Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Pundits Savage Romney
2012-09-16 22:00:51 -0400
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I think you’re seeing the Fox pundits preparing themselves for the inevitable. With these positions, they can comfortably discuss the Election on the day of and the day after without that moment of having to come clean with the viewers.
This is why the behavior of Hannity and Dick Morris will likely only become more entertaining all the way up into November. I expect that Greta will continue to flack for Romney until the situation becomes obvious after the debates, and then she’ll join that chorus. O’Reilly is more of a wild card. My instincts say that he’ll start castigating Romney after the first debate, for not following whatever course O’Reilly would have preferred. I expect him to get more and more skeptical with the pro-Romney guests until November.
This is why the behavior of Hannity and Dick Morris will likely only become more entertaining all the way up into November. I expect that Greta will continue to flack for Romney until the situation becomes obvious after the debates, and then she’ll join that chorus. O’Reilly is more of a wild card. My instincts say that he’ll start castigating Romney after the first debate, for not following whatever course O’Reilly would have preferred. I expect him to get more and more skeptical with the pro-Romney guests until November.
Kevin Koster commented on Rupert Murdoch's Tweets Out Of Sync With Fox
2012-09-16 20:11:43 -0400
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Murdoch’s conclusions are mostly correct.
But if and when Romney takes his advice and tries to move to the center, likely during the debates, that’s when the “Etch a Sketch” comment will come back to haunt him. And the hard line right wingers who already have trust issues with Romney, will likely bolt if he does move away from them. Murdoch’s correct that they have nowhere else to go logically, but in their minds they’ll be doing the right thing by either voting for Gary Johnson, writing in Ron Paul, or just opting out of the presidential area of the election. Romney does not have their votes as a guarantee, and the moment they think he’s not in lockstep with them, a bunch will flee.
The most likely scenario, barring some kind of unbelievable meltdown by Obama, will be for Romney to gradually lose ground over the next six weeks, particularly after the first debate. Romney will still get somewhere around 45-48 percent of the vote, and he’ll still pick up a bunch of Electoral College votes. But nothing he’s done indicates that he can get over the hump to become President.
Murdoch and the people at Fox News know this, and have known it for some time. The real interesting part of this will come after Hannity and Morris predictably lose their composure completely as Election Day draws near.
Morris has staked what’s left of any credibility on a Romney landslide, so it will be interesting to see what happens after the election. I have a feeling he’ll get angrier and angrier on air throughout October, culminating on Election Day. And then he’ll be back on the air the following week, pretending to have some credibility as an expert on these matters. And pretending that none of his statements over the past year exist.
Hannity, on the other hand, has been drumrolling this election since January 2011, when he was starting his program with the line “And we’re on the road to 2012!” I’m not sure what Hannity was thinking then, whether he thought there would be a great GOP candidate or whether he just wanted to rev up his audience. But one has to seriously wonder how he’s going to handle watching Obama win a second term…
But if and when Romney takes his advice and tries to move to the center, likely during the debates, that’s when the “Etch a Sketch” comment will come back to haunt him. And the hard line right wingers who already have trust issues with Romney, will likely bolt if he does move away from them. Murdoch’s correct that they have nowhere else to go logically, but in their minds they’ll be doing the right thing by either voting for Gary Johnson, writing in Ron Paul, or just opting out of the presidential area of the election. Romney does not have their votes as a guarantee, and the moment they think he’s not in lockstep with them, a bunch will flee.
The most likely scenario, barring some kind of unbelievable meltdown by Obama, will be for Romney to gradually lose ground over the next six weeks, particularly after the first debate. Romney will still get somewhere around 45-48 percent of the vote, and he’ll still pick up a bunch of Electoral College votes. But nothing he’s done indicates that he can get over the hump to become President.
Murdoch and the people at Fox News know this, and have known it for some time. The real interesting part of this will come after Hannity and Morris predictably lose their composure completely as Election Day draws near.
Morris has staked what’s left of any credibility on a Romney landslide, so it will be interesting to see what happens after the election. I have a feeling he’ll get angrier and angrier on air throughout October, culminating on Election Day. And then he’ll be back on the air the following week, pretending to have some credibility as an expert on these matters. And pretending that none of his statements over the past year exist.
