Conservative media outlets encourage their audiences to keep viewing only their content by demonizing other news sources, according to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.
“If I am trying to get across a point of view, I have to persuade and not assert,” she said in April at The Castro Theater in San Francisco. “Because I can’t assume that everybody is already agreeing with me when I start to make the funny voice. I can’t assume that I’m not going to offend somebody that thinks that person shouldn’t be made fun of. So, I try to be sort of ecumenical. I try not to imagine my audience being people who already agree with me. I, in fact, try to imagine a Republican audience.”
“I think the conservative media model involves this one really important step that liberals don’t use,” Maddow continued, “which is, ‘listen to me, I am the light and the truth and the way, you have to believe what I say and everybody else is out to get you and you can’t listen to anybody else, don’t change the channel, they’re trying to kill you.’ Liberals don’t say that. Conservatives tell their audience that.”
(via Zack Ford at ThinkProgres LGBT: Sen. Inhofe: ‘I Have Never Heard Of’ Uganda’s ‘Kill The Gays’ Bill Sponsor)
In an interview with Rachel Maddow last night, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) claimed to have no knowledge of David Bahati, the Uganda legislator sponsoring the “Kill The Gays” bill. In the book he was shilling, Inhofe had taken a swipe at Maddow for criticizing his affiliation with The Family, a powerful secret society of evangelical Christian political organizers, of which Bahati is also a core member. When Maddow tried to set the record straight about her comments, Inhofe claimed he had never heard of Bahati nor had any interaction with him:
MADDOW: The “Kill the Gays” bill sponsor has brought the bill back now, and he’s telling reporters, as of last month, that the whole idea for the “Kill The Gays” bill came from, as the New York Times put it, “a conversation with members of The Fellowship” — a.k.a. The Family — “in 2008—”
INHOFE: No, that’s just wrong.
MADDOW: This is what he says! This is how he explains where the bill came from.
INHOFE: Who is he?
MADDOW: He is David Bahati. He says he was told by Americans that it was too late in America to propose such legislation. That’s David Bahati speaking to The New York Times.
INHOFE: And can you tell me who he is? I’ve never heard of him.
MADDOW: David Bahati was described as The Family and The Fellowship’s “key man” in Uganda. Did you ever talk to any Uganda legislators?
INHOFE: How would I know if—? How could I—? I don’t have any idea who you’re talking about, and I certainly don’t have any idea on these accusations of executing gays.
From the interview, it seems Inhofe is unclear why he even critiqued Maddow in his own book, making his claims of ignorance about the “Kill The Gays” bill, especially considering all the time he claims to have spent in Uganda, all that more suspicious.
See Also:
Inhofe on MSNBC’s Maddow: “I admit to being a climate change denier”
(via Joe Romm at Climate Progress: Inhofe’s Stunning Admission To Maddow on Global Warming: ‘I Thought It Must Be True Until I Found Out What It Cost”)
Did you see the big smack down last night between MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)? The dean of disinformation mostly just repeated his well-worn falseshoods about global warming, which Maddow shot down.
But there was one remarkable admission from the former Chair of the Senate Environment Committee:
“I was actually on your side of this issue when I was chairing that committee and I first heard about this. I thought it must be true until I found out what it cost.”
In short, learning about the (supposed) high cost of the solution is what turned him from a believer in climate science to a denier.
Yes, you always have to take what Inhofe says with a grain of (smelling) salt, but this admission confirms what many of us have been saying for years (see Krauthammer (6/08): ”The real reason conservatives don’t believe in climate science”). As the NY Times explained about a 2008 denial conference, “The one thing all the attendees seem to share is a deep dislike for mandatory restrictions on greenhouse gases.” If you can’t abide the cure, you’re much more likely to deny the disease.
It’s long been clear that it’s far more costly not to act (see Scientists find “net present value of climate change impacts” of $1240 TRILLION on current emissions path). And the International Energy Agency explained last year, ”Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”
Ironically, the kind of denial and delay Inhofe is promoting guarantees much bigger and more intrusive government in the coming decades, for two reasons:
- We will still have to do all of the same mitigation, but in a much shorter time frame, which means in a manner much less business friendly than if we had passed the climate bill
- We will have to do a huge amount of adaptation, whereby government spends tens of billions through FEMA and gets into the business of telling people where they can and can’t live (can’t let people keep rebuilding in the ever-spreading flood plains or the ever-enlarging areas threatened by sea level rise and DustBowlification) and how they can live(sharp water curtailment in the SW DustBowl, for instance)
Tragically, Inhofe’s home state is among those poised to suffer the worst and ultimately depopulate. As we saw in the 1930s Dust Bowl, abandonment is the most common adaptation strategy when faced with prolonged drought -- and the droughts Oklahoma will be seeing in the coming decades will make the Dust Bowl seem wet and cool by comparison (see “Must-read NCAR analysis warns we risk multiple, devastating global droughts even on moderate emissions path“).
The ExxonMobil ad that accompanies the Maddow clip is an ironic coda on this whole discussion. The fossil fuel companies keep spending a staggering amount of money to push their views, whereas enviros have sharply scaled back their relatively modest spending.
Personally, I’m not certain that giving so much air time to a well-practiced disinformer is a great idea. I suspect Maddow’s underlying goal was to zing him on his ties to Ugandan anti-gay politicians in the second segment. I’d be interested in your thoughts on this.
Maddow won, plain and simple.
See Also:
Inhofe on MSNBC’s Maddow: “I’ve never heard of Uganda’s ‘Kill The Gays Bill’”
(via Faiz Shakir at Think Progress LGBT: Fox Pundit Tells CPAC Crowd That Rachel Maddow Is ‘The Best Argument In Favor Of Her Parents Using Contraception’)
Cal Thomas’s attacking Maddow because she tells the truth, unlike Republican apologists over at FNC, CNN, FBN, and WSJ.
In the “closed circuit world on the right,” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is often the subject of ugly denigrations. Whether it’s being mocked for her sexual orientation, her name, or even her education, right-wingers can’t get enough of slamming her.I’m glad that you played the Rachel Maddow clip because I think she is the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception. I would be all for that. And all of the rest of the crowd at MSNBC, too, for that matter.
(via Marie Diamond at Think Progress: Top Gingrich Adviser: “Democrats Abort Black Babies”)
As ThinkProgress has been reporting, GOP contender Newt Gingrich has built up quite the record of making derogatory, racially-charged remarks on the campaign trail. He frequently derides President Obama as a “food stamp president,” and said he would go to the NAACP and tell African-Americans they should “demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” More than 40 Catholic leaders recently challenged Gingrich to “stop perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes” with his divisive rhetoric.
Last night, Gingrich’s most prominent surrogate, former Communications Director Rick Tyler, went on the offensive during an MSNBC interview with Rachel Maddow and the Rev. Al Sharpton when asked about his candidate’s racial rhetoric. He accused the anchors of “race-baiting,” and claimed Democrats are hurting African-Americans:
TYLER: It’s baloney. MSNBC ought to get off this race-baiting kick…The Republican Party was founded by Abraham Lincoln…this was started as a civil rights party. If you go back to the 1856 Democratic platform it’s a racist platform…The Democratic Party — you can ask Al Sharpton about that, I think he would agree that the Democrats have failed in the public schools with the African-Americans. They abort their babies. They’ve done nothing to lift them out of poverty.
