Assasination Attempt Cartoons

Incitement 4 - Rape - Beck, Limbaugh, Savage, Boortz, Steele

First seen on the Rachel Maddow Show. more

Incitement 1 - Limbaugh Incites Terrorism

Those of the far right have been inciting their lunatic followers (the McVeighists) to violence for years now, but the din of wingnut pundits has never been so loud or continuous as it is today. Some examples of what I consider to be incitement would be Bill O'Reilly's ruthless verbal attacks on Dr. Tiller which led to his death, Glenn Beck crying about how "we" need to "take our country back," and (in addition to his already vociferous and vile attacks on immigrants) Lou Dobbs's howling accusations that an illegal alien tried to assassinate him (thus inciting his gun crazy, xenophobic, racist followers to protect him). To me this all echoes the propaganda campaign that resulted in Kristallnacht; an increasingly vitriolic rhetoric composed of inuendo and belief, attribution of all negatives to the opponent even if the negative is a result of their actions, inventing facts to fit their argument, and inventing incidents that prove the guilt of the enemy. It doesn't take a lot of armed zealots to fuck things up in a big way.

So I will now begin a list of language that I consider to be an incitement to violence. Each post in this series will be named "Incitement #" and will link back to here. When I have time I will go into the past and dig up some specific language for the above examples as well as other examples.

We begin this series with the King of Hate:

...what's happening here -- this is an in-our-face weakening of our security, which means that if a civilian target is hit again, particularly New York City, Obama is toast. He's done. The American people will tolerate a lot, but not a grotesque mishandling of security based on a contempt for your own country. -- Rush Limbaugh 11-16-2009

This sounds to me like he's prodding someone out there to hit a civilian target. There are more McVeighists out there than we care to think about.

BRAAAAINS!!!

Frankensenator

Congratulations to Al Franken for overcoming the endemic right wing corruption in our electoral system by managing to barely win his Senate seat. The decision was finalized by the Minnesota Supreme Court on Thursday. A tip of the hat to his opponent Norm Coleman for not continuing in the federal courts for the next five years. He was a bit of a dick for carrying it this far but he is a Republican, after all. Why couldn't he be more like a Democrat and cave in after a few weeks? Oh that's right, Republicans don't mind stealing elections.

For some reason Rush Limbaugh and the entire Rupert Murdoch Nazi propaganda empire are absolutely apoplectic over Al Franken becoming the 100th Senator. Maybe Rush is so upset because of a wonderful little book Franken wrote in the 90's:

By the way, Rush Limbaugh is still a big fat idiot and a liar and a bully and, to quote Keith Olbermann, he continues to be a great big bag of jack ass.

And it is quite possible that Fox Noise and the rest of the reality challenged universe of Rupert Murdoch owned media outlets (often confused with news reporting organizations) is shaking white with anger against Franken because of this other little book he wrote that basically condemns everyone being paid by Rupert Murdoch and everyone in the Republican party:

Both of these books are highly recommended by me, the smartest person in the room. You will laugh a lot (unless you're one of the above-mentioned Murdoch employees or the kind of drooling idiot that believes what Rush Limbaugh says) when you're not apoplectic with rage that there is no way to imprison people for careers built on lying.

Limbaugh Confronted by Listener on Torture

It's hard to believe this guy got through.

Caller criticizes Limbaugh, Hannity, etal, on torture: "It's like you're all brainwashed"

Published Tue, Apr 7, 2009 4:24pm ET by Media Matters staff

LIMBAUGH: We're going to go to Chicago. This is Charles. Charles, thank you for waiting and for calling. Great to have you here. Hello.

CALLER: Thanks, Rush. Rush, listen, I voted Republican, and I didn't -- really didn't want to see Obama get in office. But, you know, Rush, you're one reason to blame for this election, for the Republicans losing.

First of all, you kept harping about voting for Hillary. The second big issue is the -- was the torture issue. I'm a veteran. We're not supposed to be torturing these people. This is not Nazi Germany, Red China, or North Korea. There's other ways of interrogating people, and you kept harping about it -- "It's OK," or "It's not really torture." And it was just more than waterboarding. Some of these prisoners were killed under torture.

And it just -- it was crazy for you to keep going on and on like Levin and Hannity and Hewitt. It's like you're all brainwashed.

And my last comment is, no matter what Obama does, you will still criticize him because I believe you're brainwashed. You're just -- and I hate to say it -- but I think you're a brainwashed Nazi. Anyone who could believe in torture just has got to be - there's got to be something wrong with them.

