See the Crooks and Liar site for the full video of Bill going bonkers.
Yikes. You want hateful, listen to Miller. Ugh. Ugh-lee. Especially seeing him plant a big kiss on O'Reilly's rear end.
No, Doyle, Dodd concedes that there are some bad things on DailyKos, but in any case, I'm characterizing how O'Reilly presented the argument.
Your comment is very poorly thought out.
The difference between Dodd and Miller is that Dodd is serious in courting the nominal power of Kos supporters and Miller was satirizing the lefties with humor.
It was nothing more than a publicity stunt to prop up what little support there is for the Kos convention. Additionally, it provided comic relief by giving Dodd one more chance to make a fool of himself.
It's the way that a state of injury or what Nietzsche called ressentiment has become super profitable entertainment that I find so interesting.
I see O'Reilly and Miller cashing in on two phenomena: (1) overblown 80s and 90s identity politics from the left that makes their own claims to injury seem less insane than they actually are; and (2) a rhetorical history of white men self-representing as victims (think Reconstruction) gives them, as Ann notes, an obvious script to follow.
Of course, when O'Reilly says stuff like this:
And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.
it's pretty dang hard to see him as a someone who genuinely cares about "hateful" rhetoric.
Well gosh, Ann, one pretty much has to concede that "there are some bad things on DailyKos."
But even you must be able to see how that's different than conceding that the site could be described as generally "vile," or a "hate site," or "as bad as any Nazi group."
The internet generally obviously contains bad things, but most people don't consider it "vile."
Can you see now how what you wrote is misleading? Do you care?
You want hateful, listen to Miller. Ugh. Ugh-lee
I’ve been listening to Dennis Miller since he came on the air and have not heard anything that could be described as hateful. I don’t think there is a more even keeled non-hyperventilating radio host out there. Maybe I missed them but I’d like to see some examples.
Both sides of the aisle have a lot of hateful rhetoric being spewed onto the airwaves. For any side to try to take the moral high ground and claim purity is foolish. That said, O’Reilly is right when he says that Kos is a far left site and if I was a Dem, I would not want to be associated with it unless I was subscribing to a far left ideology. While Kucinich would probably show up there, I’m betting someone like Evan Bayh would not. If the Democratic Party wants to associate itself with a far left site like Kos that’s fine. I’d rather they be transparent in who they are trying to court for votes.
"I'm surprised there is such a small increase in participants since last year. You'd think the proximity of the election and the glitziness of the guests would have much more effect."
I'm not. While I'm no fan of O'Reilly, I think the Daily Kos thing plays to exceedingly small audience - the angry, hard left that wants to play in the Democrat party - and most all of those folks had already enlisted between '03 and '06. Besides which, the Kos people ARE weird - and most Americans aren't going to spend limited vacation time or dollars to hang out with the perpetually enraged political nerds of Daily Kos.
Most folks who are political forget that most Americans aren't particularly political (or have we forgotten low turn out rates on election days?); in other words, those of us who are politically active or interested are, statistically speaking, abnormal. The Daily Kos people are even more so.
I think that a decent analogy would be if a Republican went to speak to a KKK meeting. Of course, they can't even get away with speaking at Bob Jones University, but...
Why do I think there is a parallel? Because some of the stuff at Kos is as bad, if not worse. If it were just the commenters, it wouldn't be that bad, but Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (Kos) himself has said a number of highly offensive things over the years. Arguably as offensive as anything that you would hear at a KKK rally.
The problem, I would suggest, is that by participating in such a forum, the Democratic politicians involved can be seen as at least tokenly tacitly accepting that offensive rhetoric.
As a conservative I can't stand Bill O. He can be entertaining at times but being on his soapbox regarding Kos is boring.
Bill O is an entertainer and Miller's sucking up to him was rather gross. Miller does work for Fox though so I guess that his is role.
Bill O also lies. He said he never said that San Fran comment when in fact he did.
Yes Dodd will be a hero to Kos now but so what?
Also the whole loofah thing with Bill O and using a vibrator on himself while jerking off on the phone to his producer was pretty amusing.
Personally, I think on the personal attacks, the left and right blogsphere should call a truce. Keep it to battling over ideas. It has become too personal.
Bruce,
Competitions between who's the most hateful -- the left or the right -- get pretty boring pretty quick.
