LOL Outstanding!

Rather refreshing, nice

THAT...WAS....AWESOME!!

Good for him. (and us)

haha. gg, Olbermann.

At first I was like o____o
and then I was like

I honestly expected nothing less from that man.

*quality self-reflection.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by griefer_queafer.

Yep...nothing about the fact that he was a total fucking LIAR. Just the usual circle-jerk.

>> ^Rotty:
Yep...nothing about the fact that he was a total fucking LIAR. Just the usual circle-jerk.


And rotty knows a circle jerk when he sees one.

..........

Damn I would've really liked a pseudo war between Olbermann and Stewart. Just trading blows back and forth would be friggin awesome. Like Conan and Colbert.

hahaha

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 4:58am PST - promote requested by MycroftHomlz.

And that is why I tend to vote with the Dems. Everybody makes mistakes. Some big, some small. But grown-ups acknowledge their mistakes and try to improve themselves. I just don't see that kind of maturity in Republicans. Evar.

>> ^MaxWilder:
And that is why I tend to vote with the Dems. Everybody makes mistakes. Some big, some small. But grown-ups acknowledge their mistakes and try to improve themselves. I just don't see that kind of maturity in Republicans. Evar.


You're an idiot.

Talk about maturity!

>> ^dannym3141:
You're an idiot.

>> ^mizila:
Talk about maturity!
>> ^dannym3141:
You're an idiot.


Fight fire with fire i'm afraid. Next time someone makes a sweeping generalisation about a group of people from all walks of life, i'll give them an evidence based bullet point debunk of why they're wrong. That'll make a difference, right?

Well, that is refreshing, can't go round complaining about Rush and co if you can't see your own faults and admit to them. His program sometimes raises very good points, but the item Stewart brought him up on was well...unreasonable to say the least. Being a Republican doesn't make you a monster, and it's nice to hear him yeah 'Yeah, that was over the top!'



*quality.

This video has already declared quality - ignoring quality request by Zonbie.

Knows one? Hell, he's the pivot man!

>> ^KnivesOut:
>> ^Rotty:
Yep...nothing about the fact that he was a total fucking LIAR. Just the usual circle-jerk.

And rotty knows a circle jerk when he sees one.

@Duckman33http://bit.ly/4WewBp ?

>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^mizila:
Talk about maturity!
>> ^dannym3141:
You're an idiot.

Fight fire with fire i'm afraid. Next time someone makes a sweeping generalisation about a group of people from all walks of life, i'll give them a evidence based bullet point debunk of why they're wrong. That'll make a difference, right?


You're right about people who make broad generalizations. They're all the same.

I'm glad he could handle that with some maturity. I gave up on this guy as just being an "O'Reilly for the other side".

I guess this is what humble pie and crow tastes like at the same time!

>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^mizila:
Talk about maturity!
>> ^dannym3141:
You're an idiot.

Fight fire with fire i'm afraid. Next time someone makes a sweeping generalisation about a group of people from all walks of life, i'll give them a evidence based bullet point debunk of why they're wrong. That'll make a difference, right?


it's "i'll give them 'AN' evidence based bullet..."

And you didn't capitalise your 'i'. Let's both toast typing errors.

>> ^dannym3141:

You're an idiot.


QFT.

Olbermann has been a stain on the reputation of liberals for a long time. He makes a minor, smart-ass apology without any hint of accountability or recognition of his persistent damage to the liberal cause, and everybody uncritically licks it off his face. Business as usual

>> ^chilaxe:
Olbermann has been a stain on the reputation of liberals for a long time.

If by "a long time" you mean "Since Obama got sworn in", I'd agree that he's done more harm than good, mostly because he's continued dedicating the bulk of his show to discussing whatever the Republicans are saying or doing, elevating their importance.

There have been a few exceptions, though.

He did a lot of really good advocacy on the topic of health care. He's also advocated against escalation in Afghanistan, for not letting the Bush admin off the hook for torture, and for being too soft on Wall Street.

Mostly though, I think you're utterly wrong about putting a "stain" on the reputation of liberals. He's the first person on TV I've seen make any positive case for liberalism at all. There are a couple more now, but only a couple, and they basically share a studio with him.

He ain't perfect by any stretch, and I wish he'd spend more time talking up progressivism than trying to shit on conservatives and conservatism, but he's a net plus for the movement, if only because we finally have someone who is publicly, and unashamedly liberal, making arguments from the left on TV.

