Crack

I really hope to see Sean Hannity water-boarded. Invoking the names of the families of the us military - "I'll do it for the troops families" he says.

Once again, Olbermann is a voice of reason and dignity in the media. I just hope he doesn't give up on the whole water-boarding plan. If only there was some way we could trick Bill O'Reilly into going next.

For the record this is water-boarding (video)

I don't think he could make it 3 seconds.

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ObieX

If he does do it i hope its not just a quick hold your breath and stick your head in this bucket type deal. They'd need to grab him unexpectedly, throw a black sack over his head and shackles on his arms and legs, drag him someplace where he doesn't know where he's going .. getting his heart racing.. THEN start the process of water-boarding. Strap him down to a bench, pull his arms way down behind him, throw a towel over his face and start with the drowning.

Its gotta be done right.

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Plan9

Jackass talking heads turn a living hell into another trivial talking point.

I wish the planet was a spaceship... so I could blow 'em out the airlock.

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Whatever you can carry.

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Paq

olbermann is da man.....

btw, if you ever tried that with me, i'd tell you anything and everything..the only problem...i don't even know how much of it would be factual...


That's the other thing about it..it's kinda hard to get him nervous and anxious before you start and that is a key element. you take out the fear and you negate the effectiveness. i don't know how they could effectively do it with someone willing to try. I do know, though, that just having water up my nose is enough to make me start blabbing

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djtestudo

Hannity is a jackass who I would never watch. But anyone who thinks Keith Olbermann "is a voice of reason and dignity in the media" is so far out to sea when it comes to their political views that there really is nothing to be said to try and convince them otherwise.

The sooner people on all sides realize that Fox News and MSNBC are two sides of the same brand of spin and punditry, the better off the media in this country will be.

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--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

Willravel

You'd like Battlestar Galactica.

pan6467

Let me get this straight.... A far left winged Olberman goes after a far right winged Hannity and that is something special and great. Never mind Hannity sets no policies.

My question is where is Olbermans' criticism for trivializing the economy and the auto industry dying? He LAUGHED about it on 60 Minutes. That man DOES set policiy.

Gee, hmmmm who needs criticized more for trivializing a current event? Who needs to truly apologize to the families and people affected by the policies being set?

Wow, instead of saying "keep hope alive" people should say "Keep hate alive". It takes 2 sides to keep it alive. The Left is working just as hard if not harder at keeping it alive.

When Olberman criticizes Obama for his laugh and trivializing..... then I'll believe Olberman is doing more than "keeping hate alive".

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Willravel

Olbermann helped to break the story on Obama wiretapping. He was on that before Drudge, Fox News or Rush.

Rekna

I love this idea but I think they should have a couple rules.

1) the goal is to get hannity to admit that water boarding is tourture
2) give hannity an object in his hand that he can drop to stop the waterboarding
3) when haninity drops the object keep waterboarding. This is where he would realize he can't just stop it whenever he likes.
4) waterboard until he admits waterboarding is torture or until he gets waterboarded 183 times. If hannity makes it to 183 in 1 month then he wins and it is not torture.

pig

First, I think it would be a great idea for people who think the technique isn't torture, to have it inflicted upon themselves, or perhaps better yet someone they care about. Sean Hannity would make a great start...I'd also like to see old Dodgy Heart Cheney have it performed on him, and perhaps the Pretzel Master himself.

As an aside, I've heard you bitch a lot about that 60 minutes interview pan, and I have to say I didn't interpret it the way you have...at all. I'm not a huge Obama fan-boy, but my impression was more along the lines of Obama laughing instead of saying "Fuck me...yeah, it's a tough nut to crack..." I didn't interpret his laughter as callous or uncaring, but more of someone who's in a shitty hard place, with a lot of tough problems to tackle, and a seeming sense of "well shit, where do I start?" I'm certainly no fan of some of his recent decisions, chiefly the wire-tapping and the attempt to quash investigations of the torture issues as they relate to chain of command, and I'm not crazy about a lot of the $$$ being pumped out into the private sector, although fuck all if I have a solution. But I didn't interpret that particular event the same way you did. Is it possible that you're seeing it the way you would like to, because you don't like Obama after the Wright incident?