But can we at least agree that an organization with a history of lynching, castrating, beheading, and terrorizing real people is not analogous to an organization with no such history? I mean, isn't such a comparison just gross, from the left or the right? Shouldn't we save our Stalin and our Nazi and our KKK cards for situations in which people are actually getting tortured and killed?
Doyle: Well gosh, Ann, one pretty much has to concede that "there are some bad things on DailyKos"
Look Doyle. Don't be a knob.
The point is that Kos leaves up the vile stuff. He doesn't delete it. He encourages it. It typifies him.
And, now it typifies you.
You and Kos, sitting in a tree .... doing something unspeakable.
As someone who still has dozens (maybe hundreds) of comments on Kos from previous attempts to bait the lefties (note: I've been Kos sober for over a year), I never had to resort to profanity or any name calling to get back dozens of comments wishing my death - or worse.
It's just a fact that anyone trying to make a reasonable counterargument on Kos, Greenwald, Huffington will be met with personal attacks far more often - and far more vicious - than they will on most major center to right blogs.
Any leftie that says otherwise is spinning. Proving this one is easy. One word:
Volume
The point is that Kos leaves up the vile stuff.
Well that's O'Reilly's point but it's (not coincidentally) wrong.
The site has a troll-rating process for really bad stuff.
That the highly suggestive Lieberman cartoon didn't qualify proves that there's tolerance for sexual humor but sexual humor wasn't the hallmark of the Nazis or the KKK.
And, now it typifies you.
If you say so!
Competitions between who's the most hateful -- the left or the right -- get pretty boring pretty quick.
But can we at least agree that an organization with a history of lynching, castrating, beheading, and terrorizing real people is not analogous to an organization with no such history? I mean, isn't such a comparison just gross, from the left or the right? Shouldn't we save our Stalin and our Nazi and our KKK cards for situations in which people are actually getting tortured and killed?
When was the last time that the Klan actually killed someone they despise? Since at least the 1950s or early 1960s, they have been discredited with even those who at the time would most likely have been members in an earlier time. So, from that point of view, they are much more marginal than the KOS crowd. But what they say is really no more hateful these days. The KKK preaches White (often WASP) racial superiority, while Kos, et al., preach that soldiers in Iraq get what they deserve when they die defending our country there, and that it would be great if the President, VP, SCOUTS CJ, et al. were to die.
I am suggesting that guilt by association is realistic when it comes to politicians. If a politician goes to speak at the convention of some controversial group, then unless he states there that you disagree with their stands on the controversial subjects, he has tacitly accepted their views.
NB: A commenter on this site once told me they hoped my family would die in a terrorist attack so I would see how wrong I was to oppose Bush's policies.
It's not the usual fare, and some regular Bush supporters objected, but I'm sure the comment could be dug up and presented as evidence that this is a hate site.
People here are actually discussing Bill O'Reilly's criticism of a website that has 500,000 visitors a day...because of some postings by "vile" individuals?
Has anybody here ever watched Bill's show? (Who, at this moment in time, has an individual poster on HIS site, with over 1,000 postings, being investigated by the Secret Service for a threatening comment directed at Hillary Clinton.)
O'Reilly makes Rush look tame.
doyle,
There are 500,000 postings a DAY.
How would anyone possible govern that many comments??
Ever been to the Ace of Spades right wing site?
You want vile...take a look at the comments posted on that site.
Here's a comment on Bill's site, relating to a Cindy Sheehan criticism of Anderson Cooper...today.
Let's see how long it's there before being removed:
"Sheehan and Moore are like Rosie the fat, loud-mouth, lefty lesbian when confronted with their looney views."
Not that calling someone a "fat, loud-mouth, lefty lesbian" would be considered...vile.
Bruce, I'm pretty sure folks join the KKK because it's, you know, the KKK.
lucky,
Again: it's the volume of hateful remarks that is distinguishable, my friend.
Huffington Post, Kos, Greenwald are major main-stream left-wing blogs. Talking Points Memo - very well written by the way - does not allow comments.
Their comment sections contain massive amounts of profanity and vicious personal attacks from left-wing commenters.
Hugh Hewitt, Captain's Quarters, Michelle Malkin are major main-stream right-wing blogs.
These sites experience only a small percentage of the profanity and viciousness that the major left-wing sites regularly allow. And even then, the majority of vile, profanity laced comments on those sites come from left-wing commenters.
