If don't know who does the scheduling for C-SPAN's Book TV, but apparently they wanted to help Breitbrat Ben Shapiro sell some more books, since they had him on for a three hour long interview as part of their In Depth series this weekend.
Shapiro discussed everything from how he was big Rush Limbaugh fan in college and how Rushbo's wingnut brother encourage him to write his first book, to his making friends with Andrew Breitbart around that same time, to pretending that Limbaugh and O'Reilly aren't bullies, to how he's been friends with Ann Coulter since he was 18, to comparing the Obama administration to the Mafia. He also apparently doesn't think All in the Family was funny and claimed "leftism" was imported from Germany. But it's the mean old left's fault we all can't get along and don't dare try to tell him otherwise.
In the segment above, we are supposed to believe that ABC's George Stephanopoulos is a liberal, or that anyone on the left considers Stepho and his merry band of overpaid Villagers "journalists." Shapiro then proceeded to treat the viewers to one giant case of projection in an attempt to explain why the poor, downtrodden, picked on, victimized right wingers like himself are forced to personally attack those on the left and how no one is ever allowed to call them racists because there's no evidence of that whatsoever in Shapiro World.
No one on the left is allowed to complain about voter ID laws that make it harder for minorities to vote, or laws that keep gay people from getting married, because that makes you the mean nasty bigot. Got it? As Karoli has pointed out here before, this is nothing new for the likes of Shapiro. It's his stock and trade.
SLEN (Reading question from viewer): Since the left will not engage in a serious intellectual discussion with the “haters” and the media will not call them out on this, how do we point out their bullying tactics to the broader public, without sounding like cry babies?
SHAPIRO: Well, I think the important thing is to expose the tactics themselves. It's not about attacking people as jerks. That's ineffective. What it is about is making clear what the magic trick here is, that they're arguing character instead of policy and that in arguing character instead of policy actually is a nasty thing. If you say someone... they're a racist and you have no evidence that they're a racist, that makes them a nasty person and it's not wrong of them to say, you know, that's just nasty. And it's nasty of you to say that I'm a racist without evidence.
That is a necessary thing. The right has to do that on a regular basis. When somebody from the right appears on George Stephanopoulos on ABC News, it would behoove that person to say George, thanks so much for having me and I really appreciate it. Before we start, I just want to point out, you're a man of the left. You portray yourself as an objective journalist. You were in the Clinton war room. We understand that you have certain principles that you believe in. Why can't we just be honest about what you are. I'm a conservative. You're a liberal. Now let's have an honest conversation.
The problem is that with George Stephanopoulos is that it destroys his entire credibility bank and he wouldn't accept the premise, but that's something that needs to be done on a regular basis. I just want folks to be honest. If you're on the left, admit that you're on the left if you portray yourself as an objective journalist. If you're on the right, admit that you're on the right. I'm on the right. I'm a journalist, but I'm on the right and I'm an opinion journalist and that means that I take a certain view of the issues and I make very clear, upfront, if you read any of my stuff, you're going to get a pretty good angle on who I am and what I believe.
It's important to point that out, especially when it comes to the media. When it comes to politics, if somebody is race baiting, it's important to say that this person is race baiting, and not only are they race baiting, it's a nasty tactic. You don't get to attack somebody's character without evidence. That's the definition of being a nasty person. So if they're calling you nasty, then they have to show evidence as to why you're nasty.
It can't just be, you know, the left calling you a villain because you support voter ID, or because you oppose affirmative action, or because you oppose gay marriage. And this is not something that is restricted to the broader political world, or big figure fights big figure; Romney vs Obama and we're all watching. It applies at the dinner table too. [...]
We've all had Thanksgiving dinner, you know, with Aunt Bertha., who firmly believes that you're a nasty human being if you voted in favor of Proposition 8 in California. The answer to that is that, I'm not a nasty person. How dare you suggest that I'm a nasty person? In fact, you're a nasty, intolerant bigot if you think that I'm a nasty person, because you have no evidence that I'm anti-gay and for you to suggest that just because I disagree with you on a matter of public policy, I'm a bad person, that's makes you a bad person.
And then we can get all that off the table. Once you get the character attacks off the table, then we can actually get down to the hard business of forging policy that's actually good for Americans. But if we're still going to be stuck in this political, this political trap where one side argues character and the other side argues policy, the side that argues character will always win.
Character is always, always a more effective argument than policy. It almost doesn't matter what the policy is. If you argue character you are going to win., right off the bat and until the right acknowledges this, understands it and fights back on the same level; it sounds like fighting fire with fire. It is. You have to do that. You have to tug at the heartstrings. Once you do that, then hopefully there will be a mutually assured destruction that sets in on both sides will say look, character is off the table. Let's figure out what the best way to do this and may the best argument win.
How'd you like to be a guest at that dinner table? Good god. Here he is defending his good buddies Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and refusing to admit they're right wing bullies. I'm guessing if you asked him, he'd refuse to admit there was anything racist about Limbaugh playing the Barack the Magic Negro song either.
If Shapiro needs some evidence of racism by the right, all he needs to do is turn on Limbaugh's show for a little while to find plenty of it, and those are just the tip of the iceberg.
