Split Thread O'Reilly, Olberman, and other left-vs-right commentators.

Tricky said:
Yeah, and he's not one of my favorites for the reason that he does a lot of what Rush does, like hard-editing videos and quotes to distort their meaning. But he hasn't done anything (that I can recall) that caused the Democrats to have to spin, or even worse, deny like the Repubs have for Rush and Coulter.
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I've only seen an occasional opinion from Olbermann that was unsupportable. Do you have any examples?
 
skeptigirl said:
Olbermann has his point of view, but he doesn't lie and isn't a bully.
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He's a raving lunatic who thinks bad voice impersonations are the height of political comedy. He constantly attacks anyone he disagrees with with his personal hit list aka "worst person in the world". Olbermann is at the bottom of the barrel swimming around with Beck and Hannity.
 
Policenaut said:
He's a raving lunatic who thinks bad voice impersonations are the height of political comedy. He constantly attacks anyone he disagrees with with his personal hit list aka "worst person in the world". Olbermann is at the bottom of the barrel swimming around with Beck and Hannity.
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I disagree with 99.9% of what you say, but your last sentence is dead on.
 
Policenaut said:
He's a raving lunatic who thinks bad voice impersonations are the height of political comedy. He constantly attacks anyone he disagrees with with his personal hit list aka "worst person in the world". Olbermann is at the bottom of the barrel swimming around with Beck and Hannity.
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Post some evidence Olbermann lies when presenting his opinions or tries to substitute opinion for fact. Post some evidence just having an opinion is the same as having a woo based opinion.

There's no way Olbermann is the same as Hannity and Beck.
 
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skeptigirl said:
There's no way Olbermann is the same as Hannity and Beck.
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Somewhere on failblog is a picture worth posting in response to this, but I am way too lazy to do so at the moment. Instead, I'll probably just add it to my sig or something...
 
skeptigirl said:
Post some evidence Olbermann lies when presenting his opinions or tries to substitute opinion for fact. Post some evidence just having an opinion is the same as having a woo based opinion.

There's no way Olbermann is the same as Hannity and Beck.
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I dunno, when he accused O'Reilly of defending Nazis, I think he wandered over a line into Beck territory.
 
GreyICE said:
I dunno, when he accused O'Reilly of defending Nazis, I think he wandered over a line into Beck territory.
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I agree and said so that Olbermann occasionally professes an unsupportable opinion. That is not the equivalent of doing it in the extreme night after night.
 
skeptigirl said:
I agree and said so that Olbermann occasionally professes an unsupportable opinion. That is not the equivalent of doing it in the extreme night after night.
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He's done it multiple times, and never apologized or admitted he was wrong. Now look. O'Reilly is scum. But he's not defending the bloody Nazis for pete's sake.

I mean people can cross lines in moments of anger, outrage, or just strong passion. But calling someone a Nazi sympathizer is a bit much. Unless they're actually a Nazi sympathizer, like certain people who are no longer posting links to WikiNazi on this board, it's across a bit of a line.

The simple question in my mind is, do I have to defend someone just because they share some of my views? Indeed I do not. I can defend my views very adequately on my own, and if I consider the person espousing them an ignorant blowhard with no concept of logical reasoning who simply appears to agree with me rather than with PNAC and the theocracy crowd I am not beholden to them if they agree with me.

Understand this: I owe people nothing for agreeing with me. If he wants to agree with me, and also fly off the handle and run weird segments on his show and call people Nazis and act like a twit, I owe him no support, and will call him a twit.

This doesn't make my viewpoints any less convincing, nor does it make O'Reilly, Coulter, and the talking head gang at Faux News any more correct, any less foolish, or any more rational.
 
