AZ Giffords shot, how do we cool the rhetoric?

[Cait]

JoB, here’s the cause and effect. I wish I could draw a picture but I’m invoking freshman year philosophy class here so bear with me…

Not all politicians are republicans.

Not all republicans are politicians.

You cannot therefore use republicans and politicians interchangeably.

(Provision – I know we elected them but let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that they’re our puppets once they get into office. See point made below.)

Not all hate mongers are republicans.

Not all republicans are hate mongers.

Therefore we cannot use the terms interchangeably.

Here I shall use Sarah Palin as a place holder, but feel free to replace her with SPECIFICALLY NAMED POLITICIANS ONLY WHO HAVE DOCUMENTED QUOTES ATTRIBUTED TO THEM INCITING VIOLENCE)

Sarah Palin is a hate monger.

You may use that name (SPECIFIC ONLY) and hate monger interchageably

So “republican” is not a catch-all term for the things that Sarah Palin and her ilk does/did/stands for. Do you agree with absolutely every little thing that Barack Obama says? He said that we need to bring a gun to a knife fight with opposition and we need to “kick some ass” – do you agree with that point/rhetoric? I would hope not based on your “violent imagery” post. How would you like if Rich held you and your voting party personally accountable for everything its politicians did? Your only argument would be a verbally flowery variation of “you started it” or “yeah, but you do it more”. Its playground politics and it doesn’t hold water when there’s a dead body on the swing set.

I don’t like everything Keith Olbermann says, but I like being a democrat. Condemn ME for liking HIM. Not MY PARTY.

Unless you want to jump to conclusions based on your opinion of republicans as a whole that doesn’t bear weight against every single republican. Plenty of republican citizens and politicians denounce Palin, O’Reilly, Pawlenty, etc. You must take that into account every single time you type out the word republican. Otherwise it’s as good as me saying that you’re OK with violent rhetoric because you voted for Obama.

As Americans we vote for our elected officials and then we pay the price, good or bad, for our vote. I’m not going to not vote for Obama because he uses rhetoric I don’t like because I agree, in general, with his politics. That is all that can be asked of me. And it’s all the can be asked of any republican. I can write letters, I can picket, I can riot… but that’s one person.

Each republican politician with a sketchy quote to his/her name should come forward and denounce it immediately. That’s only fair. But don’t ask republican voters to show you the blood on their hands, because there isn’t any. They vote. They don’t spend the next 2 years with their hand up the arse of their favored politician working their mouths and playing ventriloquist.

I don’t care how you slice it or what you think they’re condoning by not personally taking responsibility for this crime, those are the facts. To me it’s black and white.

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[JoB]

Cait..

your philosophy 101 class has a couple of major flaws…

lets start with the difference between elected officials and commentators who happen to belong to one party or another.

As far as i know Keith Oberman has never received official recognition and/or endorsement from the democratic party…

so it would be fallacious to hold democrats responsible for Keith Oberman’s personal opinions.

Keith Oberman is not a democtatic commentator.. he is a liberal commentator …

and there is a difference.

In the same vein… I don’t hold republicans responsible for the opinions of Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck… two conservative commenators

However…

and here is where it might get tricky for you…

I do hold elected representatives of either party responsible when they endorse the comments of either liberal or conservative commentators as elected representatives of their party.

and btw.. this is how I define endorsement in this case…

a endorsement is a public official repeating a comment from a commentator with or without attribution in their capacity as an elected representative of their party

Here’s the thing.

Republican or Democrat are not terms that merely indicate one’s political preference.

They are the names of two official political organizations whose leadership is elected by it’s members.

When i speak of republicans or democrats i am referring to the registered members of those two political parties…

not some amorphous ideological construct…

It’s pretty simple really..

Candidates can’t get on the ballot representing a political party without both recognition and endorsement from that political party.

the membership literally endorses their candidacy.

I know that the tendency is to think in terms of “them” when we talk about our political parties.. especially when we speak of “them” on a national level… but any power those officials have is conferred directly by their members.

membership in either party is a matter of personal choice that can be terminated at any time at the member’s discretion.

so, yes, i do hold members of official political parties responsible for the actions of their party which includes those of their collective elected representatives.

If you attended either of the caucuses here in Washington you got a direct lesson on the connection between the local party members and the national endorsement….

The same process occurs at every party meeting on a local level which has a direct influence on the state level which has an direct influence on the national level.

