ManicDDaily

Energized by anger today.  Well, anger, a good weekend night’s sleep, four or five cups of strong tea, and chocolate rice cakes.

Part of this comes from the recent Jon Stewart interview on Bill O’Reilly’s the O’Reilly Factor.   (Note—you have to pay to watch it on O’Reilly’s website, but it’s free on the Fox News site.)

I don’t much like Bill O’Reilly.  I don’t much like any news opinion show.  To tell the truth, I don’t much like TV news.  (Make that TV.)   So, it’s difficult for me to watch these things.

Part of the problem is that I’m not used to so much rudeness.  Stewart, the ex-stand up comedian, is the one you would expect to be profane or interrupting, but he is polite, amicable.  Although he’s certainly not a pushover, he does not lower himself to O’Reilly’s barrage of dismissive and reductive ridicule.

The other part of my problem with watching is my own rudeness.  I have a nearly uncontrollable urge to hiss things like ‘a——————‘ every time O’Reilly opens his mouth.

I did stay quiet enough to focus, however.  This is partly because Stewart clear, as well as engaging, made points which have not been adequately stressed by the more mainstream, and less comically-gifted, powers-that-be.  (Caveat– I’ve modified Stewart’s points somewhat while trying to stay within their spirit.)

First, Stewart noted the issue of hypocrisy–all the conservative commentators (and politicians) who screamed treason at any criticism of George W. Bush, while commander in chief of a nation at war, who now treat Obama as if he were not even a true U.S. citizen.

Secondly, there’s the issue of hypocrisy:  all of the conservative commentators (and politicians) who allowed Bush to spend and untax the country into the biggest deficit in history who now call themselves fiscal conservatives.

Third, there’s the issue of hypocrisy:  all of the conservative commentators (and politicians) who allowed Bush to spend, untax, deregulate, and ignore, the onset of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, and now blame it on Obama.

Fourth, well, you know, hypocrisy—all the conservative commentators (and politicians) complaining about a lack of bipartisanship who filibuster even relatively low level appointments.

(There is a ton more that could be said about hypocrisy and O’Reilly personallybut I won’t go into that here.)

The American people, unfortunately, seem to expect miracles.  They seem to believe that Obama should be able to undo years of damage, in a few swift strokes.  Fox news encourages this view, while at the same time making a huge outcry when Obama undertakes any stroke at all.

The conservative media feeds a notion that only one basic change is necessary—the poof! disappearance of our problems. They foster the notion that this change could happen by, as Obama put it in the State of the Union, simply continuing the same policies that got us into this mess;  they (crazily) imply that Obama caused the damage.  (I would remind them that Lehman Brothers fell in September 2009.)

A repair with no actually fixing involved.  Wouldn’t that be nice? It’s sort of like the idea of a country waging two expensive wars while cutting taxes.