Olbermann and Maddow are nowhere close to Hannity and Beck when it comes to being anchored in reality. I challenge anyone claiming these 4 are equally loony to provide examples. I'll be happy to take the easy job here and provide 2 or more examples of crazy from Beck and Hannity for every one you provide from Olbermann or Maddow.
 
skeptigirl said:
I agree and said so that Olbermann occasionally professes an unsupportable opinion. That is not the equivalent of doing it in the extreme night after night.
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It's not that Olbermann doesn't make mistakes. It's that he never retracts them after he does.
 
skeptigirl said:
Olbermann and Maddow are nowhere close to Hannity and Beck when it comes to being anchored in reality. I challenge anyone claiming these 4 are equally loony to provide examples. I'll be happy to take the easy job here and provide 2 or more examples of crazy from Beck and Hannity for every one you provide from Olbermann or Maddow.
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I don't think that you determine crazy by stacking odd comments up next to eachother (also what are we comparing? The rate? The number? O'Reilly has been on the air longer, so do you have to provide 6.5 comments for every 1 Olbermann makes? What is a crazy comment?).

You determine anchored in reality by whether their worldview appears to be the creation of a rational thought process, as determined by how they present it. Olbermann, O'Reilly, and Beck all more frequently than not espouse things that are generally supportable (yes, I've read their books, really) if not necessarily things I agree with, but their thought process is based on idealism and preconceived, unchallenged notions rather than rational logic. Thus they seemingly wander from sane to insane, often in inside of a minute, simply because the reasoning process itself is flawed.

Now if you're asking me which is better, I think O'Reilly and Beck are generally supporting an unscientific, anti-reason cause that is based on 14th century theology, paranoid thinking, and a large dosage of PNAC's imperialistic ideals, and thus frequently appear nuttier, because they're supporting a cause that is in general nuttier. While Olbermann is frequently supporting a cause that is at its core rational, if its fringes wander weird places.

But I shant be surprised when O'Reilly comes out against the anti-vaxxers or Olbermann starts promoting homeopathy or something, because I don't base my thoughts on these people on stereotypes.
 
Marc39 said:
It's not that Olbermann doesn't make mistakes. It's that he never retracts them after he does.
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My point is that Olbermann's mistakes are not on the same level as Hannity's and Beck's. Retractions have nothing to do with it, degree or level of lunacy does.
 
GreyICE said:
I don't think that you determine crazy by stacking odd comments up next to eachother (also what are we comparing? The rate? The number? O'Reilly has been on the air longer, so do you have to provide 6.5 comments for every 1 Olbermann makes? What is a crazy comment?).

You determine anchored in reality by whether their worldview appears to be the creation of a rational thought process, as determined by how they present it. Olbermann, O'Reilly, and Beck all more frequently than not espouse things that are generally supportable (yes, I've read their books, really) if not necessarily things I agree with, but their thought process is based on idealism and preconceived, unchallenged notions rather than rational logic. Thus they seemingly wander from sane to insane, often in inside of a minute, simply because the reasoning process itself is flawed.

Now if you're asking me which is better, I think O'Reilly and Beck are generally supporting an unscientific, anti-reason cause that is based on 14th century theology, paranoid thinking, and a large dosage of PNAC's imperialistic ideals, and thus frequently appear nuttier, because they're supporting a cause that is in general nuttier. While Olbermann is frequently supporting a cause that is at its core rational, if its fringes wander weird places.

But I shant be surprised when O'Reilly comes out against the anti-vaxxers or Olbermann starts promoting homeopathy or something, because I don't base my thoughts on these people on stereotypes.
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Beck and Hannity are off the charts when it comes to lunacy. Total number of errors is not the issue. Limit the challenge to a particular time frame, I'll still take on the wager.

O'Reilly is a different case. He has what appears to me to be a mental illness typically labeled as neurotic rather than psychotic. In his case he is a pathological liar. I doubt he can help himself.


Olbermann and Maddow are rational. There seems to be confusion here between political slant and irrational behavior or comments. If you think Glenn Beck's paranoia the government is coming to get him is rational, I challenge that assessment. Especially given until recently these NeoCons supported Bush who there is evidence supporting Bush data-minig the communications of reporters in order to find White House leaks. We don't yet have evidence of who Obama is tracking with data-mining programs, only that Obama may not has ended the practice (which is disappointing). So Beck ignored the surveillance from Bush and publicly states he fears such totalitarianism from Obama. That's nuts!
 
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skeptigirl said:
My point is that Olbermann's mistakes are not on the same level as Hannity's and Beck's. Retractions have nothing to do with it, degree or level of lunacy does.
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They're all ideological goofballs and hypocrits. None qualifies for the Algonquin Roundtable.
 
