Eleanor Clift Kills McLaughlin Report: PBS and Iraq

Just finished watching The McLaughlin Group on PBS.

Normally (like the past five years of the Bush Admin), Eleanor would have uttered three words of criticism of Bush (Yeah, pick the topic), and she would have gotten shouted down by McLaughlin and the other three right wing guests.

Well, not tonight.

Woot!!!

Eleanor got off 90 seconds of what Bush has done wrong in Iraq and McLaughlin and all three of tonight's right wing appologists agreed with her.

I know this is not a three reference diary, but it was an amazing admission by Tony Blankley (Washington Times) and the other guests that Eleanor was right on Iraq.

We have a tar baby on our hands.

•  After that,

  you went and used "tar baby"?

  by The Gryffin on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 09:01:31 PM PDT

  •  Yeah...what's up with that? n/t

    by PatsBard on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 09:31:44 PM PDT

    •  Tar Baby

      Ok. go upstream for my life story reply to the tar baby .... what can I call it?

      by drdave on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 10:53:11 PM PDT

  •  Does anyone else

    think that political correctness and "gotcha" politics can be taken to far?

    by Paul Goodman on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 09:35:19 PM PDT

    •  Too Far

      It's a bridge in France. 1944.

      by drdave on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 10:32:28 PM PDT

      •  In Holland, actually

        by kosophile on Sat Aug 26, 2006 at 03:51:51 AM PDT

•  Tip Jar

  Thank goodness I don't live in Virginia.

  by drdave on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 09:04:46 PM PDT

  •  We have an oil slick

    on our hands...or blood stains, but that tar-baby thing just pisses off too many people even if many of us had only ever heard it as a children's story until recently. Glad to hear Eleanor's still scratching...she occasionally makes me very proud.

    by PBJ Diddy on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 09:08:09 PM PDT

•  Swamp

  Lets see:

  Swamp

  Quicksand

  Morass

  Bogged Down

  Tar Pits

  Howdy Doody

  Quagmire

  ...your message here....

  by drdave on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 09:12:34 PM PDT

  •  More?

    candy apple

    saltwater taffy

    bubble gum on my shoe

    spider web

    by fritzrth on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 09:20:40 PM PDT

    •  tar: too much like tart,

      tart: too much like pie.

      by pigpaste on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 10:10:58 PM PDT

  •  Clusterfuck'd FUBAR

    by SecondComing on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 11:45:20 PM PDT

•  McLaughlin has her back

  When it comes to the topic of Iraq.

  by Gator on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 09:24:26 PM PDT

•  Even More Amazing That it Was Blankly

  who first pointed out McCain's prior cheerleading for the war which contradicts his present claim to have warned of the risks of the invasion.

  Looks to me like evidence the raddies don't want him running in 2008.

  by Gooserock on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 09:40:09 PM PDT

  •  Speaking of '08

    is it possible to find a credible Republican candidate anywhere who was against the war?

    by Positronicus on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 09:57:03 PM PDT

    •  nope

      the Repubs have conceded that they will lose in 08.  But have left the state of things in such a disaster that they will blame dems...and demand power returned to them in 12

      by Peter Laesch on Sat Aug 26, 2006 at 05:11:00 AM PDT

  •  Blankley

    can you spell S-Y-C-H-O-P-H-A-N-T.

    Tony has his head so far up W's ass he knows what georgie had for breakfast.

    by Gator on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 10:17:33 PM PDT

    •  Spell It?

      Crap, do they know what it means?

      by drdave on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 10:33:23 PM PDT

      •  I am going to guess...

        about 8% do.   Most just think we're talking in code.

        by Gator on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 11:02:12 PM PDT

•  Life Story

  Tar Baby

  I was born in Boston, lived for several months in Nebraska (home of the Checkoslovakian immigrants), lived in Ohio for a year, and moved to Ossining, New York.

  Ossining derives its name from the O'Sint Sink indians. And is the site of the Federal penitentiary, Sing Sing. Sing Sing is the destination of the 'Feds' in New York, as in 'we are gonna send you up the riva', punk'.

  Up the river to Sing Sing.

  Sing Sing is where the Rosenburgs were executed on June 10, 1953. I remember the lights at our house dimming when the voltage was diverted to the 'chair'.

  Evelyn Terry was the family baby sitter. Her son helped my dad every spring dig up the garden in our backyard. Now this was no small matter, as the garden extended from the top of our 3/4 acre lot, along the main road (about one and a half paved lanes) for 100 feet down the hill. We harvested strawberries from late May to late June (and lived on little else) as well as the finest asparagus you will ever know.

  We move to Tucson Arizona in 1959, when the doctors scraped the white growth off my dad's vocal cords for the third time and said to him. "thou shalt move to a warm, dry climate.

  It took me 20 years to forgive the world for removing me from a comfortable existence in my high school freshman class in New York to the insanity of Arizona, but that is another story.

  In 1979, my wife and I returned to New York, and in additon to visiting my childhood friends (or their parents), I made a special effort to find Evelyn Terry. As I rang her doorbell, in the (still) ghetto part of town, she opened the door and stood stock still. We hugged each other. She and I were still friends after such a long time. Evelyn was black and I was white, and the folks standing behind her in that small aprtment in Ossining were amazed that I had made the effort to find her after all that time.