Obama is not a liberal, MSNBC is not liberal, the democratic party isn't liberal. The word you are looking for is democrat, which you can call, slighty less right wing than the republicans. Anyways, enjoy your 2-party system.

My complaint about what Olbermann represents is that he operates under the standard paradigm of 'the harder we push, the more we gain,' as opposed to 'small steps to earn society's trust.' There seem to be continually accumulating mountains of evidence against his paradigm.

Why are Roberts and Alito even on the Supreme Court? Remember that without the 'push harder no matter what' paradigm, passionate liberals wouldn't have turned their back on Gore in 2000, and history would have proceeded the way it was supposed to. No Iraq War for passionate liberals to get upset about, no Guantanamo, etc.

Instead of the argument for healthcare reform being 'we're not advocating socialism; we're just going to make small steps that take the best from the Swiss system," some idiot took a film crew to *Cuba* and said we have to be like the Communists. I hope that's worked out as well as Moore pictured it going in his head.

I think there's an endlessly rich intellectual world lying beneath the surface of politics, but all we ever see of it is the borderline anti-intellectualism of folks like Arianna Huffington arguing that it's actually good for liberals that Van Jones got pushed out of the White House, because he's too awesome to be constrained by such a job.

Olbermann could greatly improve both his show and his message by dropping his infantile impersonations of those he disagrees with.

>> ^chilaxe:
I think there's an endlessly rich intellectual world lying beneath the surface of politics, but all we ever see of it is the borderline anti-intellectualism of folks like Arianna Huffington arguing that it's actually good for liberals that Van Jones got pushed out of the White House, because he's too awesome to be constrained by such a job.


I really wish someone in a more mainstream media outlet would tap into the intellectual side of governance and political theory. It can be found all over the web (and I like to think in this particular corner of the web), but it's utterly lacking on TV. I suppose Bill Moyer's Journal occasionally dips into that realm, but I'm not sure if there's anyone but me watching that show.

I'm no fan of Huffington either. Huffpo is a decent news site, but Arianna herself seems devoted to making liberals look hysterical.

Oh, and as to your comment about progressives needing to embrace incrementalism, I agree to a certain point. I think it's important that we have people trying to shift the Overton window to the left, but I'd rather they sound more like Anthony Weiner and Alan Grayson than Michael Moore (though Moore is a good guy to have on our side too).

What I don't think we need is this whole segment of the progressive movement that's decided that the only way to move the Overton window to the left is to constantly badmouth Democrats, largely using the exact same attacks the right uses. I don't get that, but I see it happening all over the blogosphere. Lotsa people who claim to be on the left who can't do anything but talk about Obama being a secret Muslim Republican, and Rahm Emmanuel selling us out, etc.

I don't get it, do they think that driving Obama's unfavorables up is going to move the cause forward?

And that is yet another example of why John Stewart is the best in his field. Not to mention the 'MAN'!

>> ^Opus_Moderandi:
>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^mizila:
Talk about maturity!
>> ^dannym3141:
You're an idiot.

Fight fire with fire i'm afraid. Next time someone makes a sweeping generalisation about a group of people from all walks of life, i'll give them a evidence based bullet point debunk of why they're wrong. That'll make a difference, right?

it's "i'll give them 'AN' evidence based bullet..."


What is this... youtube? C'mon...

>> ^Xaielao:
And that is yet another example of why John Stewart is the best in his field. Not to mention the 'MAN'!


"To be the man, you've got to beat the man."
~Ric Flair

That's not saying Olbermann is the man, he's gone down hill over the past few years, Stewart is just awesome though. Maybe a little props to Olbermann for manning up on getting called on his shit. You'd never see Hannity, Beck, or Limbaugh do something like that. Those guys believe they're infallible.

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^chilaxe:
I think there's an endlessly rich intellectual world lying beneath the surface of politics, but all we ever see of it is the borderline anti-intellectualism of folks like Arianna Huffington arguing that it's actually good for liberals that Van Jones got pushed out of the White House, because he's too awesome to be constrained by such a job.

