Rep. Tubbs Jones to Carlson: "Get a life"
During the January 21 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, after airing a video clip of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) saying, "We are here today to say with joy and celebration that we have come so far together. You can see that on this stage as both of my distinguished friends and colleagues have said. [Sen.] Barack Obama [D-IL], an extraordinary young African-American man with so much to contribute; [former Sen.] John Edwards [D-NC], a son of the South, in fact, a son of South Carolina; and a woman -- all of us running for president of the United States of America," host Tucker Carlson said: "An extraordinary young African-American man -- just reminding voters that he's young and black. Why is she doing that?" Guest Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH), a co-chair of Clinton's national presidential campaign, responded: "You know, Tucker? Get a life! Get a life!" Tubbs Jones later told Tucker: "Don't make something out of nothing" and "don't make up something that wasn't in the speech."
During the segment, Carlson also asked: "When three of her [Clinton's] surrogates reminded America that Obama had conceded using cocaine as a young man, those weren't coordinated attacks designed to make him look like a crackhead or anything. You're going to tell me that, too?" Tubbs Jones replied, "[R]emember when the candidates got on the stage and they pleaded with their people, 'Let's get on. Let's get over this'? Why do you keep playing this record? Leave that record alone and let's move on."
From the January 21 edition of MSNBC's Tucker:
CARLSON: I want to get your take on something that Hillary Clinton said this morning. She appeared before a predominantly black audience, and at a Martin Luther King Junior celebration, and she said this. Listen.
CLINTON [video clip]: We are here today to say with joy and celebration that we have come so far together. You can see that on this stage as both of my distinguished friends and colleagues have said. Barack Obama, an extraordinary young African-American man with so much to contribute; John Edwards, a son of the South, in fact, a son of South Carolina; and a woman -- all of us running for president of the United States of America.
CARLSON: An extraordinary young African-American man -- just reminding voters that he's young and black. Why is she doing that? Why isn't she talking about what he believes and contrasting that with what she believes?
TUBBS JONES: You know, Tucker? Get a life!
CARLSON: No, you -- get a life?
TUBBS JONES: Get a life! Obama's --
CARLSON: She's --
[crosstalk]
TUBBS JONES: Let me -- you want me to answer your question?
CARLSON: He is being slaughtered among Latino voters partly because she keeps reminding them that he's black.
TUBBS JONES: Do you want me to answer your question?
CARLSON: I do.
TUBBS JONES: Tucker, you want me to answer your question? Then make way so I can answer.
CARLSON: Go ahead and answer the question, if you can.
TUBBS JONES: I can. The distinguishing factor was that there is a woman and there is an African-American. Without making the distinguishing factor, it would not be there. Don't make something out of nothing. It was a wonderful speech.
CARLSON: Uh-huh.
TUBBS JONES: I was right there standing in the corridor with the thousands of other people and Hillary delivered a slam dunk. So don't make up something that wasn't in the speech.
CARLSON: I was actually playing the tape.
TUBBS JONES: Or giving some attention -- don't give some --
CARLSON: I was playing the tape of this speech. I wonder if you're willing -- I wonder if you'd be willing --
TUBBS JONES: And don't give it --
CARLSON: I wonder if you'd be willing, Congresswoman --
TUBBS JONES: Don't give it some impression that it doesn't have. I am -- don't give it an impression it doesn't have.
CARLSON: That it doesn't have. OK.
TUBBS JONES: She merely was saying he was a young African-American man, and it's true.
CARLSON: Uh-huh. Right. So when her surrogates -- when --
TUBBS JONES: And I'm a young African-American woman, and glad to be young and African-American.
CARLSON: When three of the surrogates, Congresswoman -- if I could just slide a question in here. When three of her surrogates reminded America that Obama had conceded using cocaine as a young man, those weren't coordinated attacks designed to make him look like a crackhead or anything. You're going to tell me that, too?
TUBBS JONES: You know what? Tucker.
CARLSON: Congresswoman.
TUBBS JONES: Remember the candidates got on the stage -- wait a minute, let me answer your question, darn it.
