Remains To Be Seen

Responding to the "Rally to Restore Sanity" two days earlier in Washington, Keith Olbermann suspended on November 1 his daily "Worst Person in the World" segment. Although Olbermann argued "It is not for ratings and it is not 'get angry first and find a reason later,'" he concluded

It's just that today, given the serious stuff we have to start covering tomorrow, we think it's the right time to do it short-term and then we'll see what happens. And we'll also see if anybody else on TV or radio will do something similar.

Not surprisingly (and as KO probably suspected), there has been no similar attempt at lowering the volume of partisan discourse at the GOP's house organ, FOX News.

Politico had discovered in a federal election commission filing that Olbermann had made a campaign contribution to a U.S. Senate candidate (who was defeated) and to two U.S. House candidates (who were re-elected). Simmi Aujla writes

MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement Friday: “I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay."

Olbermann made campaign contributions to two Arizona members of Congress and failed Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway ahead of Tuesday’s election.

Olbermann, who acknowledged the contributions in a statement to POLITICO, made the maximum legal donations of $2,400 apiece to Conway and to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. He donated to the Arizona pair on Oct. 28 — the same day that Grijalva appeared as a guest on Olbermann’s “Countdown” show.

Grijalva, a prominent liberal who was just declared a winner in his race Thursday night, was in a tight contest against tea-party-backed candidate Ruth McClung when he appeared on "Countdown" — one of several appearances he made on the show.

NBC has a rule against employees contributing to political campaigns, and a wide range of news organizations prohibit political contributions — considering it a breach of journalistic independence to contribute to the candidates they cover.

Olbermann is not alone in his generosity. As Justin Elliot wrote for salon.com on September 23

Fox News host Sean Hannity gave $5,000 to the political action committee of conservative hero Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., in August, and his wife, Jill, gave another $5,000, Federal Election Commission records show.

The donations were given on Aug. 31 to MICHELEPAC (that's an acronym for Many Individual Conservatives Helping Elect Leaders Everywhere).

Besides being a conservative radio and TV host, Hannity's ties to the Republican Party are well known. Earlier this year he was the keynote speaker at the annual fundraising dinner of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

We've reached out to Fox for comment on this, and we'll update this post if we hear back.

Elliot blogged at 9:53 this morning that no comment yet had been received from Fox, which appears to be a part of the GOP's fundraising apparatus. As Media Matters noted in September, Sharron

Angle has been fairly consistent in touting Fox News as part of her national fundraising push. On September 10, Angle wrote that she would appear on Fox News' Hannity as "part of our push" to raise $1 million online; she previously told Fox News reporter Carl Cameron that she needed the press to be her "friend" and allow her to give out the address of her website; and in July, Angle suggested that she frequently appeared on Fox News -- the home of softball Angle interviews -- because they allow her to make fundraising appeals to viewers.

But it's not only Angle. The Washington Post reported in August that Fox News' parent, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., made a $1 million contribution to the Republican Governors Association. In October it made a $250,000 donation to the RGA. Between those two contributions, Newscorp gave $1 million to- wait for it- the United States Chamber of Commerce. That would be the same Chamber which solicited money from foreign- and state- owned companies to run attack ads against candidates, most of them Democrats, who have worked to discourage offshoring of American jobs.

If Jon Stewart is right, all of "cable TV" has the same policy and standards and head(s) will roll at Fox News. If not, we will, finally, understand that there is one liberal cable network and one which is little more than an arm of the Republican Party.

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Choosing Up Sides


Tuesday and Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh returned to arguably his favorite cause, tax cuts for the wealthy. On Tuesday, he played portions of his 2009 speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), including the claim

The war on poverty essentially started in the '30s as part of the New Deal, but it really ramped up in the '60s with Lyndon Johnson, part of the Great Society war on poverty. We have transferred something like $10 trillion, maybe close to $11 trillion, from producers and earners to non-producers and non-earners since 1965.

