Damn! David Frum, who once made money writing speeches for President George W. Bush, turned the tables on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last night.
Hoping to discuss the apparent disorganization within the Republican party, Maddow asked Frum to explain his “reservations” on the John McCain’s campaign. Rather than addressing Maddow’s question, Frum comes out with this:
You were talking throughout the show about the matter of tone in our politics, and yet I think we are seeing an intensification of some of the ugliness of tone that has been a feature of American politics in the past 8 years. This show unfortunately is itself an example of that problem, with its heavy sarcasm and snearing and disregard for a lot of the substantive issues that are important… We’re all going to have to do better than we’ve been doing, including in the past 40 minutes.
Obviously caught off guard, Maddow wonders if Frum actually thinks her tone can be compared to some of the vitriol unleashing against Barack Obama.
Slick, slimy Frum replies, “I don’t think that’s an important question. I think the question is, given the small plate of responsibility that you personally have, how do you manage that responsibility?”
How about we take this to the next level?
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Maddow’s not buying his bullshit and the two get into a debate on what Maddow calls the “false equivalence” that has saturated our political culture. For example, comparing McCain’s involvement with the Keating Five to Obama’s friendship with William Ayers.
In the end, they agree to disagree: Frum prefers petrified discourse, while Maddow appreciates a little fun. Guess which side we took…
Check out the video, after the jump…
Key
You’ve got to hand it to the man, he’s got amazing spin on all that bs he’s spewing. Really. I’m honestly in awe, I haven’t seen some Actors pull of that kind of straight face!
Kid A
And I bet you’re Morning Goods material, right Men-Sar?
An Other Greek
Frum is the quintessential blood-stained LYING LIAR spinning wildly with corporate-fascist propaganda.
HOW DARE HE question Rachel after his many appearances on FIXED NEWS, the most provocative and biased of the corporate infotainement agencies…
He is not interested in style, nor ethics at all.
He is simply NOT answering questions and spinning because the Rethuglicans are in a hasty and messy retreat.
Shame on him. Smarmy, disgusting, and transparent. We see it, and THANKFULLY so does Rachel.
And, boy, did she hand him his ass on a silver platter!
She rocks!
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ron
Men-sar why do you come to a site with gay subject matter if you are anti gay?
Mods why do you let him continue to post?
marco hussein channing
Men-Sar: “That thing on the left.”
John McCain: “That One.”
While attempting to define someone else, both have acutely defined themselves.
CastleRock
She is the nastiest bull dyke bitch on TV….aside from Anderson Cooper that is.
If she was any further to the left, she’d fall off the fucking planet the freak! That is when she isn’t hanging off of Olbermann’s balls!
Whitey
Ron & Marco…..bite me!
walt zipprian
I see the klan is out in force this morning.
Alan down in Florida
I watched this last night and Mr. Frum looked like he had bad escargot for dinner. It’s almost pitiable to watch a Republican so dispirited by a tanking candidate that he pretends to care about the level of political discourse. This is a former effing speechwriter who made his name by his spin ability.
I thought Rachel did a great job of keeping on point and Mr. Frum sounded like a bad loser.
marco hussein channing
“Ron & Marco…..bite me!”
Proof once again the polls are correct: the less education someone has, the more likely that they are to vote for McCain. The number is highest among whites who have less than a high school education. Which is why McCain wants to do away with the Department of Education–so he can continue to have supporters.
Mike
Certainly, it is an interesting discourse. I believe that a correlation exists between the ultimate goal of social conservatives concerning gay rights and the broader goals of the GOP in general.
While Politics have always been contentious (there is an excellent essay in the LA Times today, addressing Lincoln’s campaign that addresses the history of dirty politics), there was a significant ramping up of that game when conservative talk radio established its domain, and then inspired the Fox News Channel. There had been no such observations or objections made by members of conservative think tanks during the many years enjoyed by both entities during their run–that is, until MSNBC began to take on a more liberal slant, as they saw a ratings advantage in doing so.
Of course, the GOP greatly prefers the more thoughtful and quiet approach that liberals have taken on the airwaves in the past two decades, for they are able to push (and I hate to use the term) their agenda largely unchallenged through the airwaves. Now that Air America and MSNBC have found a demographic foothold of their own, and have begun to turn the tactics back onto the opposing side, the GOP is uncertain how to combat the challenge. ‘Tis better to now encourage fair play by appealling to the liberal’s side preference for intelligent debate.
In other words, they’d prefer for the liberals to simply remain invisible on the airwaves. This is not entirely unlike what we are seeing from the social conservatives and their ads for Proposition 8. The long held belief if they can just somehow push the GLBT community back into the darkened recesses of society, if they can just somehow make them go away and remain largely invisible, then they can make all the messy issues of tolerance and equality go away.