CARLSON: I am.
TUBBS JONES: Now, remember -- remember when the candidates got on the stage and they pleaded with their people, "Let's get on. Let's get over this"? Why do you keep playing this record? Leave that record alone and let's move on.
CARLSON: I'm wondering then -- since you're --
TUBBS JONES: That's what Martin Luther King would say.
CARLSON: OK.
TUBBS JONES: He would say keep your eye on the prize.
CARLSON: Keep your eye -- well, it depends what prize --
TUBBS JONES: I'm excited. I think it's wonderful.
CARLSON: It depends what prize your eyes are on. Let me -- since you're in a spirited mood, I've always wanted to ask.
TUBBS JONES: The prize is the presidency.
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Maybe he got a second life?
He's getting crazier and crazier, too. Just a few minutes ago he compared usury laws "to slavery." I'm not making this up....
All those guys at MSNBC have some big problems. It ain't just Matthews. Olbermann's no peach, either.
Apparently you two missed the squabbling, the finger pointing, the interrupting, the slings, the arrows, the accusations and the bad blood between Clinton and Obama during last night's debate.
Or was that just that darn media again?
As anyone who has read my posts knows, I like Obama alot, but I must say that I was a little disappointed in him last night. He did veer off topic initially when they were discussing fiscal responsibility and immediately provoked Hillary into addressing the "Reagan" comments, it was not the topic yet he wanted to get into it.........after that, it all went downhill, at least on occasion.
It's obvious neither likes the other, or at least it looks that way - and they were both a little personal and off the subject when it suited their talking points. It was neither one of their better nights, in my opinion.
You have a problem with that?
They hadn't even taken place when he made his comments.
He was talking about something the candidates have clearly put behind them.
Are you even serious Johnny?
Yeah, they were going to put it all behind them, but that truce lasted maybe all of 2 minutes. Forget the debate. Were you asleep last week when they were in Nevada?
The bickering back & forth between Obama & Clinton never stopped.
Stop blaming just the media. Obama & Clinton deserve just as much of the blame
I like Obama, and believe he would/will make a great president.
The same goes for Hillary, and even John Edwards.
They are all good people, and their ideas are similar. Most importantly, their ideas are the polar opposites of Bush and the GOP candidates for president.
I love Obama's message of HOPE, but it's not enough. In my opinion, anything that brings the discussion over from sunny HOPE and into the nuts and bolts of campaigning on ISSUES, that's GOOD. And that includes the candidate's RECORDS, and whatever QUOTES they may have said along the way. Addressing THOSE things is good for democracy, and adds reality beyond a simple ... but SIMPLISTIC ... message of HOPE and CHANGE.
These guys are COMPETITORS. They wish to WIN (true of ALL politicians over ALL time -- nothing nefarious about ambition). To WIN, there has to be contrast, differences on which voters can base their decision. Who stands up best under pressure? Who has the better grasp of FACTS? Who makes charges which are the most VALID? How well do they ANSWER charges?
THIS kind of exchange tells voters more than any great speech about HOPE and COOPERATION ever would. Nothing wrong with such speeches, they just lack SUBSTANCE and GRIT (which I consider necessary to politics).
And THIS is where the MEDIA steps in. They stoke the fires of conflict that don't EXIST in the campaigning. They inject RACE and GENDER, they MISINTERPRET comments made about issues or character as instead being about RACE. They "interpret" passion as rage, they hype disagreement into mortal combat. The viewer sees normal campaigning, yet the media tells you you're watching "cutthroat anger" and tempers that are "over the top" and "out of control". It's not THERE, but they TELL you that's what you're seeing. They tell you that "if this keeps up, the Democrats will wrest defeat from the jaws of victory." What YOU see as lively debate, THEY portray as behavior capable of destroying the entire PARTY, and will bring on certain DEFEAT! Such HYPERBOLE! Such horsecrap!
As a Democrat, watching my guys disagree and challenge one another is sometimes uncomfortable, but I feel it tells me more about the candidates than if they were lock-step buddy-buddy.