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pan6467

No, I just think if you are President, you need to present yourself as one. There isn't much uproar over it and maybe I just have a warped belief system (which I freely admit)..... But I also believe had it been Bush, those who are quiet or saying "over reaction" would have been al over Bush claiming proof of his out of touchness. I'd be one of them.

I just think in all honesty, if you sit there and criticize one president for something or action, then you should criticize the president you elected for the same actions. Otherwise, it is solely a partisan outlook that basically states, "I can make excuses for this guy.... no matter what he does, I can justify it or express a dislike but I don't have to rake him over the coals and hold him to the same principles and ideals I hold the other guy to." Partisan politics at its best and one of the major reasons we are where we are right now.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Seaver

I'm sorry but this statement absolutely delusional. Olbermann = Hannity on the old dick-o-meter.

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pig

You may end up being right pan...I'm not a big fan of professional politicians much myself. I think the power and $$$ tend to corrupt, but that's not really a novel insight. When Bush took office, I didn't really dig the guy - based mostly on what I saw as nepotistic roots and a silver spoon in his mouth...but if he had been interviewed about how he was going to deal with post-9/11 Afganistan, and he had the same sort of laugh that Obama did and said "well, it's a pretty tough problem...I don't know where to start..." I don't think I would rake him over the coals for that. What I did think was pretty shitty was the joke he made about not being able to find Weapons of Mass Destruction (TM) in that press-corp dinner (or whatever the setting was...it may have been a GOP event or fund raiser, I can't remember) when we were about 2 or 3 years into the Iraq mess. The things that pissed me off most about Bush weren't any particular interview or statement or policy, it was the gestalt mixture of all of his interviews, statements, and policies. When/if Obama does something similar, I'll have the same reaction to it. I just don't think this was it.

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Charlatan

Apologies for nit-picking but Olberman is hardly left wing, let alone far left wing. At best he is a centrist. If anything this, once again, shows why using left and right is an antiquated discourse.


I do agree though that Olberman's style is just as annoying as Hannity's (even if I largely agree with him). The best I can say is that Olberman has filled a void in the marketplace of the mediascape. There have been blowhards on the Conservative side of the equation for years but there has been no voice of opposition. Olberman helps in this regard. He offers some (some) balance to the noise coming from the Conservative mouth pieces (and there are many in the mainstream media).

That said, I agree in principle that this form of commentary is not all that helpful. Television news in general, regardless of the political stripe is part of the problem.

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loquitur

Stuff like this is why I'm happy I don't have cable.

Life is too short.

And yes, I had to get adapter boxes.

Baraka_Guru

Charlatan, good point on the left vs. right. I find Olbermann a left-leaning centrist at best. There are actually few influential voices on the left in America. At least, I hear little coming across the border here. Political "discourse" (i.e. "commentary") is very right-heavy. America, generally, is rather conservative. Its political figures are full of centrists and the right-wing.

It should be said at this point: both Olbermann and Hannity are rabble-rousers. That is their business.

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Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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Crack

There is no comparison, your statement is delusional if you think these two people are even remotely the same. You are obviously thinking of a different person or simply have no grasp on reality.

(see what I did there, not so fun when someone does it to you, is it?)

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Crack, you and I are long overdue for a vicious bout of mansex.

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Willravel

Huh. I can't really think of any loud far-leftists. Maybe Amy Goodman/Juan Gonzales, but Democracy Now is hardly mainstream.

filtherton

Jesus was a hardcore leftist. Not that that means shit to most of his followers.

dippin

ive never understood this sort of "opposite equivalent" argument people try to make so often. This sort of "he is the same, but left wing" is silly, really, and I think it is just an easy way out of the conversation, trying to act as a "moderate" because you put yourself right in the middle.

