The Village Freakout Continues

by: David Sirota

Fri Oct 24, 2008 at 19:15


Last week, Newsweek's John Meacham sounded the alarm for the media/political Village, insisting that even if Barack Obama wins in a landslide over while being tarred and feathered as a socialist, America is still a country whose electorate is to the right of Ronald Reagan. Now, Village's favorite sycophant, Peggy Noonan, jumps in to the fray:

"He may be able to tamp down the insistence of the long-simmering left by the force of his own popularity, which will grow once he is president among grateful Democrats, and others. But if he goes left-if it comes to seem as if the attractive, dark-haired man has torn open his shirt to reveal a huge S, not for Superman but for Socialist, if he jumps toward reforms such as a speech-limiting new Fairness Doctrine, that won't yield success. It will yield trouble, and unneeded domestic arguments. We have enough needed ones."

The Village is in a freakout - the conservative pundits are really melting down like I've never seen. They sense a huge progressive mandate may be coming, and are trying - desperately trying - to get out enough propaganda to obscure that mandate.  Get used to this kind of fact-free nonsense from the Village - it is only going to get more intense in the coming weeks and months if Obama wins. And it will be up to us to remind Obama and the Democrats exactly why they won (if they do win).
David Sirota :: The Village Freakout Continues

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The Village Freakout Continues | 22 comments
someone make this poster, PLEASE (0.00 / 0)
... the attractive, dark-haired man has torn open his shirt to reveal a huge S, not for Superman but for Socialist ...

SocialistMan! Fighting for truth, justice and an equitable distribution of the production of society! OK, the motto needs some work.

not everything worth doing is profitable. not everything profitable is worth doing.

Best I could find (4.00 / 4)

[ Parent ]
O for Oktober--as in Krasnaya Oktober--Red October! (4.00 / 1)
Yes, it's TRUE!!! He's a card-carrying CommieSocioMarxoIslamoFascist!

And he's gunna come git your kiddies and turn 'em gay!

The liberal soul shall be made fat. He who waters shall be watered also himself. (Proverbs 11:25)

[ Parent ]
they will be baffled, as liberals were with Reagan's popularity (4.00 / 3)
Let's hypothetically say Obama proposes a new Fairness Doctrine.  Nooners thinks it would be a big deal.  Nobody in the real world would care.   They're focused on health care, their finances, and Iraq.  

But that doesn't occur to these folks.  If the Democrats deliver tangible goods to the public, it's game over for at least a decade.

They have no idea how irrelevant they are.

Why do you think ... (4.00 / 3)
Bill "William the Bloody" Kristol and the rest of those clowns helped doom the Clintons health care reform back in the 90's? .. if it passed .. it would have kept the Rethugs in the wilderness and there would have been no Newt Gingrich(meaning no one outside of Georgia would have heard of him)
[ Parent ]
the right acting as protector of civil rights (0.00 / 0)
is like Nazis arguing for world peace.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
peggy noonan (0.00 / 0)
was a rw freak long before obama gave rise to her realizing that sanity might be returning to america again, she knows sanity from a distance but certainly doesn't practice it.
when the wingnuts try to act sane and civil (0.00 / 0)
it is like the Three Stooges saying all of a sudden Hey, I'm going to ride a bike- when they haven't ridden since they were six years old. Rusty and wobbly and they can't figure out how those newfangled levers and switches work the goshdarned contraption.

It's a fail now, maybe they will get the hang of it in a while, but right now they are like a muskrat that just learned to shave.

[ Parent ]
in fairness to Peggy... (0.00 / 0)
I am completely against a new Fairness Doctrine as well.  A lot of my favorite shows would be in trouble.

How about a Fairness Doctrine that applies only to stations calling themselves "News" instead of a blanket policy?

vodamusic.com

has anyone (4.00 / 2)
among the top of the Democratic party actually proposed bringing back the fairness doctrine?

It seems like the right is freaking out about a policy that wasn't particularly likely to happen.  

[ Parent ]
yes (4.00 / 1)
A bunch of Democratic Senators have.  But Obama came out against it, and actually, I agree with him.  I'd rather just deregulate as much spectrum as possible than parcel out that spectrum to private interests and then regulate their content.
[ Parent ]
Freakout? Or warning? (4.00 / 1)
The pundits are doing what they usually do: they are admonishing Obama that if he moves to the left, they will harrass him on the airwaves every day he's in office. They are telling him what is allowed and what isn't allowed.

Warning. (0.00 / 0)
If Obama doesn't kick his dog daily, they will say he is capitulating to the radical left.  IF he is a liberal populist, he will take that apart as effectively as he ran his campaign.  IF he is as middlling as some of us dread, he'll make sure he doesn't do anything that could be construed as dfh.  