What I truly RESENT is being told what I'm seeing, being told what to THINK about what I'm seeing, and being told what it MEANS ... by a Media that is invested in bringing down the Democrats and promoting midget GOPers. Their "interpretations" bear no resemblance to what I'm seeing.
For example, Obama said THIS: "I think it’s fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last ten, fifteen years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."
To ME, a VOTER, this sounded like (1) praise for Republicans, (2) an insult, snub, and discounting of Democrats since 1990 (to include Bill Clinton's 2 terms), and (3) FACTUALLY AND HISTORICALLY INACCURATE. To my thinking, Obama NEEDED TO CLARIFY what he said. Did he MEAN it, or did he mean something different from what he actually SAID? And is his explanation sincere and believable?
Quite simply, if he MEANT what he said, AS HE SAID IT, I could never VOTE for him. IT'S THAT IMPORTANT!
And he explained himself in the debate, correcting the understandable misconception that he had admiration for Republican's "ideas." He said, "I never said they were GOOD ideas!"
Hillary and Bill were MOST JUSTIFIED in raising the question, and Obama truly needed to set the record to what he MEANT. (He also said he "fought HARD against Reagan's policies" ... this is what I want to hear!)
The viewer can process all this without Media interference and interpretation. It was a good an lively debate. It was NOT the end of the world. And it was not the GLOBAL WWF SMACKDOWN the Media portrayed in their hysterical and breathless recountings.
Tex, you have stated my case exactly. I saw the exchange (from the debate) for myself (sans interpretation) and thought, I'm glad Obama wasn't really advocating for Reagan. In fact I'm glad that both HRC and Obama got that out. My interpretation was the same as yours and Hillary's. That Obama was praising Reagan and his policies. That would have been a deal breaker for me too. So they fought a bit. I didn't see any great hatred on Hillary's face or Obama's face. It was good to get stuff out in the open. I think they DO respect each other and could be quite complimentary as running mates.
In short I prefer to see the exchanges and just interpret the stuff for myself. I don't need any pundit telling me what I just saw. I never really understood why those guys are on at the end of a debate to tell you what you just saw. It's pathetic. I especially don't need a light weight like little Tuck telling me anything at all.
He was commenting on an issue the candidates put behind them.
So yeah, he gets the blame for being a dead ender conservative, which is exactly what he is.
I said they fuel controversies.
Carslon is bringing things up that were apologized for and both camps are trying, with the emphasis on trying, to move beyond.
If that isn't fueling a controversy I don't know what is.
Three cheers for Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones:
Hip-Hip - HOORAY!!!!
Hip-Hip - HOORAY!!!!
Hip-Hip - HOORAY!!!! :-)
I'm lucky in one sense - the two representatives from my city are Kuchinich and Tubbs-Jones.
Now if we just can get a competent mayor...
She gave him a good ass kicking!
I'd like to know when it became verboten for two candidates for the same office to argue over things like who is most qualified and who has the values which most closely connect to the great mass of party members and American citizens as a whole.
I'm frankly getting sick of the media screaming bloody murder because Hillary and Barack aren't hugging and kissing and throwing roses at eachother on a daily basis. They are running for President, for Christ's sake. Let the voters decide if they are going "too far." Judging from the turnout so far, the voters don't seem to mind all that much.
Of course, if Hillary and Barack stop arguing, the media will gin up something for them to argue about, because it feeds on conflict. Then it attacks conflict. Then it gins up conflict again. Whatever happened to the media just REPORTING THE NEWS?
Considering the fact that much of the mainstream media is becoming more and more irrelevant every day - major newspapers are losing circulation, major network news coverage is far less than it once was; things like political conventions are barely covered at all when they used to be 3-4 hours nightly......now it's basically their evening newscasts and they are a fraction of what they used to be.
All that as the non-mainstream media outlets grows by leaps and bounds, the internet primarily - and the infusion of talk radio and the cable news channels, which despite your characterization are not part of the "mainstream media"........then all your blustering about the evils of the corporate mainstream media resonates with most as nothing more than a wimper, or a whine, either one.