The commericial for Yes on 8, featuring the little girl bringing home a book to her mother concerning two princeses getting married is evidence of this. The false premise is if the children don’t learn that homosexuality exists, then homosexuality with all its challenging social issues will disappear. Growth, whether personal or social, is painful, and it is human nature to just try to avoid it if one can. Of course, the GLBT community is learning that remaining respectfully out of the public eye will get them nowhere close to winning their civil rights.
We are losing on Prop. 8, here in California, in part because so much of the gay community has capitulated to both fear and the expectation of those around us to be, ultimately, respectful. So, even long time “partners”–those together for 20+ years, refuse to bring up their relationships to their families, they don’t hold hands across a table at a restaurant or in a shopping mall, ad certainly they (out of respect) often avoid small displays of affection in front of the extended members of their family.
This works well enough, for we are largely unseen for whom we really are, even to the folks who are closest to us–or who we believe to be closest to us. I understand that I may be speaking to a demographic of the gay community that is marked by age or region, but I think that largely, this holds true. We fade at family dinners, while dining at restaurants, and even when walking down the street….because social conservatives ask us to.
This is a struggle for legitimacy–both the gay rights struggle, as well as the struggle to get the liberal political agenda some air time. If silence prevails on the side of liberals, the GOP’s voice will be a singular one, making the pushing of their own agenda ever so much easier to do.
marco hussein channing
“Ron & Marco…..bite me!”
Proof once again the polls are correct: the less education someone has, the more likely that they are to vote for McCain. The number is highest among white males who have less than a high school education. Which is why McCain wants to do away with the Department of Education–so he can continue to have supporters.
jj
I watched this exchange last night, and I too thought Maddow was caught off-guard. It is interesting to note that, while Frum told Maddow that she needs to temper the material on her “small plate,” he didn’t indicate he’d tell the same to Hannity or Limbaugh. My guess is that he wouldn’t want to be branded a complete retard by the lunatic fringe far right.
fredo777
“The Klan”?
While I am an Obama/Biden supporter, I disagree with that characterization unless, of course, we have certain proof that the poster is racist/prejudiced.
fredo777
Ah, well, that changes things. If that “klan” comment had been meant for Men-Sar, the bigot label might just be fitting.
What a douchebag.
daniel hussein kemp
Typical response from the party that claims to embrace personal responsibility. When you are called out for being liars and stirring the pot of racism, you blame someone else. Sarcasm is the only response to the way McCain has run his campaign with his daily shift on the issues, his contrasting stand between him and his running mate, and the perverse addiction to look into the camera and flat out lie, i.e. Sarah Palin’s response to the abuse of power findings in troopergate and saying she refused the bridge to nowhere. You may not like Rachel, but she presents FACTS and uses the quotes and video of the GOP to point out their ridiculousness.
emb
I thoroughly enjoyed last night’s fun and games. Frum blindsided Rachel with his palinesque I’ll-answer-the-questions-I’d-rather-talk-about ploy and she was obviously a bit taken off guard. But she switched gears and engaged him on his own turf and, in my opinion, kicked his (oh, I get to reference mccain AND palin!) “you know what” in a cordial, serious, and ultimately Maddowy way.
Yay Rachel.
MIKE: Excellent, thoughtful post (now there’s something to find around here these days!). I have to differ with you on this, though:
“We are losing on Prop. 8, here in California, in part because so much of the gay community has capitulated to both fear and the expectation of those around us to be, ultimately, respectful.”
I think we’re losing on Prop 8 here because so much of the gay community is so inwardly focused and ultimately interested only in their individual life experiences. The result is that they don’t knock on doors or do phone banks, they don’t send money, and they don’t rabble-rouse. It’s not because they’re being “polite”, it’s because our community is not so much a group of individuals with a sense of collective interest as a collection of individuals interested primarily in themselves. The civil rights movement of the 60s worked because more members of the African-American community could see beyond their individual lives and support a collective right; we can’t seem to get outside our bedrooms–show a gay man a photo of an attractive shirtless athlete and all thoughts of propositions, voting, phone banks, and social movements disappear altogether in the face of an appealing fantasy.