Hannity, on the other hand, has been drumrolling this election since January 2011, when he was starting his program with the line “And we’re on the road to 2012!” I’m not sure what Hannity was thinking then, whether he thought there would be a great GOP candidate or whether he just wanted to rev up his audience. But one has to seriously wonder how he’s going to handle watching Obama win a second term…
Kevin Koster commented on John McCain Strays Off The Fox News Plantation Re Egypt And Libya
2012-09-14 16:19:26 -0400
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I’m glad this got noticed. I thought it was a pretty spectacular moment, and it spoke more to what is clearly an animosity between the two men than to the issue at hand. It also shows Hannity’s desperation to find something, anything he can use to attack Obama with in the midst of a presidential campaign Obama appears to be handily winning.
This was almost as fun as Hannity and Morris losing their composure near the end of the 2008 campaign.
McCain’s points, in fairness, were actually well done. The part that most of the Fox News crew don’t get is that the Embassy release about the video was not an apology – it was an attempt to minimize the damage from that video. That isn’t weakness, it’s being a good neighbor and guest. I’ll give O’Reilly credit for at least paying lip service to this idea. But Hannity is clearly flailing at this point. One has to wonder what he’ll do after the debates…
This was almost as fun as Hannity and Morris losing their composure near the end of the 2008 campaign.
McCain’s points, in fairness, were actually well done. The part that most of the Fox News crew don’t get is that the Embassy release about the video was not an apology – it was an attempt to minimize the damage from that video. That isn’t weakness, it’s being a good neighbor and guest. I’ll give O’Reilly credit for at least paying lip service to this idea. But Hannity is clearly flailing at this point. One has to wonder what he’ll do after the debates…
Kevin Koster commented on Van Susteren Likens Romney’s Intemperate Middle East Remarks To Obama’s Beer Summit
2012-09-13 19:28:16 -0400
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This entire matter is only pointing up the increasing panic on the part of the Romney campaign and their supporters at Fox. They know their guy is not getting over the hump, and they’re trying to seize on the problems in Egypt and Libya to see if they can make some hay there. Unfortunately, they crossed a line – it’s all well and good for Romney to decry the destruction and deaths, but he jumped the gun on it, and he tried to turn the matter into a reason to openly criticize Obama. The smart move would have been to leave the second part unspoken, but his advisors clearly pushed him to make the direct statement.
One really has to wonder what these guys are going to say the morning after the election. Will this be a replay of 2006, when Limbaugh famously ranted that he was happy he wouldn’t have to support candidates he didn’t believe in?
One really has to wonder what these guys are going to say the morning after the election. Will this be a replay of 2006, when Limbaugh famously ranted that he was happy he wouldn’t have to support candidates he didn’t believe in?
Kevin Koster commented on Bill O'Reilly Wants Palin's Help Smearing Obama More
2012-09-12 02:50:25 -0400
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There was a much more revealing moment for me in the segment before this one. Unless I’m missing something big (and I could be), O’Reilly has never gone out publicly saying that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. In the past, he has screamed at people on the air for saying that. But tonight, he was suddenly (for me anyway) saying that it was a hindsight mistake to have invaded Iraq. This was said as part of his debate with Alan Colmes about the cost of the Bush wars, but it was an admission that was quite startling. If anything, that shows more clearly that the GOP is starting to go from desperation to outright panic.
Kevin Koster commented on Bill O’Reilly’s Producer Tried To Ambush Sandra Fluke At The DNC
2012-09-11 03:22:53 -0400
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Jesse Watters attempts to ambush Democrat politicians and supporters at the DNC got a pretty hilarious airing here, since he utterly failed in his efforts. He was clearly aiming to try to get “something juicy” to put on the air for Hannity, but all he got was a series of on-camera rejections and avoidances. My personal favorite was the NPR person who took one look at him, made a face and said “You’re a creep.”
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity’s Phony DNC ‘Exposé’ Didn’t Include A Single Reporter
2012-09-10 11:07:09 -0400
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The Tamara Holder/Monica Crowley segment was particularly bad, as it just turned into the usual ganging up scenario. But the problem here was that Holder actually could have turned the tables if she had some grasp of the facts.
Hannity tried to bully her by demanding that she provide examples of GOP personal attacks like he was braying about from the Dems. Holder couldn’t name a single one and made a shocking concession that she couldn’t. Which makes no sense. The answer to Hannity and Crowley about personal attacks would be to immediately turn to Crowley and say “How about when you tweeted about Sandra Fluke’s engagement – you know, when you asked ‘to a man?’” The answer would be to turn to Hannity and ask him about how he refers to Obama as “the annointed one” and “President Crybaby”. The answer would be to ask why people like Donald Trump and Ed Klein get a free pass to make really sinister comments on Fox’s air. The answer would be to ask about the RNC delegates who threw peanuts at a black camerawoman and yelled “This is how we feed the animals.” The answer would be to ask Hannity “How much time do you have?”