But the Economic Policy Institute presents a pie graph (which it attributes to its "The State of Working America, 2008-2009") depicting the nation's unbalanced income growth over the preceeding three decades. As it indicates, 34.6% of all growth went to the top .1%, and 55.6% to the top 1%, of the population. The next 9% accrued 39.7% of all income growth, leaving the bottom 90% with 15.9% of the increase.





It's not surprising, then, that from 1973-2006 the wage growth of the top 1% has far outstripped that of the bottom 90%, as depicted by this graph, also from EPI:






That is a transfer of wealth- and one Rush Limbaugh heartily applauds. On Wednesday, Limbaugh clarified whom he believes the "producers and earners" and "non-producers and non-earners" are, arguing

The question is not should people who make $250,000 or $500,000 or one million for some reason pay a higher burden of supporting the folly and the irresponsibility of people like Barack Obama and most people in government? Why are we even debating the premise if we really believe in liberty, if we really believe in freedom? Why do we acknowledge a premise that states the successful are gonna get punished, the successful are gonna pay the price?

That's pretty clear- the worthwile inhabitants of this country are those who "make $250,000 or $500,000 or one million." Those who fail to do so are the dregs of society.

And in the same segment, this same talk show host, brave and bold enough to stand up for the rights of people who make a quarter of a million dollars or more, actually accuses the Administration of mounting "a direct attack on freedom and it creates class envy and resentment and anger between the classes."

This is, unfortunately, a core value not only of Rush Limbaugh but of the party he so effectively and consistently represents. What isn't, fortunately, a core value of the Repub Party is reflected in this tidbit from Limbaugh on Tuesday:

I have no idea. But the idea that you're going to take 3,000 people and you're booking over 500 rooms in a hotel and you're taking 40 airplanes, what that tells me is that you have a guy and a family who thinks this nation owes 'em. And while they're in a position to, they are going to live off of this country as much as they can. They are gonna get theirs. That's what this tells me. No president has ever anywhere close to 40 airplanes, 3,000 people, 500 rooms in one hotel. And that's just one hotel, for a ten-day trip, $200 million a day. It's never been done before. This is somebody that says, "It's my turn. My turn, our turn to get what has been denied us all these years," that's what I think.

Limbaugh's claim about $200 million a day is likely bogus. But the reason he claims the Administration is living in luxury is really, well, special: "our turn to get what has been denied us all these years."

Denigrating the middle class as "non-producers and non-earners," fighting a class war on behalf of the wealthy against all other Americans, and promoting racial envy among whites toward blacks, all in the course of two days. That is elitism as only Rush Limbaugh can practice it.

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Money, Not Culture


She was the head of the pro-abstinence Saviors Alliance for Lifting the Truth (SALT). She became famous for panning masturbation, arguing "It is not enough to be abstinent with other people, you also have to be be abstinent alone" and has bragged about remaining "chaste" in her thirties. She complained that the U.S.A. "took the Bible and prayer out of public schools" and alleged "American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains." She characterized evolution as a "myth" and claimed to have heard "the audible voice of God." She decried homosexuality as "an identity disorder" and opposed abortion even in the case of rape or incest.

So when U.S. Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell of Delaware gave her non-concession concession speech Tuesday night, did she urge victor Chris Coons to consider alternatives to embryonic stem cell research, support traditional marriage, or uphold the sanctity of human life?

Hardly. She beseeched Coons to fight reinstatement of the estate tax (which Frank Luntz has taught Republicans to smear as the "death tax") and

reminded him that he is now in a position to help the people of Delaware who are suffering. I reminded him of Victor Rodriguez and Donald and his family and the many small business owners who are very concerned about these tax hikes. And if he does raise them on the top 2%, they'll be forced to close their doors.

This was not Senator-elect Pat Toomey (R-Pa), former head of the Club for Growth, whose raison d'etre is doing the bidding of the corporate sector. Or Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-Ky), who believes it is just plain mean for government to require private businesses not to discriminate. Or Tea Party honcho Dana Loesch who, asked recently (could it be otherwise?) on CNN's "Parker Spitzer" to name her top priority for Congress, instantly cited extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich.

