This is an excellent video of Chris Matthews spotlighting talking points. He was speaking with a radio talk show host, Kevin James, about the statement of appeasement from bush in Israel last week. It is time to address simplistic discussions that don't define the issues, but try to only use "buzz" words. During this clip Kevin says, the key word is appeasement and then repeats the word over and over, without giving the background he is being asked for, specifically, as to what was done that was called appeasement. The clip really says everything, it is worth the couple minutes to watch.
Well done Chris, thank you, and it is time to raise our discussions, to what moves us and those around us, progressively forward.
I would like to make one more point, if we had media that had done this for the past 8-9 years, we never would have had george w bush as a "president" and would never have gone into Iraq. Chris was there then, so he is not perfect, but it is great that we are trying to move in the right direction again.
4 comments:
There is a very revealing moment towards the end of the clip when James tries to pin responsibility for the 9/11 attacks on the Clinton administration. Air America’s Mark Green advises James that he should read Richard Clarke’s book and James retorts that Green should watch an ABC docu-drama. Is it any wonder that James is a “blank slate” when it comes to actual facts?
That line struck me too as I watched the video. My naivete convinced me that surely he was making a joke. Right? I mean, no one in their right mind would cite that. But then again, he did not seem like someone who would have a close relationship with irony.
Vinny,
I agree, when presented with evidence from a book authored by someone who was there, in the administration working, they responded with a movie made in the ever ridiculed Hollywood. I think it also shows one of the differences in the parties strategies. The democratic side is referencing books, while the right wing is quoting movies. Unfortunately movies are easier to watch and absorb than books.
Conservatives of James' ilk judge the reliability of every source by the extent to which it supports their "blame the liberal" paradigm. I have no doubt that he would cite a comic book as an unassailable authority if it blamed Clinton and Carter for everything that has gone wrong in America over the last three decades. He must be so accustomed to his toadying listeners accepting such nonsense without question that it did not occur to him how stupid it sounds to anyone who actually thinks.
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