Ace of Spades is not a major right wing blog. It is niche representation.
Conclusion: if you are looking for vicious personal attacks in the comments of right-wing blogs, you can find them. But that's the point - you have to look for them beyond the regular.
You can't help but trip over it in even the respectable major left-wing blogs.
What is it with such a high volume of lefties needing to vent their wrath on those they disagree with?
That the highly suggestive Lieberman cartoon didn't qualify proves that there's tolerance for sexual humor but sexual humor wasn't the hallmark of the Nazis or the KKK.
Doyle, You're wrong about the use of sexual humor, by the KKK at least. Read Thomas Dixon's Klan trilogy; it's packed with racist sexual humor.
The Lieberman cartoon is despicable for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is its hypocricy. The folks at Kos presumably are on the left, which means they likely define themselves as antihomophobic. Yet here they are invoking the classic homophobic move of equating one's political enemies with homosexuality. Paul A'Barge's 11:16 a.m. schoolyard taunt towards you exemplifies exactly the same move.
I wouldn't call either move "hateful" because that's just lame and because it exhibits a moral relativism that makes it more difficult to attack real hate. (It's the same kind of moral relativism that makes wrongheaded comparisons to the KKK gross.) But I would call both . . . Well, how about using President Bush's useful term: soft bigotry?
b,
Geeee, what a thoroughly "unbiased" commentary.
But let me get this straight: The left wing blogs "comment sections contain massive amounts of profanity and vicious personal attacks from left-wing commenters."
While the really, really nice blogs run by "Hugh Hewitt, Captain's Quarters, Michelle Malkin" are just wonderful.
Have you run this by Rush, Ann, Bill, Sean or Michael? (You know Michael Savage...the one who think the Democrats caused Robert's seizure?)
Get real.
jim says of the left "...they are invoking the classic homophobic move of equating one's political enemies with homosexuality."
That's not true at all.
The cartoon reflects Lieberman literally "sucking up" to G.W.
Much like what you find here.
What can I say, Lucky, except that sucking gets close, in an opposite sort of way, to what I'm reminded of when I look at the image. And, given Doyle's reference to it as "sexual humor," I guess I'm not alone.
P.S. Lucky, I didn't say anything of "the left." I said something about the folks at Kos who put up and then kept up that particular image.
c'mon lucky,
Have you run this by Rush, Ann, Bill, Sean or Michael? (You know Michael Savage...the one who think the Democrats caused Robert's seizure?)
lucky, we're talking about main stream blogs, the big ones, left and right.
The people you listed above are radio people. They are not primarily bloggers - not even major bloggers.
Focus, lucky, focus.
Now, refute directly what I commented on.
Dare ya.
jim,
Maybe we're in partial agreement.
When someone tells me another is "sucking up" to a boss, etc., I generally don't associate it with homosexuality, but more of a brown-nosing (see there it is again) type of thing...although the cartoon in question is certainly more graphic.
As for Lieberman...he is, as far as I'm concerned...a major suck-ass no matter how you describe it.
b,
Right...O'Reilly, Sean, Rush, Ann and Savage are merely "radio people"...with no blogging. (Maybe if you were to take a closer look at their sites...and tell me why they allow discussions and comments, etc.?)
As for Ace of Spades being a minor player in the world of right wing lunacy: Their site meter shows
14,491,000 visitors.
b,
Sorry, I forgot to "refute."
I don't buy anything you say about the left being horrible and the right being wonderful.
That's nothing more than your right wing-based opinion and it's nothing new here.
From watching the video, I got the clear sense that Dodd thought he was actually making a substantive argument on the floor of the Senate. I was actually surprised that he didn't turn his head and ask the President of the Senate for another 15 minutes of podium time. The bottom line is this, politics in this country is a poisoned well and when you have a Senator who is a presidential candidate come onto a cable television show to defend a blog site of over 500k visitors a day (Dodd's own words) then what I'm seeing here is an acceptance to either represent or pander to said group.
To Doyle:
Dodd may reject O'Reilly's characterization of DailyKos as a vile website, however, that is Dodd's opinion on someone else's characterization. The accurate representation is that DailyKos and it's commentators by-in-large spew vile, vitriolic, mentally/criminally insane rantings on a daily basis. It's a one stop shop for the utter viciousness that the rabid leftists have come to enjoy. The mental derangement that is engaged on DailyKos, of which I read on a daily basis is all the time repugnant and often times beyond the pale. Anyone who would defend a site like that and those that write commentary the way it is on there should be rejected wholesale and discredited as a matter of course. DailyKos adds nothing to political discourse and rhetoric other than injecting it's daily poison into the body politic.