Hannity tried to bully her by demanding that she provide examples of GOP personal attacks like he was braying about from the Dems. Holder couldn’t name a single one and made a shocking concession that she couldn’t. Which makes no sense. The answer to Hannity and Crowley about personal attacks would be to immediately turn to Crowley and say “How about when you tweeted about Sandra Fluke’s engagement – you know, when you asked ‘to a man?’” The answer would be to turn to Hannity and ask him about how he refers to Obama as “the annointed one” and “President Crybaby”. The answer would be to ask why people like Donald Trump and Ed Klein get a free pass to make really sinister comments on Fox’s air. The answer would be to ask about the RNC delegates who threw peanuts at a black camerawoman and yelled “This is how we feed the animals.” The answer would be to ask Hannity “How much time do you have?”
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Sunday Helps Huckabee ‘Defend’ Akin With A Passel Of Smears And Distortions About Obama And Abortion
2012-08-27 20:55:09 -0400
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The depths Huckabee plunged to on this weekend’s programs just goes to show how truly desperate the right wing is getting about the election. Even when they think they have a slam-dunk week coming up, something or someone comes around to throw cold water on it.
The Akin comments are reprehensible for exactly the reasoning Powers gave. They are not a “gaffe” like, for example, Obama talking about visiting 57 states or mispronouncing “corpsman”. Those are gaffes, and politicians who speak publicly are lucky if they only have a handful of those in their history. (Kennedy’s “I am a jelly donut” is another good one.) Akin’s comments indicate his thinking about the issue at hand. And that’s the part that the right wing is desperate to divert people from seeing.
So Huckabee brings up a series of political votes that were done in Illinois as an attempt to “gotcha” the Democrats some years ago. That attempt was failed then, and it continues to fail today. Huckabee’s return to that argument shows that either he has forgotten his position is untenable, or he’s hoping his viewers have. So he’s either ignorant of the facts or is deliberately trying to obscure them. He can choose whether this is negligence or truly bad intent on his part.
Either way, the polls are showing that Romney is not making the inroads he must in order to actually have a chance to win this election. Instead, we’re likely to be seeing the election play out just as it looks today – with Obama between 50 and 55% of the popular vote, and somewhere around 300 EC votes. Which will leave Hannity, Huckabee, O’Reilly and the rest of the bunch at Fox to bluster about it for months afterward. I wouldn’t be surprised if they allege fraud. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they blamed both the media and the voters with whom they disagree.
I’ve always found it strange that the right wing assumes that voters who don’t agree with them are somehow un-American. So by exercising their right to vote in a manner that upholds their opinions, they are somehow acting against the principles they are actually upholding. Does the right wing think that only GOP voters are “true” voters?
The Akin comments are reprehensible for exactly the reasoning Powers gave. They are not a “gaffe” like, for example, Obama talking about visiting 57 states or mispronouncing “corpsman”. Those are gaffes, and politicians who speak publicly are lucky if they only have a handful of those in their history. (Kennedy’s “I am a jelly donut” is another good one.) Akin’s comments indicate his thinking about the issue at hand. And that’s the part that the right wing is desperate to divert people from seeing.
So Huckabee brings up a series of political votes that were done in Illinois as an attempt to “gotcha” the Democrats some years ago. That attempt was failed then, and it continues to fail today. Huckabee’s return to that argument shows that either he has forgotten his position is untenable, or he’s hoping his viewers have. So he’s either ignorant of the facts or is deliberately trying to obscure them. He can choose whether this is negligence or truly bad intent on his part.
Either way, the polls are showing that Romney is not making the inroads he must in order to actually have a chance to win this election. Instead, we’re likely to be seeing the election play out just as it looks today – with Obama between 50 and 55% of the popular vote, and somewhere around 300 EC votes. Which will leave Hannity, Huckabee, O’Reilly and the rest of the bunch at Fox to bluster about it for months afterward. I wouldn’t be surprised if they allege fraud. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they blamed both the media and the voters with whom they disagree.