In an ugly sort of way.. our political parties are a microcosm of our national electoral process.

Are party members responsible for who their party endorses and who they support for election?

Yes.. they are.. whether they vote for the winning candidate or not they had the opportunity to help decide who ended up on the ballot…

A voter’s responsibility may be said to begin and end at the ballot box …

a voter is defined in this instance as a US citizen voting in certified elections ..

and i have to state for the record that i strongly disagree with this notion…

but a party member’s responsibility begins before a single candidate is listed for election and continues in the formation of the party’s platform which is then implemented by their elected officials.

Every member of the two political parties has an equal opportunity/responsibility to shape their political party’s sponsored candidates and their party’s platform.

Am I as a democrat responsible for the crappy excuse for a health care bill passed by a democratic president and congress?

Yes. I am. I am a registered democrat and I supported my party who sponsored and endorsed the officials who passed that law.

I still think it is a crappy piece of legislation and I told them so repeatedly while they were crafting it… but I am still responsible.

Why would I hold republicans to any lesser standard of personal responsibility than i hold myself?

The second glaring problem with your philosophy 101 class was separating the speech of candidates from your expectations of them.

The words politicians use are a direct reflection of what they think we need to hear to elect them.

You are right that there is often a disconnect between campaign promises and legislation but there is also a difference between campaign promises and hates speech.

Would you expect a candidate who got elected on the basis of hate speech to defend the rights of minorities? Probably not.

In fact.. those who employ hate speech as a part of their electoral process are fairly likely to spell out the policies they intend to pursue and those policies are not likely to defend the rights of minorities…

unless of course you are referring to that top 2%

or to corporations who have special rights

it’s too bad the people who elect them fail to recognize that they are members of the groups those candidates won’t support…

but the responsibility for that can be laid to the misinformation campaigns sponsored and endorsed by the political party who endorsed the candidate.

In this case.. that’s Republicans.

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[Cait]

I’m sorry. My Muppet comment stands.

“membership in either party is a matter of personal choice that can be terminated at any time at the member’s discretion. so, yes, i do hold members of official political parties responsible for the actions of their party which includes those of their collective elected representatives.”

In this model, if Obama says I should bring a gun to a knife fight, the only respectable thing to do is renounce my fellowship to the democratic party so that people on my local blog will not hold me personally responsible for his statement.

My options are then, as follows:

a) I can vote for another major party candidate who believes in NONE of the concepts I do and then live with THOSE consequences.

b) I can piss my vote away on the 3rd party candidate (with whom I also do not agree)

c) Not vote as I can’t in good conscience vote for any candidate who doesn’t share my ideals and bow out of the democratic process.

Or choose not to define myself by any political party. But! Then! IF I decide to vote for one party or another I’m screwed anyway because I voted for them and am now personally responsible for their every action.

The fact that you see democrats and republicans as PEOPLE and not IDEALS (which is logistically true) doesn’t surprise me as giving ideologies a face to yell at is therapeutic and can be argued if you so choose… but I’m not nearly jaded enough to see it that way. People have a wide range of beliefs and qualifiers that inform their vote and their membership to a political party. To dismiss that is to dismiss the humanity of politics which is pretty rich coming from someone who was ready to call us all “fools” from the get-go – politics get impassioned and messy. And if they get violent and both sides escalate the divisions that cause the influx in rage, we’re both contributing to the inertia. That’s practically hearkening back to PHYSICS now. Politics are messy, they’re constantly in flux and they are run and voiced by people. People with kids and bills and human rights, not cogs in a political machine who are forced to stamp a political party on their forehead if they want to participate and then live with the consequences of those decisions, carried out by fatcats in suits with more money than God.

It’s a model I am not in any way comfortable with, even WITHOUT the admitted extrapolation I just made. To be simplistic – if someone wanted to point the finger at me for Obama saying something insensitive because I voted for him, I would laugh in their face.

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[dhg]

Obama made that statement about “bringing a gun to a knife fight” exactly once. It is stated in the passive voice. It was not stated in alarm or anger and it was well-understood as a metaphor. Did I mention he said it only once?

Bachmann, on the other hand, is all too eager to tell you how revolution is good for the country, how she wants her citizens to be armed and dangerous. Does that sound like a metaphor to you?

Fox Network and the tea party hammer on the idea that our country has been taken from us and we need to take it back.