LIMBAUGH: You know --

CALLER: And I know Bush wanted to keep us safe and all of that, but we're not supposed to be torturing these people.

LIMBAUGH: Charles, if anybody is admitting that they're brainwashed it would be you.

CALLER: No, no, no, Rush. I don't think so.

LIMBAUGH: Charles. Charles, Charles --

CALLER: You, Hannity, Hewitt, and Levin are all brainwashed and you know it.

LIMBAUGH: -- you said -- you said at the beginning of your phone call --

CALLER: Yeah.

LIMBAUGH: -- that you didn't want Obama in there --

CALLER: That's right.

LIMBAUGH: -- but you voted for him because of me.

CALLER: I didn't vote for him. I voted for McCain. I voted Republican.

LIMBAUGH: Oh, so --

CALLER: I voted Republican.

LIMBAUGH: -- you're saying I turned people off to --

CALLER: You turned people off with all your -- all this "vote for Hillary" and all this BS, because you must think people are really stupid.

LIMBAUGH: That was Operation Chaos. That was to keep the --

CALLER: You -- no. It didn't work.

LIMBAUGH: -- chaos in the [unintelligible] of the Democrat primaries.

CALLER: It didn't work. And now what we have with you Hannity, Levin, and Hewitt: sour grapes. That's all we have. And believe me, I'm not -- I'm more to the right than I am to the left.

LIMBAUGH: Oh, of course, you are.

CALLER: I am, and that's --

LIMBAUGH: Of course, you are. You wouldn't be calling here with all these sour grapes if you weren't.

CALLER: Well, I'm so tired of listening to you --

LIMBAUGH: Oh, of course, you are.

CALLER: -- go on and on with this -- you've been brainwashed.

LIMBAUGH: I don't know of anybody who died from torture. I do not ever --

CALLER: We are not supposed to torture people.

LIMBAUGH: I do not ever --

CALLER: Do you remember World War II, the Nazis? The Nuremberg Trials?

LIMBAUGH: I --

CALLER: Do you remember the Nuremberg Trials?

LIMBAUGH: Charles --

CALLER: Klaus Barbie?

LIMBAUGH: Charles, let me say --

CALLER: Huh?

LIMBAUGH: Barack Obama --

CALLER: What's the matter with you?

LIMBAUGH: Barack --

CALLER: You never even served in a military.

LIMBAUGH: Barack Obama is --

CALLER: I served in the Marine Corps and the Army.

LIMBAUGH: Charles, Barack Obama is president of the United States today because of stupid, ignorant people who think like you do. You pose -- you and your ignorance are the most expensive commodity this country has. You think you know everything. You don't know diddly-squat.

You call me a Nazi? You call me somebody who supports torture and you want credibility on this program? You know, you're just plain embarrassing and ludicrous. But it doesn't surprise me that you're the kind of Republican that our last candidate attracted. Because you're no Republican at all based on what the hell you've said here.

Killer Angry, Believed Guns Would Be Banned

Thanks, Rush Limbaugh. Thanks, Bill O'Reilly. Thanks, vast right-wing noise machine.

Richard Poplawski, Gunman 'Lying In Wait,' Kills 3 Pittsburgh Police Officers

PITTSBURGH — A gunman wearing a bulletproof vest and "lying in wait" opened fire on officers responding to a domestic disturbance call Saturday, killing three of them and turning a quiet Pittsburgh street into a battlefield, police said.

Police Chief Nate Harper said the motive for the shooting isn't clear, but friends said the gunman recently had been upset about losing his job and feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

Richard Poplawski, 23, met officers at the doorway and shot two of them in the head immediately, Harper said. An officer who tried to help the two also was killed.

more...

The "Brain" of the GOP

Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (From a Former Republican)

LINK to entire letter
Frank Schaeffer:

"You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired -- President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes. You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created."

___

"And can you picture the gentlemanly and always polite Ronald Reagan, endorsing a radio hate-jock slob who crudely mocked a man with Parkinson's and who now says he wants an American president to fail?!"

___

"When your new leader Rush Limbaugh calls for President Obama to fail he's calling for more flag-draped coffins. Limbaugh is the new 'Hanoi Jane.'"

___

"You had the chance to put our country first. You utterly failed to rise to the occasion."