They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  
[ Parent ]
I think Obama is definitely pushing for a progressive mandate (4.00 / 3)
His campaign is expanding the campaign in the final month into West Virginia and Arkansas, and back into Georgia, Montana, and North Dakota.  They have also built ground operations in all 50 states to drive up their popular vote. They are looking for an electoral and popular route.  Obama is also sending out emails of support for local Dems and just cut an ad for Merkley's Senate campaign.

I think he wants to walk into office being able to say, I have spent 2 years articulating the details of my policies, my priorities, and my agenda and the American people have overwhelmingly endorsed those plans.

He has clearly laid out a plan to increase taxes on those making over 250,000 and give tax breaks to the middle class.  He has spent a lot of $ and time explaining his health care plan.  He has called for a new economic stimulus package that includes massive infrastructure spending.  And he has repeatedly stated that renewable energy is his top priority for his first term.  These are all progressive policies and while they may not be ideal, they are major steps forward after nearly 3 decades of dismantling the social safety net.

I think Members of Congress see their collective 12% approval rating, remember the Democratic failures of Clinton's first 2 years and their consequences, and will see an opportunity to attach themselves to a popular president.

I have very high hopes (assuming all goes well on Nov. 4)for Obama's 1st 100 days.

"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak" -Paul Wellstone

Why is anyone to the left of the DLC (0.00 / 0)
seen as a Socialist by these asshats, and "out of touch with mainstream America"? Seriously, do they actually believe this tripe, is this what they're paid to say, or is it merely what they tell each other to avoid have to look at the oncoming wave that's about to hit them? Are these the sorts of conversations that the hoity toity set had in the final moments of the Titanic?

The liberal soul shall be made fat. He who waters shall be watered also himself. (Proverbs 11:25)
Yes. (4.00 / 1)
Well, maybe No on the Titanic part.

vodamusic.com
[ Parent ]
Bernie Sanders is a socialist in Vermont... (0.00 / 0)
The word socialist needs to be reclaimed and properly defined.  If Bernie could do it in Vermont, why can't it be taken mainstream?  Vermont is hardly full of terrorists.  

They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  
[ Parent ]
Heh (4.00 / 1)
I wrote an article for my college paper over 25 years ago on Sanders, when he was mayor of Burlington and was there to give a speech. I don't recall Bill Ayers or Molotov cocktail-bearing types in the audience, or feeling particularly scared. He basically came across as an old-style progressive NYC liberal who cared about social, legal and economic justice. Hardly radical, except I suppose when juxtaposed against the truly radical far-right path that Reagan was taking the country on at the time, which most people didn't quite realize would be as radical as it would end up being. But Shirley Temple would look radical next to that.

Anybody who's scared of Bernie Sanders-style "socialism" is basically still living in the 1880's.

The liberal soul shall be made fat. He who waters shall be watered also himself. (Proverbs 11:25)

[ Parent ]
I agree (4.00 / 1)
It's up to us to remind Obama and the Democrats exactly why they won, if they win, and please, in the name of everything holy, I hope that's the case.  Anyway, I've been wondering about all these people who say they're voting for Obama, even though they call themselves republican.  I mean regular people; not the beltway crowd who switch when they see the power shifting.  I talked to a few of these people when I was canvassing in a swing state last weekend.  Obama appears to have brought a lot of new people into the fold; people who don't identify themselves as liberal or progressive.  While we need to keep Obama and the Democrats on the path, we also need to convince the newly converted that they've made the right decision before we get drowned out by the Village Sycophants.
This Is Why It Is Important (0.00 / 0)
to expose supression, intimidation, vote flipping, vote stealing, etc., even if the real winner is the official winner.  If the real result is a major landslide, nobody should celebrate and take a nap because we're told it was a narrow victory.
It's interesting that they're so fixated (0.00 / 0)
on the Fairness Doctrine. Kind of gives a good indication of the nature of their strategy.
Rove (0.00 / 0)
Yes, and it shines a light (if you know where to look) on the Rovian tactic of attacking your opponent on your own weakness. They are already preparing the radio waves and conservative outlets to rally the base. I guess when times are tough you can always fall back on the Rush Limbaughs of the world to keep your message out there. A new fairness doctrine would limit that. Fortunately for them, I don't think Obama would waste any capital on it, plus the ability for the right to latch onto it as a freedom of speech issue would be too tough a nut to crack, I think.

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind seeing Obama's FCC break up some of these media conglomerates....

[ Parent ]
The Village Freakout Continues | 22 comments
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