Schlessinger again blamed wives for their husbands' behavior
SUMMARY: On Hannity & Colmes, responding to criticism of remarks she made on Today, including, "[W]hen the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man ... he's very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs. And these days, women don't spend a lot of time thinking about how they can give their men what they need," Laura Schlessinger reiterated that wives of "most men who cheat" "haven't been respecting" their husbands.
On the March 12 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, conservative radio host Laura Schlessinger said that wives of "most men who cheat" "haven't been respecting" their husbands. Schlessinger was responding to criticism of remarks she made on the March 11 edition of NBC's Today, during which she said, among other things: "[W]hen the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like her hero, he's very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs. And these days, women don't spend a lot of time thinking about how they can give their men what they need." On Hannity & Colmes, Schlessinger noted that she had also said, "[I]f he's narcissistic, sociopathic, then all bets are off. ... Then he's a jerk." But when co-host Alan Colmes asked, "And aren't most men who cheat on their wives fall in that category?" Schlessinger responded, "No." Colmes pressed, "They're narcissistic? ... Or ... they're not respecting their wives?" Schlessinger replied: "No, the wives haven't been respecting them."
Schlessinger later said: "When the blogosphere and even The New York Times went crazy over [Today co-host] Meredith Vieira being aghast that I blamed, you know -- misrepresenting what I said. ... I was whining, because with me was this anthropologist who said, 'You know what? Men who have high foreheads and protruding brows have a lot of testosterone, and they're more likely to cheat.' ... Nobody commented about that, all right?" In fact, Media Matters for America noted that anthropologist Helen Fisher, who appeared on Today with Schlessinger, said of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) during the show: "Well, first of all, all you have to do is look at Eliot Spitzer and he's got very high cheekbones and a very heavy brow ridge, and those are signs of extremely high testosterone. So this is a very high-testosterone man. We know he's very aggressive, and he's also very sexual."
From the March 12 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:
COLMES: Back to -- now we are. Welcome back to Hannity & Colmes. Now, new tonight, The New York Times just reporting the identity of the escort allegedly hired by Governor Spitzer. The New York Times reporting, the woman, who goes by the name as Kirsten [sic], is 22-year-old Ashley Alexandra Dupre of New Jersey.
We're now joined by -- I'm sure this will come up, by the way -- Dr. Laura Schlessinger, author of the new book, Stop Whining, Start Living [Harper, March 2008], which we'll talk about in just a moment.
SCHLESSINGER: In the same paragraph with --
COLMES: What? What's that?
SCHLESSINGER: Never mind. Go ahead.
COLMES: All right. So you were on the -- some morning show today, right? The Today show --
SCHLESSINGER: Yesterday.
COLMES: Yesterday.
SCHLESSINGER: Yeah. Yesterday, I was Today.
COLMES: All right, and you talk about this whole incident. And you talk --
SCHLESSINGER: No, actually, I never did, and that was the point.
COLMES: Well, they asked you about it.
SCHLESSINGER: They asked me in general terms why men cheat.
COLMES: Well, let me get to that -- right. And you talked about -- let me just --
SCHLESSINGER: And I said, "I can't talk about the Spitzers" --
COLMES: Right.
SCHLESSINGER: -- "because I don't know anything about them."
COLMES: OK. But you did talk about the whole issue of cheating --
SCHLESSINGER: Yes, yes.
COLMES: -- and you said that "the wife does not focus on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him her hero" -- and those kinds of comments. You said: "The cheating was his decision to repair what's damaged and to feed himself where he is starving."
It sounded like you were making excuses for men who cheat and blaming -- and you're not hearing this for the first time -- that you're blaming the woman when a man commits adultery.
SCHLESSINGER: OK. The first part of that, which they left out, of course, was that I said, "If a man is a narcissist, a sociopath, bipolar, a number of things, all bets are off. He's a jerk." However --
COLMES: Yeah.
SCHLESSINGER: -- it is -- and you know, I was here for The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands book --
COLMES: Yes.
SCHLESSINGER: -- and we discussed this then. When women do not -- when women ignore, neglect, don't nurture, don't love, don't kiss up, don't do all those wonderful things --
COLMES: Right.