Hope for Failure

Darth Cheney Interview With Darth Limbaugh

Perhaps after January 20th we will no longer have our official White House web page besmirched by the words of the traitorous idiot known as Rush.

The New Yorker Cover

I thought it was funny. Dissecting a joke always sucks the life out of it but in all the brouhaha I haven't heard anyone with quite my views on this drawing so I'll throw these points at you:

1. It's the cover of The New Yorker for Pete's sake! The cover is for the readers of The New Yorker. It is not meant for the drooling, humorless morons "the media" think make up the vast majority of Americans.

2. Though a lot of Americans may be drooling, humorless morons, I don't think it's a majority by any means. If you pay any attention to politics you are aware that the Fox Noise/Limbaugh/Savage propaganda machine has gone to great lengths to paint Obama as a radical, fundamentalist, jihadist, muslim foreigner and his wife as a radical, black power, black panther, weatherman underground woman. Therefore the kind of people that understand the world around them could see this image as a joke and those that don't see it as a joke probably believe that stuff in the first place.

3. If "the media" hadn't gone frothing mad over this cover the only people that would have seen it would have been the kind of people mentioned in point #1 or the type of people that go into book stores or look at the magazines in the little area of the magazine rack where you would find The New Yorker, not over by the babes on motorcycles section. Most American people don't go into book stores or read at all. One would hope that those that do read could get the sarcastic gesture.

4. "The media" is incapable of balance or perspective and they should all be fired and should go back to journalism school. And we should jail the frothing heads (Limbaugh, Chris Matthews, etc.) that insisted on stressing Obama's middle name every time they said his name and who "accidently" call him "Osasma" at least once per show. Those people are enemies of America and should be stripped of their citizenship and deported to Pakistan.

Right Wing Attack Machine

I'm beginning to think we need some control over what gets aired as "news" in this country. Actually I've felt that way for a very long time, but what are we to do with the way the right wing courts have interpreted the First Amendment? People like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, et. al. are allowed to present hate, lies, and innuendo as fact while basically making shit up to support their comments with no oversight or ethics whatsoever. Have you ever heard a correction from these people even though their lies and bullshit are well documented? An actual news organization is required by the basic rules to admit and correct mistakes.

"But it's just entertainment," the slimy bastards responsible shout. "It's opinion," blather the talking heads and soulless producers of these stinking piles of shit. If this is the case perhaps there should be regular disclaimers required for these kind of shows that pretend to be reporting news and facts while lying and deceiving and perverting our Democracy.

This leads me to post this piece from the group Media Matters. It carefully sums up the subtle (and less than subtle) ways that the right wing propaganda machine shapes the views of their sheepish and stupid followers. This particular piece is only about how they attack Obama. To write about all their deception and organized propaganda would take a book that would need to be updated every few hours, thus their excellent site:

The Weekly Update from Media Matters for America

E. D. Hill has company

When Fox News anchor E. D. Hill suggested that Barack and Michelle Obama may have engaged in a "terrorist fist jab" at a recent campaign event, condemnation (and mockery) of Hill's comments was swift, and forced her to offer an on-air quasi-apology.

While Hill's apology was unusual (though not unprecedented -- just a few weeks ago, a Fox analyst apologized for joking about assassinating Obama), her original comments were sadly typical of the media's treatment of Obama. Since he began running for president, news reports have relentlessly suggested that Obama is different; that he isn't like you; that he isn't on your side.

Sometimes, like Hill's "terrorist fist jab" comment, those suggestions have been obvious, and clearly offensive. Other times, they have been comparatively subtle and seemingly pointless -- Chris Matthews' deep concern with Barack Obama's decision to order orange juice in a diner and what it says about his ability to connect with "regular people," for example. But they have two things in common: They portray Obama as weird -- un-American, even -- and they do so based on little more than the fevered imaginations of some journalists and the vicious lies of right-wing partisans.

Rush Limbaugh says Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden are "on the same page." Other conservative commentators have suggested an affinity between Obama and Hamas -- despite Obama's denunciations of the organization, and its description of Obama's policy positions as "hostile to us." Conservative columnist Mark Steyn has described Michelle Obama as "Kim Jong-Il dressed up with a bit of Oprah Winfrey dressing."

