O'Donnell asked Iraq war veteran and Dem congressional candidate about "being called a Defeatocrat"
SUMMARY: MSNBC's Norah
O'Donnell asked Illinois Democratic
congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who lost both her
legs in combat: "[H]ow do you respond to being called a
Defeatocrat?"
On the October 31 edition of MSNBC News Live, in an interview with Illinois Democratic congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who lost both her legs in combat, host Norah O'Donnell asked: "[H]ow do you respond to being called a Defeatocrat?" Additionally, in an interview with Wayne Slater, a senior political writer for The Dallas Morning News and co-author of three books on White House senior adviser Karl Rove, O'Donnell hyped Rove's record of winning elections and asked Slater to affirm that "[h]e's never lost with Bush." O'Donnell also echoed Rove by pointing to the 1938 election, in which "the Democrats lost" but it "wasn't the end of the New Deal," as purported evidence that Rove and the Bush administration "have built a lasting Republican machinery." In fact, in 1938 congressional elections, the Democrats lost 72 seats in the House of Representatives and seven seats in the Senate but maintained a strong majority in the both houses with 262 seats compared to 169 Republican-held seats in the House and 69 seats compared to 23 Republican-held seats in the Senate.
From the 10 a.m. ET hour of the October 31 edition of MSNBC News Live:
O'DONNELL: Right. What was it that Karl Rove said sort of the other day about the election, the 1938 elections, I believe, and he said just because the Democrats lost, that wasn't the end of the New Deal, exactly making the point that you're making, that he believes that they have built a lasting Republican machinery that is so powerful, that helped them win in 2000 and 2004, that even if the climate is bad this year, it could come back and help them in 2008, while the Democrats have yet to catch up on that.
SLATER: And Norah, and that's exactly what he believes, [Republican National Committee chairman] Ken Mehlman believes, some other Republican operatives like Matthew Dowd believe that this durable machine, with its effort to cultivate and motivate Christian conservatives, certain business interests, others in a divide-and-conquer mode in the right year -- and this may not be the right year -- but in the right year is still very formidable on the political scene. And the architect of that machine: Karl Rove.
O'DONNELL: And a quick question, Wayne. Has Karl Rove ever lost an election before?
SLATER: Sure, he's lost little elections in Arkansas, I believe, for -- or Alabama for some Supreme Court cases -- uh, seats. But the key here is in every important race --
O'DONNELL: He's never lost with Bush, though, right?
SLATER: That's right. He has won with Bush in every race -- 1994, '98, 2000, 2004, the off-year election in 2002. Every race that counts, Karl wins.
[...]
O'DONNELL: The president says his goal is to finish the job in Iraq or else the terrorists win, and that's not what the Democratic Party wants to do; the Democrats want to cut and run. What is your prescription for how to get out of Iraq, and how do you respond to being called a Defeatocrat?
How do you feel about being called a poopypants?
It has to be incredibly embarrassing to any conservative with a brain that some of the main GOP attacks are quite literally childish name-calling. "Defeatocrats?" "Democrat" as an adjective? And somehow MSNBC manages to take it all very seriously, and asks those hard-hitting questions: "Is it true that you have cooties?"
I remember the 1992 election cycle. I knew George H. W. Bush was not going to win when he began to call Clinton and Gore, "Bozo and Ozone" in his stump speeches. It sounded so juvenile, especially coming from a sitting president. My strategy, if I were advising the Democrats is to stay on the offensive until the Republicans begin throwing strawmen left and right. Most Americans can see the desperation and lack of cogent argument that strawmen represent. Fox News adherents may lap it up, but the people who really decide elections would be turned off.
Within the next week, the RNC will be paying for ads saying, "Don't vote for Democrats, they have cooties".
I swear the level of political discussion in this country will soon have 1st graders observing, "they're so childish".
Does Norah O'Donnell think she works for Fox News? She spouts the Republican Party line like she getting scripting from Karl Rove.
" Democrats want to cut and run"? She said that like it's a fact instead of some b.s. slogan Rove and the Rethugs spread in the media.
She needs to interview someone like Barney Frank for a Democratic smackdown.
I remember the namecalling in '96 . . . someone had printed up fake "Clinton-Gore '96" campaign signs; only they read "Commie-Bore '96" . . . made me wish someone changed the "Dole-Kemp" signs to say "Dull-Unkempt" . . .
Both sides try to needle the other side with "humorous" name-calling. I remember "Moe/Shemp 1996".
Now, I happen to believe that a good sense of humor is a special area of dominance by the left, so when the Republicans try to do it, it tends to be more mean and less funny. My current favorite parody is the one for Joe Lieberman: it shows a large teardrop and the stylized words "Sore Loserman 2006."
How do you respond to being called a chickenhawk?
How do you respond to being called "Dead-Eye Dick"?
How do you respond to the poll that shows the majority of Americans want an exit strategy for Iraq?
How do you respond to the poll that had many Americans referring to you as an "idiot"?
It sure takes a lot of gall and a complete lack of shame to say that to an Iraq war veteran who left both of her legs back in Iraq. These Corporate Media shills have no problem sliming veterans like Duckworth and deliberatly misinterpreting Sen. Kerry's words. By going to such great lengths to slime Democrats, the Corporate Media is showing how afraid it is that Democrats will win and turn back the FCC's attempts to loosen media ownership regulations.
