{"id":3781,"date":"2009-08-17T08:47:48","date_gmt":"2009-08-17T13:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2parse.com\/?p=3781"},"modified":"2009-08-18T10:44:13","modified_gmt":"2009-08-18T15:44:13","slug":"the-maddow-coburn-debate-on-meet-the-press-and-the-necessity-of-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/?p=3781","title":{"rendered":"The Maddow-Coburn Debate on Meet the Press; and the Necessity of Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

[digg-reddit-me]A few observations on watching <\/a>Meet the Press <\/a><\/em>yesterday<\/a>. In a lot of ways, I think that show demonstrates the low quality of our political debate today. And yesterday’s show was one of the better, more factually on point, more honest, least full of crap episodes in recent memory. It wasn’t about “gotcha” moments as much as policy and politics. No one there was seriously promoting any of the blatant falsehoods that have determined much of the debate in the rest of the media – the “death panels” and Nazi imagery for example. In many ways, this became a very meta debate about the debate – which is actually a conversation I think we need to have as a country.<\/p>\n

David Gregory though seemed determined to take each moment that threatened to lead to acutal honest conflict or insight and “move on” as quickly as possible. With the participants wanting to argue it out, they would talk over him trying to make their point before he ended the game prematurely. Maddow created a few insightful moments with her apparently well-researched appearance. She wasn’t as willing to let the bullshit slide as the others at the table – and she had papers full of research in front of her. Gregory asked some good questions, but let the bull slide. For example, here he asked a serious question of Senator Tom Coburn:<\/p>\n

MR. GREGORY: [L]et\u2019s talk about the tone of the debate.\u00a0 There have been death threats against members of Congress, there are Nazi references to members of Congress and to the president.\u00a0 Here are some of the images. The president being called a Nazi, his reform effort being called Nazi-like, referring to Nazi Germany, members of Congress being called the same.\u00a0 And then there was this image this week outside of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a town hall event that the president had, this man with a gun strapped to his leg held that sign, \u201cIt is time to water the tree of liberty.\u201d It was a reference to that famous Thomas Jefferson quote, \u201cThe tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.\u201d<\/p>\n

That has become a motto for violence against the government.\u00a0 Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, had that very quote on his shirt the day of the bombing of the Murrah building when 168 people were killed.<\/p>\n

Senator Coburn, you are from Oklahoma.\u00a0 When this element comes out in larger numbers because of this debate, what, what troubles you about that?<\/p>\n

SEN. TOM COBURN (R-OK):\u00a0 Well, I\u2019m, I\u2019m troubled anytime when we, we stop having confidence in, in our government.\u00a0 But we\u2019ve earned it.\u00a0 You know, this debate isn\u2019t about health care.\u00a0 Health care\u2019s the symptom.\u00a0 The debate is an uncontrolled federal government that\u2019s going to run–50 percent of everything we\u2019re spending this year we\u2019re borrowing from the next generation.\u00a0 You…<\/p>\n

MR. GREGORY:\u00a0 That\u2019s\u2014but wait, hold on, I want to stop you there.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about the tone.\u00a0 I am talking about violence against the government. That\u2019s what this is synonymous with.<\/p>\n

SEN. COBURN:\u00a0 The, the\u2014but the tone is based on fear of loss of control of their own government.\u00a0 What, what is the genesis behind people going to such extreme statements?\u00a0 What is it?\u00a0 We, we have lost the confidence, to a certain degree, and it\u2019s much worse than when Tom was the, the, the leader of the Senate.\u00a0 We have, we have raised the question of whether or not we\u2019re legitimately thinking about the American people and their long-term best interests.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For me that exchange was a head-turning moment. Asked to confront a man who has adopted the same quote that a terrorist did when attacking a building in his own state, a man who is using extreme rhetoric that suggests he would be in favor of assassination,\u00a0he refuses to condemn him outright. He hedges; he wants us to understand that man – to see him as responding to a world that’s unfair to him.<\/p>\n

Gregory at this point seems to let the matter go – but Maddow takes Coburn on. You can tell she’s taken aback too:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that a right wing Republican Senator would plead for “understanding” in quasi-defense of extreme right wing rhetoric and threats of violence. After all – what else can he expect?<\/p>\n

I suppose my point is: if any people out there take Sarah Palin’s statement that children will be put to death by “death panels<\/a>” if Obama’s health care plan succeeds seriously; if any people out there seriously believe\u00a0a Holocaust is about to take place<\/a> if this health care reform is passed; if they believe that their children are going to be indoctrinated into an atheistic faith in Obama<\/a> if health care passes; if they believe that their grandparents of their children are in danger – if someone believes any or all of these things, then violence is justified.<\/p>\n

We make heroes out of the men who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler. If we now say that Obama is another Hitler, aren’t we advocating assasination? If we say our child will be killed by Obama, aren’t we implicitly endorsing violence to protect our children?<\/p>\n

How can we – as a society – have an adult conversation about the pros and cons of the specific health reforms being considered with\u00a0this unhinged debate<\/a>? We can’t. Instead, we just have to let the unsustainable\u00a0status quo<\/em> stay in place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[digg-reddit-me]A few observations on watching Meet the Press yesterday. In a lot of ways, I think that show demonstrates the low quality of our political debate today. And yesterday’s show was one of the better, more factually on point, more honest, least full of crap episodes in recent memory. It wasn’t about “gotcha” moments as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[143,1023,955,4,458,44],"tags":[2165,1131,251,310,2200],"class_list":["post-3781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-health-care-domestic-issues","category-palin-election-2012","category-politics","category-the-opinionsphere","category-videos","tag-adolf-hitler","tag-david-gregory","tag-meet-the-press","tag-rachel-maddow","tag-senator-tom-coburn"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qcx-YZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3781"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3805,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3781\/revisions\/3805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}