Keith Olberman the NEW Edward R. Murrow

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

Well, if Bush had such bad advisers, Conan, why doesn't he fire them?

That's a good question.  Keep in mind though his advisors were relying on information from supposedly non-partisan intelligence agencies (and yes, I know his father used to run one of them).

[aoxamaxoa]

What story will you be talking about tommorow?

Attacking Bob Woodward.

Condi Rice being told, warned about Bin Ladin's intentions before September in July of 2001 and she brushed it off.

And this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8JZ8t051EY

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by swake

They would continue the civil and would likely include Iran in that that war.

Okay, then what happens?  How does that affect the stability of the rest of the ME, and ultimately, rein in rogue terrorists?

Where do you think the support and money for terrorists come from? Iran.

And if we aren't there in the middle east, and aren't the "great satan" supposedly trying to rule the middle east, what do you think happens to the success that Al Queda will have in finding new recruits?

And like in WWI, I don't buy the idea that taking out the leaders doesn't matter, cut off the head often enough eventually the body will die. Get the people running the show.

Also, remember, take away the support from the Saudis and Pakistan (which for Pakistan has already largely happened) and make Iran have other things to worry about and the problem will largely go away. You will be left with an already nervous Syria as the last major sponsor of terrorism.

And, above all, solve Isreal/Palestine and terrorists, at least ones that focus on us, will go away.

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by aoxamaxoa

"We threaten Pakistan in the same way, they let us quietly come in as needed to get Al Queda, they also need to get rid of the radical teachers of Islam in Pakistan. Our threat here is we are going to do it anyway, and screw them if they don't like it, and if they don't play our game, we become very good friends with India and stop working to suppress the war for Kashmir that has been building for so long. We threaten to properly brand Pakistan a terrorist state for supporting the Taliban and for supporting terrorist in Indian Kashmir."Swake

What does all this do for the future except breed more hatred?

Swake, you have a real awareness of the world map. Yet, it seems that our men in power still prefer fire over diplomacy. Why is that as of IraqII, we are looked on as equals amongst our allies and enemies?

Sometimes you might ask, "what would Gandhi do?"

Look, sorry, I'm not voting for singing Kum Bay Yah and hoping it all works out.

I vote for the "Speak softly and carry a big stick" and for doing the right thing as much as is possible in the world. Be the beacon that we should be at all times. But make that stick really, really big.

Powell was a great general, he didn't use enough troops in the first Gulf war, he used way, way, way too many. And it made the world tremble at our might, and when we left after we were done without creating a colony or getting into "nation buiding" they were scared and impressed.

[aoxamaxoa]

KO on Letterman Tuesday.... unless he gets pre-empted by monkey's.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by swake

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by swake

They would continue the civil and would likely include Iran in that that war.

Okay, then what happens?  How does that affect the stability of the rest of the ME, and ultimately, rein in rogue terrorists?

Where do you think the support and money for terrorists come from? Iran.

And if we aren't there in the middle east, and aren't the "great satan" supposedly trying to rule the middle east, what do you think happens to the success that Al Queda will have in finding new recruits?

And like in WWI, I don't buy the idea that taking out the leaders doesn't matter, cut off the head often enough eventually the body will die. Get the people running the show.

Also, remember, take away the support from the Saudis and Pakistan (which for Pakistan has already largely happened) and make Iran have other things to worry about and the problem will largely go away. You will be left with an already nervous Syria as the last major sponsor of terrorism.

And, above all, solve Isreal/Palestine and terrorists, at least ones that focus on us, will go away.

Swake,

All logical points.

The problem as I see it is that Al Quaeda is only one terrorist group in a long chain of many others.  Sure, you keep cutting off the heads and it eventually dies.  But there are more OBL's out there to start other radical terrorist groups.

Even if we had no interests in the ME, which you and I know will never come to pass, there are still the fundamentalist nut-jobs in Islam who think anyone who is not a Muslim must be conquered and brought into submission under their Allah.  These are people who don't stand in awe of our might and power.  These are people who believe it is the highest honor to die in the name of their religion.  You cannot beat sense into people like this who have been indoctrinated to believe war and conflict are more a part of their religion than peace.

You and I and others here will never agree as to whether there was any good reason to go into Iraq in the first place.  In hindsight we can all see that it is bogging down efforts that could be better spent elsewhere, though I find it more than coincidental that no more attacks have happened on American soil.

[aoxamaxoa]

Before 9-11, what was the last attack by terrorists on American soil?

[iplaw]

1993 WTC bombing and OKC in 1995.  What's your point?

[rwarn17588]

John Brown's raid in 1859.

[8D]

[aoxamaxoa]

The point is that terrorists will strike when they see an opening to get away with it. That may take years. They are more patient than we are and they do not over react. They know our mentality and are eager to set us up. If you think that we are any safer than before then it's a smokescreen. The odds of one of us being hit by terrorists are greater than lightning striking us.

Watch KO tonight on MSNBC and get the feeling that things are getting better all the time. The light is beggining to expose the darkness of our leaders.

[iplaw]

Right...all 5 of you can continue to enjoy your new found messiah...the rest of us will continue to live in the real world.