I’ve always found it strange that the right wing assumes that voters who don’t agree with them are somehow un-American. So by exercising their right to vote in a manner that upholds their opinions, they are somehow acting against the principles they are actually upholding. Does the right wing think that only GOP voters are “true” voters?
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Democrat Pat Caddell Teams Up With Citizens United To Make Anti-Obama Movie
2012-08-25 13:48:56 -0400
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This was another desperation move for Hannity, who is becoming more and more unhinged about how the election season is going. By his own countdown, Romney has less and less time to overcome his popularity deficit, and Hannity is seeing the writing on the wall.
Cherry picking a few conservative Dems and conservative independents (including one who admitted they would have voted GOP but were angry at the McCain ticket) to say smack about Obama does not constitute good research. If this is the best Hannity can come up with, Romney’s in much worse trouble than I previously thought.
Cherry picking a few conservative Dems and conservative independents (including one who admitted they would have voted GOP but were angry at the McCain ticket) to say smack about Obama does not constitute good research. If this is the best Hannity can come up with, Romney’s in much worse trouble than I previously thought.
Kevin Koster commented on Dick Morris Calls Todd Akin Scandal ‘A Big Plus For Romney’
2012-08-23 16:49:11 -0400
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What in the world is Morris going to do on the day after the election? For that matter, what will Hannity and O’Reilly do? Anyone want to take odds that they’re going to replace themselves for at least the first night to avoid the embarassment?
Kevin Koster commented on Sean Hannity Attacks Obama For Condemning “Relatively Obscure” Rep. Akin
2012-08-21 04:40:40 -0400
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There are so many lies spoken by Hannity in the radio clip that it’s impossible to count them. My favorite is how he says that he thinks it’s fine for people to misspeak and then correct themselves and is all for free speech. So I guess I’ve just imagined all the times he’s dredged up Obama saying “57 States” or “corpsman”.
What’s telling here is Hannity’s tone on the radio show. He’s clearly very worried about the impact on the election of Akin’s idiotic statement. Of course, on television, he’s trying to present another face. But it doesn’t really ring true, does it?
What’s telling here is Hannity’s tone on the radio show. He’s clearly very worried about the impact on the election of Akin’s idiotic statement. Of course, on television, he’s trying to present another face. But it doesn’t really ring true, does it?
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity Plays The Race Card Against Michelle Obama
2012-08-19 11:03:53 -0400
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This was the second of three points in the same program where Hannity lost his composure and began yelling at his guest. That last backhanded slap about the college records was just a petty attempt at getting in a cheap shot before ending the segment. (Part of this is a holdover from the ridiculous plug he gave Wayne Allyn Root a few nights earlier, where Root would have us believe that Obama shouldn’t have been allowed into Harvard but he, Root should have…)
Outbursts and tantrums like this from Hannity are likely to continue and worsen as we get closer to the election, if his behavior in 2008 is any guide. The clearer it gets that Romney is going to lose, the more desperate Hannity’s attacks will become. And I’m very much looking forward to how he’s going to eat the crow on camera on the day after the election. Of course, I wouldn’t put it past him to take that night off and have Monica Crowley sub for him, or just have the network run a clip show.
Outbursts and tantrums like this from Hannity are likely to continue and worsen as we get closer to the election, if his behavior in 2008 is any guide. The clearer it gets that Romney is going to lose, the more desperate Hannity’s attacks will become. And I’m very much looking forward to how he’s going to eat the crow on camera on the day after the election. Of course, I wouldn’t put it past him to take that night off and have Monica Crowley sub for him, or just have the network run a clip show.
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity’s Amnesia About Right Wing Attacks On Obama Takes A Turn For The Worse
2012-08-18 05:19:30 -0400
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This was only the first of three shameful segments for Hannity, who was clearly losing his composure in every one of them. There’s already a strong sense of desperation and bitterness coming from him at this point, which means he should be very interesting to watch around October…
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity and Rove Think Truck-Drivin’, Burger-Flippin’ Ryan Will Resonate with Voters.
2012-08-17 11:20:50 -0400
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Hannity has been increasingly shrill and angry this week, which leads me to think he’s seeing the non-Rasmussen numbers across the country. Last night alone, he shouted down three different guests who disagreed with him and genuinely seemed to be losing his composure multiple times.
