What conservative pundits do you read/watch/listen to?

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What conservative pundits do you read/watch/listen to?

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1jseger9000
tammikuu 10, 2008, 6:53 pm

And no, Stephen Colbert doesn't count!

For me, I listen to Dennis Miller (I download his interviews via podcast). It's nice to listen to somebody who's politics I disagree with but who I can at least respect.

Who on the other side can you stomach?

2geneg
Muokkaaja: tammikuu 11, 2008, 10:55 am

I have, from time to time, desperately tried to watch FOXNoise, that Gibson fellow, I don't know his first name. He wrote a book The War on Christmas. I've tried to watch Billo as well, but I just can't get into either one. Billo is just totally offputting in his narcissism and rudeness.

The Gibson fellow isn't so offputting, but I did a comparison of what was being reported on FOXNoise and MSNBC during the sentencing phase of I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby. FOXNoise ignored it completely while they gave us yet one more interview with Natalie Holloway's mother, and an interview with the misprosecuted NC Field Hockey (or whatever it was they played) team. Not exactly current events.

FOXNoise has the same problem Rush Limbaugh has, they have fallen in love with their own reflection. I used to try to listen to Rush on the radio, but found myself counting the number times he said me, myself, or I. People would call in and identify themselves as idiots by announcing something like "mega-dittoes", or "I've been a dittohead for x years." Well, what is a ditto? It's a symbol that means copy the previous line, regardless of content. So a ditto-head is effectively saying "I don't care what you just said, but because it was you that said it, then me too, me too. Not teaching critical thinking in the schools leads to megaditto-heads.

I just can't watch those guys at all.

I enjoy many of the less strident and more connected Conservative pundits such as Pat Buchanan, Tony Blankley, and Andrew Sullivan, and to a degree Christopher Hitchens, I enjoy hearing George Will. These are people who give condiseration to their thoughts and beliefs, they aren't spitting "talking points" back at me as marching orders like these other guys.

There are as many liberals that I can't stomach for one reason or another, mostly because they are either in far left field, or because they too are too full of themselves.

Generally, I watch "The McLaughlin Group", George Stephanopolis on Sunday, lots of NPR during the week, along with Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson, and sometimes Keith Olbermann.

BTW, I think Stephan Colbert is pretty right on as an authoritarian leader. He uncovers the inconsistencies and just general lunacy in the positions taken by the BushCo propaganda machine and that's what makes him so subversive.

3Lunar
Muokkaaja: tammikuu 12, 2008, 5:06 pm

Hmmm... maybe David Brooks (/slap touchtone) on the News Hour? Author of On Paradise Drive.

4BGP
Muokkaaja: tammikuu 12, 2008, 11:55 pm

>1 jseger9000: Miller is a curse. When he is not busy abusing individuals with his intellect, he whiles away the hours slandering the left-of-center and engaging in a crude version of historical revisionism.

>2 geneg: Geneg! Gibson is one of the Republicans' most vitriolic apparatchiks! If you want us to take your (Pro and Con-based) War on the Republicans seriously... You should consider issuing a formal retraction of your tentative support.

As for Christopher Hitchens: he may agree with the Neo-Conservatives on the War on Terror and the Iraq War, but he has never "come out" as a conservative.

As for me, well, I must admit that P.J. O'Rourke can be hilarious...

5jseger9000
tammikuu 12, 2008, 11:54 pm

Stephen Colbert is brilliant and ballsy. I loved his White House Press dinner speech. So uncomfortable, but so funny! What really gets me is that there are people that I have talked to that do not understand how liberal Colbert really is.

Rush Limbaugh at least has a sense of humor, but I can't stomach his pompousness. His voice makes me want to punch him after a few minutes.

Bill O'Reilly is a sleazeball. I think it would be fair to say that I hate him. Loved seeing David Letterman (of all people!) blast him.

I don't know much about John Gibson but I could never listen to or respect a doofus who seriously believes (or is willing to sell the idea that) there is any kind of 'War on Christmas'.

P.J. O'Rourke makes me laugh when he is on NPR's 'Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!'

6geneg
tammikuu 13, 2008, 9:33 am

BGP, I did not intend to give the idea that I in any way like or approve of what John (?) Gibson has to say. He IS just another Republic apparatchik, but the few times I have seen him he has been less obnoxious in attitude, not word, than the Billo and some of the others.

7BGP
tammikuu 13, 2008, 2:56 pm

Duly noted. Keep an eye out, though... When he gets himself worked up, Gibson has an absolutely deplorable demeanor....

8amancine
tammikuu 13, 2008, 6:33 pm

I really can't stomach any of them.

9dixiereader
tammikuu 14, 2008, 9:56 am

Viestin kirjoittaja on poistanut viestin.

10Allama
tammikuu 17, 2008, 11:18 am

> 8

I know what you mean; I personally boycott the pundits so as not to increase their ratings. If you want to know what they're saying in order to remain informed (or because they're so nonsensical it's hilarious, provided you ignore the fact that some people actually adhere to their vitrol), I highly recommend watching rips of their shows on YouTube or reading transcripts online; at least then the networks that are conservatively biased* don't get a boost.