SCHLESSINGER: -- for their husbands, then we're susceptible. That doesn't mean they are not responsible for their action.
COLMES: Isn't it the jerk who treats on his wife -- doesn't the responsibility lie with that adulterer and that man who makes that decision?
SCHLESSINGER: His responsibility for cheating is his. The responsibility for mistreating her man is hers.
COLMES: And just because a man cheats does not mean he was mistreated. He could just be a horny guy who --
SEAN HANNITY (co-host): Oh, jeez!
SCHLESSINGER: As I said --
COLMES: You never heard that word before?
SCHLESSINGER: As I said, if he's narcissistic, sociopathic, then all bets are off.
COLMES: Right.
SCHLESSINGER: Then he's a jerk.
COLMES: And aren't most men who cheat on their wives fall in that category?
SCHLESSINGER: No.
COLMES: They're narcissistic?
SCHLESSINGER: No, no.
COLMES: Or they've got -- they're not respecting their wives?
SCHLESSINGER: No, the wives haven't been respecting them. And it's --
COLMES: Really?
SCHLESSINGER: -- interesting because in my book -- well, two things I want to tell you about call girls. In that book, The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands --
COLMES: You could tell me a lot more than I could tell you, probably.
SCHLESSINGER: I'm glad to hear that. But in the book, I got a letter from a call girl, an ex-call girl, who said that most of the guys are married who come to her, very rarely is it to have sex. Most of the time, it's to have some woman actually pay attention to them.
And today, they had a hooker on the Today show who was asked, "What would you suggest to a woman if she thinks her husband is seeing a hooker or having an affair?"
COLMES: Yeah.
SCHLESSINGER: And the call girl said --
COLMES: I saw that, yeah.
SCHLESSINGER: -- they should put extra effort into making their own relationship stronger and closer. So, when a hooker says that, it's OK. When I say it, I'm blaming the wife.
HANNITY: Well, sometimes the men are selfish in some cases.
SCHLESSINGER: I said that.
HANNITY: And you always say that.
SCHLESSINGER: I always add that disclaimer. A jerk is a jerk.
HANNITY: Why is it every time Dr. Laura is on this show, my face gets beet red? Every single --
SCHLESSINGER: I didn't talk about sex yet.
HANNITY: But you were about to.
SCHLESSINGER: Don't turn red.
HANNITY: You caused him to do it.
COLMES: So are you, you're here. What did I get caused to do?
HANNITY: Well, you and your -- whatever the word you used. Good grief.
COLMES: What word was that?
HANNITY: Whatever. I've got to move on to important matters with my friend, Dr. Laura. First of all, I love the book.
SCHLESSINGER: Thank you.
HANNITY: Because I think we whine too much.
SCHLESSINGER: Yes.
HANNITY: And when you whine, there is a point -- and you go through this in the book -- you can be sad; you can be miserable and upset. You give yourself, if I recall, what? Two days, and then it's time to get over it, and start living your life and don't wallow in problems, right?
SCHLESSINGER: Well, you notice the book is not entitled Don't Whine, because I think there's a certain amount of things to whine about.
HANNITY: Right.
SCHLESSINGER: When the blogosphere and even The New York Times went crazy over Meredith Vieira being aghast that I blamed, you know -- misrepresenting what I said.
HANNITY: Yeah.
SCHLESSINGER: I was whining, because with me was this anthropologist who said, "You know what? Men who have high foreheads and protruding brows have a lot of testosterone, and they're more likely to cheat."
[crosstalk]
SCHLESSINGER: Nobody commented about that, all right? I said women gotta love up their husbands. So I spent the morning after that whining.
HANNITY: You see, but I --
SCHLESSINGER: Whining over something reasonable, vents -- it gets you some compassion from your friends, which helps you calm down. It gives you some advice and suggestions, and it gives you -- gives you the opportunity to pull yourself together and think about what you're gonna do.
HANNITY: You see, I want to say something.
SCHLESSINGER: So whining as an end in itself takes away the value of life.
HANNITY: I read your books. I listen to your radio show. I think you give great advice. I think it's common sense. You know, you go through in the brand-new book here, "Treat your spouse as if you loved him or her with your last breath, no matter how contrary that you might feel at any moment."
