Bill O'Reilly has been using his own Big Lie theories ever since the Arizona shootings to try and promote the nonsense that it's the left that actually uses excessive and vile rhetoric much more than the right. You see up is down and red is green in the No Spin Zone. Here's his TPM from the other day.
President Obama's approval ratings are going up, eight points in the last few weeks, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll that says 53 percent of Americans now say the president is doing a good job.
Some of that improvement at least can be traced to the president's speech last week calling for more civility in the public debate. Americans like that, but apparently the committed left has not gotten the message.
On Wednesday, the House voted 245 to 189 to repeal Obamacare. The debate was intense, as it should be. But some far-left people got nasty, defying their leader, Mr. Obama:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ANTHONY WEINER, D-N.Y.: I want to just advise people watching at home playing that now-popular drinking game of you take a shot whenever Republicans say something that's not true, please assign a designated driver. This is going to be a long afternoon.
REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE, D-TEXAS: This bill is constitutional and it protects the constitutional rights of those who ask the question, "Must I die? Must my child die because I am now disallowed from getting insurance."
ED SCHULTZ, MSNBC HOST: The Republicans basically, as I see it, have a pre-civil rights attitude when it comes to health care. They want to openly discriminate against people because they are sick.
REP. STEVE COHEN, D-TENN.: They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie, just like Goebbels. You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie and eventually people believe it, like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing. The Germans said enough about the Jews and the people believed it and you had the Holocaust.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
"Talking Points" submits that most Americans, including Democrats, do not respect rhetoric like that. We've been studying the right-wing opposition to Obamacare and basically it is policy driven, that government-run health care is an intrusion on freedom, will run up the debt and will be chaotic. That's pretty much what the Republican Party is putting out there. Once in a while, a far-right bomb-thrower in the media will make the health care debate personal, but that's not very common.
So what is President Obama to do with his left flank? He needs them in 2012, as many independent voters have abandoned him. The far left can also raise a lot of money for Mr. Obama. But there is no question that uber-liberals have been marginalized in this country, largely because of their hateful talk. The Arizona murder case proved that beyond a reasonable doubt.
The question is: Can President Obama control the far left? So far he hasn't even tried to, as far as we can see. Cindy Adams in the New York Post reported that the president did bring in some far-left people for a secret meeting in the White House, so maybe that was on the agenda, but who knows? I do, however, know this: In the end, the far left will hurt Barack Obama.
And that's "The Memo."
You'd have to have watched him all week to know how he's set up his Big Lies, but in essence it's that the left is to blame for the polluting the political discourse in America and the left that uses much more violent rhetoric than the right. Also, right-wing opposition to Obamacare is policy driven, that government-run health care is an intrusion on freedom, will run up the debt and will be chaotic. That's pretty much what the Republican Party is putting out there. Once in a while, a far-right bomb-thrower in the media will make the health care debate personal, but that's not very common. Lies don't count like "death panels" and IRS agents coming to your door to throw you in jail if you don't buy health insurance.
Since Bill kept off the air all the insane things that were being spewed by the right from his network and from GOP politicians, how would his audience know?
And Bill tells his peeps that it's only the result of Obama's well received Arizona speech that has his poll numbers rising when that also false. His rise started after the midterms and has continued every since. His speech obviously helped.
At 47%, his latest approval rating is also near the top of the 41% to 48% range within which it has varied since August
.
Here's more polling results from Real Clear Politics.
The right is trying to make Rep. Cohen out to be an incessant flame thrower, but how many of you have ever even heard of the man before this week? Bill is also trying to make the case that the base of the Democratic Party is hurting Obama because they refuse to move to the right.
Laura Ingraham came on next and brought up the immigration battle under George Bush between the right wing talkers, Malkinites and moderate politicians of the GOP. Bill promotes another Big Lie when he says Americans didn't hold any animus towards Mexicans during the heated immigration debate, they just didn't like the bill. if one thing was certain it was that the conservative movement didn't like the bill because they didn't like Mexicans all that much. Karl Rove tried to woo them with immigration reform, but Conservatives wouldn't go for it.
