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The republicans are stepping up their attacks on this Islamic center near Ground Zero.
We see this every August, last summer was the Tea Party as enmeshing town hall meetings
and saying, health care reform was a democratic plot to kill the grandma.
This summer, it‘s the mosque. Trying to exploit 9/11 ahead of the midterms.
Well, fears about Muslim Americans.
On FOX News last nigh, Sarah Palin said building the center would be like
stabbing Americans in the heart.
He just doesn‘t get it that this is an insensitive move
on the parts of those Muslims who want to build that mosque in this location, that feels like
a stabs on the hearts of collectively Americans who still have that lingering
pain from 9/11.
When we ever heard a democratic politician make a comment like that?
Can you imagine what FOX News would have done
if any democrat had said that the President Bush was stabbing Americans in the heart?
This is like the Nazi comparisons in the last couple of days.
The right throws bombs, used the most outrageous rhetoric without any relation to reality
and it works.
The republicans are scaring the democrats into silence. The president made a brave statement
on the mosque on Friday
and, in my opinion, he backtracked a little bit.
Harry Reid flat outset the mosque should not be built there.
More of the same retreat.
All right. Now, for more on this, let me bring in Joan Walsh, editor in chief of salon.com.
Have I got the pattern right here, Joan? Is August the time where FOX News and the
conservative attacks and the democrats to run
and, you know, try to cower and it wasn‘t burning them.
It is unbelievable. I mean, because it‘s a similar pattern we had, Sarah Palin
really kind of kick this off on twitter, Cenk, remember when she asked
peaceful Muslims to please repudiate the mosque a few weeks ago?
Newt Gingrich followed and other FOX employees you pointed out
and it was Sarah Palin who brought up the death panels. And the democrats were slow
to respond to that.
The only good thing about the death panels was
democrats when they finally got it together, were passionate in repudiating and refudiating,
I got those words straight,
Sarah Palin‘s remarks and her idiocy,
this time around, as you said, some of them at least seem to be falling for it.
And, you know, this is an old story with democrats, if they can‘t be trusted
to fight for themselves,
to fight for what they believe in,
how can Americans trust them to fight for them, to fight for working people who need
so much help in this
awful economy? So, they really look like wimps and that‘s the worst thing. Right.
And, Joan, by the way, on that death panel issue, they lay one of their democrats backtracking
and taking that portion out of the bill.
Well, that‘s not another good point. Anything that, you know, could
be described as a death panel when, in fact,
let‘s not relive that. But that was compassionately making something available
to middle class and working class people
that rich people already have, which is they consult with a lawyer about how to handle
end of life decisions.
That‘s all that it was.
But it had to be taken out because
someone damn called it a death panel, so yes. Well, I mean, isn‘t this part of the problem for democrats that,
you know, the republicans have this concerted strategy,
they go out, whenever there is a law,
their natural instinct is ironically in the words of Alan Grayson to go on the offense and stay
there? Right. And the democrats seem—have they ever had a plan in August?
Or are they always reacting?
You know, I mean, Speaker Pelosi wanted to keep them working. That was part of the plan.
That was a good idea.
That got some stuff done. That was one plan. But, right, you know, there was
no campaign to make
democratic issues, to make the economy the big issue of the summer,
to make republicans reconcentrate the issue. The president is out there, I like, you
know, the parties of no idea but he‘s doing—it‘s a little late
and he‘s just not being combative enough and maybe people think the president
should not be the one
but somebody has got to step up and be the leader. Somebody has to set the stone here.
And they are on their heels constantly. And it‘s just too bad. Joan, I would be a little
unfair though, I know the president is a bully pulpit. So, he has a huge advantage there
but they don‘t have this enormous media organization like FOX News
that speeds them, all right, this is how you attack.
I want to put everybody on air who does that kind of attack and we‘ll going to repeat, repeat, repeat until
the whole media is talking about it. The democrats don‘t have anything like that.
So, are they at a structural disadvantage?
They are at the structural disadvantage. That‘s for sure. There‘s nothing,
you know, FOX really has changed the landscape, the political, and the media landscape in this country
for the worst.
For the detriment of American ideals.
And, you know, degrading American intelligence, really, but whatever, it works
and they make a lot of money doing it.
There‘s nothing on the democratic side. And in fact, you know,
the White House has been frustrated with that. Those of us who support
the President
but who find things to criticize were chided last week at the professional left
for not following the party lines. But we don‘t see that as our role,
we‘re journalists and we see ourselves as people who are telling the truth about issues
even when it hurts our side or people
we respect and admire because that‘s the job.
That‘s not the job over at FOX, it never has been.
And it creates a difference in messaging for sure. Absolutely. Thank you Joan,
we appreciate you joining us.