This was Christine O'Donnell, famous for being a "social conservative" (which really is a "cultural conservative"- oh, never mind). And in that brief moment she had with the incoming Senator of her state, she counseled tax cuts for the wealthy, via elimination of the estate tax, or cutting income taxes for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.

It has been making the rounds, this idea that the Democratic proposal hits mom 'n pop stores. In its report submitted to the U.S. Congress in July, the Joint Committee on Taxation noted (page 10)

The staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that in 2011 just under $750,000 taxpayers with net positive income (three percent of alltaxpayers with net positive business income) will have marginal rate s of 36 or 39.6 percent under the President's propsal....

Obviously, Christine O'Donnell, who was defeated decisively on Election Day, is yesterday's news. But everywhere through the Republican Party there is one message. It's not gay marriage, or right to life, deficit reduction (insert joke here), or national security. It's one message and one message only: cut the taxes of the wealthy.

It's one of the great storylines of American politics over the past 30-40 years, best told (pp. 6-7) by Thomas Frank in "What's the Matter with Kansas":

Old-fashioned values may count when conservatives appear on the stump but once conservatives are in office the only old-fashioned situation they care to revive is an economic regimen of low wages and lax regulations. Over the last three decades they have smashed the welfare state, reduced the tax burden on corporations and the wealthy, and generally facilitated the country's return to a 19th century of wealth distribution. Thus, the primary contradiction of the backlash; it is a working-class movement that has done incalculable historic harm to working class people.

The leaders of the backlash may talk Christ but they walk corporate. Values may matter "most" to voters, but they always take a back seat to the needs of money once the elections are won. This is a basic earmark of the phenomenon, absolutely consistent across its decades-long history. Abortion is never halted, affirmative action is never abolished, the culture industry is never forced to clean up its act. Even the greatest culture warrior of them all was a notorious cop-out once it came time to deliver. "Reagan made himself the champion of 'traditional values' but there is no evidence he regarded their restoration as a high priority," wroter Christopher Lasch, one of the most astute analysts of the backlash sensibility. "What he really cared about was the revival of the unregulated capitalism of the twenties: the repeal of the New Deal."

Frank recognizes in America generally what he says (p. 249) about his native Kansas :

The state watches impotently as its culture, beamed in from the coasts, becomes coarser and more offensive by the year. Kansas aches for revenge. Kansas gloats when celebrities says stupid things; it cheers when movie stars go to jail. And when two female rock stars exchange a lascivious kiss on national TV, Kansas goes haywire. Kansas screams for the heads of the liberal elite. Kansas comes running to the polling place. And Kansas cuts those rock stars' taxes.

Meanwhile, the daughter of a proud Sarah Palin, the purported grand dame of social conservatism, goes Hollywood to the max, performing on "Dancing with the Stars." There you have it: deregulation, tax cuts, and whatever else is on the wish list of the privileged for the party which once claimed family values as its guiding light.

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Whitman vs. Santillan as Hill vs. Thomas


She might have well have told us, during the summer of 2009, that the St. Louis Rams would go to the Super Bowl.

Meg Whitman, who spent roughly $160 million to become governor of California, came up empty yesterday. She did have a few things to overcome, including not having voted in 28 years, not having registered to vote until 2002, and giving Jerry Brown the opportunity to run this scathing ad (below). Or this one (way below). But then she pulled the political equivalent of picking the Rams. Faced with the accusation that she had kept in her employ Mexican immigrant Nicky Diaz Santillan while aware that she was in the U.S.A. illegally, Whitman responded in part by predicting
And you know what? On November 3rd, no one's going to care about Nicky Diaz. But the law is the law, and we live in the rule of law. It's important.

But Whitman did not comprehend the power of pictures- and of emotion.




That is the image (photo by Reuters by way of daylife.com), seen repeatedly by millions of Californians, of a poor, young woman crying. A poor, young woman in the country illegally, but a poor, young, hard-working woman nonetheless. And Whitman went on to urge that she be deported.

That is for ICE and/or the courts to decide. But the voters of California no doubt were moved- justifiably or otherwise- by the emotion seemingly expressed by Nicky Diaz.

