By MARC McDONALD
The debate between Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson and Fox News propagandist Sean Hannity was a sad commentary on the state of political discourse in America today.
During the event, Anderson politely and convincingly detailed one logical, iron-clad argument after another to demonstrate why George W. Bush should be impeached for lying the nation into war.
But someone forgot to send a memo to Hannity that this event was supposed to be a political debate of ideas. Hannity spent the entire time acting exactly the same way he does in the broadcast booth every day. He never responded to a single point that Anderson made and instead just spewed out a nauseating series of right-wing lies and talking points.
Incredibly, Hannity once again trotted out the long-discredited right-wing lie that President Clinton supposedly once turned down an offer from the Sudanese government to hand over Osama bin Laden. It's the same charge Hannity made in his 2002 book, Let Freedom Ring. It's a story that's been echoing around the right-wing noise chamber ever since.
The problem is, the story has long since been debunked. It now exists only in the same creepy parallel universe as other right-wing fantasies such as "Clinton murdered Vince Foster."
As Al Franken pointed out in his Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them book, the Sudan tale is completely bogus. The story was originally peddled by a Pakistani-American named Mansoor Ijaz, an investment banker with a big stake in Sudanese oil.
Incidentally, as Franken points out, Ijaz was later hired as a "foreign affairs analyst" for the Fox News Channel.
But it doesn't matter how many times this story is debunked as a fraud. The Great Right-Wing Noise Machine is hermetically sealed from the truth. We can expect this bogus tale to be regurgitated over and over in the future.
What's interesting is that while this bullshit story continues to be repeated years after it was debunked, few Americans today are aware that Bush actually DID turn down an offer by Afghanistan to hand over bin Laden. And what's more, Bush rejected this offer after the 9/11 attacks.
As Britain's Guardian newspaper points out, in October 2001, Bush "rejected as 'non-negotiable' an offer by the Taliban to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States ended the bombing in Afghanistan."
This incredible story was ignored at the time by the U.S. media, (which was dusting off the pompons and getting ready to play cheerleader for Bush's invasion of Afghanistan). And unlike the dogshit peddled by Hannity, this story has the advantage of actually being true.
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Speaking of right-wing talking points that never die, Rush Limbaugh claimed in 1992 that even if the polar ice caps melted, it'd have no impact on the world's sea levels because "if you have a glass of water with ice cubes in it, as the ice melts, it simply turns to liquid and the water level in the glass remains the same."
Pretty idiotic stuff that (as Al Franken pointed out) ignores the fact that most of the world's ice is on land and that Antarctica is a continent, not an ice cube.
If the ice cap melted, the sea level around the world would rise catastrophically, as Franken points out.
If there was any justice in this world, Limbaugh would be so humiliated by this idiocy that he'd resign in shame. In reality, his listeners to this day remain blissfully unaware of their own idiocy.
In fact, I heard this story peddled AGAIN recently on right-wing radio. These people indeed live off in their own little hermetically sealed world.
The stories I'm about to mention were about more trivial matters, but they may have been equally damaging. As recently as last year, I read yet again that Al Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet." This was in a review of the film "An Inconvenient Truth." I sent e-mails taking the critic to task on this, and including the exact quote. He rather snottily admitted that Gore never used those words, but despite repeated tries, I couldn't persuade this critic to write a correction. He was clearly wrong, but kept stonewalling.
Then there's the one about Clinton in which he's supposed to have held up air traffic at a West Coast airport while he got his hair cut aboard Air Force One. That was thoroughly debunked, but most media didn't acknowlege that, and so millions of people still believe it.
These things become like right-wing urban legends that just keep circulating.
And yet...Bush's DWI, his cocaine possession community service, and his AWOL from the Air National Guard after taking $1 million of pilot training and a coveted fighter-pilot slot...all completely disregarded. Evangelical preachers have declared him 'saved' so his pecadillos are ignored; and he has paid the megachurches back with federal money and jobs for Regents University "Law School" graduates - 150 in the Department of Justice alone. His whoring, drinking, drugging - all 'past', ignored, the "prodigal son" has paid off handsomely, where it counts. In the collection plate.
I'm still waiting for the MSM to challenge Bush on this comment he made in a debate with Al Gore back in 2000:
"By far, the vast majority of my tax cut goes to those at the bottom."
Great catch, Marc. Even I didn't know about this Afghanistan offer to give up bin Laden.
When dealing with nagging but trite issues brought up inadvertently by almost all Repug nincompoops hopelessly attempting a succinct point or purpose, it is important to remind ourselves of the low bar of their limitations not only in their arguments, but the sad failure of even a few neurons firing in there empty Easter bunny hollow chocolate heads. What none of them can articulate on any level above a three year old (Hey kids - No offense!) is just what their simple-minded and vacant jelly bean arguments prove. They don’t even take the trouble to prove any evidence of mental processes. And their ignorance of even a simple understanding off “how things work” not only sticks out like a boehner in the broken lives, dead bodies, and financial ruin of their “policies”, but in addition, just like green plastic hay, they just don’t get it. I mean how stupid do you have to be to think that “Go Daddy” is a request from your father’s urologist?
Lately, there’s been some spouting off from some miserably stupid turds running for the GOP presidential nomination about their disbelief in evolution and why they have to go to bed at 8:30. I would be more apt to believe that the origins of all life could conceivably blossom from the crankcase of an abandoned ’60 Ford Edsel, the cutting edge of a ten year old electric can opener in the back of a Wendy’s, or, given enough heat and pressure, a discarded pack of pink marshmallow peeps before they banned the use of red #16.
What is needed in desperate times like these besides a sense of humor, nose held thusly? Drag there seemingly lifeless puppet drugged bodies around the side of the nearest shitter with the “sanitized for your protection” paper seal still intact, (the seal could never master the balancing of the beach ball on his nose, so therefore could never get stable employment as a product icon for the more successful multinational corporations in the area that sprang up like weeds in your flooded carpet), immerse them in a tub of free courtesy ice (No filling up ice chests please!) whilst they are sound asleep and remove all vital organs and pianos to be sold on the chartreuse market for a mere pittance, in order to further fuel their burgeoning horse substance “problem” (not really a problem – nobody would cry if you rubbed liniment on their naughty bits, now that you ask). Sounds like a fitting way to send them off on something they would truly enjoy: fame, fortune, minor slush fund corruption, senate committee indictments, disgrace, degradation, and a trailer down by the river. And their mothers would be so glad to hear they're moving with a better crowd. Hell, just for fun, do a character search on your local internets for the closest conservative pinhead in your neighborhood and you're bound to find their religious affiliation with Negative Land, their intimate associations with Billy "Fuck" Hargis and his Arizona clan, as the Maltmen will loom large in the House un-American Activities Committee hearings- "Have you ever been a member of the following....", and the worst of it? They'll pull their fishing licenses for indiscriminate use of Olive Potzkies.
Love it, I live in Utah and Rocky is awesome, except the spin machine is always attacking him for doing something right.
Will ignorance ever go away? Even in the face of enlightenment, these idiots choose insecurity.
:punches every Hannity worshipping douchebag:
Hi Marc. Thanks for the link. I've put a permanent link to you over at Swerve Left.
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