[aoxamaxoa]

Jeff Cohen: Is Olbermann on Thin Ice?
Tue, 10/03/2006
by Jeff Cohen, author of Cable News Confidential

I fear for Keith Olbermann.

Like so many others who hunger for some journalistic independence on TV news, I often marvel at Olbermann's dogged reporting and unique commentary. In a cable news environment of conformity and conservatism, the MSNBC host takes on the Bush administration for "demonizing dissent," for abusing our Constitutional traditions, for "taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love [following 9/11], and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death."

Only Olbermann talks about Team Bush "monstrously transforming [9/11 unity] into fear and suspicion, and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections." He was virtually alone on TV news in seriously reporting on 2004 election irregularities in Ohio , and in exploring the pre-Iraq war Downing Street Memos indicating White House deception. In recent months, his prime targets seem to have evolved from softer ones like Bill O'Reilly to bigger game: Bush and his minions.

It's worth noting that strong criticism of an extremist presidency hardly makes Olbermann a leftist. I remember him as the whimsical sports guy on ESPN. I remember his first go-round on MSNBC in 1998 when he could have sued his bosses for repetitive stress disorder for having to host scores of Lewinsky episodes on the road to Clinton 's impeachment - an impeachment that may well have been impossible if not for the complicity of TV news.

It's obvious his bosses at MSNBC/NBC/GE never envisioned the increasingly bold Olbermann of recent months. It's likely that Olbermann himself could not have foreseen his current role as the lone voice of those who feel assaulted by a cable news business dominated by the O'Reillys and Hannitys.

So why do I fear for Olbermann? Because I know his bosses. In the runup to the Iraq war, I too worked for MSNBC - as an on-air pundit and a senior producer on the primetime Donahue show.

As I detail in my new book Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media, the Suits at MSNBC/NBC muzzled us and ultimately terminated us. They feared independent journalism and serious dissent. They smeared Bush critics, with MSNBC's editor-in-chief actually going on air - without evidence - to accuse Iraq WMD skeptic Scott Ritter of being a paid agent of Saddam Hussein.

Olbermann has been gaining in audience ratings. That provides him some security. But perhaps not enough.

When Donahue was terminated three weeks before the Iraq invasion, it was MSNBC's most watched program. Canceling your top-rated show doesn't happen often, but it happened to Donahue. Who knows what will happen to Olbermann?

With Donahue, management cared less about building up audience than tamping down dissent. While independent outlets and blogs were soaring in audience by questioning the rush to war, our bosses imposed straightjackets on us that prevented similar growth.

In the last months of Donahue, management gave us strict orders: if we booked a guest who was antiwar, we needed two who were pro-war. If we booked two guests on the left, we needed three on the right. When a producer proposed booking Michael Moore, she was told she'd need three rightwingers for ideological balance.

Olbermann's increasingly bold dissent has been occurring at a time when Bush's approval ratings are low and Bush's war is in shambles. That gives him some added security.

During Donahue's tenure at MSNBC on the eve of war, Bush's popularity was high. And media conglomerates were particularly concerned about not ruffling the White House at that moment - as they were lobbying hard to get FCC rules changed to allow them to grow still fatter.

The day after Donahue was terminated, an internal NBC memo leaked out; it said that Phil Donahue represents "a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war." Why? Because he insisted on presenting administration critics. The memo worried that Donahue would become a "home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

NBC's solution then? Dump Phil, stifle dissent, brandish the flag.

NBC's solution now? So far, Olbermann appears to be on more solid footing - mostly because the political zeitgeist is much changed from four years ago.

But MSNBC is still owned by GE's conservative bosses, and managed by NBC's ever-timid executives. Olbermann knows this reality as well as anyone; six months ago on C-SPAN, while expressing confidence that good ratings would keep them at bay, he remarked: "There are people I know in the hierarchy of NBC, the company, and GE, the company, who do not like to see the current presidential administration criticized at all."

I'm pulling for Olbermann; I'm one of the multitudes who find his commentaries online (perhaps more see them on the Web than on TV) - and forward them far and wide.

But with each new broadside against the Bush administration, I fear for his future. His best security is us, an active citizenry. It's media activism, organized heavily on the Net. It's media watch groups like FAIR and Media Matters for America . It's the movement that resisted the FCC changes in 2003, challenged Sinclair Broadcast propaganda before the '04 election, and recently exposed the 9/11 "hijacking" of ABC by rightwing Clinton-bashers.

In the epilogue of Cable News Confidential, I lauded this movement: "My only regret was that such a potent movement had not coalesced by 2002 - to flex its muscles against MSNBC brass in defense of an unfettered Donahue."

If Olbermann gets muzzled or terminated for political reasons, it will be up to us to fight - not only for him, but for the concept that without serious dissent, democracy is a sham.


Jeff Cohen is the founder of the media watch group FAIR, and author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media http://www.cablenewsconfidential.com/.

[iplaw]

Personal attack removed.

[aoxamaxoa]

Personal attack removed.

[aoxamaxoa]

Personal attack removed.