I mean, how do you measure this equivalency? And how do you determine the middle?

I always thought that moderation should be based on issues, and not on equidistance, however measured, between differing view points.

Especially in a situation when the sort of extreme paranoia is much more common and popular on one side than the other.

The idea, for example, that Obama is a foreign muslim in disguise who is serving foreign masters in implementing either fascism or socialism is a lot more common among republican circles, than, say, the idea that 9/11 was organized by Bush is among democratic circles.

In any case, regardless of who made the original point, that is one great idea to put one's money where one's mouth is: if it isn't torture, why not subject yourself to it to prove the point, and raise money for charity at the same time.

FoolThemAll

Jesus is whatever you want him to be.

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spectre

Then you're missing the point. Hannity is nothing more than a mouth-piece for the previous administration and his statement that waterboarding wasn't torture was bullshit. But, let's assume for a second that he's right, it's really not that bad, then what's the harm in him accepting the challenge?

The issue comes down to the cult of personality. What Hannity says gets picked up by many of the extreme conservatives and repeated as gospel, just like any of the mouth-pieces for the left and for the right. What they say may not create policy, but it sways public opinion. I would prefer that when these stooges say something so blatantly full of shit that they get called on it.

Michael Moore. Although, to be fair, he's been somewhat quiet lately. That's probably a good thing since I think he tends to hurt his cause by exaggerating and openly admitting to it on a regular basis.

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No goddamn slave
I will be different" ~ Machine Head

Crack

It's a calling out of epic proportions.

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Crack, you and I are long overdue for a vicious bout of mansex.

~Halx

ottopilot

As hard as it is for the majority of the world, I at least know where to find people that actually watch Keith Olbermann.

For extreme points of view, Olbermann and Hannity are the same person as far as I'm concerned. Just as Limbaugh might as well be Michael Moore. I used to like Olbermann when he did sports.

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dksuddeth

Olberman is about as dignified and reasonable as ann coulter. He should have stayed on ESPN and stuck to sports casting.

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"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Tully Mars

Never heard Keith calling the widows of 9-11 nasty names simply for disagreeing with their political views. Or calling veterans who disagree with them scum. Or anything even close.

But I do consider Kieth to be a voice of the left, not of the center. But the nation's shifted left.

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roachboy

well, among the new realities conservatives face is that they no longer can control the terms of debate. it's hard to find a way in which a polemic between these two buffoons is of any real interest, but this is one. conservatives have a Real Problem on their hands with the legacy of the bush administration the gift that keeps on giving o yes. the responses from the right have been as outlined--torture is justified on utility grounds, which sets up the ends justify the means (obviously); torture is dissolved into something amorphous. so you have a fight over torture as over again harsh interrogation techniques, who gets to name the phenomenon. so you have a fight over claims to utility. this is all obvious, just an outline of the lay of the land insofar as the right is of any consequences, insofar as it's old ideological machinery continues twitching.

a claim like pan's is just another conservative evasion. after 15 years of conservative ultra-partisanship, now the problem is division--but it's blamed on everyone as if that had any weight beyond reflecting a psychological relation to a reality pan can't really cope with. and it has no weight apart from that psychological fact.

pan even goes so far as to try to define for us what the Important Issues are, mostly so that this question--which is a quite basic political one, in that the legitimacy of something basic about the way in which the united states fashions itself discursively is at stake in it---this question has to go away. so there are these shallow efforts to erase the problem.

the equivalence game is another old conservative favorite. it's called projection. it's primary function is to provide a sense to those who think through conservative politics that those politics are not extreme rightwing positions---you find opposites and declare yourself to be in relation to them, a normalized relation is set up. that's all this is. it's been happening for a very long time, it's functions should be obvious, so the only surprise is to find that it still has legs. go figure.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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JumpinJesus

Just out of curiosity, is anyone able to give us some examples of Keith Olberman being as blatantly dishonest as Hannity, O'Reilly, Cavuto, Coulter, Limbaugh, or any other of the right-wing pundits?

