On Hot Talk with Andy Barnett today (10/2/07) Andy was terribly hurt by a friend that called him names (his friend is lucky he isn't from Los Angeles where Andy says they support child abuse or else he might have had his feelings hurt too). Later, his feelings must have been repaired given that he proceeded to call the three main Democratic candidates racist, communist, and hippie. In the process of displaying his usual hypocrisy, Andy tried desperately to feign honesty while describing the three Democrats. As is typical of a partisan hack, he completely misrepresented the stances of the top three contenders. Andy, are your arguments so weak that you have to use hyperbole in order for them to make sense?
Andy on Hillary Clinton:
"Who will do the following: She wants complete government control of our lives. She wants to offer five thousand dollars for every baby born in America, socialized medicine. Hillary and her insistence on the fact that privatized social security shouldn't happen because she said quote, or something to this effect, I shouldn't quote I guess. Something to the effect of that nothing privatized is good for America. Which, by the way, insinuates that everything should be controlled by the government."
She wants complete government control of our lives? In terms of hyperbole, this statement alone takes the cake! There is NO evidence anywhere that can prove Hillary Clinton wants complete government control over our ENTIRE lives. To suggest such a thing is both dishonest and foolish. Andy, the partisan hack, desperately needs to paint Hillary with these broad unfounded statements so the fearful Republican base will get scared enough to come out and vote against her.
Andy continues to misrepresent Hillary by claiming she wants to "give" every baby born in America $5,000. I would tell Andy to do some research, but we have already established that he isn't interested in that! First, what Hillary actually said was,
Second, she clearly was saying she liked "the idea" and was not making some sort of promise to actually carry through such a plan. Finally, had Andy done his research he would have recognized that in order to get this money the child must first graduate from high school. Thus, it becomes more of an incentive program than a handout.
Andy goes on to claim that Hillary doesn't believe privatization is good for America. Once again, Andy hears only what he wants to hear. Here is the actual quote:
"When I'm president, privatization is off the table because it's not the answer to anything."
Clearly, she was talking strictly about privatization of social security given the topic of the speech and the venue at an AARP meeting and NOT about "everything being controlled by the government". Why would Andy be so dishonest? Certainly, a debate can be made for privatizing social security without making the leap to accusing someone of being a communist. Right? Nope, apparently not for this commentator. His sole means of defense appears to be to use hyperbole, create a straw man, and knock it down to make himself feel justified in his partisan beliefs.
Andy on Barack Obama:
"This peace sign hippie, white flag waving guy. Wants to dismantle all the nuclear weapons in the country and the world and he says he wants to sit down with leaders from Iran and Syria and have a discussion and North Korea. But, he won't sit down with Pakistan one of our few allies over there in fact he will just march on through and do whatever he wants without permission. He made that gaff and said that too!"
Andy, you sure hate it when other people use namecalling. So why do you insist on using the very device you claim as distasteful? Is it only you who is allowed to use the namecalling device as legitimate debate?
What Andy doesn't tell you about the plan to dismantle all nuclear weapons is that first, President Bush has tripled the rate at which it has been dismantling nuclear weapons and second, Obama is endorsing a plan created by former Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State and Defense.
In setting a goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in the world, Mr. Obama is endorsing a call for “urgent new actions” to prevent a new nuclear era that was laid out in January in a commentary in The Wall Street Journal written by several former government officials. The authors of the article were George P. Shultz, secretary of state in the Reagan administration; Henry Kissinger, secretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations; William J. Perry, secretary of defense in the Clinton administration; and Sam Nunn, a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Now why on Earth would Andy leave out these tidbits about Bush and other bipartisan elements of this plan? It couldn't possibly be that Andy wants to smear Obama so that the listeners will find him so egregious as to vote for another candidate? Could it?
Finally, Andy finds it terribly irresponsible to actually engage in dipomatic talks with the enemies of Iran and North Korea! One has to wonder if the Soviet Union would still exist under an Andy Barnett view of the world given that the Reagan Administration chose the exact opposite course of action. Andy, was Reagan wrong all along?
Andy also appears to be soft on terrorism. He claims to want to hunt down terrorists but condemns this statement by Obama:
So, given the choice between friendship with Pakistan and killing terrorists, Andy chooses Pakistan. How is that being tough on terrorism? It is not that Andy is soft on terrorism, its that he simply cannot support any Democrat because his right wing puppeteers simply will not allow it!
Andy on John Edwards:
"John Edwards recently said that the black population will all be dead or in jail soon if we don't do something."
While amazingly, I agree that this comment was unwarranted and remarkably close to racist, I also find it equally amazing that Andy Barnett of all people would use this as his defense against John Edwards. Conservatives have long used the "southern strategy" to discount the black vote. Also, comments made by the likes of Rush Limbaugh (here, here, here, here), Bill O'Reilly (here), Anne Coulter (here), Michael Medved (here), Bill Bennett (here) and such draw no ire from our beacon of "honesty" at KNSI. Sorry Andy, I don't think you can pick and choose which offensive remarks to be shocked at. It smacks of hypocrisy and partisanship!
Andy in conclusion:
"So you got a racist, a hippie, or a communist. Which do you want running your country?"
"That's what you got right there on the Democratic side. I've seen nothing else positive from that side, I've seen nothing positive and you know I really am searching for something positive, I really am there but I can't find anything."
Seriously Andy? You have been searching for something positive? Do you really need to lie to your listeners like that? Couldn't you just let them know you are a partisan human being who enjoys the (R) behind the name of politicians you support? These statements wouldn't be so astonishing if you would just come out and say this is how you see it through your conservative lens and facts be damned!
Let it also be noted that I do not support any of the three main contenders for the Democratic nomination. This is not about coming to the defense of those I support. Rather, it is about continually exposing the amazingly poor research and outlandishly false statements made by one Andy Barnett!