Captain Caveman, I freakin love that cartoon.
That being said I prefer give and take with my wife. I give in on things that are important to her and less so to me, and I expect the same from her. But I will admit that on some things I get a little old fashioned about it being the mans place to decide, I guess thats a bad atitude, but I cant help it.
Jeez, why is everyone so into all this psychobabble about sex?
Instead of being pathological, or the "wife's fault," or anything else, maybe the guy just liked having hot sex with a woman who enjoyed it, too. Maybe he just didn't want to skip the opportunity.
Maybe women get horny as well? Maybe they too have simple affairs? Anyone ever think of that? Maybe men are just more honest and direct about it-- and don't try to blame others for their actions....
God, sometimes I just hate the 60's and what it's done to our culture-- all this pretentious talk talk talk.
Possibly, W.C. Fields illigitimate son (strong resemblance) would not have misstepped had he had his brains f@#$^d out on a regular basis (six times a day) by Hillary.
But, alas, it was not to be.
I completely disagree and hate it when people generalize and stereotype. Do you know how many submissive men there are out there who hire dominatrixes because their wives are TOO submissive? If you took a beginning gender class you'd know that gender roles are LEARNED and ENFORCED by members of a society/culture. Women are brought up to be submissive and men are raised to be dominant, but not everyone fits the cookie cutter mold and so many are left unsatisfied. I am a 20 something male and only like dominant, strong, and independent women and have no fantasies about women submitting to me. I only date feminists and I would easily take a girl's last name if possible. Too bad for me we live in such a patriarchal society. I don't think about the woman pleasing me a hardly at all, in fact I think about how to please the woman almost all the time and I've been this way since I was a kid, and my parents didn't cause it either because my siblings turned out 'typical.'
If dominatrix float your boat, I can't blame you. Some guys like to pay to have the crap beaten out of them.
Yeah, that makes you real progressive. LOL!
Why is MM misleading their readers?
MM: "Schlessinger again blamed wives for their husbands' behavior"
Meanwhile, Dr. Laura said, "His responsibility for cheating is his."
MM owes their readers a correction and an apology.
If this post qualifies as "conservative misinformation," it really can't be much of a problem!
That's MHO. Thank you.
Shorter August Heat: "I call myself a 'progressive,' but I don't want to give up my male privilege. Teh wimminz should bow to my dudely superiority."
Oh, and yeah, plenty of submissive guys out there. There's a whole wide world out there beyond your preferences and experiences.
LOL. You're a progressive except when it's inconvenient to you -- that is, when it interferes with your neanderthal opinions on gender. "I want to be with another woman, not someone who is as aggressive as I am." IOW, "real" women aren't aggressive. What essentialist crap.
If some posters could take off their partisan googles (I myself have a hard time removing mine) they would see she has some good points.
No, she doesn't. Laura Schlesinger is the personification of everything wrong with America.
I agree and disgree. First of all, let's get the partisan stuff out of the way first. I think "Dr." Laura is a dingbat. I've HATED this woman for a LOOOONG time. And I'm as feminist / pro-woman as men come when it comes to most issues, but particularly the issues of adultery and domestic violence. (Which I believe adultery can be considered a form of.) So bottom line? I'm no cheuvenist and I'm no sexist.
That being said... (1) Viera & co. DID exagerate/misrepresent what the "Dr." said. Controversial as it may be, she simply did not "blame women who's husbands cheat." This is a distortion. (2) She did acknowlegde than some men are simply beyond hope. I think she underestimates the NUMBER of them... but she was clear that she was talking about "some" or evem "many" cases, not "most" or "all" And (3) her theory has one indisputable point: Your OWN is the only behavior over which you have complete control. What to change something about your marriage? Starting with YOUR OWN BEHAVIOR is about the only place youe CAN start.
What I think is strange is that while she (and by proxy, right-wingers) seem to accpet this logic as it applies to a woman submitting to a man (big surprise there, right?) when the same logic is applied to FOREIGN POLICY they call it "Blame America first" and demonize it as a tool of America's "Facsist Left."
