Libtalkers Unhappy With Portrayals Of Byrd, Questioning Of Kagan

TOUCHY, TOUCHY

Libtalkers Resort To Petty Gripes, Cheap Tactics







With Obama's approval ratings slipping by the day, his economic policies floundering and liberal stalwarts moving into the afterlife, it's not a fun time for our "progressive" friends.

For their part, liberal talk hosts seem not to have much of a strategy at the moment beyond petty gripes (how DARE Elena Kagan face questions about her background, how DARE anyone mention Robert Byrd's Klan association) and the usual (aren't those Republicans RAAAAAAACIST!!!!) smears.

Here are some of libtalk's lowlights over the past week, including Stacy Taylor on Robert Byrd, plus New York Daily News columnist Errol Lewis and Oregon-based syndicated host Thom Hartmann, both commenting on the Kagan hearings:

STACY TAYLOR (RANDI RHODES SHOW GUEST HOST - 02 JULY 2010) (02:58): I must comment that I am dismayed at the fact that you have forced me into, um, tuning in to the right-wing blowhard machine... These people on the conservative right, who dominate talk radio....and uh...man alive!..if -if you didn't know that Robert Byrd was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, you know, back in the 1950s, you know, before this week, it's been beaten into your head by now!

I mean, it's like, people were waiting for the guy to die just like Ted Kennedy so they could talk about Chappaquidick so they could talk about the Ku Klux Klan! That's all I heard! Robert Byrd - Ku Klux Klan!

And by of course, by uh, by insinuation by extension - guilt by association - that means Democrats; the Democrat Party as they like to call it over there - never could quite figure it out there - the Republic Party and the Democrat Party! So I'm getting all the jargon down...


ERROL LOUIS (ED SCHULTZ SHOW GUEST HOST - WEDNESDAY 30 JUNE 2010) (20:54): Has there ever been a grilling of a conservative nominee to the Supreme Court where somebody asked them, hey are you a conservative? And they said, yeah, I'm a conservative. I don't remember ever hearing that? Anybody else remember, do you remember ever hearing that? We have this habit of falling into these little traps, all these little rhetorical traps. I mean, that's the game, right, at a nomination hearing. ...

Louis plays clip of Lindsey Graham asking Kagan of her political views, Kagan saying she's lifelong Democrat, worked for two Democratic presidents and considers herself "generally progressive" - Louis suggests, in effect, that Kagan do what Dukakis did so masterfully in '88 campaign and scurry from accurate description of himself as liberal

LOUIS (22:28): Wrong answer, wrong answer. Are you a progressive? You're supposed to say, I'm an American. You know, I, you're supposed to say, I'm an American. I, I'm, I vote Democratic, I served in a Democratic administration, draw whatever conclusions. I don't like labels, that's the other acceptable answer, I don't like labels. I don't, I don't subscribe to ideologies or -isms. I am a free thinking, independent, patriotic American. All I want to do is serve my country. That's the answer.


THOM HARTMANN (29 JUNE 2010) (5:12): (sarcastically, regarding Thurgood Marshall's efforts on behalf of racial integration): Oh, my God, Jeff Sessions might have to sit next to a black man on an airplane now! Can you believe it -- Jeff Sessions' kids might have to go to school with black kids!

HARTMANN (6:36): Talk about speakin' to the base. Talk about [a] dog whistle to the racists...What the Republicans did yesterday was all but furl out a KKK banner and show up [in] robes and hoods and say, 'Hey, all you racist guys out there, send us money, get us elected, we're gonna make a good stand here against this woman who had the temerity to clerk for Thurgood Marshall.' See, that's why they keep invoking Thurgood Marshall's name.

HARTMANN (9:34): The Republican party, flailing around, trying to get the racist vote in their base activated, and they're using the Kagan hearings to do it.

Can't wait to see what next week brings...