We've been this way before. Anita Hill vs. Clarence Thomas. A reluctant witness (for her own reasons) testifying quietly, rationally, unemotionally. And another individual whose opportunity for a lifetime appointment to a supremely powerful institution was being jeopardized by a former employee. Thomas had to do something and do it with feeling, and so he testifed before the Judiciary Committee:

This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the US Senate rather than hung from a tree.

Thomas was mad- or at least seemingly so, which is all that mattered. Because if he were mad, millions of Americans reasoned, surely he was being wronged. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we know- just short of a smoking gun- that Thomas not only severely minimized actual lynchings of black Americans, but was also lying, lying, lying.

But Thomas' self-righteous expression of anger was accomplished with feeling- much as Santillan displayed. And that, people believed- nay, felt- proved authenticity.

This is not to argue that Nicky Diaz Santillan reprised the Clarence Thomas Show. Nor is she as qualified to be Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court as was Thomas, although it is a close call. But Thomas bolstered his case with the viewing public with a display of rage and Diaz benefitted by an expression of anguished despair, though she may have been sincere.

While yesterday the far-right Republican Party and its further-right Tea Party wing, capitalizing on the emotions of the American people, made major electoral strides, the GOP's gubernatorial candidate in the nation's largest state was victimized in part by the triumph of feeling over reason. In this one, isolated, case, turnabout is, indeed, fair play.

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Only A Foreshadowing

In the category of It's Going To Be A Long Two Years (till the next congressional election), we have Rush Limbaugh today claiming

I don't know about Chris Coons' voters being harassed, but I do know the New Black Panther Party is out in force in Philadelphia again.

A little detail, from TPM Muckraker

A member of the New Black Panther Party was spotted by a local Fox station today at the same polling location at which he was videotaped two years ago. His presence at that facility in 2008, along with a nightstick-wielding colleague, led to a controversial voter intimidation case that has dogged the Obama administration for over a year and a half.

Fox provided a photo of the individual and reported that he was seen outside the polling place "wearing a pin that indicated his party affiliation, along with a black hat, sunglasses and leather coat." The polling location, Guild House West, is located in a majority African-American neighborhood in northern Philadelphia.

The individual appears to be Jerry Jackson, who had a poll-watching certificate back in 2008 and was originally named in the civil voter intimidation case bought in the waning days of the Bush administration. The Obama administration did not pursue the case against Jackson or the national party, but did obtain an injunction against fellow NBPP member King Samir Shabazz, who carried a nightstick.

Charles Mirarchi of the City of Philadelphia confirmed to TPMMuckraker on Tuesday that Jackson holds a poll-watching certificate for 2010. <

Late update: Fred Voigt, a deputy city commissioner in Philadelphia, told TPMMuckraker that the District Attorney went out to the polling location and found nothing illegal. "There was one guy there, doing nothing. The DA was out there, the judge of elections," Voigt said. "There wasn't anything last time by the way, other than the film clip by the two performers. There wasn't even anything like that this time, there was a guy standing there doing nothing."

A man, a black hat, a poll watching certificate, and "The New Black Panther Party is out in force." Democratic victories will be fewer than Republican victories today but that won't stop leading Republicans from doing what they can to delegitimize the Democrats who do withstand the tide. Much of the activist right agrees "the people who support Obama have a vastly different view of this country, its past, its present, and its future, than the vast majority of the people of the country. We're being ruled and governed by a minority of people who have an active, ongoing, and increasing dislike for this country." Tea Party sympathizers or not, they will not be satiated by their gains in this election and their vitriol will only increase.

This should, however, satisfy such bold opinion leaders like David Broder or Jon Stewart, who will be glad to tell us that partisans on both sides are equally to blame.

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Missing From Stewart's Admonition


Last week, Rush Limbaugh returned to a favorite theme of his and an awful lot of conservative Republicans:

What should be done about this? Every election we hear about this, every election. I've got a whole stack here of stories about election fraud. I don't have one in which Republicans are being accused of it. Not one.

