Jane Hamsher Supports Erick Erickson, Who Called Michelle Obama “A Marxist Harpy”
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Critics like Eric Burns, president of the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America, ridiculed the apology as opportunistic, asking how much Mr. Erickson could have matured since making the Souter comment just a year ago. Even after Mr. Erickson joined CNN, he said on a local radio show that while people should fill out their census forms, he would not answer the more detailed questions on the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, or A.C.S., adding that he would ‘pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little A.C.S. twerp likes being scared at the door.’
Jane Hamsher, the publisher of the liberal blog FireDogLake, said that many bloggers like Mr. Erickson test rhetorical limits, but ‘that’s no reason to keep him off the air.’ Ms. Hamsher said she would rather debate Mr. Erickson, whom she called an ‘honest broker,’ than an opponent reciting prescribed talking points.
Who is Hamsher supporting here?
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Oliver, I gave up on Jane Hamsher during health care reform debate. FireDogLake and Jane have come to represent all that is wrong from the uber left. I state this as a true progressive. I know she’s a cancer survivor and as an RN I support her health/recovery but she also condemned thousands to less than adequate health care with her radical health care rhetoric.
I guess only platinum blondes that appreciate the hypocrisy of the Red State and Erickson are worthy.
Hey, Oliver, what is it with you and Hamsher? You really seem out to get this woman.
Silly me, I don’t like so-called liberals who like to slag liberals and party with the right’s dregs.
I have a question: How often was Jane Hamsher quoted in the New York Times before she turned on Obama?
I’m not saying she’s a self-aggrandizing hack, but her new position of Official Arbiter Of All Things Liberal has sure made her a popular woman, hasn’t it?
Jane Hamsher’s support for Erick Erickson seems like one member of the club — bloggers who get to be on television — supporting another one. DC’s really good at creating self-reinforcing networks like that.
It’s pretty amazing, given some of the anti-feminist stuff Erickson has said over the years.
For the life of me, I don’t know what the fuck happened to Jane Hamsher, unless the experience of opposing more mainstream liberals just made her bitter.
I can’t think of a single genuine actual leftist which would say such bullshit about not Urk Urksun’s right to say whatever he wanted but the private and commercial choice by a media corporation to highlight his bullshit ridiculous right wing fraudulent insulting idiocy.
Good god, CNN isn’t the fucking Constitution — just because you’re not hired as a commentator on CNN doesn’t mean you’re being repressed, and it isn’t like CNN isn’t absolutely filled already with a bunch of disgusting fucktard right wingers, such as Mr. White Hands Ad and Oh After This Victory in NC Will Obama Appoint Bill Ayers To His Cabinet Alex Castellanos.
Hamsher asked FireDogLake readers last October, “Wanna see me & Erick Erickson issue a joint statement of agreement that the Reids are corrupt hacks dragging the country down? I’ll fucking whip Democratic endorsements for Tarkanian, too. Then spend my days pushing the story to the Nevada press.” Tarkanian’s a Republican candidate running against Reid.
Hamsher seems to be on the same trajectory as other prominent Democrats who’ve found a good career for themselves by becoming the Democrat most likely to eat his own on live television. This could be a canny move. Pat Caddell’s not getting any younger or better looking.
That First Amendment’s a real bitch, ain’t it?
I don’t know what the fuck happened to Jane Hamsher
Hilary lost the nomination race to Obama. That’s what happened.
She’s not far from a Fox News contract.
erik son of erik is honest?? yeah, she wants to be on fox.
Freedom of speech does not equal Freedom from criticism. Ms. Hamsher calls herself a liberal activist and does things like this that makes you wonder whose side are you on.
“That First Amendment’s a real bitch, ain’t it?”
So Oliver not agreeing with Jane Hamsher’s support of Erick Erickson means that Oliver doesn’t like the First Amendment?! Are you serious?
FWIW, I really think of Jane Hamsher as someone who really, really had some good work and contributions and wanted to pursue what she believed in whether or not it fit with the Democratic mainstream, but something really, really went wrong.