For all of his bluster, he’s looking at a situation where the GOP candidate isn’t getting anything more than the GOP base, and his VP pick is making it impossible to pick up the independents he would need to have a chance here. Further, the point of a VP pick is usually to be able to get that person’s home state – which is why people were anticipating either Rob Portman (Ohio) or Marco Rubio (Florida). It seems that when Rubio’s potential downsides (that credit card…) came to light, and Romney blew his European trip by repeatedly making unforced errors, the campaign threw this desperation play.
Hannity was repeatedly advocating for a Marco Rubio pick, and seems to be trying to cover himself now (as does Ann Coulter) by making a big show of embracing Ryan. Except that the numbers don’t show that Ryan is doing anything for Romney other than a curiosity bounce, which isn’t helping him. So it’s natural that Hannity can see which way this is all going and he’s getting more and more panicked.
Looking forward to what he does and says on Election Night, and more importantly, on the night after…
For all of his bluster, he’s looking at a situation where the GOP candidate isn’t getting anything more than the GOP base, and his VP pick is making it impossible to pick up the independents he would need to have a chance here. Further, the point of a VP pick is usually to be able to get that person’s home state – which is why people were anticipating either Rob Portman (Ohio) or Marco Rubio (Florida). It seems that when Rubio’s potential downsides (that credit card…) came to light, and Romney blew his European trip by repeatedly making unforced errors, the campaign threw this desperation play.
Hannity was repeatedly advocating for a Marco Rubio pick, and seems to be trying to cover himself now (as does Ann Coulter) by making a big show of embracing Ryan. Except that the numbers don’t show that Ryan is doing anything for Romney other than a curiosity bounce, which isn’t helping him. So it’s natural that Hannity can see which way this is all going and he’s getting more and more panicked.
Looking forward to what he does and says on Election Night, and more importantly, on the night after…
Kevin Koster commented on Swiftboat Author Jerome Corsi: Fox News Is 'Packed With Leftist Commentators'
2012-08-13 03:16:11 -0400
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Jerry Corsi? Really?
The same guy who regularly tries to peddle conspiracy theories and looney tunes to whoever will listen? That Jerry Corsi?
The same guy who spent years throwing around patently untrue statements about the Ramos & Compean trial, as well as about everything from 9/11 to anything else he could foment about?
Who besides the Alex Jones audience really cares what this guy has to say?
The same guy who regularly tries to peddle conspiracy theories and looney tunes to whoever will listen? That Jerry Corsi?
The same guy who spent years throwing around patently untrue statements about the Ramos & Compean trial, as well as about everything from 9/11 to anything else he could foment about?
Who besides the Alex Jones audience really cares what this guy has to say?
Kevin Koster commented on Breaking News: Romney To Announce VP Pick Tomorrow AM
2012-08-11 04:59:27 -0400
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This is a strange choice by Romney, and I strongly doubt it’s what the higher-ups in the GOP wanted. I’m not even sure what real advantage he gets from picking Ryan.
If he had picked Rob Portman, who was long the favorite of the GOP for his experience and his Ohio flag, he might have had a chance to win that state, which might have outweighed the comments he would have endured about Portman’s service in the Bush Administration. If he had picked Marco Rubio, he might have had a chance to win Florida, which might have outweighed the controversies Rubio has plunged himself into.
But Ryan? Going with him means he’s alienating the voters of Florida and effectively writing off that state. He’s throwing Ohio away too, which leaves him in a situation no GOP candidate wants to be if they can avoid it. And he’s aligning himself with the House GOP, which means he’s writing off all the independent voters he desperately needs to get over the hump he’s been unable to clear.
This may be a turning point for the campaign.
If he had picked Rob Portman, who was long the favorite of the GOP for his experience and his Ohio flag, he might have had a chance to win that state, which might have outweighed the comments he would have endured about Portman’s service in the Bush Administration. If he had picked Marco Rubio, he might have had a chance to win Florida, which might have outweighed the controversies Rubio has plunged himself into.
But Ryan? Going with him means he’s alienating the voters of Florida and effectively writing off that state. He’s throwing Ohio away too, which leaves him in a situation no GOP candidate wants to be if they can avoid it. And he’s aligning himself with the House GOP, which means he’s writing off all the independent voters he desperately needs to get over the hump he’s been unable to clear.
This may be a turning point for the campaign.
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity Promotes 'Gut Instinct' Theory Obama Was A Foreign Exchange Student At Columbia
2012-08-08 17:03:49 -0400
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It’s astonishing that Hannity would trot out someone as sleazy as Root, but then, he also was trying to push Ed Klein’s smear book when he had the chance.