Michael Savage claims to "doubt" that Obama "would take our side" after a terrorist attack, adding that Obama would "march thousands of us into the hands of the enemy in order to gain what they would think would be a long-term peace. I think that they would gladly take the guns of the American military and turn them first on the American patriot, rather than turning the guns of the American patriot on the enemy within." Savage also asks, "Why are there no queries being provoked about Saddam Hussein -- I mean, Barack Hussein Obama?" Tucker Carlson has compared Obama's campaign to the Khmer Rouge, the brutal Cambodian regime that led to the deaths of nearly a quarter of that nation's people.

Washington Post reporter Jonathan Weisman responded to a question referencing the possibility of "Osama blowing up the Sears Tower" by writing, "How about Obama blowing up the Sears Tower! I never liked that building anyway." Weisman did add, "Just kidding, folks." Another washingtonpost.com reader later followed up: "Um, did you really just joke about Obama blowing up the Sears Tower, or were you thinking Osama, but wrote Obama? Either way, not funny."

Weisman wasn't the first reporter to use the "just kidding" defense after inappropriately and baselessly linking Obama to a controversial figure. CNN commentator Jeff Greenfield (now with CBS) compared Obama's tendency to wear shirts with open collars to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's preferred style of dress. When criticized by, among others, Columbia Journalism Review, Greenfield claimed he had been kidding, that he meant the commentary as a "patently absurd parody of muddled political thinking" and lashed out at his critics.

But humor (if you can call it that) doesn't excuse making comments like this -- indeed, it makes it more likely that the public will remember and internalize the comparisons, and that the caricatures will take hold.

Media figures also often portray Obama as un-American or unpatriotic. Dick Morris says that "the question that plagues Obama is ... Is he pro-American?" and that the presidential election hinges on whether "we believe" Obama is "sort of a sleeper agent who really doesn't believe in our system." Investor's Business Daily asks, "Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S. interests?" On Fox & Friends, host Steve Doocy says Obama has "patriotism problems." MSNBC's Chris Matthews thinks "it's a hard thing for someone like Barack Obama" to express a "gut sense of Americanism" and describes Obama as "almost Third World in his sort of presentation." Jonah Goldberg falsely claims Obama "dodg[es] the word and concept of patriotism." And countless news reports -- not just in the right-wing media -- have obsessed over the fact that Obama often does not wear a flag pin (Fox News' Sean Hannity particularly loves this line of attack -- despite the fact that Hannity himself often appears on television without such a pin) or have passed along ridiculous claims about Obama and the Pledge of Allegiance, as CBS News and The Washington Post (among others) have done.

Countless news reports have directly suggested Obama is secretly a Muslim, while others uncritically report the allegation without bothering to make clear that it is false. As is often the case, Michael Savage takes things a bit further, falsely claiming that "we have an unknown stealth candidate who went to a madrassas in Indonesia and, in fact, was a Muslim," and stating, "We have a right to know if he's a so-called friendly Muslim or one who aspires to more radical teaching."

Gratuitously invoking Obama's middle name -- Hussein -- is a favorite tactic used by conservative media figures such as Ann Coulter to associate Obama with Saddam Hussein. (Coulter claims that she does it not out of malice but "because I think it's funny.") For some, Obama's actual name isn't enough: Right-wing radio host Bill Cunningham referred to Obama as "Barack Mohammed Hussein Obama." (Just a few weeks later, Cunningham was chosen to warm up the crowd at one of Sen. John McCain's campaign rallies.)

MSNBC's Matthews has explained the problem with these gratuitous references to Obama's name:

[E]ven that little seemingly neutral information gets into some older people's heads, and they go, "We got a problem here."

[...]

[O]lder people -- and I can tell stories in the millions about politicians playing to older voters. They play on the past. They play on fear. They play on confusion. They play on suggestion. You know how it's done with older voters.

But Matthews himself was the first person -- media figure or political operative -- to invoke Obama's middle name in a political context in any news report available in Nexis. Way back in November of 2006, Matthews noted: "You know, it's interesting that Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein. That will be interesting down the road, won't it?" And now Matthews says that the mention of Obama's middle name plays on "fear" and "confusion" and "suggestion" with "older voters." So why did he introduce the name into the national conversation?

Matthews frequently claims that Obama is not a "regular" person -- and that his supporters aren't "regular people," either, as I explained last week:

Matthews' election-night portrayal of Obama as out of touch with "most Americans" was striking in its intensity, but it was not a new theme. MSNBC personnel, particularly Matthews, have been trying out this anti-Obama theme for months. Matthews has attacked Obama for shooting pool ("[I]t's not what most people play. People with money play pool these days.") and obsessed over what he claims is Obama's inability to connect with "regular people" in "a dinette." And Matthews and David Shuster mocked Obama for the grievous sin of ordering orange juice in a diner.