-

*I don't support biased news even if the ones pushing it are of an accord with me on most issues, for the record. ;-)

11leebot
tammikuu 23, 2008, 12:19 am

George Will
David Brooks
Andrew Sullivan

Those I find to be respectful of others and fairly moderate in their views, although one could question whether Andrew Sullivan hasn't come over to "the dark side." Well, I refuse to read or watch the vitriolic pundits, and that includes our own David Reinhardt of The Oregonian newspaper.

(Though I was shocked -- SHOCKED!! -- to find myself actually agreeing with a Rich Lowry column today. I hardly ever read him.)

12RBH228 Ensimmäinen viesti
tammikuu 23, 2008, 6:20 pm

George Will is tolerable these days, now that he has toned down his highly superior attitude. It does bother me that he can't make any argument without getting in a reflexive crack about liberals (would advocates of "multiculturalism" really argue for letting Confederate flags fly over state houses?).

13arianr
helmikuu 1, 2008, 9:47 pm

For me, the answer is George Will. But only when he is writing about baseball. I'm afraid I've grown less tolerant of the other side over time.

14krolik
helmikuu 2, 2008, 4:40 am

Yes, Will has mellowed. He's chastened, I think, by the diasters wrought by the Republicans. I read Buckley columns sometimes, and David Brooks. Used to read Safire before he scaled back. In the run-up to the war, he was probably the highest profile journalist claiming a possible Iraq-Mohamed Atta connection. He shilled for Cheney and probably hell will freeze over before we get a retraction, unless it escaped me.

15Truthseeker013
helmikuu 10, 2008, 3:48 pm

geneg, I have to disagree stridently in regard to Mister Gibson.

I too have tried watching Faux/Fixed/Fox News, with an eye toward keeping up with the latest machinations of Those Who Are My Most Visible Enemies. Mister Gibson really shoved himself out of estimation a few weeks back when, in a commentary, he lambasted Keith Olbermann, saying that he should, in so many words, quit speaking on political matters and return to being a sportscaster. The true travesty, in my eyes, is that he *never* had the decency to refer to Olbermann by name, instead calling him "The Sportscaster".

All in all, I try to read their words, as many of them as I run across (I don't go looking for any of them- that's an exercise in insanity, and I've had enough of that to last myself a lifetime since the day I was born) to understand (I *hope*) even a piece of the mindset that drives them.

16brendancronin
helmikuu 26, 2008, 8:21 am

I read Greg Mankiw's blog. He used to be head of GWB's economic advisors, but is suprisingly balanced:

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com

17mensheviklibrarian
maaliskuu 1, 2008, 1:41 pm

P.J. O'Rourke makes me laugh and David Brooks can be thoughtful, if a bit overrated and facile (he is savaged pretty badly in Thomas Frank's great What's the Matter with Kansas?.

18jseger9000
maaliskuu 9, 2008, 5:11 pm

I agree P.J. O'Rourke is a pretty funny guy. I only know of him through his appearances on NPR's 'Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me' and there isn't usually any deep political debate going on there.

19vincentvan
toukokuu 14, 2008, 8:47 pm

Charley Reese If you haven't read him you should give him a try. Go to www.antiwar.com. He is a true conservative, so it follows he doesn't like George W and his imperialist ways. I highly respect him.

20ChristinaMarie
heinäkuu 4, 2008, 10:26 pm

Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. Maybe Paul is libertarian, but he came in dead last in all the "what candidate matches you most closely on issues?" He makes most sense, paradoxically, than the conservatives who scored higher.

21JNagarya
Muokkaaja: marraskuu 6, 2008, 11:23 pm

Pat Buchanan is to the right of Nixon. And Paul is to the right of Bushit.

I really can't stomach -- or, therefore, listen to -- anyone who misstates facts in order to sustain their ideology. That inlcudes everyone above except P. J. O'Rourke.

But O'Rourke: He started out with Harvard/National Lampoon, and now shows the consequences of doing too many drugs, and by that means scaring oneself so badly out of intellectual exploration into reactionary deceit in effort to avoid that risk. Where he was once creatively funny he is now formulaic.

Not so funny, either: I was an adult during the late 1960s, but never a "brick-thrower". But whenever I start to hear the hate-speech from any of the above, I wish I had a brick or two at hand for exactly that purpose.

22mckait
lokakuu 29, 2008, 8:24 pm

Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are my favorites.

"I really can't stomach -- or, therefore, listen to -- anyone who misstates facts in order to sustain their ideology. That inlcudes everyone above except P. J. O'Rourke."

Wow, #21 JN imagine being so in the know that you can say that! Impressive.

23JNagarya
marraskuu 6, 2008, 11:27 pm

#22--

One can know facts, correct?

And one can therefore determine when a fact is being misstated, or worse?

And thus one can discern when facts are misstated, and worse, as means to sustain a falsehood, a bogus ideology.

Not all that complicated: a lie is a deliberate falehood. It is not legitimate to call it an "opinion".

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