Well... same thing really... Is Afganistan/the Taliban/Al-Queda responsible for 9-11? Absolutely. But is the U.S. 100% free of blame? I doubt it. Irrational as the response (a terroist attack) may be, we pursue policies tiome and time again (esp under W") that alienate our allies, enrage our enemies and generally make us a target. And our answer to the situation? MORE bombs, MORE war, MORE death. And if that lunacy brings about another terrorist attack? MORE OF THE SAME! Why "blame America first?" BECUASE OUR OWN BEHAVIOR IS THE ONLY THING OVER WHICH WE HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL. AND ALL ACTIONS HAVE REPROCUSSIONS. ALL DECISIONS HAVE PRO'S AND CON'S.
Don't let the fact that "Dr." Laura is a raving nut-job who wouldn't know "family values" if she was adopted by them allow to accept the distortion of what little point she may have had. If the marriage is worth saving (and that's a big IF, but if it is...) her advice (in this case) is not all that bad.
(Eliot Spitzer is still nothing more than an arrogant, hypocritical criminal however. And I feel bad enough for his wife and kids that I don't think we need this kind of commentary on TV. Putting that aside, her inital quote was still distorted.)
The problem with Dr. laura-- and it's everywhere these days-- is that everything is always blameworthy. Everything is culpable.
Know why? Besides being satisfyingly moralistic, there's also big money in blame.
Oh goody! I'm just SOOOO happy to hear this from Dr. Laura, because it means that I can now step out on my husband and if I get caught, I can blame him for not satisfying my needs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be my responsibility and all that, but we know that it wouldn't have happened if he didn't mess up. I'm sure she has the same rules for wives as for husbands, since she's not a sexist or anything.
Does it strike anyone who thinks gays are undermining marriage in America that Dr. Laura is doing a much better job of it?
wzwriter, I read your posts all the time and find you usually have good points. I'm not saying women should be in the kitchen, cooking, barefoot and pregnant. I'm saying yes psychologist, sociologist and many other "ist" in the scientific community would admit women are better nurturers than men. Am I wrong so far? Women can do whatever men can do to a certain extent and men can do whatever women can do to a certain extent. We all have roles. I maintain the average man, globally, would prefer his wife know when to be submissive. I see I've offended some of the submissive men who post here. Here's an internet Kleanex. :'{ Buck up, there are plenty women out there ready and willing to dominate you!!
I maintain the average man, globally, would prefer his wife know when to be submissive.
Thank God you're here, Captain Obvious!
You should really learn how to take people's comments at face value, not base your response on petty dislikes. It is rather hypocritical that those who consider themselves most open-minded are least understanding.
And anti-feminism is a bad thing??
I never said that. But it is a conservative position, and Schlessinger is given a forum to promote her conservative misinformation here.
She can be a self-hating woman all she wants, I just think it's perfectly in line with MMFA's mission statement to call her out on nonsense like this.
You just said "self-hating", this leads me to believe that you look at anti-feminism as a negative thing. Which leads us back to my original original questions.
I can see that this is a subject we can debate, myself being of the mindset that radical feminism has harmed our society much indeed.
Pete brought up a good point yesterday in the first Schlesinger thread on this topic. Considering this is partially relevant because of the Spitzer incident, isn't Schlesinger giving him an "out", or in some small way excusing his behavior?
Which means by highlighting her words and taking them to task as MMFA is apparently doing, they are doing the exact opposite of what their mission statement says. Schlesinger is furthering a "liberal agenda" with her words, and MMFA is in disagreement?
Or is it just a way to bash her gratutiously?
Please explain what you consider the "liberal agenda".
Schlesinger is furthering a "liberal agenda" with her words
Again, please explain.
Dr. (of physiology not psychiatry) Laura has been dispensing her dime store analysis for years. On this subject area, it has always been about wives being subservient as a means to empower her and her husband. MMFA should leave this alone. It's misinformation in that it's bad information, but it's not partisan.
I continue from our other thread Tommy - she is not giving him an out. She said he is wrong. What more can she say?
This is a cause and effect conversation. I don't know her religous affiliation but she is reiterating the warnings carried in 1 Corinthians 7 (see an online Bible for reference). Spouses are accountable to each other and to God. The spouse who sexually abandons their spouse is in sin just as the spouse who commits adultry due to a lack of self control. In the eyes of God no one sin is any worse than another.