Root was completely humiliated and discredited back in 2008, and the years since then have not been kind to him in that regard. The only people giving him the time of day are outlets like Fox News or extreme right wing radio shock jocks.
I would be very interested to see Root’s college and high school records, if we’re going to go down this line of questioning. I strongly doubt his assertion that he was that good of a student in his school, and I wonder if he was even the valedictorian. He makes it sound like he was the star student who Harvard refused to admit in favor of an unworthy non-white person. He then tries to imply both that Obama was a bad student and that he wasn’t an American citizen. Since both of these assertions have been totally disproven, it’s strange that he keeps bringing it up.
But the proof is in the pudding. Barack Obama, a fairly smart man, straightened up his act after high school, attended Occidental and Columbia, and worked his way into Harvard Law. He distinguished himself in college, and in his later career both in his community and then as a politician, climbing the ladder all the way to the presidency. What has Root done with his life and career? Gone to Vegas to be a bookmaker? Complained that America isn’t libertarian enough? Which of these men has really made a difference for anyone’s lives? I strongly doubt that the answer is Root.
The fact that Hannity is putting disreputable people like this on the air only goes to show how desperate and how angry the right wing is getting about the direction of this presidential campaign. They don’t like their candidate, and they hate Obama. They hate the fact that he’s likely to be re-elected and that they can’t just run him out of town. So they throw angrier and more desperate slurs at him. And then Hannity has the nerve to wonder why the Obama White House doesn’t see fit to invite him to events.
Root was completely humiliated and discredited back in 2008, and the years since then have not been kind to him in that regard. The only people giving him the time of day are outlets like Fox News or extreme right wing radio shock jocks.
I would be very interested to see Root’s college and high school records, if we’re going to go down this line of questioning. I strongly doubt his assertion that he was that good of a student in his school, and I wonder if he was even the valedictorian. He makes it sound like he was the star student who Harvard refused to admit in favor of an unworthy non-white person. He then tries to imply both that Obama was a bad student and that he wasn’t an American citizen. Since both of these assertions have been totally disproven, it’s strange that he keeps bringing it up.
But the proof is in the pudding. Barack Obama, a fairly smart man, straightened up his act after high school, attended Occidental and Columbia, and worked his way into Harvard Law. He distinguished himself in college, and in his later career both in his community and then as a politician, climbing the ladder all the way to the presidency. What has Root done with his life and career? Gone to Vegas to be a bookmaker? Complained that America isn’t libertarian enough? Which of these men has really made a difference for anyone’s lives? I strongly doubt that the answer is Root.
The fact that Hannity is putting disreputable people like this on the air only goes to show how desperate and how angry the right wing is getting about the direction of this presidential campaign. They don’t like their candidate, and they hate Obama. They hate the fact that he’s likely to be re-elected and that they can’t just run him out of town. So they throw angrier and more desperate slurs at him. And then Hannity has the nerve to wonder why the Obama White House doesn’t see fit to invite him to events.
Kevin Koster commented on Cheney And Hannity Suggest Sarah Palin More Qualified Than Barack Obama To Be President
2012-08-07 10:46:08 -0400
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I turned off the Cheney “interview” after maybe 4 minutes. I simply had had enough. I like parallel universe history too, but I just don’t have time to indulge in Cheney’s repeated attempts to create it.
There was a much funnier Hannity segment to come, though. Once again, he had Dick Morris on, who heroically predicted a Romney landslide of either 330 or 350 Electoral votes. And the part that sent it into hysterics was when even Sean Hannity couldn’t go there with him. When you have both O’Reilly and Hannity saying to Morris that he’s going way out on a limb, that’s a heck of an achievement. Morris may be the last person on Fox (other than Cheney) to figure out what the rest of the country has already deduced about this election.
There was a much funnier Hannity segment to come, though. Once again, he had Dick Morris on, who heroically predicted a Romney landslide of either 330 or 350 Electoral votes. And the part that sent it into hysterics was when even Sean Hannity couldn’t go there with him. When you have both O’Reilly and Hannity saying to Morris that he’s going way out on a limb, that’s a heck of an achievement. Morris may be the last person on Fox (other than Cheney) to figure out what the rest of the country has already deduced about this election.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Spins Clinton's Convention Appearance As A Sign Of Obama's Weakness
2012-08-01 04:09:29 -0400
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Let’s set a few things straight here.