I really wish someone in a more mainstream media outlet would tap into the intellectual side of governance and political theory. It can be found all over the web (and I like to think in this particular corner of the web), but it's utterly lacking on TV. I suppose Bill Moyer's Journal occasionally dips into that realm, but I'm not sure if there's anyone but me watching that show.
I'm no fan of Huffington either. Huffpo is a decent news site, but Arianna herself seems devoted to making liberals look hysterical.
Oh, and as to your comment about progressives needing to embrace incrementalism, I agree to a certain point. I think it's important that we have people trying to shift the Overton window to the left, but I'd rather they sound more like Anthony Weiner and Alan Grayson than Michael Moore (though Moore is a good guy to have on our side too).
What I don't think we need is this whole segment of the progressive movement that's decided that the only way to move the Overton window to the left is to constantly badmouth Democrats, largely using the exact same attacks the right uses. I don't get that, but I see it happening all over the blogosphere. Lotsa people who claim to be on the left who can't do anything but talk about Obama being a secret Muslim Republican, and Rahm Emmanuel selling us out, etc.
I don't get it, do they think that driving Obama's unfavorables up is going to move the cause forward?


I could get behind liberalism if there was a movement within it to hold accountable those fellow liberals who sabotage the cause.

Liberals have plenty of sites like 'Crooks and Liars" or Mediawatch to keep an eye on the excesses of conservatives... why can't they do the same to keep an eye on the excesses of fellow liberals?

Next time Michael Moore says he's going to sabotage the healthcare debate by framing it as the US vs. Communism, organize liberals to boycott his short-sightedness. That's a kind of attitude of accountability and honor that I think has broader appeal to moderates.

>> ^chilaxe:
I could get behind liberalism if there was a movement within it to hold accountable those fellow liberals who sabotage the cause.
Liberals have plenty of sites like 'Crooks and Liars" or Mediawatch to keep an eye on the excesses of conservatives... why can't they do the same to keep an eye on the excesses of fellow liberals?

Such a movement is certainly under way. I think Chris Dodd would have been primaried if he didn't resign (incidentally, you should rent Michael Moore's Capitalism -- he trashes Dodd pretty nicely in there and raises more than a few doubts about Democratic resolve). Charlie Rangel is a popular target too. Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, etc.

If you want a liberal taking Democrats to task with no holds barred, try Glenn Greenwald's blog. I read it occasionally, but most of the time I find him far too depressing.

I don't read Firedoglake anymore, because they've, IMO, gone off the deep end (Jane Hamsher was pushing people to work together with the tea parties to kill HCR once the public option got stripped), but if you're looking for progressives critical of Democrats, they're another good resource.

Personally, I'm a big fan of DailyKos. It's probably the biggest progressive community on the net, so often it's the battleground upon which most left vs. left fights are played out. The main content is geared towards organizing activism and electoral strategy, and commentary on the day's political events, but the Diaries are usually a grab-bag of all kinds of interesting topics, not all of which are political.

They're starting to shift from a focus on "more Democrats" to "better Democrats", but I'm not sure how many opportunities we'll have for that in 2010. Most of those that they've talked about are House races, or Arlen Specter's ongoing primary.

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^chilaxe:
I could get behind liberalism if there was a movement within it to hold accountable those fellow liberals who sabotage the cause.
Liberals have plenty of sites like 'Crooks and Liars" or Mediawatch to keep an eye on the excesses of conservatives... why can't they do the same to keep an eye on the excesses of fellow liberals?
Such a movement is certainly under way. I think Chris Dodd would have been primaried if he didn't resign (incidentally, you should rent Michael Moore's Capitalism -- he trashes Dodd pretty nicely in there and raises more than a few doubts about Democratic resolve). Charlie Rangel is a popular target too. Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, etc.
If you want a liberal taking Democrats to task with no holds barred, try Glenn Greenwald's blog. I read it occasionally, but most of the time I find him far too depressing.
I don't read Firedoglake anymore, because they've, IMO, gone off the deep end (Jane Hamsher was pushing people to work together with the tea parties to kill HCR once the public option got stripped), but if you're looking for progressives critical of Democrats, they're another good resource.
Personally, I'm a big fan of DailyKos. It's probably the biggest progressive community on the net, so often it's the battleground upon which most left vs. left fights are played out. The main content is geared towards organizing activism and electoral strategy, and commentary on the day's political events, but the Diaries are usually a grab-bag of all kinds of interesting topics, not all of which are political.
They're starting to shift from a focus on "more Democrats" to "better Democrats", but I'm not sure how many opportunities we'll have for that in 2010. Most of those that they've talked about are House races, or Arlen Specter's ongoing primary.


That's good to hear that there are left vs. left debates. However, are these mostly just folks on the far-left of the political bell curve 'pushing harder even if it means we lose'? As long as that's the dominant liberal paradigm, they don't seem to me to be reliable societal partners who can be reasoned with.