I’m not suggesting she herself was a heroic leader, but in this whole blog world & internet-based activism & donations, she and her most immediate allies seemed pretty useful.
It’s not new, this phenomenon of people just not wanting to go along with the ‘mainstream’ formal Democratic line, but I think there’s a lack of a baseline analysis of American class & power.
It’s one thing to say “fuck the mainstream Democratic Party tendencies,” it’s another thing to say ‘we need to hear from Urk Urkson’.
There’s this bizarre tradition of claiming that when crazy ultra-right-wingers aren’t given a prominent position in some private media corporations’ commentators’ array, it’s some repression of free speech.
You still don’t get any prominently featured actual left wingers, but it will probably take another 20 years for people to remember that some of their arguments made sense.
This shouldn’t be personalized: the phenomenon of the billion dollar media seeking out leftist / liberals to condemn Democratic politicians isn’t new. They tend to only seek out these voices when it serves to counter actual Democratic / liberal leadership. The billion dollar media doesn’t give the slightest shit about the perspectives of committed, principled leftists or liberals in their arguments, just their utility to serve as convenient foils to condemn Democratic / liberal leaders.
The FireDogLake site is not the representative of the ‘uber’ left. There really are still actually leftist intellectuals and sites. Angry and independent liberals aren’t the same.
One would think that actual leftists — those committed to socialist and/or anarchist socialist principles — might still count as ‘the left’.
Ron Paul’s a hero at FDL despite being far to the right of Obama on social spending
Jane Hamsher is supporting a guy who said he would shoot any census worker who comes to his house, with his wife’s gun. Well I already figured her as the leader of the t-bag left death posse, but this too, ugh, how disappointing.
That made me laugh, thanks. Sadly though, you are correct.
You guys make average Dems looks like lock-step Limbaughites. Obama is disappointing his base on nearly every promise he made, why can’t you understand that? What substantive policies of his predecessor has Obama abandoned? Wake up kiddies – Jane isn’t a traitor, she’s been a consistently honest broker since the election. That you would cherry-pick to find things to slam her for is pretty revealing.
Obama needs pushback on this – he’s triangulating when he was elected to do the exact opposite.
“That you would cherry-pick to find things to slam her for is pretty revealing.”
I don’t know, criticizing Hamsher for praising a man who called Michelle Obama a “Marxist harpy” doesn’t exactly sound like “cherry-picking” to me. Name me one conservative, I mean literally ONE conservative, who has sung the praises of a liberal equivalent of Erick Erickson.
“Praising?” Where does that happen, exactly? Jane Hamsher didn’t praise Erickson so much as slam CNN and other network news programs for pushing biased political hacks on television in pseudo debates that are little more than scripted theater. She clearly misuses the phrase “honest broker”(that would be a neutral middle party or mediator)to suggest that Erickson, for all his glaring flaws (aka “rhetorical excess”), seems to be coming from a position he genuinely believes in. On a similar note, her statement, severely butchered and taken out of context above, about working with Erickson to build support for a primary against Reid, had nothing to do with respect for Erickson or his views. She clearly feels that Democrats are largely corrupt (they are) and many incumbents are far to cozy and free of any fear that their constituents will turn on them at the ballot box. All her talk about primary challenges and alliances of convenience with otherwise mortal enemies on the Right serve that end, namely forcing Democrats to consider the consequences of their corporate toadying.
I agree that Ms. Hamsher’s words imply a degree of respect that Erick Erickson doesn’t remotely deserve, and she should be more mindful of giving any legitimacy to the crazies on the far right. However, once again this site seems pathologically driven to paint her as some lunatic harpy interested only in her own self aggrandizement no matter what the damage to the Left. Seriously, get over it.
Why am I reminded of Senator Lieberman all of a sudden?
So Hamsher is the only one who gets to be critical of others not living up to their professed beliefs? Duly noted.
No offense Prodigal, but wtf are you talking about? I never said Oliver had no right to his opinion or to use his blog to express it, just that it’s getting rather old.