![]() ON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR! Stewart compared The One True Channel to Fox. It went to the cutting-room floor: // link // print // previous // next //
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2010 Krugman v. Hubbard/the issue is joined: How gruesome is the American discourse? We strongly recommend this piece by Salons Steve Kornacki, who explains why there could be an irrational backlash if Democrats oppose extending those tax cuts for the rich. In his piece, Kornacki recalls the irrational, uninformed reaction to the marginal tax increases in Clintons 1993 budget. How gruesome is our American discourse? Our discourse is very disordered, to a degree that is rarely discussed. That said, the issue has now been joined about the Bowles-Simpson tax proposals! In this mornings New York Times, Glenn Hubbard offers the following assessment of those proposals. Most recently, Hubbard was chairman of the CEO under the second President Bush:
As far as we know, no one has ever claimed that any lowering of marginal tax rates, in any plan, would necessarily constitute tax cuts for the rich. That said: According to Hubbard, the tax proposals of this plan represent a progressive reform, despite the lowering of the marginal tax rates. This claim seems to stand in stark contrast with the semi-provisional claim authored by Paul Krugman:
As far as we know, no one has crunched the numbers yet. But Krugman and Hubbard offer contradictory assessments of the effect of the plans tax provisions. Its fairly clear that Hubbard claims that the rich would end up paying more under this plans various provisions. Krugman says the oppositebig-time. Given the way our discourse works, no sane assessment of this dispute will ever make its way to masses. Our discourse has been a joke for decades, as Kornacki notes. Speaking of that broken discourse: Our discourse has been a joke for decades, as Kornacki notes. But this obvious fact rarely gets discussed, even among fiery liberals. Recently, Will Bunch seemed to say that this problem dates to 2002 or 2003. Yesterday, Steven Benen linked to Andrew Sullivan, who almost seems to think that this problem is an artifact of the past two years! It seems to me that the last year or so in America's political culture has represented the triumph of untruth, Sully sadly mused. It was left to several of Benens commenters to note a rather obvious factSully was deeply involved in that very triumph during the Clinton years! Among other Sullivan-caused disasters, it was Sully who published Betsy McCaughey, letting her mislead the nation about the Clinton health plan.
Her piece appeared in 1994. How time flies when youre enabling the triumph of untruth! PART ONEON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR (permalink): Jon Stewart made news when he spoke to Rachel Maddow. Except, as it turned out, he didnt. Stewart spoke to Maddow for the full hour on the November 11 Maddow Show; he made news when he said that President Obama may even be a war criminal. Stewart said that as part of a longer exchange, which started with his claim that both sides, right and left, have their way of shutting down debate. With apologies, we post a fairly long chunk of what Stewart said, the better to provide context. (Throughout this show, the discussions were murky, and tended to ramble.) With apologies, we highlight the full section where Stewart made newsexcept, as it turned out, he didnt:
Jon Stewart made news in that highlighted segmentexcept, as it turned out, he didnt. For whatever reason, that entire highlighted section got edited out of the program broadcast on MSNBCand this program was built from a 49-minute interview in which almost everything Stewart said ended up on the air. (To watch the full interview, click this. To watch the interview segments as they aired on November 11, just click here. Then keep clicking.) Obama may be a war criminal too? That naughty statement might have made newsif it had gone on the air. Is there any particular reason why this rumination hit the cutting-room floor, unlike almost everything else Stewart said? We dont know, but the following chunk also got dumped from the program. In the actual Maddow Show broadcast, Stewarts comments were cut where the highlighting starts:
Did Clinton and Thomas largely do the same thing? Did NOW give Clinton a pass, but go after Thomas? Those are matters of judgment. But as with the statement about Obama, these unflattering statements about Clinton and NOW got dumped from the program which airedeven though Stewarts statement, lets stop just defending teammates, represents one of the clearest statements of his overall view in the entire interview. As we watched the full interview, we were struck by one more deletion. As noted, very little was cut from the interview when it hit the TV machine thingy. We were sorry that the following passage was dumped, because it represented Stewarts clearest expression of his view about the question which matters most on earththe relative merits of MSNBC and Fox:
Do you understand what Im saying? Stewart askedand it may be that the Maddow staff did! In that passage, Stewart expresses a rather clear view: Fox has unleashed a very bad storm on Americas discoursebut MSNBC, on a much smaller scale, may be following suit. Stewart even implied an heretical view: On that much lesser scale, MSNBC may even, to some extent, be fighting Fox with Fox. For ourselves, we would be a bit less kind to the One True Liberal Channel. In our view, Fox is a gruesome news org (on balance); it tends to advance the pre-existing disinformation wars which started with people like Rush Limbaugh and with those who came before him. In our view, MSNBC is now chasing Fox rather hard, copying many of that channels techniques. All too often, the channel is awful. In the world of the tribal pseudo-liberal, this amounts to heresy, of course. Todays pseudo-liberal worships Rachel in much the way the ditto-heads have always worshipped their glorious Rush. In comments, you can see them repeating her most absurd talking-points, thus defending her least admirable practices; to a slightly lesser extent, the same form of worship (and recitation of text) is also extended to Keith. And in this world, one piece of scripture has been widely recited in the wake of Stewarts heretical sanity rally: Were not as bad as Fox! In the wake of Stewarts rally, this unimpressive self-defense was mounted at the One Liberal Channel. Soon, it was tied to a multi-syllabic and thus more convincing claim: Jon Stewart has drawn a false equivalence between The One True Channel and Fox! Wed have to say that charge is false, but True Believers will always make demons. Has Stewart claimed some sort of equivalence between MSNBC and Fox? Actually, nonot really. Speaking with Maddow, Stewart said that Fox was a cyclonic typhoon that is now covering half of Asia. By way of (rather stark) contrast, he said that, every now and then, MSNBC seems like a tropical depression forming in the gulf. In our view, Stewart was being a bit too polite, trying to let his host down easy. But when he offered this mild criticism, it disappeared from the actual program, helping defenders continue to claim that hes offered a false equivalence. Stewarts tiny comparison of MSNBC to Fox was colorful; it even might have been quoted. For whatever reason, this tiny comparison went to the cutting-room floor. Ditto for that colorful cry: Dont fight Fox with Fox! Why did those three segments get cut? We have no idea; we dont know if there was any reason. And by the way: Maddow doesnt always just defend teammates and overly demonize people she doesnt agree with, although thats a fairly good description of the general way she conducts her program. Its a fairly good description of the way she conducted last nights show, for instance; on that program, she ripped a string of conservative targets, torturing an array of facts to drive a deeply unbalanced, and dumbly inaccurate, assault against Saint John McCain. But then, Maddow doesnt strike us as especially honestand she seems like a deeply True Believer, especially when it comes to True Belief in all matters involving herself. During this interview, Stewarts critiques were often murky; Maddows reactions were sometimes intriguingly clear. In essence, Stewart told Maddow that MSNBC may be a bit too tribal. More directly, he said that she shouldnt have insulted all those tea-baggers in the extended way she did. In our view, Maddows reaction to that one direct criticism was telling. Remember: Rachel Maddow is always truthful. Like all True Believers, her judgment is soundand her motives are always quite pure.
Tomorrowpart 2: Which part of The Comedy Channel doesnt Jons friend understand?
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