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Willravel

He wants universal healthcare, a better investigation about 9/11, and better gun control. Sounds like pretty much every left-centrist I know.

I'm talking about someone like Martin Luther King—a true social liberal, or fiscal liberals like.... um... are there any fiscal liberals left in the US or were they all shamed into submission by the neoliberals?

dksuddeth

yes.

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"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

JumpinJesus

I watched it, but I didn't see any blatant dishonesty in what he said. Could you help me out here?

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dksuddeth

first, saying that scalia 'ignored' the well regulated militia part is blatantly false. The Heller decision states clearly that the right belongs to the people and that membership IN a militia is not needed to exercise the right. Every single document and statement of both framers of the constitution as well as the pundits of that era state quite clearly that it is the individual right and that the people ARE the militia.

Second, Olbermann seems to think that the Second Amendment only meant things like flintlocks, muskets, and other arms of that Era when it is quite evident that only 'arms' are mentioned and yet even by a lay persons strict reading of the bill of rights, said person could not be expected to believe that the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments restrict a persons rights to components to exercise that right ONLY to that era.

Third, the usual feel good appeal to emotions about all the gun deaths, gun related injuries, and suicides to hype the bullshit idea that the second amendment is outdated and should be written off by a judicial activist decision so that it applies only to state national guards, which by itself is just plain fucking ridiculous, but by promoting such stupid assed shit like that, leaves every other natural right we have supposedly protected by the bill of rights, wide open to re-interpretations as the years move along.

I repeat, Olbermann should have kept his ass at ESPN where at least he could look somewhat intelligent as he belittled sports players.

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"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Rekna

Yeah I don't see the dishonesty in what he said there. If you take a strict literal interpretation of the constitution what he said is completely accurate. The fact is that the wording of the second amendment is vague and has been interpreted to mean many different things over time and it is likely to continue to evolve based on the individual opinions of 9 people.

JumpinJesus

I appreciate the fact that you don't like him, but it seems that all he's doing is disagreeing with your interpretation of the 2nd amendment. I still don't see where he was blatantly dishonest. Disagreeable, sure I see that, but I don't see dishonesty.

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mml

The difficulty with discussions like these, and I am certain this has been addressed by others, is that there is a tendency by conservative thinkers to look at issues as right or wrong, black or white, etc. and a tendency of liberal thinkers to see nuance and uncertainty. This puts the footing of all of these discussions on very shaky ground. The discussion of the 2nd Amendment is a great example. Pan sees this as clear cut, while Renka and JumpinJesus do not. They can see Pan's point, simply do not agree, and seemed a bit perplexed as to why he sees things this way. Meanwhile Pan can't understand why they don't get his position since he is obviously supplying them with facts. It's what makes this an enternal debate and since society's norms and understanding of the world is in constant flux I don't ever seeing mankind overcoming these differences. Thank God! (If you believe in him/her/it - if not just go with Thank Goodness! - this probably tells you which side of the aisle I sit on) If we all agreed, this world would be both boring and in really bad shape.

On another note, since the resurgence of the liberal movement, MSNBC has become the Fox News of the left and I actually think that is just fine. Humans like to hear people who agree with them and like to see those they don't agree with put in their place - hence we have Hannity, Rush, O'Reilly, Olbermann, Maddow, Mathews et al. Neither network is fair or balanced and conservative, market-driven Republicans should be happy to see an exstablished company like GE taking advantage of a rising market segement (i.e. liberals) and making money off them with Olbermann & MSNBC.

Personally, Olbermann gets a bit tiresome but he is a hell of alot funnier than anyone on the right and Maddow's show is sometimes laugh out loud funny.

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FoolThemAll

lol. I take it you're conservative?

I don't see the divide as being quite so black and white.

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