Juan Williams Fired from NPR

Still puts her above Palin. And that is in no way a defense of Pelosi.

As someone whose interest in the health of the country far exceeds his interest in partisan politics -- and that seems to be getting rarer -- I really hope the Republicans can find an adult to nudge Palin out of the way as a party leader.

So as not to utterly flout the "no politics" rule and touch on the original topic, I will say I find myself unable to work up much outrage over someone's firing when they sign a $2 million contract for part time work the very next day.

 

Forgive the hyperbole, but I hope you don't think that taking an interest in the sponsor of your TV show equates to having experience running a business. I mean, I can listen to the Chamber of Commerce guys bitch about taxes and take on their cause, but that's not running a business. And the vast majority of the current cabinet have worked as either legal counsel or in other ways to supply their expertise to corporations. I would imagine those hands-on experiences would trump being an interested spokesman of a TV show sponsor that eventually fires you for making stupid comments on TV.

I agree with you about conventional wisdom. But I do think part of the conventional wisdom that many have bought is that the left-wing party line is conventional wisdom. Actually, I think the opposite is true. That's why the GOP has been so successful in the last 15-20 years as a populist movement. It very much relies on appealing to conventional wisdom.

I mean, the whole line about book smarts and common sense? As a high school honor grad who played sports, the dumb jocks would always give me that line ("You may be smart, but that's just book smarts"). That was "conventional wisdom "at its formation. They had acquired wordly knowledge, they said, because they were out hunting and chasing tail on weekends when the "smart guys" studied. Of course, that was a clueless observation. If their lazy asses would have learned some basic study skills and time management and if they had at least a bit of curiosity about what was going on outside of the kegger and football game, they would have done themselves some huge favors.

Now I see that logic translating to politics. I'm not saying dumb jocks have grown up to being clueless Republicans because the truth is way more complicated than that. But it's these high school myths that turn into adult "conventional wisdom."

So anyway, how about that Juan Williams?

 

Juan was fired because he strayed from the elitist manifest.

 

My goodness. You expose the depths of your ignorance on this subject with each successive post.

You clearly were unfamiliar with Reagan's work for GE and for you to speak of him as only a host of a show sponsored by GE means you didn't take the time to read my previous post or spend two minutes with google.

Reagan worked for GE. He traveled the country on behalf of GE. He gave speeches and visited factories and plants for GE.

At no point did I say that he ran the business, but he certainly learned about business in this role. To compare him to an actor in a Geico commercial was silly. (Though that actor has more private sector experience than our current president.)

Here's some more reading on Reagan's days at GE:

As to Obama's cabinet, I'll go through them one by one if you require, but here's a little info for you:

http://blog.american.com/?p=7572

 

So two right-leaning sites and Politico. Would you care to link to something that's not an opinion piece?

 

Do you dispute their findings?

Sure they gave opinions, but they based their opinions on facts.

Unless they missed the fact that there's a former CEO or two in Obama's cabinet, I'm not sure what your issue is with what I posted.

 

"Woefully short," "Consumers are sure to feel the brunt of extra fees to cover the cost," "We are a long way from Dwight Eisenhower's cabinet," a quote from someone at the Brookings Institute, "This may explain why the White House embarked on a government-only agenda."

Yeah, I dispute their "findings," especially since their "findings" are opinion.

 

So please point out the former CEOs to me.

Or point out the members of his cabinet who have held high level managerial roles in corporate America.

Maybe one of them started or owned their own business and I missed it.

Please set me straight.

 

Jesu Christo. I'm not arguing the literal fact that they lack hands-on business experience.

I'm arguing with their and your assertion that it means entirely fuck-all in the grand scheme of things. I'm sure George W. Bush's cabinet was full of businessmen. Fat lot of good it did them. Well, that's not entirely true. Their friends were able to get even richer. But it didn't do much for the overall economy.

 

OK, so you admit that his cabinet lacks private sector experience. That was the point I was making.

And, clearly, Obama has no private sector business experience.

If you had a larger point to make, you could have made it three posts ago instead of trying to shoot the messenger.

Again, people are surprised that we don't all fall all over Obama and his dream team of "elites." A large part of it is because they lack real world experience. They come mostly from government and academia, yet act like they've been around the block on several occasions.

They've never been around the block, and they don't understand how their policies effect businesses.

 

No, you were doing more than trying to make that point. Your opinion was made very clear:

"They've never been around the block, and they don't understand how their policies effect businesses."

First, it's affect. I know effect/affect can be a bit tricky, but you can figure it out. I have faith in you.

Second, that's unmitigated bullshit. You don't know what they know or don't know. Unless you've sat in on their meetings, in which case, I apologize.

 

Before this topic goes completely off the fucking rails, let me just say that NPR is an exceptional source of news and culture, regardless of which direction you lean politically, and if you feel you're being condescended to talked down to, it says a lot more about your own insecurities than it does NPR's bias. Not one new organization explained the financial crisis better than the Planet Money/This American Life team did, and it certainly wasn't presented in any pro-leftist manner, unless you consider anything that doesn't scream "It was all Barney Frank's fault!" to be leaning left. It explained the Giant Pool of Money in very understandable, easily digestible way. The reality of the financial crisis wasn't as much about greed from right-leaning capitalists or naivete on the part left-leaning politicians, but that everyone along the chain thought they could create wealth without risk. Everyone.

Seriously, go listen to this podcast. This is the very essence of what NPR does so well. You can listen to it streaming for free.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/the-giant-pool-of-money

But part of the problem here is there are simply too many people out there who don't want reality. They don't want complicated answers and they don't want facts. They want to see someone blamed for their ills. I'm not saying this specifically about anyone on this thread, but it's very true for a lot of Americans right now. The truth is too complicated, too messy, so fuck the facts. Just tell me who to be angry with.

I actually think NPR is about a fair-minded of media as we have right now. It's much better than both the New York Times and the Washington Post, I think, in explaining the actual issues being discussed as opposed to simply covering the goddamn political tennis match.