Ironically, the appeal of the fantasy life (the expectation that a better guy is right around the corner, that we’ll look like underwear models if we switch to lowfat latte) is driven in large part (I think) by the unappealing social realities of gay life: inequality, intolerance, “tolerance” itself (I mean, give me a break–you’re gonna tolerate me?? Gee thanks), legal and social inequities–all of that make it more appealing to escape into coffee shops and bars and chatrooms. So the mormons and the rightwingnuts are motivated in common cause against the insidious sodomite, and the GLBT “community” (which isn’t really a unified voice, as this site proves time and time again, as much as a bunch of bickering, self-interested individuals barely connected by a sort of sexual outsider-ness) dither and waffles and gets distracted by shiny objects. I loves me my gay guys, but sometimes we can be so self-destructive, and so oddly find complaining about defeat and oppression more comfortable than doing something to achieve victory.
But again, thanks for the thoughtful thoughts.
God, I sound cynical and nasty this morning. Apologies to the activists among us. I must get more coffee….
An Other Greek
uhm, the problem here is Frum, NOT Rachel…
What’s up with the trolls on this site?
yeah, yeah, I know, we all got rents and mortgages, but gimme a break with the HATE…
Besides, Rachel is a) gorgeous, and b) NOT a “bull-dyke”, at all. Duh.
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Dan
Can’t help but wonder if Men Sar and people like him are actually on the payroll of the DNC. You know – they’re paid to go out there, make ridiculous/offensive statements, which’ll only drum up more democrat outrage. Kind of like the whole Phelps clan, who I suspect are on the HRC payroll.
In any case, Men Sar, keep up the good work!
Mike
Thank you for your generous words, EMB. You will note that I said that adhering to the broader social expectation is responsible “in part.” Certainly, because great shame is foisted upon us throughout our developmental years, there is a self destructive bent in many gays. Of course, many, many people–gay and straight–are raised with shame about one thing or another, and they go about their lives as adults, engaging in all sorts of little self destructive behaviors.
Being “polite and respectful” is, ultimately, easier than standing against the abuse we often encounter when we discard “other’s” notion of what is socially acceptable (like, holding hands in public, which is such a small thing, really).
There is no doubt that the gay community lacks a sense of unity, but then I suppose that is why the rainbow flag works so well in it’s representation; ie., the colors of the flag are clearly deliniated–we are diverse and not entirely blended.
Certainly, it is easier for anyone to escape into fantasy than to confront the harsh glare of reality, but the GLBT community is to the task. I can tell you that we are seeing so much ugliness in California (especially, those who dwell in the suburbs), it is nearly impossible to escape into fantasy, and that alone seems to be helping galvanize the community into uniting for a common cause.
Nevertheless, my larger point is that succumbing to the spin of someone like Frum; that after years of hate spewing on conservative talk radio and Fox News, liberal leaning programs should play nice and unbiasedly is just another way of the GOP saying, “just remain mumm, speak in whispers so that voters can’t hear you.”
Straight or gay, fantasy gay guy or gay social misfit, liberal or conservative: speaking in lowly and knowing your place will get you nowhere in the political scheme of things.
Blacks drank from water of equal quality from separate fountains until they refused to do so any longer. This took stepping out of “their place” and offending some folks. This meant raising their voices so that they could be heard. This is what the GOP wants from liberals, but ONLY from liberals.
mark
Frum like EVERY Repig is depressed and cranky watching his ENTIRE beloved RNC wither and die before his eyes, he probably just lost a bundle on Wall Street, and he has to be feeling SUCH GUILT for how absolutely WRETCHED the president he worked for will be remembered. NOT only worst president of the United States…WORST PRESIDENT of A_N_Y_T_H_I_N_G, PTA, Little League, Chess Club….
mark
Men- Sar be sure to stick around Nov 5th
cuz HONEY I am going to bust a gut laughing at you LOSERS….over, and over, and over, and over.
commonsense
When this sleazy hypocrite calls out racist/liars/homophobes and destructively divise figures like O’Reilly, Hannity and the rest of Murdock’s scum, then he can talk. He has his slithery head so far up their collective asses, this ain’y gonna happen. What a sick puppy Frum is.
Jack E. Jett
Frum is way in over his head with Maddow. She is brilliant and he is simply full of shit.
The real story is that she is not afraid to take these people on. Most journalist just let these fuckers (dems and repukes) spew their talking points and never get a question answered.
She made Frum look like the fool he is without raising her voice.
Cuntessa Brewer…take note.
ChristopherM
Frum’s whole problem here is that he wasn’t used to being on a program where disagreeing turns into a shouting match with the host and the shouters don’t have to display any skill, knowledge, or reason. Rachel is not Bill O’Reilly (or Olbermann for that matter). She is calm, she has a sense of humor, and she is polite. Sure she’s partisan. She’s also a fantastic host and a welcome respite from all the vitriol that is out there.