I’d call for Obama to cool down the rhetoric but there is no need. He is actively trying to build a bridge to the Republicans.

Mike Malloy, Sean Hannity, Mike Savage and Bill-O need to take a chill pill.

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[Cait]

I couldn’t give less of a crap about the frequency or volume argument if I had a neatly packaged stool sample ready to hand to the next person who makes the point. Honestly.

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[dawsonct]

You understand that taking a gun to a knife fight is a VERY old metaphor, don’t you cait, and that it doesn’t ACTUALLY mean you are going to get into a knife fight while surreptitiously packing a pistol.

—

Violent metaphor has been part of our American vernacular for quite some time. The occasional use of a violent, though widely accepted, metaphor IS NOT THE SAME AS WHAT REPUBLICAN COMMENTATORS DO ALL DAY EVERY DAY.

Every day, there is more than 10 times the amount of conservative programing as compared to liberal talk on American radio. Even using the most optimistic of Republican figures, that is a MUCH larger ratio of conservative to liberal than this country really has. Are the people of this Nation hearing all the points of view they need to form a valid opinion?

The talkers on the right ONLY talk of liberals as people who hate and want to destroy our Nation. Those lies are NOT mirrored by anyone on the left, certainly not with the consistent, unremitting drumbeat that you hear from the far right.

Their behavior and speech contains ONLY hatred for their ideological opposites, and their thinly veiled calls to violence should NEVER be ignored.

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[Cait]

I’m just using that as an example because it’s the one that easily comes to mind. See Rich’s post in response to a call for democratic examples that occurred long before in this conversation. As much as me being that much of an idiot would help negate my point, you’re not getting off that easy.

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[redblack]

In this model, if Obama says I should bring a gun to a knife fight, the only respectable thing to do is renounce my fellowship to the democratic party so that people on my local blog will not hold me personally responsible for his statement.

My options are then, as follows:

a) I can vote for another major party candidate who believes in NONE of the concepts I do and then live with THOSE consequences.

b) I can piss my vote away on the 3rd party candidate (with whom I also do not agree)

c) Not vote as I can’t in good conscience vote for any candidate who doesn’t share my ideals and bow out of the democratic process.”

yeah, those are your options. defect from the democratic party because you take an old colloquialism’s literal meaning.

i suppose you believe obama was calling palin a pig when he used the “lipstick on a pig” colloquialism, too.

look, cait. not one of you has even acknowledged – let alone decried – the gun lobby’s influence in the republican party’s tenets; or the fact that the gun nuts are mostly republicans.

oops! my bad. they’re “independents” now.

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[Cait]

reblack, I’m going to ask you to complete the seemingly arduous task of referring to the post above yours.

There is also the point I made that specifically relates to your post here about “not all As are Bs to therefore you can’t use the terms interchangeably” argument.

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[JoB]

Cait…

if everyone gets a free pass…

no-one is responsible because after all they are just individuals

and there really isn’t anything they can do…

why do we insist on a democracy?

What makes a democracy strong is it’s citizens.

when liberals talk about holding their elected officials accountable…

this is exactly what they are talking about.

the political party that counts on it’s constituency’s vote no matter what they do

often finds themselves ousted in the next election.

In my not so humble opinion…

the last election wasn’t won by republican fever

it was lost by progressive indignation.

In your scenario you basically pose two choices…

backing someone who makes comments you find reprehensible

or quitting the party.

There are actually quite a few other choices…

you can attend your local party meetings

you can show up at your party’s caucuses and state and defend your position

you can get elected to party offices and influence policy

and those are just the easy choices….

i made much tougher ones in my youth..

like community organizing

If the citizens of a democracy aren’t responsible for their government…

then who is?

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[Cait]

Well, I guess we can’t all be as politically involved and conscious as you are JoB. Since that’s clearly where this argument was headed anyway.

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[JoB]

Cait…

perhaps our biggest difference is generational.

i grew up in a generation that believed strongly that if you weren’t part of the solution you were part of the problem.

“ask not what your country can do for you

but what you can do for your country”

I have done my best to live that maxim on both a personal and public basis…

and i can tell you it hasn’t been easy.

I have not always been proud to be an American.

In fact, if the truth were told i have not often been proud to be an American since i was a child.

But i have not given up on my country

to those who shout

“your country.. love it or leave it”

i would counter..