No doubt this was true. Limbaugh probably didn't have in his stack anything about the voter caging, voter intimidation, and other strands of voter suppression described by Project Vote and reported by this website:

In Harris County, Texas, early voting has begun, and, as the Houston Chronicle reports, there are complaints that a Tea Party group has been hovering over voters, interfering with election workers, and disrupting lines of voters waiting to vote in minority neighborhoods. The Justice Department is investigating and interviewing witnesses.

Also in Texas, a fraudulent flyer being distributed in African American neighborhoods in Houston by the "Black Democratic Trust of Texas," a nonexistent group, advises voters not to vote for the Democratic ticket because their votes will instead go to the Republicans.

In Illinois, Senate candidate Mark Kirk has proudly claimed that he has mounted the state's largest "voter integrity program in 15 years"—aimed at four largely African-American precincts. Coincidentally (or maybe not), the Republican National Lawyers Association, a group closely affiliated with the Republican National Committee, is conducting trainings for lawyers in Illinois to assist on Election Day and "ensure that the elections are open, fair and honest." Additionally, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has linked a key figure in Kirk's "voter integrity squad" to voter intimidation that occurred in black communities while President Bush was in office.

A voter suppression plan in Wisconsin (a combined effort of the state Republican Party, Americans for Prosperity, and Tea Party organizations) is targeting, among others, 16,000 Milwaukee County voters. As the Wisconsin-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, the organization One Wisconsin Now says it has obtained an audio recording of a tea party leader "outlining plans to work with the state Republican Party and another group, Americans for Prosperity, and use postcards to verify voters' addresses as well as provide volunteer poll workers to challenge voters on Election Day." A leader of a Tea Party group emailed "All Group Leaders" with instructions—including directions for photographing the homes of people targeted for voter suppression activities. The voter caging mailing allegedly targeted the 16th Assembly District, the district with the third-highest African-American voting population in the state.

A coalition of right-wing groups in Minnesota has been unsuccessful in its efforts to require photo ID at the polls, so they've redirected their energies to creating "voter surveillance teams." As Minnesota Public Radio reports, their planned activities include videotaping and tracking buses that bring voters to the polls (to ensure—they say—that buses are not taking their passengers to multiple polling places). Their materials also castigate Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Attorney General Lori Swanson for failing to investigate and prosecute voter fraud.

One of the most publicized and explicit campaigns to suppress the minority vote has been in Nevada, where "Latinos for Reform," a group headed by a conservative Republican activist, is urging Hispanic voters to stay home on Election Day in order to "demand some attention." President Obama called the tactic a "cynical political ploy," and the ads have been denounced by the Latino Coalition. The Hispanic television network Univision has announced it will not broadcast the ad.

And everywhere, the conservative website "Pajamas Media" is trying to "develop a network of citizen journalists/poll watchers" to monitor as many polling places as possible and report back, preferably with video or still photographs, on cases of voter fraud or intimidation. They're looking for cases of electioneering too close to the polls, "forced assistance," registration fraud, multiple voting, and "dead voters." As Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice says in an Associated Press article, "unfounded fears cannot serve as prevention of actual voters casting actual votes."

I do not come to bury Rush (or others like him) but to praise him. Look over the the closing speech of Jon Stewart at his Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear on Saturday. Ten paragraphs and not one sentence about voting. Not to vote for Democrats, or liberals, or sane candidates- but simply to vote. Not even "vote for the candidate of your choice- Democrat, Republican, or any other because in so doing you strengthen American democracy." Nothing suggesting, in the manner of Stewart's theme, that however one chooses to express his/her sentiments on Tuesday only enhjances the citizen's contribution to cooperation, bipartisanship, sanity or "sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done."

Three days before the election and a rally of a couple of hundred thousand individuals takes place on the mall at the center of the American experiment and one of the nation's leading public figures cannot muster the courage to utter the word "vote."

It might have been the only safe course for Stewart and comedic sidekick Stephen Colbert. It's only only Rush fixating on mythical Democratic voter fraud but is widespread across the GOP spectrum. On Monday morning, talk show Michael Smerconish, a centrist whose audience is overwhelmingly Republican and conservative, remarked that he was pleasantly surprised that the rally did not turn into a Democratic get out the vote gathering. That would, apparently, be scandalous- encouraging people actually to vote.

