Men in tights

This humdinger comes from Fox News' "Father Jonathan," by way of Real Clear Politics. After illuminating the fundamental differences between Obama and Robin Hood (beside the obvious fact that one is the next president of the United States, and the other is a 500-year old English legend), Father Jonathan goes on to warn against Comrade Obama's rampant socialism, citing a 2001 interview with Chicago Public Radio in which the young state senator extolled the virtues of the "redistribution of wealth." Scandalous. Quoth the good Father:

It is hard to believe the leading United States presidential candidate suggested, just seven years ago, we should be seeking legislative and administrative avenues to effect “redistributive change,” since it is impractical now to get the courts to do it on their own. It’s even harder to believe the leading United States presidential candidate, just seven years ago, was talking about the importance of community organizers “putting together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.”
But then again, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Seven years later, and just one month before Election Day, Senator Obama said to Joe the Plumber, word for word, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everyone.”

The whole thing raised a few questions for me, like "why is a Fox News 'Religion Contributor' writing editorials about issues that have nothing to do with religion?" and "Where exactly does this strange comparison of Barack Obama to Robin Hood come from?" More importantly, though, how does taxing the richest 5% of Americans -- the people who can most afford it -- qualify as "beating down some to lift up others?" And why is that worse than beating down EVERYBODY with a costly war based on false premises and deregulation policies that severely destabilized the economy?

Father John is right -- Barack Obama isn't Robin Hood. He's the future president of the United States. And dumbing down the discourse with analogies to fairy tales doesn't make the right any less wrong.

Newt Gingrich makes me angry and so does NBC. Fox...well, it goes without saying.

Last week, NBC refused to run a TV spot from a group called Freedom's Watch "[asking] viewers to remember the troops during the holiday season" because it violated their policy against airing politically controversial ads. The backlash from conservatives was immediate and considerable, and included former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich calling for a boycott of NBC Friday on rival Fox New's "Big Story." By Saturday night, NBC had "reversed course," deciding to modify their ad standards guidelines and to begin running the ad the next day.

The fact is that NBC should have told Gingrich to stick it where the sun doesn't shine, not because the network is run by liberals (although it might be -- I couldn't tell you) and not because the former speaker is anything less than an upstanding American (although the "eighty-four ethics charges [that] were filed against Speaker Gingrich during his term" make me wonder), but because he was just plain wrong. The difference between giving Al Gore "35 hours for global warming propaganda" (as Gingrich angrily charged NBC with doing) and running this ad from a radical right-wing political group is that Al Gore didn't use "Green Week" as a platform to spew hate on conservatives (or to promote any websites that spew hate on conservatives).

To give you an idea of what we're dealing with, this is a direct quote from the website of Freedom's Watch: "For too long, conservatives have lacked a permanent political presence to do battle with the radical special interest groups and their left-wing allies in government." Besides being kind of crazy, it is an unapologetic attack on the left-wing. And that's fine -- they have every right in the world to publish that kind of nonsense. But, by the same token, NBC should have every right in the world not to support it. What's particularly galling about this incident -- and what Newt and the Fox News puppets neglect to mention (by the way, I don't know who that chick is, but her suggestion that this was such a "PR...thing" for NBC does not speak highly of her) -- is that NBC offered to run the ad (whose actual content no one had a problem with) without the link to the website, which is what they felt was too controversial. And Freedom's Watch refused. So, what, Freedom's Watch doesn't care enough about the troops to run the ad without their own little plug? Seems kind of hypocritical, but maybe that's just me.

As far as the NBC showing their "true colors" stuff, Chris Matthews (who also drew Gingrich's ire) has a political talk show on MSNBC where, despite being a former Democratic staffer himself, he usually lays pretty well into members of both parties. And, even if he didn't, I find it ironic that Fox News, of all networks, would take anyone to task for being partisan. As for criticizing the president and the war (apparently the ultimate insult to America); well, they need to be criticized -- that's why we have a free press in this country. Frankly, this notion some conservatives have that no one should be allowed to criticize the administration in a time of war is about as un-American as it gets -- it goes against every ideal of freedom that those men and women overseas are fighting for, and it pretty well explains why they shouldn't be there to begin with. If we can't stick to our own principles at home, what business do we have going to another country and telling them how to live? And why should Americans be dying for that? And why can't anybody differentiate between supporting the troops and supporting the war? The whole thing is mind-boggling.

The worst part of the story, of course, is that NBC ultimately backed down and agreed to run the ad, link and all. So not only did they get the "bad press" from their initial refusal to air it, but they also ended up looking weak to boot. And, as usual, the wrong side (ironically, the right side) won.

When are we going to learn that every time someone backs down like this, it further legitimizes the politics of intimidation? And when is the left-wing going to figure out how to grow a pair? Because if we can't even stand up to a has-been demagogue like Newt Gingrich, it's going to take a lot more than ads to beat the best the GOP has to offer come November.

Sources:
NBC Decides to Run Conservative-Group Ad [AP]
Newt Gingrich [Wikipedia]
NBC Rejects Ad From Conservative Group [AP]