The common view of marriage in western society as it is base on theology. To others whos marriages are based on secular humanism her points will miss the mark.
I believe we agree more than we disagree. Each partner is accountable for their actions and she as much says so in her comments. I don't see where she has given anyone a pass.
Abandonment has to do not only with denial but with a lack of fulfillment. It could be relational or sexual but usually the two are connected. Nonetheless men cheat, women cheat. they are always wrong for doing that. Paul knew exactly what he was talking about when he wrote to the Corinthians almost 2000 years ago.
I stated yesterday that I didn't agre with Schlessinger on this. However, MMFA's headline on this thread is flat-iout false. They even highlighted the relevent text that disproves the headline.
Headline: Schlessinger again blamed wives for their husbands' behavior
Text within the article: His responsibility for cheating is his. The responsibility for mistreating her man is hers.
Let's stop with the sensationalistic headlines.
First of all... I AM NOT PERFECT! There... I said it! Whats more: I DON'T REALLY WANT TO BE. Liberal or not, I accept that I am not the moral pinnacle of hummanity, and I will never claim to be such. (If I did, that would make me a conservative!) ;)
Second of all... it's really nothing more than a figure of speech. Come on, man! I've never even met the woman!!! Her rhetoric does inspire an intense DISLIKE in me however. And if she only 'acted' liked a b!+c# on radio, and was in fact a really nice person (just ask her mother, why don't you?) I could have NO RESPECT for someone who sold out and causes so much HARM. So I'd still INTENSLY DISLIKE her. ("Hate" just has fewer letters and is there more easir to type and harder to misspell.) (Which is, apparently, important for me.)
So how about this... Does this work for you?...: I HATE everything I have ever heard this woman woman say (including these comments here) but I still feel that her point here is being misrepresented and/or exagerated and not being debated fairly. (Which it needs to be.)
Eddie, Your intention is duly acknowledged, But what do you mean by "sold out"?? Who did she sell out on??
You think that she causes harm?? How? She's a talk show host that helps the pathetic people in the world feel a bit better and achieve some semblance of sanity in their world. In the times i have heard her, i only noticed that she seems like a fairly nice lady and has a nice voice. PLease enlighten me, i cannot understand how she causes harm.
I am glad that you acknowledge the fact that her comments are being exaggerated, and are able to get over your "intense dislike" as to admit this.
Hey, wait a sec... Where did I say I hated her anyway? You tricked me! And I'll stand by my "repulsive" statement, thank you. Finding someone repulsive is not "incomplatible with liberalism."
Being intolrerant of intolerance is NOT hypocrasy. You'll never make any social progress at all until you accept that.
Actually in a previous post you said "I've HATED this woman for a LOOOONG time." I certainly understand how it is so much more expressive and esier to say "hate" instead of dislike. Nontheless it lends you less credibility when you perhaps later characterize your political enemies as "hateful."
I believe that the intolerance of intolerance is hypocritical to the core. Logically, if you examine the words it becomes evident that if you do not tolerate intolerance then you are yourself intolerant and are thus an object of your own intolerance.
You probably think that there is a just and conversly an unjust intolerance, but then one must wonder who is the arbiter of what is just and/or unjust intolerance? Certainly you must base it off some sort of moral code(standard), that those that break it with their intolerance are unjustly intolerant. Yet this brings to attention the generalization that most liberals consider morals relative (thus bieng able to support such things as homosexuality and other decadent behavior) so this would also apply to your moral standard. Thus, what you consider unjustly intolerant is also relative, and so another observer may consider your intolerance unjust, and conversely the [intolerant] object of your intolerance the just intolerance.
Ultimately i think that intolerance of intolerance is hypocritical no matter how you differentiate between the two. This leads me to conclude that twould be better for liberals to deny absolute tolerance.
Text within the article: His responsibility for cheating is his. The responsibility for mistreating her man is hers.
LS is insinuating that the woman "mistreated" the guy....oh puhleeze! Therefore, the cheating was the result of the mistreatment BY THE WOMAN.