During Clinton’s presidency, he was a center-right politician who regularly combined Republican and Democratic points of view, which tended to leave the GOP without any position. Naturally, this led to a series of fairly nasty personal attacks on him that started during his candidacy in 1992 and continue from Rush Limbaugh to this day. Make no mistake, the Republicans openly HATED Clinton when he was in office. Newt Gingrich made a point of refusing to shake his hand. As soon as Fox News was started, they launched an unending stream of attacks on him on any issue they could find or make. (Does this sound familiar? It should – it’s the same playbook they’ve been running at Obama, with similar results.)
Clinton became President during the bad recession that was the tail end of George HW Bush’s term. A strong case can be made that Ross Perot’s run made it much easier for Clinton to beat Bush. The economy rebounded under Clinton – but we should remember that the engine that revved everything up, in all honesty, wasn’t the tax increases, although those did help in keeping public sector workers employed. The engine that picked everyone up was the Internet, which exploded in the mid-90s and fattened many people’s wallets. There was also a real estate boom, which turned into the bubble we saw in the 2000s.
When George W. Bush was declared President in 2000, the economy was in pretty good condition. We had a surplus starting to run, which would have allowed us to pay the deficit down and have the kind of “rainy day fund” hawks always advise. Instead, Bush’s team decided to do a series of tax cuts and give the surplus away. In one shot, Bush turned a surplus back into a deficit. The 2001 terrorist attacks certainly did help anything, and certainly did depress things for a few months, but they did not destroy the economy. The economy was damaged by a series of factors, including the mismanagement by the Bush team, two unfunded wars that had to be paid out of somewhere, and which dragged on through the rest of Bush’s term, and a housing/credit bubble that eventually, inevitably popped. Bush’s own popularity and approval rating tanked in his last two years in office, reaching horrifyingly low numbers in 2008 when the economy totally imploded. It’s no mistake that the McCain people wanted to distance themselves from Bush, and no mistake that the Romney people will not have Bush or Cheney at the convention.
The first term of our current president has unfortunately been marked by even more acrimony than what was thrown at Clinton in the 90s. The GOP in Congress still worked with him on several issues, albeit because of his taking more right wing positions on things like welfare. I have to give Bob Dole credit for sticking with President Clinton in 1993, when Saddam Hussein made some comments in an attempt to be divisive over here. This is the sort of thing we haven’t seen from the GOP in Congress over the last three years. Instead, we’ve seen willful obstruction on a scale not imagined before. These guys have openly stated that their priority isn’t to do their jobs but instead to try to unseat the President in this election. Which is really shameful.
For the record, President Obama’s plans have actually kept the economy from sliding completely off the cliff. Millions of jobs were saved and generated both by the stimulus and the auto company bailout. The GOP talking points that try to minimize this ignore that unemployment would have skyrocketed into the teens had those steps not been taken. Granted, things could have gone better had the GOP wanted to cooperate, but at least we’ve started a recovery, as weak as it is.
And it’s really interesting that Fox News pundits now want to express their admiration for Bill Clinton, a man they showed unmitigated hostility toward, including when Chris Wallace tried to ambush him in an interview a few years ago and then had it blow up in his face. Does this mean that when the next Democrat is elected after Obama’s second term, they’ll suddenly embrace Obama?
During Clinton’s presidency, he was a center-right politician who regularly combined Republican and Democratic points of view, which tended to leave the GOP without any position. Naturally, this led to a series of fairly nasty personal attacks on him that started during his candidacy in 1992 and continue from Rush Limbaugh to this day. Make no mistake, the Republicans openly HATED Clinton when he was in office. Newt Gingrich made a point of refusing to shake his hand. As soon as Fox News was started, they launched an unending stream of attacks on him on any issue they could find or make. (Does this sound familiar? It should – it’s the same playbook they’ve been running at Obama, with similar results.)
Clinton became President during the bad recession that was the tail end of George HW Bush’s term. A strong case can be made that Ross Perot’s run made it much easier for Clinton to beat Bush. The economy rebounded under Clinton – but we should remember that the engine that revved everything up, in all honesty, wasn’t the tax increases, although those did help in keeping public sector workers employed. The engine that picked everyone up was the Internet, which exploded in the mid-90s and fattened many people’s wallets. There was also a real estate boom, which turned into the bubble we saw in the 2000s.