“your country.. invest in it or leave it”

I have literally spent a lifetime investing in my country…

which means i have gone to a lot of meetings i would rather have skipped

and listened carefully if impatiently to people i would have never chosen to speak with

i have spoken up when it is not comfortable

I have suffered ridicule

and gained an FBI file :) as the result…

along the way i have questioned everything i thought…

at every opportunity i had to do so

because anything this important can’t be supported without understanding

i really do believe that it is my responsibility as a citizen to do everything i can to change what is not working in this experiment we call democracy..

As i age i can do less

but technology has allowed me to speak out more.

i find it amusing that my public rhetoric has so neatly bookended my adulthood.

I don’t expect you or anyone else to agree with me…

but i hope i make you think.

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[JoB]

Cait…

Has it occurred to you yet that I don’t think myself superior to you?

That i simply believe strongly in what i post…

I spent an hour yesterday carefully composing a post that i doubt caused you 5 minutes of thought.

I didn’t go to all of that effort to put you down. I invested my time, effort and thought in an attempt to bring clarity to what i believe are the real issues here.

do you think you might read my posts differently if you didn’t approach them with the assumption that this is just some kind of verbal pissing match?

I made my choices in life

and i have had the privilege of both suffering and celebrating their consequences…

I am not sure that being who i am my choices would have been much different had i been born in a different time and place…

but i do admit that possibility…

if for no other reason than my opportunities would have been far different.

I don’t expect you or anyone else to make my choices…

but i do expect you to take full responsibility for yours.

Opting out of the political process and abdicating all responsibility except that of voting is a perfectly viable option as long as that is your choice and you own it.

Expecting other people to do the same isn’t.

The truth is that most of us live somewhere between full commitment to the political process and opting out… even me.

Other than a few cases where i found myself drafted to a limited commitment…

I have never sought a political office.

even i draw the line somewhere.

On a personal note..

i am truly sorry to have frustrated you to the point of smurfs and excrement…

edit..

i think that was muppets

smurfs were referenced in the political conversation with my grandson:(

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[HMC Rich]

DHG, DawsonCT, Still not giving up are you?

“Rush Limbaugh needs to choke to death on his own fat,” deranged left-wing radio show host Mike Malloy hissed on his February 18, 2009 program.

Michele Bachmann should “slit [her] wrist!” Montel Williams told his Air America radio show audience in September 2009.

“We ought to rip [Dick Cheney’s heart] out and kick it around and stuff it back in him,” MSNBC’s Ed Schultz blustered on his February 24, 2010 radio program.

And a movie about the assasination of President Bush.

These apples and oranges are starting to taste kind of similar.

Case Closed. Left found guilty of hate speech, spreading false information, and just being really really stubborn.

Sorry, I only had time to read the last ten or so posts. Back later. I just got a raspberry from my four year old. yuck drool

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[HMC Rich]

DHG, DawsonCT, Still not giving up are you?

“Rush Limbaugh needs to choke to death on his own fat,” deranged left-wing radio show host Mike Malloy hissed on his February 18, 2009 program.

Michele Bachmann should “slit [her] wrist!” Montel Williams told his Air America radio show audience in September 2009.

“We ought to rip [Dick Cheney’s heart] out and kick it around and stuff it back in him,” MSNBC’s Ed Schultz blustered on his February 24, 2010 radio program.

And a movie about the assasination of President Bush.

These apples and oranges are starting to taste kind of similar.

Case Closed. Left found guilty of hate speech, spreading false information, and just being really really stubborn.

Sorry, I only had time to read the last ten or so posts. Back later. I just got a raspberry from my four year old. yuck drool

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[JoB]

HMCRich…

I must have missed something…

which of those people is an elected representative of the Democratic Party?

and even then…

the worst you accuse those commentators of is wishful thinking…

except maybe this one..

“”We ought to rip [Dick Cheney’s heart] out and kick it around and stuff it back in him,”

that one wishes we would make a threat…

i am not really comfortable with that.

but i wouldn’t define it as hate speech either.

republicans do a much better job from the floor of the house…

i’d much rather accept a slobbered raspberry from a 4 year old than listen to some of them speak…

King’s last little bit about Muslim Americans not being Americans is whatever term describes an escalated yuck these days…

and he is one of the brighter bulbs in the rhetorical basket:(

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[Cait]

JoB, I get your arguments about political officials and what they stand for but dismissing what these people have said because they aren’t standing behind a podium is splitting hairs.