Give me a break, and many of you posters are saying exactly the same thing.
Its possible that everyman alive has some sexual kink in him. You never meet Hitler I assume. Sexually he was an extreme submissive. Most of his girl friends comitted suicide. If we're all looking for that submissive girlfriend, why is a well shaped woman in black leather equiped with a whip such a popular image.
For sexual advice I recomend Dan Savage(no relation) sex columnist for the Stranger(No relation). He's advised several times that if your marrage isn't working due to sexual issues, and a failure to be GGG(Good giving and game) sexual actions outside the marrage can be legitimate.
If your not being satisfied sexually in your marriage, just do what has worked for men since we first grew our opposible thumbs and "handle" your business. I find the whole idea that this is somehow his wife's fault laughable.
I'd never fault women for not being submissive, only for not being as bright as the average woman, who only has to convince her man that he's in charge. That's all we ask, make us believe it.
Any women that don't have this worked out, Alice Kramden can school you pretty quickly.
hear, hear, COL.
It isn't even hard to fool us.
Mort Sahl on this general topic: "We men are basically not very complicated..."
Pretty much true.
If most men agree with what you're saying, I'm glad I'm single. I have better things to do than prop up the ego of some overgrown child who needs to feel he's smarter than I am and right most of the time.
Whether the wives have been respecting their husbands or not has no import here. Husbands have countless options to deal with a wife who's not his cup of tea. Infidelity is his problem, not hers. The cheating spouse is 100% to blame for the cheating they do. He's not 100% to blame for the problems in the marriage, but he is 100% responsible for the choice he makes to "solve" his problems.
"[W]hen the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man ... he's very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs."
How false. That's like saying if a man goes to a great restaurant on Monday, he won't want to go to one on Wednesday.
Life-- and men-- and women-- do not work that way. If you have a good deal, you're not going to turn down more of the same just because you have a good deal. You may for other reasons, but not because you're getting it good at home.
That's what I'm saying. It seems that regardless the situation, the man is to blame with issues of infidelity. LOL. Your short post is what I should have wrote. I wouldn't have had the League of Submissive Men so angry with me.
Part One
Sean Hannity is the epitome of phoniness. I refuse to believe that anyone (and I include children who understand English) after only one or two minutes of listening does not catch the air of insincerity. He can’t be convincing to people who listen for a half hour or an hour. For the other practitioners of this odious trade who I’ve heard, more time is needed to recognize their fraudulence—but Hannity oozes inauthenticity. RESOLVED, SEAN HANNITY IS NOT PERSUASIVE.
The reason I single out Hannity is because he is the quintessentially and perhaps uniquely unqualified professional right-wing propagandist, inherently unsuited to the job of persuading people. This is not meant as an attack on him. That has been done, rightly, a million times already. I see something through Hannity that may indicate a reason to change the paradigm of ‘the bad Rightwing leaders leading the dumb (or ignorant or crazy) Republican electorate against their own interests.’
A good con-man doesn’t seem like a confidence man from when first he opens his mouth! On the contrary, a good con-man seems sincere and puts people at ease and is confident in himself---that’s the flim-flam man’s stock in trade.
Listening to Hannity take calls I often wondered about these people’s mentality. Do they suffer from poor educations? Is it the educational system that’s failing us? But what if the people who ‘follow’ these right-wing leaders are really themselves the problem? By understanding the dynamics that exist between Hannity and his audience we may have the key to what is really going on with the Republican electorate.
His listeners want to buy what he’s selling. They don’t care about the delivery man; they crave the product Hannity serves them. HE DOESN’T OFFER THE AUDIENCE ANY VALUE ADDED, he deducts from it in fact. The reason they listen to him is to have their beliefs affirmed and to feel good about themselves, that they are in fact normal---as he adds nothing to the message. I’m asserting that the future “followers “of Hannity were thinking evil right wing thoughts before Hannity arrived to corrupt them. In other words I’m arguing Hannity (and by extension all the other Right-wing mouthpieces) is not the problem; his listeners are the problem and perhaps evil (I realize the taboo I’m breaking by judging even the leaders this harshly, never mind the “followers”.). I’m saying he’s not a pied piper leading the lemmings off a cliff. He’s more like the proverbial politician who finds a parade and runs to the front to “lead” it. The followers are really the leaders, in other words. Hannity (or more likely his coworkers) first figure out what the potential audience want to believe or do already believe, and then he just feeds it back to them. Hannity’s total lack of persuasiveness makes this dynamic discernible.
