A coupla weeks ago, Bill Scher took issue with my column “Rise of the Obamabots.” We traded barbs on the Twitter, and he graciously invited me onto his podcast to debate and discuss.
Liberal Oasis Podcast
Ted Rall
http://rall.comTed Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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9 Comments.
Great debate,Ted, though you let him off easy on Egypt. The only reason Obama did not whisper in Mubarak’s ear is that the Egyptian military was not aligned any more.
Thanks.
In some cases, you can’t get too granular. I like to hope listeners know these things.
Hey Ted,
I am going to listen to tonight, but I know Bill Scher, and he is usually a reasonable guy, but is an Obamabot. I already come down on your side of this issue, and really appreciated your article, and look forward to the discussion. But in all fairness, please correct the guys name, unless you were trying to be funny, which would be a bit weird, but hey, just saying! ( I must note that he has your name right on his blog).
Quite right, KCBill. Changed!
It was just a brainfart, part of the trouble with posting to the blog from a tiny screen. My iPhone makes my brain small too.
I listened to most of their show, which I hadn’t heard before, and I found it nauseating. They are partisan hacks, uninterested in real progressive change. For them, politics is like a spectator sport, and the only thing they really care about is that “their guy” is the “winner.” Actual policy is the last thing they’re worried about.
It’s funny: when you debate the guy, he spends half the time conceding that Obama sucks. The point is really driven home on the “public option” bit. His actual argument is that Obama wasn’t committed to it, which makes Obama seem to suck harder. (By the way, my memory of Obama’s rhetoric is in line with yours. I don’t even need to look at the sources you’re citing.)
This podcast displayed everything wrong with the American style of political discourse. God, such pseudo-intellectual jerking-off makes me want to pull my hair out. You certainly had an encounter with more *real* Obamabots.
1. It’s a 1 hour podcast, and Mr. Rall is on from minute 33 until minute 56. It would have been nice if he’d provided that information.
2. Neither Bush, Jr. nor Obama ever tortured anyone (I first saw this in a response to a German BBS ad, ‘Don’t buy American, they torture.’) Bush, Jr. re-defined the word ‘torture’: Under US law, ratified by the legislature and the Supreme Court, NOTHING done under orders from the POTUS can EVER legally be called torture by anyone. In fact, anyone who calls it ‘torture’ is automatically eligible for the rack, thumbscrews, electrodes to the genitals, and the Chinese Enhanced Water Interrogation to persuade them of the error of their ways. So Bush, Jr. and Obama never tortured anyone. And that’s the law. And if you’re a law abiding cartoonist, you’ll never think that they did. (And Eric Blair is turning in his grave.)
3. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, ‘Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.’ Obviously, hopelessly dated. Only Mr. Rall still follows Ms. Roosevelt and says that ideas (and the people who promulgate them) should be praised or condemned based on their ideas. Everyone else is in complete agreement: if my candidate says it or does it, it’s laudable; if the opponent of my candidate says it or does it, it’s reprehensible. And it doesn’t matter at all that it’s the exact same idea.
I love that Eleanor Roosevelt quote.
Ted,
Well I listened to the Podcast, and although I like Bill Scher a lot personally, and do not agree that he is a jerk, I do agree that he is an Obamabot. The argument you made about the Public Option was one primarily of semantics from his point of view, and I kept expecting you to beat him with one of the big sticks in the room, that of Obama claiming that the debate about health care would be televised on C-Span, and that no back room deals would be done. Then Obama promptly went and cut back room deals with Big Insurance and Big Pharma. Then he lied to the public and said no such deal was ever done.
Well: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/ny-times-reporter-confirm_b_500999.html
So he did do back room deals, killed the Public Option himself, then lied to the American People about it. And Bill’s arguments are ones that see Obama as doing no wrong. But I thought the tone of the discussion was reasonable, but you ended up facing a truth that Obamabot people are unwilling to face, that many of the things Obama stands for are not what he said he would do to get elected. And not really even pro-democracy, more of a status quo, further empower the empire kind of things.
You know Ted, it was great to hear you, and your arguments presented in a calm rational way. Bill and his offsider do rail against the repukes, but I agree with you, Obama and the democrats are not much better than Bush and Cheney were. Our democracy is broken, we live in a National Security State, and there are an awful lot of ignorant people on both sides of politics.
That is part of why I moved to Australia 24 years ago. I found Bill’s comments about your cartoons at the end of his Podcast to be a bit unwarranted, but like I said, I know the guy, so I will take it up with him. I will push him to do a repeat show, where you can discuss the things he got wrong, if you wish. He is a generally fair kind of a guy, and his heart is in the right place, he is just forgetting to use his brain to clearly see where our politics really are in America today.
And the name thing is just a small thing, modern smartphones even correct automatically after you hit the POST key. No big deal at all, and already corrected. You won the debate big time, by the way.