On Fox News, they don’t count on their guests being prepared before they go on-air. When the occasional guest is ready for combat, they hit the alarm bells. Lucky for Hannity he had dingbat blonde “liberal” (liberal in the same way that I am a Republican) Kirsten Powers to take a dive yet again.
Archive for the 'Kirsten Powers' Category
In this episode of Kirsten Powers, Serial Idiot, alleged Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers yuks it up with gal pal Michelle Malkin (both of them sporting brand new windblown Fox News Fembot makeovers) about how prosecuting Scooter Libby for perjuring himself in a federal investigation was just not an issue worth investigating by the Dept. of Justice. This is the only kind of Democrat who can make it on Fox News, one who regularly craps on the rule of law.
“Democratic Strategist” and patsy Laura Schwartz was also part of this crapfest, but we’re focusing for now on Kirsten Powers and the way she makes a living by denigrating the Democratic Party and the left by posing as a “Democratic Strategist”. Powers served as a low level official in the Clinton administration, but apparently she thinks Sen. Clinton is part of the fringe left for thinking the President’s de facto pardon of Scooter Libby was a “clear signal that in this Administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice”.
Kirsten Powers makes a nice living by coming on TV and acting as a “Democratic Strategist” whose sole lot in life is attacking the left. She blogged for a while but apparently gave it up when it became clear that the blogosphere wouldn’t pamper her as lovingly as Fox. She’s taken today to the pages of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper to… you guessed it… attack liberals.
Conservatives long ago adapted to life in a world where watching the network news or picking up one of the major news dailies is a virtual guarantee of having their views mocked, demeaned or misrepresented. If you’re a social conservative, multiply the odds by 100.
But some liberals, unused to feeling such stings, view government intervention as a salve.
I happen to not like the Fairness Doctrine myself, but you don’t see me and others like me reading from conservative talking points like Kirsten Powers does when we talk about it.
On Thursday I received an e-mail from Alan Colmes of Hannity & Colmes (I checked the headers and verified that indeed it did come from the real Alan Colmes). Alan took exception to my characterization of him as a “patsy” in this post about Sean Hannity. Being the pugilist that I am (my friend once likened it to a sledgehammer and called it an “O-Bomb”) I responded to him explaining that yes indeed that was how I felt, then he responded that the only way I could have come to that conclusion was because I don’t watch the show.
Now see, that’s funny for him to use that line on me. There are three people responsible for every single bit of audio and video content on the Media Matters website. I am one of them. Ergo, it is part of my job to see the interactions Alan Colmes has with Sean Hannity, not to mention that I occasionally watch the show on my own time. And by any measure the bad outweighs the good.
I’ve seen in interviews where Colmes uses two major defenses to explain why liberals and Democrats almost uniformly find him lacking as a represenative - one was the one he used with me - that I don’t watch the show. The other one is also used by the other Fox News Democrat I’ve personally interacted with, Kirsten Powers, and it boils down to the idea that I and other liberals have some sort of idealogical litmus test they’re not living up to.
The only litmus test I’ve got for Democrats and progressives in the media is: don’t suck. On a one-to-one comparison there are few outright liberals in the media. Panels are almost made up of conservative activists and writers for conservative journals, paired with reporters for idealogically neutral news outlets. Special Report with Brit Hume, for instance regularly has the deck stacked with the conservative host Hume, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, conservative reporter Bill Sammon, Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard (who wrote a recent hagiography of Bush) and Mort Kondracke from Roll Call (who recently called the Dems a “hanging” party). The “liberals” are Mara Liasson and Juan Williams, both straight reporters for NPR and regular regurgitators of beltway conventional wisdom against Democrats.
Furthermore, when it comes to ideology I’m probably to the right of Alan Colmes but to the left of Kirsten Powers.
Where I and many others rock the boat is in asking them not to suck. Far too often the Democrats on Fox, especially Colmes and Powers, buy wholeheartedly into conservative distortions and frames of Democrats. Dems, in the world of Fox, are always too much to the left, going too far, etc. and the Fox Dems literally break their own necks racing to agree with their conservative counterparts - Sean Hannity for Colmes, and Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin for Kirsten Powers. A lot of people would like to think this is an edict from up high at Fox, but the evidence seems to say otherwise. The bulk of Fox News Dems are appeasers like Colmes and Powers - Pat Caddell and Bob Beckel for instance. But folks like Gen. Wes Clark generally hold their ground even while being employees of the network. So it’s not the heavy hand of Roger Ailes, apparently, just this group self-selecting themselves as the Washington Generals of punditry.
I can’t read their minds to know why they do it, though Occam’s Razor says its the motivation of regular employment that keeps them in line. But for their own personal bounty they do damage to the Democratic party and the progressive movement. 
They don’t see it that way - especially Kirsten Powers who seems to see all criticism as a critique of intelligence - but one can only work on the evidence that’s available, and the “patsy” motive seems to fit best. They want to be “in” with the cool kids, and on a pro-Republican network like Fox the in-crowd is the GOP. For the other progressive pundits on other cable networks, from the famous Begala and Carville (plus Donna Brazille) on CNN to the other lesser-known talking heads who regularly pop up on MSNBC, there is little to no capitulation like that seen on Fox News.
But my correspondence with Alan Colmes and Kirsten Powers suggests that they don’t see a problem. They discard the fact that again and again and again their inactions are noted by telling themselves we desire purity tests and dogmatism. With that attitude they are never subject to criticism because they reject it out of hand. They think it’s a license to continue throwing their supposed allies under the bus.
Frankly all we’re asking in return for you to not suck up the joint so much.