So how would this all apply to thecontinuation of previous post:
------------------------------------------
So how would this all apply to the other Rightwing propagandists? To the extent that they are better at their jobs than Hannity, of actually persuading, they would have an additive effect. Although to a lesser extent than Hannity’s listenership, I submit all of the right wing talking heads are singing to a predominantly preexisting choir and therefore have a much smaller effect on the GOP electorate than they are usually given credit for. (But they are causing blowback which is somewhat canceling their effect out.)
Part Two
But are they in fact evil, the GOP faithful? Is that a correct judgment? If they are outsiders to us, they may be acting within the moral norms of their group in the very hostility they show to us. I believe that’s the situation. The correct question as I see it is, “do we want to start thinking of them as outsiders to us?”
I left out another aspect of the audience-host dynamics regarding Sean Hannity. His Republican (or anti-Democratic Party) audience members don’t buy what he says because he says it (unpersuaded as I've said before). They already believe the things he says, even if they weren't aware consciously they did. They want to know what others listening are hearing---what the current buzz is. They are using Hannity as a way of indirectly keeping in touch with their brethren. Also they are testing the message, the drumbeat. If Hannity is the slightest bit off they will know it and see where he's wrong because they don't trust him. They then are better equipped in how to take the GOP message and the manner in which to think about it and act on it.
Have the Republicans effectively become traitors to the USA? If so, does this invalidate the claim of any among them to be the real Americans? Do the resistors have grounds to claim to be the new real Americans, regardless of ancestry or religion, supplanting the traitorous blue bloods? If the majority of us feel this way personally and generally, that perception will become reality.
I asked my wife if she would stand next to me if I ever had to admit something like this in public. She said yes.
She also said the odds were better of the bullet actually striking its target from close range.
You have to understand the mindset of this blonde bimbo. She is notoriously anti-feminist (anti-pro-choice, anti birth control -- what's a girl to do?), notoriously anti-pornography (guy ain't gettin' it, at least he can use his hand, but not if Laura has anything to say about it), and notoriously anti-gay (Bill would have made a great bisexual, but he only goes for babes). What do you have left? A right wing bigot bitch.
What goes on unsaid here, and it's America's deepest, darkest secret, is that (1) the male of our species is hard-wired for polygamy, and (2) the typical marriage, especially after the kids are grown or growing, ends up completely, or almost completely sterile; it's only natural that men have roving eyes and stray. With regard to #1, look at the biological and anthropological evidence. Our species did not survive because males were designed to be limited to one female. It's simply in our genes to play the field, and marriage is no impediment. As concerns #2, banging the same old thing night after night, week after week, month after month -- well, frankly, it gets kind of old.
Laura's problem is that no one would be remotely interested in banging her. She can't understand why the Clintons and (apparently) the Spitzers can "share." Laura is such a hopeless Christer prude she'll never figure it all out. She equates love with strangulation. She doesn't understand that if you really love someone, you have to be willing to let go. Having such limited capacity for love herself, she cannot cope with others whose capacity is grand.
I agree with those hookers, it isn't only about sex. But there's no way that Silda Wall Spitzer could have headed off this mess.
Much what makes a good marriage is the creation of a 'safe haven', a place where each partner can open up to the other without fear of rejection. There are also the many routines that partners share, from the first cup of coffee in the morning to the complicated rituals of family holidays, all of which contribute to the sense of safety and refuge. To say nothing of the children! I can't speak about the quality of the Spitzer marriage, but if Silda provided that love and support that I assume Dr. Laura is talking about, there is no way that she could have, at the same time, provided the sense of danger and the thrills of heightened adrenaline that her husband obviously craves. Whether it was the excitement of eluding security guards, bank controls, and federal investigators, or just kinky sex--I don't see how a loving wife and mother can provide it all.
I don't get this. All of these comments are personal opinions.
Why are we even bothering to comment. alpiners