What's more mainstream than Time/Warner (CNN), NBC (MSNBC) or News Corp (Fox News Channel)?
Or the NY Times, (circulation drop), the LA Times (more drops), CNN, (viewership down), MSNBC (same), CBS, NBS, ABC, (evening newscasts down)
Fox has increased because.......? I don't know??, could it be because they don't parrot every other liberal media outlet?
I report, You decide. :)
Tommy knows, but will not tell you, that on the MOST WATCHED evening of "news" ... election night ... the Networks will have over 40 million viewers while his "ratings champion" FOX has just under 8 million.
Now, 8 million viewers is nothing to sneeze at, but if comparing SUCCESS and IMPACT to "the networks", calling FOX a big winner and super popular is not reflected in the numbers.
FOX is the choice of only ONE in FIVE viewers, and while significant, it nowhere NEAR justifies Tommy's praise. FOX's audience are a small minority, and Tommy knows it.
The evening newscasts still dwarf the competition in terms of ratings. Their problem is their audience is getting older but so is O'Reilly's.
Also, the NY Times sets the daily agenda with their news coverage. Just look at how much time the outlets you name including Fox spend trying to rebut the stories covered in the Times. They do that because the Times is still the paper of record and they know it.
TOMMY SAYS: "I will give you how the ultra liberal NY Times reports and the rest of the press follows..."
Since Tommy believes the NY Times is following an "ULTRA-LEFT" agenda, I wonder how he explains:
* an eight year obsession with a non-story, Whitewater?
* burying the lead on the Consortium Report, claiming Bush actually "won", when deeper in the story it explains that by ANY complete count of all legal and valid votes in Florida, AL GORE WON?
* taking the lead on promoting the WAR in IRAQ, acting as virtual stenographers for the Bush Administration?
* Ignoring such stories as the Downing Street memo?
The NY Times has been carrying water for Republicans and NeoCons for over a decade now. I wonder why Tommy considers this to be "ultra-liberal"?
Also, don't forget - the "uber-liberal" New York Times sat on the story that Bush and company were illegally wiretapping U.S. citizens (and by illegally, I mean Bush pointed out well before this broke that he had to get court orders to do wiretaps).
They sat on that story, which they knew about well before the 2004 election, which would have exposed the lengths that the Republicans were willing to go to destroy the Constitution, and would probably have defeated Bush in November. Yet they waited until well into 2005 to report what they knew in early 2004. Yeah ... ultra-uber-liberal ...
And then the New York Times also admits that the Bush administration was doing the wiretaps long before 9/11/2001, despite their using the excuse of 9/11 ... I guess that really worked out in stopping terrorism ... must have been tapping Bill Clinton to see if he was complimenting a woman on her hair ...
"non-mainstream media outlets grows by leaps and bounds, the internet primarily - and the infusion of talk radio and the cable news channels"
The more they grow and the more people they attract, the more "mainstream" they get.
Uhh . . . "talk radio": did you forget Clear Channel, whom I have blasted numerous times in this forum, for promulgating Hate-Wing talk at the expense both of ratings and advertisers - cancelling high-rated alternatives in order to install a Rushbo or Insannity even for advertisers aiming at college kids (who would have likely as not preferred a little taste of the cancelled Air America, as demonstrated by the steep decline in subsequent ratings.) But, since the advertisers bought "packages" of exposure, the bottom line for CC was unaffected. CC is currently one of those "Big Five" Corps who manufacture, package, and deliver all that "content". (Since I am NOT using human waste for fertilizer, I have little use for any of that "content".) Insofar as the blogogsphere is concerned, that was the real heart of this issue which you dismiss: the very same "Big Five" are working hard to institute "controls" or tiered pricing for content - the actual antithesis of "Net Neutrality" - and are so brazen as to attempt to pass some of that crap under the very name "Net Neutrality".
Good points, JJamelle. I watched a lot of the debate, and there were some moments that were bugging me.
