DISQUS

grandma · 1 year ago

I saw it on CNN this morning......one of your best appearances !! Excellent.

I was glad you brought up the adultry issue...considering how the GOP feels about adultry (snark) and
how they went after Bill Clinton.

Also on Ayers.....yes...why didn't they ask Hillary why her husband pardoned them.

LeeMay · 1 year ago

John - Excellent job this morning. I appreciate the fact that you provided great counterpunches to the bogus premises bandied about while stating your positions clearly and without any hedging. I hope Howard Kurtz has the guts to bring you back on a regular basis. You ROCKED!

jescot · 1 year ago

John you did yourself proud this morning. I saw it live. Just one thought. It isnt a question of fairness. The anger over the first 45 minutes was univerisal and it was because it clearly showed the media does not understand the situation on the ground. This election is not about minutia .....Its about refusing to accept we are at "bread and circus" and we can still turn our nation around.

hawkseye · 1 year ago

Excellent work, John and thanks for posting it.

Kurtz can be counted on to take the side of Republicans more than Dems.

MotorCityBadBoy · 1 year ago

Good Job John! That McCain comment was brutal! You had a lot of good points and I think you took the lead here. We need more forceful progressives like you out there speaking the truth. Next, see if they'll let you be a panelist on Fox News!

John Aravosis · 1 year ago

Thanks, guys. As for Howie, he likes to play devil's advocate and push his guests, which is fine. He usually has me on like once every two months or so, which is perfect. As for FOX, they used to have me on a lot - I did O'Reilly's show like 8 times or so in the early 2000s, but finally stopped accepting requests from them. It was like getting the willies - you get to a certain point, then your skin crawls and you just can't do it any longer. I don't do FOX anymore - though, I will say, FOX can be very helpful. When I was going after mary Cheney, informing the country that she's a lesbian, FOX was all over the story - they helped disseminate it A LOT, so I was glad to go on then, as they only made things worse for the cheneys :-)

naschkatzehussein · 1 year ago

Very good John. You really got in there to garner a lot of the speaking time. You dominated in fact.

BatGuano · 1 year ago

Rockin', John. Rockin'.

lfcitz · 1 year ago

video is no longer available.

hate it when that happens...

shanobama · 1 year ago

John, you should have a show with Rachel Maddow on cable. Now that would be a great show. Both of you are excellent at thinking on your feet, giving intelligent feedback, asking questions that provoke thought, etc.

!

blackwolf · 1 year ago

Bingo! Shanobama, I think you've got something there.

KarenMrsLloydRichards · 1 year ago

Thanks for posting John--I was watching InSane on This (Like Any Other) Week on ABC at the same time.

John Aravosis · 1 year ago

Yeah I love her, hell, I'd be scared to be on with her :-) she's damn quick and really knows her stuff.

aquarius2 · 1 year ago

John

Great job and quiet hands :) Loved the points you made although I don't think your buddy, Jim, like a few of them. He had one facial expression that really made me laugh, kind of like, "what now?" I think you did a fine job of pointing out the obvious about the debate, especially the flag flap. Seems no one likes to bring that up because it was so stupid.

On to other things, liked your choice of attire, those colors suit you. Wish you could slow your speech a little but then that is just me. Overall, you did an outstanding job of pointing out that ABC, especially George was totally biased, not a question of fairness, a question of bias.

dad · 1 year ago

Fine work Mr. Aravosis.

Excellent. Thank you.

dad · 1 year ago

facial expression that really made me laugh

hedgehogs are funny

Kansaskitty · 1 year ago

John, you were great! I tivo'd it this morning just so I could watch it. You were prepared and knew your stuff (of course!). You always do us proud.

John Aravosis · 1 year ago

Jim is a great guy, really - he's one of the few conservative pundit types who enjoys a good back and forth, laughs, doesn't cut you off, isn't mean,etc. I really appreciate that. It's rare. As for speed,tell me about it. I try, but it's very hard with these shows, otherwise you get cut off.

Nigel Elliott · 1 year ago

John, as Mr Burns would say Excellent.

O/T

Barack Obama's Allentown office was burglarized this week, and multiple laptops and cell phones were stolen, an Obama campaign aide said today. A police spokesman confirmed the incident.
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog...