Nothing- nothing- in 2010 will make a Republican head explode more dramatically than encouraging people to vote. It's really not necessary to ask them to cast a ballot for a Democrat; merely asking them to vote is frightening to Republicans. Stewart, if seemingly naive in his world of moral equivalence, is highly informed, intelligent and insightful. He is hardly unaware of the ongoing effort on the part of conservatives to tamp down the vote and of the danger of anyone inciting the GOP bear by hinting that masses of individuals should vote.

It is easy to bend to intimidation and Stewart should not shoulder the entire blame, of course. The Democratic Party, which seemingly has a motive in calling out the opposite party for its active, or at least passive, subversion of democracy, generally has been silent. The left blogosphere would have Stewart's back on this- but, as anyone listening to the mainsteam media or the Administration, knows, the professional left is only a bunch of self-important whiners.

Still, if not Jon Stewart (and Colbert), then who (or whom)? If not someone with an adoring base and the adoration of the mainstream media, then who (or whom)? If not someone who could take a few body blows and remain standing- and still rich and powerful- then who (or whom)? Jon Stewart has outstanding attributes. Courage is not one of them.

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If No Compromise, No Equivalence


At his Rally to Restore Sanity Saturday, comedian/celebrity/political pundit/egomaniac Jon Stewart made an excellent point when he noted

Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often something they do not want to do! But they do it. Impossible things, every day, that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make.

Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats or Republicans or liberals or conservatives nor even primarily as Dems, Reps, libs, or cons. We leave that up to political officials, generally elected, and almost exclusively Republican or Democratic, most of them conservative or liberal. Stewart assesses these national politicians:

So why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle, to a pumpkin-assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable--why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution, and homophobes who see no one's humanity but their own?

We hear every damned day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it's a shame that we can't work together to get things done. The truth is, we do! We work together to get things done every damned day! The only place we don't is here (in Washington) or on cable TV!

Here is a sampling of the GOP's approach to the President, according to Think Progress:

– Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) was forced to apologize for “calling President-elect Barack Obama a ‘Marxist’ and comparing him to Adolf Hitler.” [11/12/08]

– Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) also compared Obama not only to Hitler, but also Hugo Chavez. [07/09/09]

– Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) questioned whether President Obama was an American, saying: “Well, his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president.” [02/23/09]

– Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) also questioned Obama’s citizenship, saying birthers “have a point” and that “I don’t discourage it.” [07/29/09]

– Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said she was “very concerned that [Obama] may have anti-American views.” [10/17/08]

– Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) called Obama “an enemy of humanity” for his pro-choice views. [09/26/09]

– Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) called Obama “a more serious threat to America than al Qaeda,” and said he was “a dedicated enemy of the Constitution.” [07/22/10]

– Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said that the Obama administration was a “gangster government.” [11/12/09]

– Bachmann, too, accuses Obama of heading a “gangster government.” [06/10/09]

– As Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin famously said Obama is “palling around with terrorists.” [10/04/10]

– Palin also said the president was being advised by “thugs” from Chicago. [06/10/10]

And those are Republican politicians, the guys and gals who have to submit themselves to voters of all stripes and to their local, and sometimes the national, media. The comments do not include the more extreme and more common remarks of Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Gallagher, and others of the right-wing and highly partisan blogosphere. Those are actual members of Congress. (The one exception is Tancredo, who as a third-party candidate, is running a strong second in the race for governor of Colorado, despite competition from the (more moderate) Republican, whose candidacy he has decimated.

In the last few weeeks, GOP congressional leaders Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and Mike Pence all have said: no compromise. (Those were Pence's exact words: "no compromise." Meanwhile, President Obama, in an interview with radio talk show host Michael Smerconish:

Asked how he would govern for the next two years should control of the House shift, Obama said he expected that Republicans, should they "be in a position to hopefully take more responsibility working with us, are going to say to themselves that it's important for us to show some accomplishments over the next couple of years."

Unless Jon Stewart can show us Repub leaders whose public position is similar to that of Barack Obama, his perception of moral equivalency is simply false equivalency.

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