Matthews has said of Obama, "[T]his gets very ethnic, but the fact that he's good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody, but the fact that he's that terrible at bowling does make you wonder." On another occasion, Matthews suggested that Obama's lack of bowling prowess "tells you something about the Democratic Party." Matthews has contrasted "regular people" with "people who come from the African-American community." He has suggested Obama should pick a Jewish running mate because he "need[s] some ethnic balance." Matthews has said Obama "seems a little foreign" and that he and Jeremiah Wright are "different faces of the same guy."

Matthews' portrayal of Obama as unlike "regular people" is catching on. The New York Times' David Brooks recently said Obama wouldn't seem to "fit in naturally" at an Applebee's salad bar. (Turns out that, by Brooks' logic, it is Brooks himself who is out of touch with "regular people"; Applebee's doesn't have a salad bar.) And on MSNBC on Tuesday, columnist Margaret Carlson said of Obama: "Don't you want to say to him, 'Eat the taco. A funnel cake won't kill you.' " Carlson then asserted that Obama needs to get "a little bit more down with the people."

Other examples of the media portraying Obama as strange or dangerous abound. Coulter suggests Obama is "a Manchurian candidate." Fox News Radio's Tom Sullivan compares Obama's speeches to Hitler's. Slate.com teases an article with the line "Why Obama is Like a Serial Killer." Tucker Carlson says Obama "sounds like a pothead to me" and "seems like kind of a wuss," while MSNBC colleague Joe Scarborough suggests Obama is not a "real man."

And the media don't stop at portraying Obama as abnormal; his supporters have received similar treatment. Brooks, Time's Joe Klein, ABC's Jake Tapper, and other media figures have called Obama supporters "creepy" and "cult-like" and compared them to followers of Charles Manson.

Obviously there is a difference between calling Barack Obama a terrorist or suggesting he might not "take our side" in the event of a terrorist attack and saying his lack of bowling prowess prevents him from understanding and connecting with "regular people." But both storylines portray Obama as out of the mainstream; they each prime audiences to be more receptive to the other (and the more extreme comments coming from the likes of Michael Savage and Fox News have the pernicious effect of making Chris Matthews' absurd claims about Obama and "regular people" seem reasonable by comparison) -- and neither has any basis in reality. After all, polls show Obama beating McCain, so he must not be doing too badly among "regular people."

Yesterday, Barack Obama's campaign unveiled a website dedicated to rebutting false rumors. On MSNBC Live, Andrea Mitchell and Time's Jay Carney discussed the need for the new site:

MITCHELL: [Obama] was being asked by reporters about things that are completely unprovable, and the way this stuff circulates, it's so viral that a reporter asks him a question, it gets picked up, and then that ratifies the rumor, which we're not even going to be talking about because, you know, there's no proof about a lot of this stuff. So --

CARNEY: You know, the one, Andrea -- there's one in particular that they talk about where Michelle is alleged in a rumor to have referred to white Americans as whitey in a speech at, of course, the Trinity church, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church. There's no evidence at all that this is true. This rumor started circulating among conservative bloggers and then was picked up and just repeated as a rumor by Rush Limbaugh, of course, the widely listened-to conservative talk radio host. Now over -- driving over to the studio just half an hour ago I heard Rush Limbaugh's show, and he's talking about this non-stop, talking about how it's not -- you know, he's not to blame, he was just reporting a rumor. But of course, he spent half --

MITCHELL: But reporting a rumor, Jay --

CARNEY: But he spent half an hour at least when I was listening to him re-circulating the very rumor without shooting it down, so that's the effect of these things.

MITCHELL: Well, let's put it to rest right now. This didn't happen. It hasn't happened, it's not gonna happen. But the Obama campaign has felt concerned enough clearly about all of this --

CARNEY: Exactly.

MITCHELL: -- and our own NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows this resistance to him by, you know, white men, with McCain having a 20-point lead in -- among white men and still problems with suburban women, which is kind of more understandable coming out of a primary election between him and Hillary Clinton. This is something he's going to have to fix.

CARNEY: Right. It's out there and they just have to -- the goal of circulating these rumors from Obama opponents is basically to create an atmosphere of doubt about the candidate -- about his patriotism, about his background, his religion.