Ya left out the best part.
~ Exactly. O'Donnell's one blown fact aside, losing seats is losing seats. To any politician or party it stands as "a mandate", admitted or not. Even Howard Dean is maintaining that Dem's have a lot of work to do to catch up to Pub's GOTV efforts by 2008 (see NYT, 10/29). It would also stand to reason that her mention of Rove as an aggressor (w/ claims of potential voting fraud, electronic voting problems, etc.) was a reasonable one. Although I believe the "defeatocrat" query would have best been asked in single, more measured manner, I think it's more than appropriate to ask a war veteran who has suffered major physical injury just what she thinks of her opponents mudslinging. That is, in a political season and on national television. Is there an election or a sensitivity training session going on here? Perhaps I should assume Media Matters is trying to be humorous and entertaining. I'll take that over shrill, sanctimonious, nitpicking any day.
Matt c/o Avatar Media, Iowa City
Why would MMFA whine about that question?
What easier question could you ask?
to being called a zombie?
When did you finally stop having sex with your mother?
Do you get the point? It is a ridiculous, unanswerable question. It is the interview equivalent of a push-poll.
It's an amalgam of several logical fallacies, the foremost being argumentum ad ignorantiam:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
But it also falls under Biased Sample, among others.
I swear, if conservatives were suddenly, magically unable to use logical fallacies, they would never speak again. And what a sweet, sweet day that would be...
>>>"Why would MMFA whine about that question"<<<
How could you be so f_____g ignorant as to ask that?
That question was pretty fair. My problem is when the question assumes that what is said is true. O'Donnell never put it that way.
It this guy is being called a "Defeatocrat", what better way for him to respond directly to that charge? If this guy was being called a "Defeatocrat" while O'Donnell was not talking directly to him, then that would be a problem as well, but it is not the case.
This isn't at all like the loaded and unfair way Chris Wallace ambushed Bill Clinton --where the question was based on a apparently false premise that Bill Clinton didn't do much to stop Al-Qaida.
This is a pretty weak article from MMFA.
Duckworth is pro-war.
Judging from her statement of her views on the Iraq war, she seems to be in favor of leaving as soon as is practicable. I can understand her arguments against an immediate pullout.
Redking, sometimes you're almost as bad as Tommy. It is very rare to be confronted with a choice between absolute good and absolute evil. Many choices in life are, alas, between a greater and lesser evil. Just because Duckworth is not calling for us to bring all our soldiers home right this instant doesn't mean she supports the war.
Right now, we're in Iraq, and nothing can erase that fact. We have to figure out how to get out quickly without leaving Iraq in the hands of anti-American religious fundamentalists. The rise of the Taliban after the Soviet-Afghan war should have taught us that leaving a power vacuum behind us in an unstable nation will catch up to us eventually. Let's hope that we are able to learn from history for once.
Yes, we can leave right away and Iraq will always be run by America-haters, since we just trashed their country and killed their people for the last 15 years.
Only answer to Iraq is to LEAVE immediately, not sit around and wait until they "love" us. If this is the Dem position, to stay and KILL Iraqis until they submit to the USA, then there's NO difference in policy between Dems and Repubs.
But we already knew that.
Duckworth's opponent in the primary was totally anti-war, for immediate end to occupation. Duckworth was backed in the primaries by the pro-war Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, head of the Dem House campaign funding committee. This guy has been pushing out the anti-war candidates by refusing to fund them and digging up pro-war Dems to run against them.
It's either immediate withdrawal or continued occupation. One leads to peace, the other keeps the war going. I won't be voting for more war...will you?
What a loathsome, loaded question! What a classless imbecile she has again demonstrated herself to be. And what is O'Donnell's history of military service that would give her licence to ask such a shameless question?
Typical souless neocon chickenhawk cheap shot. They all clearly do not honor & do not resepct the sacrifices of those who have served in the military. Of course, if they did, they wouldn't still possess the nearly bottomless stomache required to continue to use soldiers as bloody fodder for their ruthless political aspirations.
Their desperation is showing as their capacity for ugliness expands. They will say literally ANYTHING to hang onto power, as THIS is their true religion. There is no lie that they will not enthusiastically tell, & there is no degradation that they will not heap upon those who have sacrificed well beyond the neocon capacity to comprehend.
And they will do this with their makeup flawlessly applied, their heads held high, & their gaze cool & level. A complete absence of integrety, empathy, & a basic core of humanity is their surest tool. They have managed to turn their fundimental defects into steely assests.
And it will get worse over the course of the next week.
Jesus H Christ, do I dispise these creeps.
DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!!!!!
how Duckworth handled Norah "Reich-wing mouthpiece" O'Donnell?
How do you respond to being called a whore?
I thought our mainstream commentators in UK were poor.....O'Donnell in this line of questioning reveals herself to be an abject funnel for corporate news propaganda.She should be holding the powers that be to account over Iraq.655000 people are dead! And all she can do is insult vets caught up in the last US foreign policy disaster.
.. or else the bolsheviks and partisans will win.
oops sorry wrong war.