Kirsten Powers News
Is Jonah Goldberg Really This Stupid? Yes.
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Writing about the debate on Fox News yesterday between Kirsten Powers and Megyn Kelly over Fox’s made-up New Black Panther story, Jonah Goldberg writes:
When you get past all of the crosstalk and yelling, I’m at a loss as to how my old friend Kirsten Powers thinks objecting to a club-carrying guy in a Black Panther uniform isn’t ‘intimidating’ or how she can suggest that objecting to it can be dismissed as the ‘doing scary black man thing’ (though later in the discussion she seems to back track from that — and she scores some other points well enough).
Long-time readers know I’m certainly no fan of Kirsten Powers (she’s a convenient tool used by Fox to agree with conservative propaganda with a nominal “Democrat” on-air) but she was completely right here. Goldberg (intentionally) misses the point. Powers was referring to the constant looping of the New Black Panther Party video, in addition to other videos not related to the 2008 polling place case, by Fox News.
Why is Fox News doing this? Fox News is trying their damnedest to associate Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, the Democratic party, and the larger liberal/progressive movement with the NBPP. Fox is doing everything within their power to foster an atmosphere of racial animosity, without regard to facts or the long-term impact. Why? They think it hurts Obama.
This is the same thing they pulled attacking ACORN in the last month of the 2008 election. Their entire goal is to make Obama out to be the scary black man with his militant wife, despite the fact that the Obamas are the closest we’ve ever had to the Huxtable family at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
But Jonah Goldberg is too dumb to understand this. Too dumb, on purpose.
Kirsten Powers, Tool
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Before I even clicked through to this story about how Obama’s team is supposedly bungling the Blago issue (in this case bungle means being upfront and working with the investigators, I guess) I noticed it was a NY Post story and I said to myself “I bet it’s another dumb story from Kirsten Powers.”
And I was right.
Powers is the epitomy of a Fox News Democrat – a low level Clinton official who never did any strategizing or anything, who appointed herself a spokesperson for the Democratic party and does so by making poor arguments from the left and reliably bashing Democrats. That’s all Powers does, that’s her shtick.
And hidden underneath it all is an inferiority complex the size of Texas. Powers knows that she’s an inch deep and is highly sensitive to charges that she’s a fembot in the tradition of Fox’s other well-paid spinners. She’s on the channel to provide eye candy and reliably dump on Democrats with a smile. She’s symptomatic of the loser spirit of the 2000-2006 Democratic party, the one who believes that to win Democrats should just be Republicans.
She offers nothing new or insightful, which is why Rupert Murdoch’s business empire throws her up on TV and publishes her column in his newspaper.
Sean Hannity And His Relationship With White Supremacist Hal Turner
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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.
Kirsten Powers, Serial Idiot: Scooter Libby Perjury Is No Big Deal
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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”.
Your Democratic Strategists
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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.
Alan Colmes & Kirsten Powers Have No Idea How Much Damage They Do
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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.
Kirsten Powers & The Fox News Democrats
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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.
Another Kirsten Powers Failure
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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.
>> Behold The Atheist Revolution
>> Kirsten Powers
She Has Her Role
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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)
Way To Illustrate How Wrong You Are
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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.)
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