Unstable persons with guns don’t care who’s saying it. They aren’t going to filter that way.

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[JanS]

I remember when John Ashcroft came down with a case of pancreatitis. Now, I’ve had pancreatitis, and you don’t want it. One of the most painful things I’ve ever felt, the sickest I’ve ever been in my life…and I volunteered for lots of complications, and ended up in hospital/nursing home for 4 months (this was quite a few years ago). Most don’t get that sick..give them a couple of weeks on antibiotics, some hospital time, they’re better..they carry on. Such was the case with Mr. Ashcroft. I remember wishing that he had been sicker, that he hadn’t suffered enough (I despised the man). I verbalized that to people I know. I’m a Democrat leaning person…would that fall into your definition of “hate talk”, Rich? Montel Williams is in the public eye, but he’s still just one of us..he’s not politically motivated, nor are the others, except, as JoB said, maybe Ed Schultz. And in our heart of hearts, how many out here agreed with him about Dick Cheney’s heart…so let’s be serious about this..no…those apples and oranges are still miles apart.

OK…let’s face it..we are all guilty..how many say “I’d like to b*tch-slap that a-hole”, or, in the heat of the moment say “I could just kill her/him/them”..violence in our language has become commonplace..and the change has got to start somewhere…so how about with us? This whole thing should make us think before we speak..and encourage others to do the same. Oh, gee..back to civil discourse. of course, one has to recognize and admit that one is actually doing it first…

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[JoB]

Cait…

i don’t dismiss what pundits say…

I vote against them regularly by choosing not to read or listen to what they have to say unless someone makes a point by linking to one of their sites… which has been happening all to frequently lately :(

but there is a clear distinction between them

and party officials…

There has always been incendiary rhetoric

and that rhetoric has always inspired violence …

the early instances of bombing abortion clinics is a really good example of the link between incendiary rhetoric and incidents of violence…

But there is a huge difference between public discourse

and institutionalized hate speech

violence targeting abortion doctors outside their clinics didn’t escalate until politicians started using hate speech directed at doctors providing abortions while campaigning..

historically, when hate speech crosses the line into political institutions

increasing public violence follows.

I can accept the Sarah Palin’s of the world.

I simply turn them off.

What i can’t accept is institutionalizing the Sarah Palin’s of the world.

If we don’t speak up now…

and encourage as many people as possible to speak up with us

we are looking at what our own party will become.

because everybody wants to win.

that’s not just unacceptable to me..

it’s intolerable.

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[waterworld]

JanS: I hear what you are saying. Think about this, though, too: had John Ashcroft been much sicker, or dead, he would not have been able to do one of the most principled acts of his tenure, which was to refuse to sign off on Alberto Gonzalez’ and Andy Card’s request for DOJ’s authorization to allow the NSA to engage in further domestic surveillance of Americans.

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[JoB]

From one of my favorite congressmen

who well may soon be redistricted out of his seat by his republican opponents

http://kucinich.us/http://kucinich.us/NewDirection

e pluribus unum

out of many one

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[HMC Rich]

Post 179: It’s not what Obama said, but HOW he said it?!. HHMMMM. Give me a hug. I believe he was paraphrasing lines from “The Untouchables”. He could have picked a better way to say…. Let’s defeat those crazy righties.

JoB, sweetie, you are like Rocky. You don’t quit. Good for you. So, here is a Pol who was naughty. Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa, “That Scott down there that’s running for governor of Florida,” Mr. Kanjorski said. “Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him.”

Unfortunately some psycho from California was sending death threats to our Jim McDermott. They arrested the lunatic. He was spouting off some right wing points but sending death threats crosses the line. Here is where many of us differ. You will call him a right wing psycho. I just call him a lunatic. But I do want to know what motivates that individual. I also call the people sending death threats to Sarah Palin lunatics too. Both sides are doing it people.

Now, the original post blamed FOX News. DHG said something that was worrysome …. “How can we force Fox to cool the rhetoric”….. That is code, meant or not, for censorship.

FORCE FOX? What would you say if I said what can we do to force …. CNN or ABC to do something? It would be a vast Right Wing Conspiracy. So those three little quotes (of which I can find plenty more) were related to the original post showing non conservatives using vitriolic statements to attack others.

The main point is to cool the rhetoric, correct? Well that will only happen to a point.

