Rachel Maddow To News Media: “Are You Going To Swallow This One Too?”

Rachel Maddow brilliantly explains how the right-wing is using the Fast and Furious “scandal” to promote an anti-gun conspiracy that, of course, doesn’t exist. Must see TV:

by R. Duane Graham on June 24, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on June 24, 2012

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/rachel-maddow-to-news-media-are-you-going-to-swallow-this-one-too/

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6 Comments

  1. Jim Wheeler

     /  June 24, 2012

    Yup, she’s right.

    For most of my life I thought of myself as conservative, but I like to think also that I always had a sensitive BS meter and that often caused me to consider views outside the mainstream of the two major parties. But I never had the time or inclination, until retirement, to delve deeply into political issues. Now that I do I find the difference between them remarkable. While both parties play political gamesmanship, the Democrats aren’t very good at it, and they have an inherent respect for fairness, truth and justice that keeps getting in their way. Rachel bends over backward that way ( she is on my regular watch schedule now), but I think many conservative pols are scared of her because of her integrity – she invites them to converse with her on her show and they won’t do it.

    I still consciously try to consider both sides of political issues, but the Republicans make it really hard to do so, for just the reasons Rachel discusses in this post. Another example of this behavior is the way certain Senate Republicans reversed their political stands on immigration reform that were similar to the DREAM act. When the act came up for a vote, they flopped immediately, filibustered it to death, and then blamed Obama for doing an end-run around the process.

    The incessant drumbeat of conservative demagoguery seems to be working and it may very well carry the day in November. The average BS meter, I regret to say, appears to be way out of calibration and gathering dust in a closet with a weather radio.

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  2. Jane Reaction

     /  June 24, 2012

    Daryl Issa himself said this week that the Obama Administration had nothing to do with FnF. What the hell does it take now?

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  3. Treeske

     /  June 25, 2012

    Still too many people fall for the PR program villifying the Media as Liberal which is one of the biggest untruths. For decades, Corporations have controlled the media, getting rid of independent
    journalists as soon as they would produce news unfavorable to their profits, no matter how harmful to people, environment or how unethical their practices, those reporters were eliminated from the main media. US Media is very uninformative, depending more on commercial propaganda than true news! Support the independent media, better news there and you don’t get yelled at and ordered how to live and buy.
    Link TV has news from all over and has interesting Documentaries.

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  4. ansonburlingame

     /  June 25, 2012

    It really makes little or no difference, the political topic at hand on any given day or moment. Fox News will report or comment on it one way and MSNBC will do almost the opposite. Can anyone come up with TWO links showing where Fox and MSNBC have the same opinion of a given subject in current headlines?

    Just take Fast and Furious as one example. I submit that none of us know for sure exactly when control of the guns going across the border was “lost”. According to almost all “news” reports some 2000 plus guns were sent to Mexico with little on not control of them once they went across the border. Did the Bush Administration send “10” and the Obama Administration send “1990” or was the reverse true?

    When did the “first gun” go across and when did the last one do the same, both with no “controls”.

    The FEDERAL government screwed up yet we are arguing about which PARTY screwed up. Why? And you know as well as i do that BOTH parties are “covering up” their particular roles in that fiasco now. I can accept an “honest mistake” but a coverup to avoid political consequences, no way, by either side. And when it takes whistleblowers to stop “honest mistakes” well…….?

    Want to fix the economy or illegal immigration? Well we only have two choices for now and I for one don’t like either one of them, in total. How about international matters needing attention and resolution?

    Jim Wheeler, with a background very similar to mine has now become another “erstwhile conservative” rejecting his former “conservative” views and becoming a regular watcher of MSNBC to confirm his views I suppose. I more often than not get my views confirmed by watching at least O’Reilly on Fox, at least when TV is my source of confirmation, which is rare. I prefer to READ about “issues” from a variety of sources, including this very slanted blog site.

    To be “fair and balanced” we should watch BOTH programs, link both of them when they have a common subject and then let our readers decided.

    Have you ever seen Maddow link Hannity and AGREE with what Hannity has to say? No way. Same with this blog. You only see a Fox link when Duane decides to ridicule again the “conservative” view of matters.

    I at least do not “link” either Fox of MSNBC in an “honest attempt” to seek solutions to “vexing problems” in America and around the world. Am I brainwashed by Fox? Many of you will accuse me of such but how do you know that unless you read what I read, watch what I watch and have the same 70 years of accumulated experience in life?

    All matters with progressive solutions are not solvable with such solutions. The same can be said about conservative solutions. Yet here we are today, stalemated and floundering for “any” rational solutions that are politically achievable. And every other democracy in the world is going down a huge financial slope of destruction while we “ditther” over the extremes of what to do.

    The Western World as we have known it for now some long period of time is NOT going to self destruct over 2000 illegal guns going into Mexico. But with the financial condition of that World, watch out, in my view.

    Want to put Fast and Furious “to bed” publicly? How about Bush and Obama stand side by side at a joint press conference and say BOTH or our respective administrations screwed up and this is how it will be fixed. Then release every scrape of paper to support that conclusion!

    Executive’s will always make some bad decisions. Admit such and move on for the sake of the country and don’t try to “hide” your reasons or advice provided for such mistakes!!!

    Now when was the last time you ever heard a politician admit making a mistake? Or a partisan blogger admitting such mistakes on their behalf?

    Anson

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  5. Bruce

     /  June 25, 2012

    I was kind of mystified for a time about why this FnF thing was such a big deal. Sure it’s stupid, but compared to mismanged war for example: I think its small potatoes.

    It figures that the obsession with gun and fear of having your manhood stolen was the real issue:

    http://news.yahoo.com/darrell-issa-tougher-gun-laws-may-aim-fast-173950323–abc-news-politics.html

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  6. ansonburlingame

     /  June 26, 2012

    No Bruce, I don’t believe F and F was initially about “manhood” and guns. It started as a program to try to catch “bad guys” using technology to support law enforcement efforts on BOTH sides of the border. For example, it is my understanding that the Bush era program was closely coordinated with Mexican law enforcement authorities, but that stopped under the Obama administration.

    I believe it is now a really b

    Mig deal because once again, the coverup is worse than the original mistake. I will be magnaimous and give both administrations credit for trying to “catch bad guys”. But once the effort failed, loss of control of guns, the program needed to be shutdown, quickly. It seems that did not happen and the lack of a quick shutdown and later admitting an “honest mistake” falls squarely on the Obama watch.

    I go back several years when I asked Bob Woodward how to avoid such political “stuff”. His reply was very simple, “Always tell the truth”. In this case Holder could have easily admitted that “my department made a huge mistake, the program is now shutdown and we are doing everything possible in cooperation with Mexican authorites to retrieve the uncontrolled guns delivered to the cartels”.

    He obviously did not make such an honest statement. Instead, God only knows what scheming was going on to shift the blame to others. Was the White House included in such scheming? Probably though it may or may not have reached the President’s desk.

    It is the ongoing attempt to shift the blame that keeps me involved in this crisis. Now that executive privilege has been invoked, well the stink gets even stronger. Recall it took the SCOTUS to get Nixon’s tapes become public knowledge. How are emails any different??

    Anson

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