Mods, is Men Sar going to have to actually call someone a n!gger in order to get banned? Because it is only a matter of time. I know you guys believe in lively discussion, but he and that other one hijack every conversation on here and turn it into a race-baiting hot mess.
Road2Nowhere
Oh, I just LOVE Rachel Maddow.
That’s it, forget Ellen and Rosie, she’s my favorite lesiban. That’s all I have to say.
Chuck
I am 1000% for gay rights, but not a fan of this lez. Her manly hands and wanna be Keith Olberman show aren’t really watchable, making us no better than the Nazis at Fox News.
crazylove
She handled his quite well. Basically never accepting the underlying premise of his whole argument. Often, the media will just let the right spin with some barb like this and they go onto more “important” issues not realizing that it is the underlying barb that was and remains the point of the exchange. Here, the goal is to pretend the left is like the right when in practical matters the left hasn’t had the power or ‘ends justify the means” mentality of the right for over three decades now. In many ways, we are still fighting perception of equivalence versus reality that we have spent the last 30 years under conservative dominance. The electoral maps is realligning so of course- someone like Frum is going to now ask for fair play. Maddow was nice than I would have been. I would have said you played by that politics, and now you got to live by it while we are charge. Stop whining. But that would have been me.
ChristopherM
“Manly hands”? Internalized homophobia much, Chuck?
Homeboy
She is one ugly bitch and a crazy loon to boot!
Michelle
Rachel Maddow just exudes intelligence, and I find that incredibly sexy.
Frum got served. I think he was thinking he was going to make her go off the handle. There’s diagreeing and then there’s being a totally disrespectful prick.
Tim
Rachel Maddow is a pretty smart dude!
rick
i love rachel. nice to see murdoch’s boys have invaded queerty. they are doing another hit piece on olberman and maddow in the new york post.
why does the right have to excude so much hate? they have nothing to say so they just spew.
seitan-on-a-stick
Man-Sar is Churchill-y when he’s not Whitey or Tallskin! He’s a Brit who lives in Massachusetts and is very afraid of black people from whence he lived in his Council Flat in Mary-OLD-England………..and misinformed about HIV transmission CDC MSM Statistics which is still overwhelmingly Gay and White (in sheer numbers)like poverty despite the lies of money-hungry Non-profits.
Anyway, he’s a K-K-Gay!
CHURCHILL-Y
No. 37 Sitting-On-A-Piece-Of-Shit ^, Paranoid much? You really can’t take that there are more than one Gay man out there who finds your views(and yourself) as a total screw up!
Here’s what the Obama mob is really up to:
7-YR.-OLD GETS AN ACORN VOTE, CONN. JOB TO BOOST OBAMA
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10122008/news/politics/7_yr__old_gets_an_acorn_vote_133207.htm
seitan-on-a-stick
“W.” In Theaters Oct. 17
A Father.
A Son.
An American Dynasty.
See The Trailer!
http://www.Wthefilm.com
nikko
Rachel Maddow rocks! She was great! She took David Frum on…and never let him go. She made him accountable to his brownnosing bullshit and exposed his rhetoric as false.David Frum..ugh..what a corrupt bloodsucking professional.
felix
Hey men-sar, take the mac and cheese out of your skull. That may give sufficent space for brain cells to divide, if there are any.
Andrew
I’m thinking I am the only one that actually listened to the show. I am left of center, but Frum was right. Let’s give a good idea its due. He posited that her type of show was a response to the Fox-style shows… not that her show was equal in vitriol. he was right. We are all sick of the Limbaughs and OReillys (though Hannity makes them both look like geniuses).
And he IS conservative, but of the thinking variety (non-thinking = Republican). It is only a matter of time before he joins Buckley, Parker, Noonan, et. al. in forming a non-kook party. And he has already called Plain an irresponsible choice AND disagreed with McCain’s campaign style.
He was right to say that we should elevate the conversation (hey I saw the show live). Mudslinging and sarcasm never solved anything real. But there is a place for it, Comedy Central.
Now I wonder if I will get attacked by the Kooks on my side of the aisle?
kunino
I do not take David Frum’s side of many political issues, but to describe him as slick and slimy in his talk with Maddow is a serious error. He reaised serious points and expressed them clearly. She didn’t get many of them, and misrepresented as many as she could get round to.
Rachel Maddow is clearly an intelligent American, and its just as clear that she knows, and Frum knows’, that conversations like this are in no way a meeting of equals. The person behind the news desk is, in fact, the boss. In this meeting, an obtuse, dishionest and unfair one. The words she repeatedly tried to put in Frum’s mouth, were clearly not what he asaid, not what he meant. A sad day in the news business.