We can’t always agree what Hate Speech is? How are we going to agree what is and what is not?

Anyway, I am fine with cooling it. Just have your facts and not conjecture. I have had to correct my mother who emailed a few, but not many, untrue postings. Basing your affiliation on misinformation does not help any of us. Blaming people without evidence is just plain wrong.

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[HMC Rich]

But, alas. I can no longer post on this particular thread.

Earlier today I was a victim of a hate filled personal attack.

That person had the gall to call me… wait for it… a diarrhea punk poophead baby!

I am still in shock and shaking.

Yes, my four year old son has been infected.

I need counseling.

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[JanS]

rich, we’ve been saying all along that we’re all guilty…that both sides are guilty…but the heavy preponderance of it comes from.;..those on the right. You can argue all you want, but that’s the way it it. It IS NOT OK!! If CNN or ABC or NBC or CBS had the same disgusting people as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, etc., ad nauseum, and you said that we needed to stop them from doing something reprehensible, I’d agree with you…and I’m betting Joanne would, too.

Here’s an example of what the people on Fox spout….yes, it’s Jon Stewart…but he’s not making them say these words…

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-13-2011/veiled-criticism?xrs=eml_tds

WTF? There is no defense of that kind of ignorance.

and because you found 3 quotes…OMG…three..imagine that….that does not mean that it’s accepted, that it’s fine with everyone. That’s like the ..well, if he jumped off a cliff…. argument…tit for tat, tit for tat. We need to get beyond the finger pointing, look inside ourselves, look at who we admire, who we listen to…and change things. And if Fox News is where it begins, what the hell is wrong with that?

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[HMC Rich]

JanS, There are many, many more examples of idiocy coming from the left (and the right). Some of You guys won’t admit it. I was being very flippant but now you have irritated me.

Now, realize, one man’s criticism is anothers joke or slam. Some are offended, others are not. Take the N word. A very tricky situation, wouldn’t you say?

Actually, Stewart’s assessment was pretty good. What planet was Kilmeade and Hume coming from? Yes, it is OK to call them on stupidity. But when Ed Schultz and others go off the deep end, all I hear is crickets.

I am tired of the oppositions victim mentality. Sometimes someone wins. Sometimes someone loses. Sometimes none of us win and sometimes a few of us win. Not everyone or everything is equal. We are all different individuals.

There are plenty of left wing commentators and news people who say what I consider to be idiotic statements, but unlike some, I do not wish to censor them. I chose to turn to something else. I don’t need government to decide for me.

I think sometimes being PC is good so as to not hurt someone but sometimes it is wrong. So if you don’t like Rush, Hannity, Palin or Boehner, Too Flipping Bad. Deal with it. If you don’t like Fox News, don’t watch it. If you don’t like MSNBC, don’t watch it. If you don’t like Katie Couric, don’t watch her. But it is sooooo condescending of you and others to say this is one sided.

The last two years have been the most one sided Presidential and Congressional terms for a very long time. Republicans were powerless and could only talk. If legislation did not pass it was due to other Democrats not voting for it. And the more the President and the Congress did the more the right and the middle became more worried. And they voted on their worry last November.

I have shown in the past the political affiliation of the beltway reporters. Almost 88% voted for Democrats. Only 12 percent voted differently. If they were Cronkite I wouldn’t worry but many are not. And their bias leeches into their reporting over and over and over. Just like the bias that leeched into some of the FOX hosts in the link you provided.

So, you have Media Matters, and I have Newsbusters. You have the Huffington Post, and I have Drudge. You might prefer MSNBC and I might prefer Fox. You have Hollywood and I have talk radio. But we can also share.

Political commentary is what it is. I have seen some great hack jobs from Olbermann and others. So what! I have seen O’Reilly go crazy. I get tired of the coddling Hannity gives to Conservative Republicans. I want the ideologues to challenge their own as much as they do the opposition. All sides are needed.

By the Way. Glenn Beck liked the Presidents speech. And I am glad our leader spoke to the Citizens of this country like he did. He is acting more Presidential. I am glad. I just wish it wasn’t under such awful circumstances.

So JanS, we have disagreed many times, but I obviously disagreed with your last post. It is not all of Fox News fault and you know it. I could very well make the argument for another network. But for now I will say that all networks, papers and opinioned writing could use more civility. Especially the faceless posters who would never dream of saying to someones face what they post on the web.

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