Kansaskitty · 1 year ago

Oh yeah, I loved it when you said something about McCain's adultery and the right-wing guy's eyebrows shot up. Think you shocked him! Ha!

aquarius2 · 1 year ago

John

Jim comes across as being a decent guy. The facial expression that made me laugh came at the end of the second clip. Really it is funny, he just kind looks like "hmm what now".

dad · 1 year ago

Jim is a great guy, really

But the snark was so easy and he appered to believe bringing up McCain's affiar and the Clinton's affairs were low blows while defending the far more distant associations Obama was assaulted with.

And yes Howie - George's loyalties are certainly in question. It should be YOU questioning them in any reliable critique.

jr · 1 year ago

John seriously needs his own show to counter all the mouth-breathers

1Angel_Of_Mercy1 · 1 year ago

You were an island of sanity in that thrashing sea of wingnuttery, John. Kudos. The one thing which REPEATEDLY goes unsaid on these occasions, however, is that trivia has been inflated to the status of issues by virtue of media coverage; THEY are the ones who are practicing molehill politics. (As in making a mountain out of...) It's their bat and ball and their back yard...and they, as wholly-owned subsidiaries of multi-national megaconglomerates and consummate tools of the Ruling Class, control both tone and texture in the debate.

Prof. Noam Chomsky said it as well as anyone: "...the media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly."

Still, you did the best you could in this rigged game...and for that I salute you!

ShirleyGoodnessanMercy · 1 year ago

Very good job, John. Ya done us proud, son.

little_davey · 1 year ago

John, what's with the making rational sense and seeing the obvious, you know, the forest for the trees schtick? You think that will work?

Also, I wondered about Jim's hypothesis that someone in the street would walk up to Obama and ask why he wasn't wearing a flag pin? Like that's gonna happen.

Andrew A. Gill · 1 year ago

John, you might want to change the default image for the second video. It's not exactly flattering, and you've got three frames to choose from.

Asterix · 1 year ago

You know, it's really very strange when the sheeple don't care when the Chief Executive says of the Constitution "Its just a goddamn piece of paper" and cling to a goddamn piece of cloth.

As far as I know both the Prezint and all military personnel take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the former and not the latter.

Given the choice between the Constitution and the flag, I'll take the Constitution ten times in ten.

kevinbgoode · 1 year ago

ABC News and other outlets managed to compact 20 years of sermons by Rev. Wright, a MARINE, into two or three little soundbites to create an "issue". . .and they took their cues for that "controversy" from right wing sources. The Bush family has been in rather constant association with Rev. Moon ("monarch of America" and self-proclaimed second coming of Christ himself) and for eight years I have seen little in the media about that association. Most "conservatives" don't even know who Moon is, even though he's been convicted of a crime and was well-known as a cult leader 25 years ago. However, as far as the media goes, any knowledge of Moon's connection with the Religious Right and the Republican Party isn't worthy of public scrutiny as an "electability" issue.
Similarly, it's nice that Joe obviously didn't think that McCain's adultery is an issue of "character", even though he is the presumed candidate of the party of self-proclaimed "family" values. You can bet that his temper issues won't be put on much public display either in the media, and ABC is certainly not going to investigate "sermons" of ministers at his church.

The MSM's attitude is that McCain is an old white male, has been in the military, and is a former collaborative POW, and that entitles him to the White House. The rest of the election season is merely a pass at pretending democracy - we already know the MSM takes its cues from the Right and they've already endorsed their candidate. ABC's mistake is that they've made it too obvious too early in the game.

The only thing the networks didn't do to Obama in that last debate was ask him if he wasn't REALLY a MUSLIM. . .though you can bet that was a story a few months ago that they all ran with anyway, just to...well, you know, plant the idea in some heads that someone was "concerned."
We'll be reading and hearing a lot about "some people" and "many people" this cycle - meaning rumors being passed by the Right and played as "controversy" by the MSM. Meanwhile, McCain won't even be asked if his wife has any money, if he's flipflopped on a host of issues, and if he's ever served a special interest.

Coming Undone · 1 year ago

John, that was great, very funny when you talked about McCain's adultery, that mans eyebrows told everything, he was hoping Howie would not touch that and surprise he didn't.
The second video is the best because that is how the Democratic party should talk with knowledge about the topic and not afraid to speak up. You should really on more often but then I don't want you to be just another political pundit that has lost touch with the world around them and all they hear is their inner voice.
Thanks for posting it for us John.

toyontoots · 1 year ago

John: Thanks so much for posting these videos. Thanks for speaking up for all of us. You sounded informed, sufficiently outraged and very knowledgable. Keep it up!

mehrrh · 1 year ago

Excellent appearance on your part today, John. You made a lot of points in a short period of time. Quick wit.