Obama's explanation for his "present" votes sounded plausible( a strategy for not approving the current state of a bill, while not outright rejecting it, according to Obama common in Illinois), and Edwards seemed to go almost Hannity in ignoring the explanation while continuing to question Obama on it.
Then again, I wasn't up there on that stage, and competing for the nomination, so I can't say how aggressive I would have been.
I am finding the media's descriptions of the two parties' respective competing candidates interesting. While the Dems are accused of squabbling, attacking, having the wheels fall off, most reports on the GOP candidates seem to be about "a lot of fight", "passion", and great debate and healthy disagreement.
These cable guys don't know how to do news. Just gossip, speculation and sensationalism. Hyperbolic renditions of the most mundane stuff expertly cropped, chopped and diced into unrecognizable bits to spoon feed to the masses.
God forbid they accurately inform anybody. In fact after they have gotten done cooking the stories, the whole mess then has to be pieced together again to figure out the truth. They report (and waste your time), you spend twice that time getting the real facts if you're so inclined. If not, then you're just misinformed. Bad for you, bad for the country, but good for corporate toadys and their masters.
It's never been harder to get to the facts despite this information explosion.
These people are after heat more than light since that's where the ratings and the profits are.
They report (and waste your time), you spend twice that time getting the real facts if you're so inclined.
I read about a study that asked people how many hours of TV news they watched per week, and then they were asked 33 questions about current events. Those that watched the most TV answered fewer questions correctly.
The more you watch, the less you know.
"Whatever happened to the media just REPORTING THE NEWS?"
Profit. That's what happened. 60 minutes marked the beginning of the end for TV news. News used to be a public service that the networks performed for the people that was not sold to the highest bidder. But then 60 minutes came along and revolutionized the concept of televised news turning a profit, and it's been downhill ever since.
That is CORRECT... - These are the Primaries where Bush VS. McCain was much uglier than this. This is a no holds barred contest for the most important office on the planet Earth.
I like them all. Hillary, Obama, and Edwards too. On balance Obama's strategy seems more truth based while, Hillary and Bill are being just a little less that truthful.
Example:
Hillary WAS indeed on the Wal-Mart Board - - But it was a stretch to link Obama to Slum Lords. He worked just 10 minutes for a CHURCH, that was affiliated with a Slum Lord kind of business. Edwards was clearly the one who benefited from the Hillary/Obama squabbling.
Media just Reporting the News? - - I recommend "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" - Otherwise you're going to get slanted Opinions, Bias and even intentionally delivered false information.
SAM'S COMPUTER:
Don't want to nit-pick, but YES, Hillary DID work for Wal-Mart. True, but so what? Where's the shame?
Also, Obama DID admit he worked for the slumlord. He explained it was brief and convoluted, but did not deny it. Where's the shame THERE?
Ultimately, the voter will decide, but to say Obama had a better "point" and more honest, is to say Wal-Mart is worse than a convicted slumlord. That's a hard point to justify, IMO.
(Neither "connection" is a deciding factor in support or non-support of these candidates, but it adds context to note that Obama chose to "draw first blood" ... he brought it up. And he got smacked back, not attacked.)
So MMFA posts stuff now that makes the conservative appear more mature and thoughtful -- and Tucker Carlson, no less.
Stop giving red meat to Oreilly and Limbaugh and stop posting frivolous stories like this.
Breaking misinformation; Rep. Tubbs jones tells Tucker Carlson To "get a life"!
MediaMatters has repeatedly noted that Carlson in fact does have a life. He has been seen going home from his show, drinking coffee, and socializing with other humans. They say he's the 'life' of every party. One of our undercover operatives has even witnessed him with a female!
FIN:
Are you aware of any class I might take to understand rightwing "humor" better? I don't get it, and it's frustrating. I want to laugh, too! Help!
So, Fin, it's not that your attempt at humor is an absolute incomprehensible failure, it's that those who don't get it have hatey-hearts towards you?
That victim mentality, blame everyone else for your problems is what's been killing conservatism for years.