This video clip from O’Reilly a couple nights ago perfectly illustrates why Fox has the vapid and shallow Kirsten Powers on as a “Democrat”:
And more from this story in Salon on the Fox News Democrats, the Washington Generals (ref) of punditry.
For example, in January, when discussing O’Reilly’s favorite new target, NBC News, whose cable channel MSNBC hosts O’Reilly nemesis (and former Salon columnist) Keith Olbermann. On this occasion, O’Reilly’s chosen line of attack was on William Arkin, a part-time NBC military analyst who wrote a controversial blog entry for the Washington Post about U.S. troops in Iraq. Powers, despite her opposition to the war in Iraq, used the occasion to hit out at blogs and the antiwar movement, likening Arkin’s writing to antiwar tropes coming out of the left, saying, “This was the type of thing that you would expect to read on a far left blog. It has all the hallmarks of the basic far left arguments, which is, you know, the reference to our sons and daughters. We have to save our sons and daughters. The reference to — they’re all pawns, they’re all stupid. They don’t actually want to be over there. The reference that they only support the war because they have to. What else would they do? They couldn’t get up in the morning unless they were.”
Moreover, while attacking the far left, Powers has also been hired as the liberal bookend to conservative blogger and columnist Michelle Malkin on a yet-to-be-launched Fox show called “It’s Out There.” Malkin, who has repeatedly defended the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, allows her column to appear on a Web site, VDARE, that also publishes self-proclaimed “white nationalists.” VDARE’s parent organization has been branded a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Powers has not commented publicly on Malkin’s ties, and declined to comment on them to Salon, saying she didn’t want to discuss her colleagues.
I was once a supporter of Kirsten Powers, but thanks to her actions - and inaction - on Fox News as well as personal interaction I’ve had with her, it’s clear she’s on Team Stupid and we here at OliverWillis.com will subject her to the scorn she deserves.
Fox’s house “Democrat” Kirsten Powers:
ABC News reports that atheists are finding their voice. Yeah, you’d never know they represent 2% of the population judging from the play their nonstop carping gets in the media.
Now, people know that I’m no fan of Sam Harris or the particular brand of slash and burn atheism that he embodies. But just for giggles, I was curious on a random day like today how many mentions of Harris racked up next to mentions of a prominent right-wing Christian like Jerry Falwell in order to test Powers’ theory of atheism’s supposed advantage in the media.
“Sam Harris”: 181
“Jerry Falwell”: 781
Another Powers Failure.
From the Eat The Press review of Fox’s blog show "it’s out there".
The show’s "Left Hook, Right Hook" segment does bring on someone from each side — tonight Ari Berman of The Nation (introduced by Powers) and John Hinderacker of PowerLine and (introduced by Malkin) — but it felt like Malkin was pushing for the team more than Powers.
Kirsten Powers is part of the Fox News Fake Democrat Ringer Squad, sent there to agree with conservative talking points while looking like a bobblehead doll. That’s why they cut her a check. (Pat Cadell is part of this group too)
Kirsten Powers the "Democratic strategist" who often goes on Fox to agree with right-wingers about how Democrats suck lists on her site pro-life Democrats who won in this most recent election cycle. Yet, Powers keeps complaining that Democrats are big ole meanies who hate on pro-life Dems.
Somehow, they vote for them though. Imagine that.
("Imagine that" because Powers’ thesis is stupid.)
Kirsten Powers - Fox News analyst and Democrat - errs on the side of Hugh Hewitt, right wing talk show host and Republican shill. The issue: religious fundamentalism. As I discussed earlier, Powers appears to see this widespread persecution of the religious that isn’t actually happening (that the illustration of her point is a few writings on Huffington Post proves to me how shaky the ground she’s standing on is in an age where the previous attorney general considered his God as the absolute law instead of the constitution he swore an oath to).
It is a common criticism today that if you divine your truth from the Bible, that is unacceptable. But if you divine your truth from your own internal dialogue or from talking to friends or from a philosophy other than that which is found in the Bible, then that truth is okay.
Nobody cares where your truth comes from. The issue here is - how far does your truth get to impose on me? Even if I believe exactly what you do, you’ve got no right to push it on me.
This is the pushback evangelicals in power like the President get. Once you’re in that office, your beliefs form the backbone of your decisions and positions, but in our government you represent all of us no matter the affiliation. That is what the evangelicals who are involved in politics don’t seem to understand. The presidency of the United States is not a papacy.
I’ll preface this by noting that when it comes to religion I’m probably best qualified as agnostic. I was raised in a Christian household, went to a Catholic school at one point and believe that there’s a higher power to the universe - it’s just that I tend to have a problem with the earth-based emissaries who claim to speak for God while filling their own pockets, touching little boys, or trying to make their brand of religion the official one. Live and let live I say, and so do most people on the left.
Which leads to this from Fox News pundit and Democrat Kirsten Powers. Powers claims that two books from atheist Sam Harris is clear evidence of Christian-bashing and part of a pattern. Come on.
In my lifetime there will never be an atheist or agnostic president, and the prospect of a Jewish or Muslim one seems pretty shaky as well. While America is not a Christian nation in the mold the right wants it to be, it isn’t exactly diversity central among the ruling class - Democratic or Republican. The difference is, Democrats and liberals tend to view their religion as their own religion and don’t make value judgements on other human beings based on which God they do or don’t worship. But when it comes to the right, if you aren’t a Christian - especially an evangelical - you might as well go to the back of the bus. Even worse is the current band of Christians in charge, who seem to not understand that no matter how strong your religious faith may guide you and lead you (and that’s fine and great and all great leaders have had their faith guide them), when you serve in our government one book of laws prevails over all others.
But Powers - Democrat - says one atheist wrote a couple of books and this totally invalidates the well-documented history of those in power pushing their brand of religion.
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