Coming Undone · 1 year ago

Are the pollsters just taking polls in the states that have not voted yet? These polls change too much, and if Obama is leading Hillary will be seen as the underdog, the comeback-non kid and the MSM will continue to feed her ego that this is a really close race. I need this to end on Tuesday, because Hillary is allowing John McCain to go uncontested.

sittenpretty · 1 year ago

John...You Rock...EGGSELENT!!!!

Webster · 1 year ago

You gotta love it--in a way--that the blogger has to tell the journalists how to do their freakin' job.

bettie · 1 year ago

That was great!!!!! They were speechless b/c they knew you were right. I know Kurtz is a right winger but I can't believe he approved of that ABC debate... he has lost all credibility.

Wisconsin Liberal · 1 year ago

Thanks for posting, you made them squirm. As a blogger, you have a sense of the unfiltered pulse of what we are thinking.

Friday night on Real Time, Markos had it right the media doesn't have a clue as to whats happening outside of New York or Washington.

Mark in Florida · 1 year ago

John,

Once again, excellent job. Excellent. I am so glad we have people like you out there. Kudos to you. Well stated. The other panel members knew they could not defend ABC. We need to get more of McCains personal foibles out there. The temper issue, his voting record when it comes to veterans, Pastor Hagee, cheating on his wife....etc. We need to hit McCain where he has percieved strengths. He is not the family values, patriotic candidate. He is a war monger, hot tempered crazy old man we should keep locked in the basement. Not in the oval office.

bettie · 1 year ago

I think liberal bloggers are gonna have to come together and start email campaings to respond to the media's lies about Obama this election cycle. It is clearly intentional!!!

Jim Acosta just lied on CNN Rick Sanchez show, he reported that Obama was referring to abortion when he talked about his daughters not being punished with a baby. This was a CNN videotape so he clearly intentionally lied to the CNN viewers.

Tim Russert also lied today about Obama not putting his hand over his heart during the pledge of allegiance. If the MSM is going to continue to flat out lie on Obama in order to help McCain... T

The Obama people are going to have to get someone to monitor the media for their campaign to contact and correct the news organizations when they intentionally misreport a story or get the facts wrong. I have noticed too many "mistakes" !!

193army · 1 year ago

Should you want to read this at http://billayers.wordpress.com/2006/09/26/a-let...

A Letter to the Times Found Five Years Later…

September 15, 2001

To The Editors—

In July of this year Dinitia Smith asked my publisher if she might
interview me for the New York Times on my forthcoming book, Fugitive
Days. From the start she questioned me sharply about bombings, and
each time I referred her to my memoir where I discussed the culture of
violence we all live with in America, my growing anger in the 1960’s
about the structures of racism and the escalating war, and the
complex, sometimes extreme and despairing choices I made in those
terrible times.
Smith’s angle is captured in the Times headline: “No regrets for a
love of explosives” (September 11, 2001). She and I spoke a lot about
regrets, about loss, about attempts to account for one’s life. I
never said I had any love for explosives, and anyone who knows me
found that headline sensationalistic nonsense. I said I had a
thousand regrets, but no regrets for opposing the war with every ounce
of my strength. I told her that in light of the indiscriminate murder
of millions of Vietnamese, we showed remarkable restraint, and that
while we tried to sound a piercing alarm in those years, in fact we
didn’t do enough to stop the war.
Smith writes of me: “Even today, he ‘finds a certain eloquence to
bombs, a poetry and a pattern from a safe distance,’ he writes.” This
fragment seems to support her “love affair with bombs” thesis, but it
is the opposite of what I wrote:

We’ll bomb them into the Stone Age, an unhinged American politician
had intoned, echoing a gung-ho, shoot-from-the-hip general… each
describing an American policy rarely spoken so plainly. Boom. Boom.
Boom. Poor Viet Nam.
Almost four times the destructive power Florida… How could we
understand it? How could we take it in? Most important, what should
we do about it? Bombs away.
There is a certain eloquence to bombs, a poetry and a pattern from a
safe distance. The rhythm of B-52s dropping bombs over Viet Nam, a
deceptive calm at 40,000 feet as the doors ease open and millennial
eggs are delivered on the green canopy below, the relentless thud of
indiscriminate destruction and death without pause on the ground.
Nothing subtle or syncopated. Not a happy rhythm.
Three million Vietnamese lives were extinguished. Dig up Florida and
throw it into the ocean. Annihilate Chicago or London or Bonn. Three
million—each with a mother and a father, a distinct name, a mind and a
body and a spirit, someone who knew him well or cared for her or
counted on her for something or was annoyed or burdened or irritated
by him; each knew something of joy or sadness or beauty or pain. Each
was ripped out of this world, a little red dampness staining the
earth, drying up, fading, and gone. Bodies torn apart, blown away,
smudged out, lost forever.