When George W. Bush was declared President in 2000, the economy was in pretty good condition. We had a surplus starting to run, which would have allowed us to pay the deficit down and have the kind of “rainy day fund” hawks always advise. Instead, Bush’s team decided to do a series of tax cuts and give the surplus away. In one shot, Bush turned a surplus back into a deficit. The 2001 terrorist attacks certainly did help anything, and certainly did depress things for a few months, but they did not destroy the economy. The economy was damaged by a series of factors, including the mismanagement by the Bush team, two unfunded wars that had to be paid out of somewhere, and which dragged on through the rest of Bush’s term, and a housing/credit bubble that eventually, inevitably popped. Bush’s own popularity and approval rating tanked in his last two years in office, reaching horrifyingly low numbers in 2008 when the economy totally imploded. It’s no mistake that the McCain people wanted to distance themselves from Bush, and no mistake that the Romney people will not have Bush or Cheney at the convention.
The first term of our current president has unfortunately been marked by even more acrimony than what was thrown at Clinton in the 90s. The GOP in Congress still worked with him on several issues, albeit because of his taking more right wing positions on things like welfare. I have to give Bob Dole credit for sticking with President Clinton in 1993, when Saddam Hussein made some comments in an attempt to be divisive over here. This is the sort of thing we haven’t seen from the GOP in Congress over the last three years. Instead, we’ve seen willful obstruction on a scale not imagined before. These guys have openly stated that their priority isn’t to do their jobs but instead to try to unseat the President in this election. Which is really shameful.
For the record, President Obama’s plans have actually kept the economy from sliding completely off the cliff. Millions of jobs were saved and generated both by the stimulus and the auto company bailout. The GOP talking points that try to minimize this ignore that unemployment would have skyrocketed into the teens had those steps not been taken. Granted, things could have gone better had the GOP wanted to cooperate, but at least we’ve started a recovery, as weak as it is.
And it’s really interesting that Fox News pundits now want to express their admiration for Bill Clinton, a man they showed unmitigated hostility toward, including when Chris Wallace tried to ambush him in an interview a few years ago and then had it blow up in his face. Does this mean that when the next Democrat is elected after Obama’s second term, they’ll suddenly embrace Obama?
Kevin Koster commented on Greta Van Susteren Grouses About Mitt Romney’s Inaccessibility To The Press
2012-07-31 11:28:47 -0400
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The Palin point is also interesting. Somehow Fox is now trying to rewrite her history again as well. The Fox spin from all the hosts now appears to be that she was a great asset to the McCain campaign who was then mercilessly and viciously attacked by the liberal media until she was effectively destroyed.
And that’s about a brazen a rewriting of history as I’ve seen in a while. The only thing Palin did was momentarily get some of the harder right GOP voters excited at the convention when they saw her on the ticket. But the second she opened her mouth and began to actually say anything about her worldview, about politics, about history, the train went off the tracks. Her gaffes were even worse than the ones done early in the current campaign by Rick Perry. And like the gaffes by Romney, they were all what they call “unforced errors”. Palin wasn’t destroyed by the media – she did it to herself with her own statements and her own ignorance of the issues upon which she was opining. And once she started doing that, yes, the media had a blast with it. But they were just following the story she was creating. You could call it ambulance journalism, but Palin was the one creating the accident that was getting their attention.
The funniest part of this is that the right wing pundit who really spearheaded this myth of Palin being attacked for her success – John Ziegler, has already publicly turned on Palin. But Fox continues to use Ziegler’s talking points…
And that’s about a brazen a rewriting of history as I’ve seen in a while. The only thing Palin did was momentarily get some of the harder right GOP voters excited at the convention when they saw her on the ticket. But the second she opened her mouth and began to actually say anything about her worldview, about politics, about history, the train went off the tracks. Her gaffes were even worse than the ones done early in the current campaign by Rick Perry. And like the gaffes by Romney, they were all what they call “unforced errors”. Palin wasn’t destroyed by the media – she did it to herself with her own statements and her own ignorance of the issues upon which she was opining. And once she started doing that, yes, the media had a blast with it. But they were just following the story she was creating. You could call it ambulance journalism, but Palin was the one creating the accident that was getting their attention.
The funniest part of this is that the right wing pundit who really spearheaded this myth of Palin being attacked for her success – John Ziegler, has already publicly turned on Palin. But Fox continues to use Ziegler’s talking points…