It would take the stupidest, cheapest, lamest partisan hack (on either side of the political spectrum) to think there's something shameful about giving a good blow job.
Methadras,
Extremely measured reaction my man. Your obviously not a fan.
It would take the stupidest, cheapest, lamest partisan hack (on either side of the political spectrum) to think there's something shameful about giving a good blow job.
Ha! True that.
Or to argue that it should be illegal.
methadras says: "The accurate representation is that DailyKos and it's commentators by-in-large spew vile, vitriolic, mentally/criminally insane rantings on a daily basis....DailyKos adds nothing to political discourse and rhetoric other than injecting it's daily poison into the body politic."
And yet another, completely unbiased opinion from a right wing nutcase.
The site has over 500,000 visitors a day...yet, according to this yahoo..."adds nothing to political discourse..."
What you REALLY mean is this: I don't agree, so it must not be relevant.
Palladian & Jim:
Personally, I like getting blowjobs.
I've never given one.
What's it like?
lucky,
Help me out here - I seriously want to communicate with you.
I am not saying the left being horrible and the right being wonderful.
And again, you misquoted me lucky:
"radio people"...with no blogging..
As you can see, I actually wrote: The people you listed above are radio people. They are not primarily bloggers - not even major bloggers.
That, my friend, is a major hit on your credibility.
You have sadly proved by that alone that you cannot be taken seriously in your comments. how is anyone to know that the things you say and support are accurately portrayed when you purposely misrepresent what everyone can see and read for themselves in plain sight?
I am saying that it is dishonest to want to convince people that the rudeness and personal attack comment levels are equal between right and left blogs.
You are the one that is concerned that the truth of this will be understood by many to mean that the left is more unhinged. And since you are a proud card-carrying leftie, you are afraid that people will think you are in that group.
I'm not saying that you are unhinged, lucky.
I'm just presenting you with facts. The same as if I notice that people that report, write and publish the New York Times tend to vote Democratic by an 8 to 1 margin. I would be stating a fact. I leave it to you and others to extrapolate what that likely implies.
So, you are not only unwilling to take my dare, but you now want to go further and put words in my mouth that didn't write/say?
How about you straighten it out and redeem yourself while there is still time?
oops - sent the same comment twice (above) and had to delete it.
Redundancy.
Redundancy.
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity, and gather at DailyKos."
I think that's how that poem goes.
Ann is yet another blogger who posts about this without asking the central questions.
1. Are there sites vile enough to be labeled hate sites, meaning that all responsible people should shun them? We can all agree that yes, there are.
2. Is the DailyKos such a site? O'Reilly says it is, and he has a reasonable argument. After all, the founder of the site said screw Americans who were murdered and mutilated. The site has struggled to purge itself of the kill-Jews crowd , and quotes and pictures like the ones O'Reilly has shown are not unusual at all.
If all the above is acceptable given that the majority of posts aren't particularly vile, what are the actual standards.
Pictures of Bush being sodomized or sodomizing animals are okay? So I guess responsible right wingers can feature pictures of Hillary having sex with a horse... And I guess it would be okay to have pictures of Obama being sodomized by Al Quaeda ...
Oh WAIT!!! Of course it wouldn't be okay, it just wouldn't mean that site was a hate site. I would just mean it was a site full of responsible people who tolerate and encourage disgusting people. Is that it?
Lucky, You jump to conclusions.
B., You're really invested in this, but it's entirely unclear what's at stake. Is it a desire to make psychological generalizations about "the left" versus "the right"? About the ability to reason of "the left" versus "the right"? If so, then proving your hypothesis (which would require a team of graduate students clocking hundreds upon hundreds of hours of comment-quantifying tedium) would only get you so far and would require far more information about the representativeness of people who leave comments on internet websites than is currently available.
Does that site really get 500,000 visitors a day?
Jim C.,
Not at all, Jim.
It is easily and readily available to anyone who goes to the sites I mentioned. they can quickly see the difference.
I chose this issue about right blogs vs left blogs because it is so easily verifiable and so clear cut.
