BRWombat wrote:...I really don't want this board to turn political...Rush and Hannity [are] polite and thoughtful...
Point Number One: No fair giving yourself the moral high-ground of "I don't want to talk about this" and then going on to talk about it.
Point Number Two: Polite and thoughtful my @$$! :p:
"Why should Blacks be heard? They're 12% of the population.
Who the hell cares." -Rush Limbaugh
"And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up." -Rush Limbaugh [several weeks before confessing to obtaining OxyContin for illegal use]
Sean Hannity is a little snarkier, so he's harder to get in the obvious ways like we can do with that blow-hard Limbaugh, but he certainly does say things and then regret or "forget" them later.
Most notably, he was all for the war in Iraq even without a goal or defined end-state for success. Anyone able to guess what he said about going to war with Clinton as president?
"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."
or even better:
"Congressman Moran, a couple of things that are in my mind. Number one is the president has really failed to lay out before the American people the reasons why we need to be involved militarily. That's number one.
And then we go back to Henry Kissinger's test, which is number one, is there a vital U.S. national interest? And do we have a plan to disengage? What's the exit strategy? I don't see that we've met that test either. And why does it have to happen this second, this hour? Why don't we have a national debate first?"
Big Wallaby: People like us can disagree and still be polite and thoughtful. People like these talking heads on TV have absolved themselves of that responsibility. They pay no attention to what they say so they can deny it when it suits them later. That's not polite or thoughtful, it's misleading and deceptive and implies that they think very little of their listening/viewing audience.
My lessons learned from this thread:
If you're in it for entertainment, then great, shock jocks and talking heads definitely have a niche to fill. If, however, you're taking what they're telling you with anything less than an ENTIRE SHAKER of salt, then you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