  I have no shame in making reference to the tar baby. I was raised on that cautionary tale by my white parents and my black family 'baby sitters'. Because I put 'baby sitters' in quotes. They were not baby sitters, they were part of my family, and I share their struggle (in so far as a white boy can).

  by drdave on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 10:26:57 PM PDT

  •  Oh drdave, don't you see...

    that although you harbor the most sentimental of feelings for your former baby sitter (servant, maid, cleaning lady) and her strawberry harvester kid, the relationship between her family and yours reflects the racial inequality that continues in the US to this day.  As tender as your reunion may have seemed, the very fact that you had to seek her out in the "ghetto" part of Ossining speaks eloquently to the fact that the inequality of that relationship has not changed over 20 years.  To contend that you have absorbed the true meaning of the "tar baby" story, which on one level could be seen in the light of a legendary "trickster" story outwitting the slow, dimwitted opressor is very likely a genuine feeling on your part, but the general societal perception of a "tar baby" reference is currently more reflective of an association with something like the "Little Black Sambo" story.  The "tar baby" citation was justifiably controversial when Tony Snow used it at a White House press briefing and it is no less controversial when you use it, no matter how innocent your intention.  It just strikes the reader as inflammatory and perjorative and detracts from a serious consideration of your commentary.  I write this more in a sense of a critique of style rather than in questioning your motives for using it. Thanks  

    by MrJersey on Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 11:35:52 PM PDT

    •  Innocent

      I think innocent is the wrong term. Let me post here my comments to Tom Barnett on the problems in Africa.

      "I lived in Sierra Leone from 1966-1999. It struck me as self evident that following the British withdrawal, the best thing would have been that a contingent of SysAdmin political, economic and educational experts would have descended on the country and helped develop the traditional cultural requisites for a long term healthy period of growth leading to connection the the Core (yeah, easy to say 40 years later).

      But that was our (unspoken, unrecognized, uncomprehended) goal within the Peace Corps.

      I spent the first two years at Methodist Boys High School in Freetown. I "taught" the sons of civil servant, who expected to inherit their parents jobs in the government. No recognition of 'ability', let alone 'creativity'.

      While there, I hooked up with the 'African Primary Science Program' (APSP). We worked on curriculum material for primary science classrooms. The work was open ended, question oriented material.

      At the end of my second year in Freetown, I was asked to move up country to the Bo Teacher Training College.

      My objective was to translate the experimental work we had done with elementary students and their responses to the material presented, into steps the typical primary school teacher could take within their classroom in the bush. (interested parties as to methods and results can write to [e-mail]).

      My point here is that, while the Peace Corps had one segment of the answer to nation building, and USAID was present in Sierra Leone, we did not have the requisite 'full blown package' that many of us now recognize as necessary for a successful transition out of the Gap.

      Thirty-five years later, as scoutmaster of a troop in Phoenix Arizona, I was required to work with a 13 year old scout, a refugee from Sierra Leone, who had spent the previous ten years hiding in the bush with his mother and siblings. His behaviour (having witnessed hands and feet being cut off) was perplexing to our troop, themselves members of single parent families, and other inner city and near-suburban families. The fact that I spoke Sierra Leone Krio to him was a shock, but a welcome shock. Nevertheless, he never integrated with the troop.

      My observation from all of this is that we pay far more when we fail to take care of the world than when we do.

      Unfortunately, frequently in our rush to 'take care', we make a mess. Taking care requires knowledge, caution, humility, and brash, risk taking.

      OK, its contradictory. But so be it."

      MrJersey, the feelings are not sentimental. I have never been sentimental. My wife will attest to that. At the age of 62, I have little time for sentimentality.

      by drdave on Sat Aug 26, 2006 at 12:16:52 AM PDT

      •  The Peace Corp idealists...

        were never, ever going to get pie-in-the-sky "the full-blown package" . . .USAID was (and still is) a front for the corporatist MIC and the Peace Corps was (and still is) the altruistic vanguard force, no better or no worse than say, the thousands of Cuban docs buzzing around the Venezuelan countryside.

        Little cookie-cutter McNamara system analyst-types, crawling around the gutters of the Pale, making the world safe for Wal-Mart.

        At least Volunteers was a clever little movie...

        by rgilly on Sat Aug 26, 2006 at 12:48:23 AM PDT

      •  interesting life

        Dr Dave.  I spent my childhood in Liberia until the age of 10.  We used to be neighbors and didn't know it.

        by Peter Laesch on Sat Aug 26, 2006 at 05:00:41 AM PDT

    •  Simply one man's opinion.

      It just strikes the reader as inflammatory and perjorative and detracts from a serious consideration of your commentary.

      drdave is enititled to his motives, and his opinions.  I, too, am tired of some people making a federal case out of everything.  If it isn't the right wingers telling us what to do, its the liberals.  I was brought up with the little "sticks and stones" jingo, which still ought to work today.  

      by dkmich on Sat Aug 26, 2006 at 03:46:47 AM PDT