I wrote about Vietnamese lives as a personal American responsibility,
then, and the hypocrisy of claiming an American innocence as we
constructed and stoked an intricate and hideous chamber of death in
Asia.
Clearly I wrote and spoke about he export of violence and the
government’s love affair with bombs. Just as clearly Dinitia Smith
was interested in her journalistic angle and not the truth. This is
not a question of being misunderstood or “taken out of context,” but
of deliberate distortion.
Some readers apparently responded to her piece, published on the same
day as the vicious terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, by
associating my book with them. This is absurd. My memoir is from
start to finish a condemnation of terrorism, of the indiscriminate
murder of human beings, whether driven by fanaticism or official
policy. It begins literally in the shadow of Hiroshima and comes of
age in the killing fields of Southeast Asia. My book criticizes the
American obsession with a clean and distanced violence, and the
culture of thoughtlessness and carelessness that results form it.
We are now witnessing crimes against humanity in our own land on an
unthinkable scale, and I fear that we might soon see innocent people
in other parts of the world as well as in the U.S. dying and suffering
in response.
All that we witnessed September 11—the awful carnage and pain, the
heroism of ordinary people—may drive us mad with grief and anger, or
it may open us to hope in new ways. Perhaps precisely because we have
suffered we can embrace the suffering of others and gather the
necessary wisdom to resist the impulse to lash out randomly. The
lessons of the anti-war movements of the 1960s and 70s may be more
urgent now than ever.

Bill Ayers
Chicago, IL

interlude · 1 year ago

super job john!!

blackwolf · 1 year ago

John, you did well. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be (for me at least) to sit on a panel and have to answer the same questions over over. You're correct, in that if this is going to be the tone of the campaign, there are issues about John McCain that need answering.

Let's keep the pressure on.

best2belikewater · 1 year ago

Terrific job, John. Just watched the clip this AM (we're in Italy) and you were able to say all the stuff that we scream at the television, only much much better. We're proud of you!!!

bacbrakr · 1 year ago

John, you got up in that ass, son. And who exactly was the chubby gerbil to left from the National Review. The looks that he gave were...priceless. HRC has turned this thing into a vote for Pedro primary.

stefanzo · 1 year ago

I finally got to see this - it's quite good! good job, it's great to see some actual commentary for once!

Harper · 1 year ago

John, that was masterful. Of course you have to talk fast, they're always ready to interrupt you! You kicked their asses. They keep repeating this falsehood that Obama has "whined" about the debate in the days after. Really? When? Where? They set it up so they could call him a pussy for whining, but he really didn't--he made hay of it. And I'm so glad you called them on the strawman about "hard questions"--what crap. They didn't ask a single hard question--just a bunch of "let's frame Obama Rove-style" bullshit questions. I don't even know if these right wing tools know the difference anymore. Except, if McCain were treated that way, all we'd hear about is how much the moderators dissed a war hero. There careers WOULD have been ruined. But they can play "Hey, let's make Stepinfetchit dance" and pretend not to notice how completely disrespectful it was to Obama, and how trapping him there in that position was a form of harassment. Not to mention the absolute insult to serious viewers.

LeslieB · 1 year ago

Thank you John Aravosis for an excellent job. You got in quite a bit and you did really well! But I must confess, I had to throw something at my TV everytime the National Review reporter Geraghty spoke.

FYI: Obama's campaign is building an anti-Swift boat rapid response machine.

mirth · 1 year ago

Since my tv rarely gets watched, I'm very happy you posted the vids.

Such things as hand movements and speech speed and any other characteristics that are particular to you are mostly irrelevant. Intelligent, informed, passionate - I'll take these over bland and controlled and formulaic delivery any day. The country craves Real and you deliver that.

mirth · 1 year ago

New Gallup on PA:

The slight Obama dip of last week is over.

Obama 47
Clinton 45

mirth · 1 year ago

193army

Thank you for posting the brilliant and very moving Ayers 2001 letter to the NYT, and I'm also happy to have the link to his blog. There, comments to the letter are almost as stunning as the letter itself.

Another plus for Barack Obama, that he shares friendship with Mr. Ayers.