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Kate seems to think that Olbermann would be somehow less effective when interviewing in person. Would that the darlings of the right wing would take up the challenge: then, I guarantee you, we would see some real debate -- at least from Olbermann.
Pundits of Hannity and Limbaugh's ilk can't handle a fair fight, so they stage "debates" with soft liberal opponents like Jerry Springer, stack the audience with rabid-dog supporters, and supplant thoughtful discussion with shouted talking points and hoo-rah audience heckling of the other participant. When someone comes and verbally demolishes a friendly guest on the air (like Ann Coulter's thrashing by Kirsten Powers a couple of weeks ago), they are rarely invited back.
The narrative which they carefully construct gets broken when their point of view is challenged directly. O'Reilly will take his pot-shots from the sidelines, and shut down any caller to his radio show who *gasp* mentions Olbermann by name. It is fear, plain and simple. Fear that the other viewpoint will be heard, considered, possibly even agreed with by ever-dwindling audiences. Fear that the friendly government will be out of power, and they'll have to go back to being the opposition. Fear of cancellation in the face of their growing irrelevancy.
This is why these empty suits, these talking heads, these wastes of oxygen marginalize the speakers of truth to power, and why they drill this marginalization into the heads of their followers. They are afraid. They are running scared, and like wounded animals cornered, they lash out at anything and everything. Meanwhile, we are privy to their desperate thrashings, praying that someone will have the decency to put the beasts out of their misery -- cancel them. Get these purveyors of spin and propaganda out of the public marketplace, and replace them with commentators who will, at the very least, turn a critical eye to what our government claims to be doing "for our own good," and, at best, reports the true story instead of the "talking points (memo)" of the day.
D