Journalists like Andrea Mitchell and Jay Carney understand that the repetition of baseless rumors "ratifies the rumors," as Mitchell put it. And they understand the intent behind the rumors -- creating "an atmosphere of doubt about the candidate," as Carney said.

But journalists need to do more than understand the intent and effect of false rumors pushed by the right. They need to understand how their own reporting and commentary have similar effects, regardless of their intent. They need to understand that they have a responsibility that goes beyond being careful not to spread (intentionally or otherwise) these bogus right-wing themes; they also have a responsibility to aggressively report the truth. There is a broad smear campaign being waged against Barack Obama, and it is long past time for the media to expose and debunk those smears, not play into them.

I highly recommend checking out Media Matters' site. You can easily search out clips of the pundits and articles about the media that are full of facts and full quotes instead of the lies and highly edited mangling Fox News and pals dish out.

The "Debate"

Since the earliest days that I've paid attention to politics (back when Carter was President) I've felt that the television debates were a stinking crock of shit. It's only gotten worse over the years and finally it seems the television hosts scraped bottom with this last Democratic debate. The candidates have not been anywhere near as vomitous as Bush (the blubbering retard) or Gore (who sounded like a childless professor trying to speak to a room full of four year olds) but they did show they were cowards like we all know Democrats to be. Obama should have walked the fuck out of their after the second or third question and Hillary should have applauded him and left as well. But neither has the balls to stand up to those worthless bastards that play acted as moderators when they were in fact standing in for Rush Limbaugh and the like.

Only David Brooks would give these guys an "A" which he did. What a tool. (I guess he fits into "the like," don't you think?)

That's all I'm going to say about this. I think the 19000+ comments on ABC's site or the endless ranting here, here, here, and here. Really say all that needs to be said. Here are some samples:

A few from ABC's page:

After watching that sorry display of a debate you might as well plan on having Charlie Gibson and George Sthephanopolus on Dancing with the Stars.

so disappointed in ABC news! where are the issues? give me a break. don't waste our time. ask questions about healthcare, iraq, economy, foreign policy. i hope these questions come up soon!

I think George's EGO and long held grudges against any politicians are showing.

PLEASE !!! We don't care about these petty issues.We want to know how they plan to fix things !!!!!!!!!!!!!We want to know about the ISSUES !!Come on, moderators... get it real, this is our last chance to really hear them.

A few from a Moveon.org e-mail:

"A stinker, an absolute car crash—thanks to the host network ABC...[It] ran the gamut from banal to inane. At the end of the debate members of the crowd appeared to be booing moderator Charlie Gibson."—The Guardian's Richard Adams²

"Halfway through the debate, not a single question on any policy issue had been asked."—OpenLeft.com's Chris Bowers³

"For the first 52 minutes...Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with."—Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales.⁴

"We've revisited bitter. We've gone back to Bosnia. We've dragged Rev. Wright back up onto the podium. We've mis-spent this debate by allowing Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos to ask questions that skirt what in my mind is what we need to know now."—Philadelphia Inquirer's Daniel Rubin⁵

1. "Clinton-Obama Debate: ABC Decides Top Issues Facing Americans Are Gaffes, Flag Pins and '60s Radicals," Editor & Publisher, April 16, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3580&id=12458-5608649-z6xDmR&t=6

2. "Worst. Debate. Ever." The Guardian blog, April 16, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3582&id=12458-5608649-z6xDmR&t=7

3. "Philadelphia Debate Thread," Chris Bowers, OpenLeft.com, April 16, 2008
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5195

4. "In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC," Washington Post, April 17, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3581&id=12458-5608649-z6xDmR&t=8

5. "The Debate Debacle," The Philadelphia Inquirer blog, April 16, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3583&id=12458-5608649-z6xDmR&t=9

From USA Today:

Guardian America's deadlineUSA blog issues its verdict with the headline: "Worst. Debate. Ever."

The Washington Post's TV critic says Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos "turned in shoddy, despicable performances."

"For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with," Tom Shales writes.

ABC is trying to pretend there's a little debate going on amongst media types and barely mentions that they have been roundly criticized across almost the entire media spectrum (we all know the far right mouthpiece machine was throwing victory parties after this travesty), as well as tens of thousands of Americans. It's sad that this is what American broadcasting has fallen to. Even our Presidential debates differ from Jerry Springer only that there are no chairs being thrown.