Here. I'll start. Find some Olbermann equivalent lunacy to these examples:


Beck gives credulous interview to Texas secessionist, who says Tea Parties are a great place to recruit

Popcorn time: Beck calls out the dogs on GOP's "Cap and Traitors"

'Cap and Traitors': Does Glenn Beck even remember what he said the day before?

Is Sean Hannity urging Americans to armed revolt?
As patriotic music played in the background, Hannity, who just a few weeks ago vehemently supported Governor Rick Perry's threat of secession, quickly suggested that an uprising against the government might be in order. “In 1765, Parliament passed The Stamp Act, provoking outrage among the American colonists,” Hannity began. “Now, the leaders of the tax uprising were the sons of liberty.”

Citing the names of Paul Revere, Patrick Henry, John Hancock and John Adams, Hannity explained that they met under a tree to “air their grievances against the tyrannical King George. The sons of liberty would become an early voice for the rights of an oppressed citizenry.”

With awe in his voice, Hannity said that the colonists hung two tax collectors in effigy from a tree “and from that day forward, it became known as the 'Liberty Tree.'”

In case anyone didn't quite snap to what he was getting at, Hannity added that under the last liberty tree, which stood at St. John's College in Maryland, colonists “held a tea party and listened to the words of founding father Samuel Chase.”

..Hannity concluded by saying, “This administration has plucked the tree of liberty bare. It took more than 200 years but it now looks like we are headed back to where we started.” Meaning revolution? Hannity never said one way or the other.
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Beck: People ‘Pushed To The Wall’ By ‘Political Correctness’ May Turn Into Psycho Killers

Hannity: Only Fox News Deserves ‘Unprecedented Access’ To The White House

FBI Arrests White Supremacist Blogger Hal Turner For Threatening To Kill Federal Judges
As the Nation has pointed out, Turner has ties to Fox News’ Sean Hannity. In fact, Hannity has “offered his top-rated radio show as a regular forum for Turner’s occasionally racist, always over-the-top rants.” Hannity would also reportedly offer Turner “encouragement” to overcome his cocaine habit and “homosexual leanings.”
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Look all these tools are out to make money. O'Reilly has been the master for a while but Glenn Beck is a quick study and he'll probably be the one to replace O'Reilly at the 8pm time slot whenever he retires. None of them are stupid but they are all varying degrees of insane. You can see it in their eyes when they start ranting. They all do it (some more than others). The look of psychotic rage and single-minded conviction to a subject are plastered onto their faces. Olbermann is a psycho ranter, Beck is a teary eyed huckster faux revolutionary , Hannity is nuts, O'Reilly is a combination of crazy with bouts of ranting and discussing imaginary problems.

I don't think any are rational. Some may have better arguments and positions than others (and this switches constantly...I watch them all but much less than I used to and never a full show of any of them) but the way they all present themselves and their arguments is unappealing and highly insulting to anyone with differing opinions from the host. But that's what makes money. We've seen the opposing sides hosts and that's always ugly and never lasts long (Hannity with Colmes, Crossfire, etc). I don't know if we've ever seen a non-ideological host for one of these prime time cable news shows. The closest to that would be Campbell Brown but, as I think I said here before, CNN seems to love getting the most annoying panelists/guests around that more than makes up for her aura of neutrality.
 
Marc39 said:
The Nation--Now, there's an unbiased source. Next, you'll be referencing Chomsky.
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I doubt Chomsky watches or cares about primetime cable news anchors. Chomsky is many things but his disdain of the mainstream media (left/right/whatever) is well established.
 
I dislike the Olberman / O'Reilly types moreso than the Limbaugh sorts, because, for instance, O'Reilly calls his radio show the 'No Spin Zone' - and it's nothing but spin - and Olberman tries to pretend like he's not completely one-sided, but he is. At least Limbaugh doesn't pretend to be impartial.
 
Brainster said:
Olbermann, Mark Morford, Rachel Maddow, Gore, Biden and Corzine--jerks all. Ted Rall, Kos, Helen Thomas, Dan Froomkin, Al Franken and Rosie O'Donnell.
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Wait we can include politicians on this list, we are going to be here all day long.
 
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