That might sound very uninvolved, but I think any intellectuals who go into politics (i.e. not Moore, Olbermann, Huffington etc.) will find that the tail wags the dog: if intellectual figures don't tell the liberal masses what they want to hear, the masses will just find figures who will. Olbermann saying "I'm not a liberal; I'm an American" seems to be a good example of that kind of permanent intellectual simplicity.

I suppose this is an inevitable macrohistorical problem... perhaps any intelligent species on any planet would face it... the necessary legacy of human evolution is that the kind of interest in cognitive complexity that's advantageous in a complex modern society wasn't sufficiently advantageous during the last 10,000 or 100,000 years to be widespread today. In other words, any collection of social norms that must appeal to 50% of the population can only achieve a limited level of intellectual accuracy.

The take-home lesson for me is: that means an individual with a greater level of intellectual accuracy can out-predict them, and thus position themselves in the right place at the right time (for whatever opportunity is targeted).

>> ^chilaxe:
That's good to hear that there are left vs. left debates. However, are these mostly just folks on the far-left of the political bell curve 'pushing harder even if it means we lose'? As long as that's the dominant liberal paradigm, they don't seem to me to be reliable societal partners who can be reasoned with.

Not really. I mean, right now, that's where the nastiest fights are, but that's because you really have a simple binary choice to make when it comes to HCR right now -- either you want House Democrats to pass the Senate bill, or you want them to vote against it. You can say other things when you talk to them, of course, like "you should be working on eliminating the filibuster", or "after you pass the Senate bill, they can pass amendments to it via reconciliation", but ultimately you need to address the straight up for/against question on the Senate bill.

Generally speaking, I would say that most of the left vs. left debates start from the liberal premise that government action can have a positive effect on individual and collective freedom. Great, so what goals do we have? What policies or laws would achieve them? Which issues should get the most attention? That's usually most of the debating space.

To me, it seems easy to build a cohesive coalition around negative action -- like cutting taxes and regulation no matter what it's for -- but trying to get liberals to coalesce around a particular health care plan can be challenging, even when we've got a common set of goals (reduce costs, make coverage available to everyone, make coverage reliable).

There's plenty of debate when you get into details and mechanics on how you accomplish those things.

It seems to me like it must be boring to be part of a conservative movement. You've got one, universal answer to every question: cut the size of government. To me, that seems like the soul of anti-intellectualism. Even conservative "intellectuals" seem to spend most of their time either inventing philosophical arguments to support their predilections, or saying that liberals suck because they sometimes get things wrong.

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^chilaxe:
That's good to hear that there are left vs. left debates. However, are these mostly just folks on the far-left of the political bell curve 'pushing harder even if it means we lose'? As long as that's the dominant liberal paradigm, they don't seem to me to be reliable societal partners who can be reasoned with.
Not really. I mean, right now, that's where the nastiest fights are, but that's because you really have a simple binary choice to make when it comes to HCR right now -- either you want House Democrats to pass the Senate bill, or you want them to vote against it. You can say other things when you talk to them, of course, like "you should be working on eliminating the filibuster", or "after you pass the Senate bill, they can pass amendments to it via reconciliation", but ultimately you need to address the straight up for/against question on the Senate bill.
Generally speaking, I would say that most of the left vs. left debates start from the liberal premise that government action can have a positive effect on individual and collective freedom. Great, so what goals do we have? What policies or laws would achieve them? Which issues should get the most attention? That's usually most of the debating space.
To me, it seems easy to build a cohesive coalition around negative action -- like cutting taxes and regulation no matter what it's for -- but trying to get liberals to coalesce around a particular health care plan can be challenging, even when we've got a common set of goals (reduce costs, make coverage available to everyone, make coverage reliable).
There's plenty of debate when you get into details and mechanics on how you accomplish those things.
It seems to me like it must be boring to be part of a conservative movement. You've got one, universal answer to every question: cut the size of government. To me, that seems like the soul of anti-intellectualism. Even conservative "intellectuals" seem to spend most of their time either inventing philosophical arguments to support their predilections, or saying that liberals suck because they sometimes get things wrong.


Good. Well, if you run for office (lord knows we need it), you've got my vote

>> ^chilaxe:
Good. Well, if you run for office (lord knows we need it), you've got my vote


Heh, I'm not sure I could ever run for office. If I do, I'll hold you to that.