And because the left has so many that seek to get off the hook by attempting to make equal offenses that are plainly unequal.
It is the most dishonest, commonly used tactic of those on the political left.
Now, I am not personally deeply offended by lucky at all.
But he has backed himself into corner on his credibility concerning his stated purpose here:
I don't visit this site to "charm" anybody, I visit for one reason only: To counter or tear apart the nonsensical arguments put forth by the Bush sycophants you'll find here every day of the week.
So, Jim, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. I keep giving him opportunities to back out, but he consistently berates and even slanders so many of the people of all political sides who don't tow his line. He doesn't seem to have any political depth beyond "Bush makes me mad, why not you?"
It's not working well for him, because he can't seem to offend enough people that will name call him back, or get any real number of others to join him. And he certainly hasn't made Ann's readership dwindle. Nor lessened her influence.
I wouldn't waste my time, but I genuinely thought that he was maturing - not changing his political beliefs mind you, just becoming part of a true dialogue. And since today I have the time . . .
You'll have to excuse me, I spell blood in the water . . .
"more than 1,500 participants are expected" [...] I'm surprised there is such a small increase in participants since last year.
There were probably three times that many people crammed into one room at the San Diego Comic Convention this year just to listen to Kevin Smith talk about his upcoming film projects.
I think O'Reilly and Miller are making too big a deal over this. If the Democrats want to cozy up to the Kossite fringe, let them do it. It'll just make it that much harder for them to win election, just like it did in 2004.
Giving blowjobs is great. Should I be ashamed, Lucky? Your usual cod-macho insinuations don't work on someone who's actually gay and isn't ashamed of it, as you seem to think a man should be.
I can see why you haven't ever given a blow job: you can't shut your mouth long enough.
You wouldn't expect a dick to know what it is like to give a blowjob. :)
Bah, the reason LOS returns to Ann's place is this:
>>>I do this because it's fun to fuck with these idiots...pure and simple...and believe me, I do think most of them are "simple."
he may make an actual argument from time to time, but he comes here simply to vent his spleen at people he hates (people so vile as to actually disagree with him).
Luckyoldson said...
methadras says: "The accurate representation is that DailyKos and it's commentators by-in-large spew vile, vitriolic, mentally/criminally insane rantings on a daily basis....DailyKos adds nothing to political discourse and rhetoric other than injecting it's daily poison into the body politic."
Yeah, I actually said that. What a shock. The problem with you quoting it is that it is out of context with respect to your response.
And yet another, completely unbiased opinion from a right wing nutcase.
I've never claimed unbiased commentary or opinions. Of course I'm biased you doddering sod, but to call me a nutcase because you simply are incapable of understanding, lack the mental acumen to fathom what I've said, or just simply spew, like a frothing troglodyte when your disagree with whatever it is your read or see, as a characterization on my mental standing as a nutcase only points the finger at who the real nutcase is in this conversation. And it isn't me, stretch.
It's easy to see from here that you are an intellectually lazy, button pusher. Maybe you are one of the infinite monkeys that broke away from trying to compile a shakesperean play and ended up here in your primate-like frustration at the fact that your ideological rancor reeks of stale beer and a plea for your daddy to love you.
The site has over 500,000 visitors a day...yet, according to this yahoo..."adds nothing to political discourse..."
What you REALLY mean is this: I don't agree, so it must not be relevant.
Wow, another amazing and astute observation [rolleyes]. DailyKos isn't about disagreement or wanting to promote a viable alternative to political discourse. DailyKos is about spewing venomous hatred towards those that don't agree with their ideological and faux intellectual superiority couched as political discourse. It's not whether I agree with them or not, it's about what they bring to the political table as a representation of whether or not they are serious or just a tolerated internet joke that just so happens to have a lot of people in on it.
That's why they poison the political well, that's why they are pandered to by the left, democratic operatives, and far left democratic elected politicos. That's why they are not taken seriously and are considered an uncredible rag-tag grouping of nothing more than disaffected, anarchistic useful idiots waiting for the next hip and trendy thing to hate.
B said..."oops - sent the same comment twice (above) and had to delete it. Redundancy. Redundancy."
We're used to it.
We're used to it.
Geeeee, meth...could you post everything again?
It's really tough understanding where you're coming from.
Maybe if you ran the copy by Sean or Rush first?
*Right wing lunacy.
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