Speaking of NBC/MSNBC
As I noted in my previous post from WaPo's Howard Kurtz writing about the shouting war between Fox's Bill O'Reilly and NBC (which includes the cable network, MSNBC), Keith Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC is really the only non-harder right program on the cable channel.
While the hard right extremists are willing to poke fun at people like MSNBC's Hardball host, Chris Matthews, Matthews very frequently uses only conservatives and/or Republicans and/or right extremists on his panels to discuss issues. [See that previous post for more information.] Matthews is a little more even recently (but balanced, nah) but he's been far more apt to wax with proud profusion over Bush & Company than he is to present an intelligent alternate opinion.
For example, last night, while citing people like Hillary Clinton, Matthews said (and I paraphrase): "With the way the vote went in November 2006's mid-term elections, Dems really can't go wrong veering very far to the left."
::choke:: Excuse me?
It's a complete and assinine myth that today's top dog Democrats are wildly lefty liberals. Indeed, I know a great many centrist Democrats who feel that the Dem candidates who do get elected are FAR too much like today's brand of Republican (meaning: the folks who get elected in the Republican races of today are so sharply to the far right that they bear almost no resemblance to the GOP voters of just 10-15 years ago).
Hillary Clinton is a good example of this, and why many Dems and Independents are not exactly doing cartwheels that she will likely run for the Dem nomination for president in 2008. Hell, Hillary doesn't even seem like the Hillary of the first years of her husband Bill's first term in office.
Evidence: This strong, independent woman:
- seems willing to kiss away a woman's right to choose her own reproduction issues
- signed off on the disastrous and probably quite dangerous "test burn" of old tires by International Paper at Ticonderoga (even Vermont's GOP governor and loyal Bushie, Jim Douglas voiced qualms there) that began a month or so ago
- went along with Bush's disastrous policies and procedures for a good long time before she voiced any substantial objections on the handling of Iraq, etc.
- isn't exactly vocal anymore on the need for universal health care
- cozies up to many of the same corps and mega conglomerates as the Bushies
- is a politician first and a true representative of her constituents as a distant 4th, 5th, or 10th
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