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Christine O’Donnell and Me
I knew Christine O’Donnell as an ideologue of uptightness -- with a
fervent position on every issue under the sun. I saw her up close
when we debated during one of her several Phil Donahue show
appearances in 2002-03 on MSNBC, where I worked as an on-air
contributor and Donahue senior producer.
Like Sarah Palin, O’Donnell has that dangerous mix of arrogance and
ignorance. Years before there was a Tea Party to put her in orbit,
O’Donnell was already adept at blending paranoia about Democrats
with blind faith in religious and market fundamentalism.
But even in the dark days of Bushmania eight years ago, I could not
have foreseen this foe of masturbation
and friend of for-profit healthcare as a serious U.S. senate
contender.
During a Donahue discussion on the rumor that Bill Clinton might
host a syndicated daytime TV talkshow, O’Donnell’s opposition went
beyond her complaint that it’s “so undignified”:
O’DONNELL: One reason I care is because it’s also a threat to our
national security.
DONAHUE: How’s that?
O’DONNELL: You mentioned what is he going to do when the ratings
start to fall? Well, he’s got access to classified information
that Anna Nicole Smith [then hosting a TV show] does not . . . So do
you really think the networks are going to sacrifice ratings for the
sake of not revealing information that he has?
After acknowledging that she “would certainly be a guest” on a
Clinton talkshow, O’Donnell repeated her fear about “this classified
data that he will have access to and that he will bring to the
discussion.” It was so embarrassing that a fellow guest critical of
a Clinton show had to chime in: “He’s not going to reveal state
secrets on the show!”
In our joint appearance on Donahue in November 2002, a panel
debated big and small news, including the Michael Jackson
baby-dangling incident. “Perhaps one thing they can do is revoke his
passport,” she said, suggesting a Big Government approach.
Ironically, given the state of her race today, she expressed hope
that Al Gore would be the 2004 Democratic nominee because he was
somehow unelectable in the general election: “So let him be your
front man, Democratic Party. And you guys will lose for sure.”
O’Donnell was a Tea Party candidate way before the party started --
with a faux-populism quick to defend corporate interests. Years
before the battle over Obamacare, she was already steeped in
obstruction and fear of change.
O'DONNELL: And why do we want universal health care?
COHEN: I guess you're not one of the 40 million people that has no
health insurance, are you?
O'DONNELL: Because -- No, actually I don't have health insurance
right now.
COHEN: And you think that's a good thing?
O'DONNELL: I pay out of my own pocket right now.
COHEN: We're the only advanced industrial country that does not have
health care.
O'DONNELL: Let me tell you. I would rather pay out of my own pocket
than have to wait two hours for some shoddy doctor to give me a
misdiagnosis. . . And pay more than half my wages in taxes to cover
this. It's ridiculous.
COHEN: We're the wealthiest country in the world and we've got 40
million people without health insurance. There's no advanced
industrial country that has that.
O'DONNELL: And throwing money into something like is not going to
help.
When she appeared on Donahue shows, O’Donnell represented The
Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth (SALT) -- the youth group
opposing pre-marital sex and intra-marital masturbation that she was
apparently still associated with last year.
On one episode, she repeatedly equated nudity with pornography.
On another show, she belittled an obesity suit against McDonald’s as
frivolous (“what I want to know is, did the lawyer go to her or did
she go to the lawyer?”), but O’Donnell famously and somewhat
capriciously sued a rightwing nonprofit ex-employer for $6.9
million for wrongful termination.
In normal times, it would be hard to believe that a religious
fundamentalist like Christine O’Donnell could be a triumphant major
party nominee for U.S. senate. With the rise of Palin and Beck above
their hordes of fearful and energized followers, these are clearly
not normal times.
48 Comments so far
Show AllI do believe this should be a win for the democrats, but I still think that the Democrats in Delaware should not take this too lightly. This election year has been weird and anything can happen.
Also the only way democrats will win this year is because of these extreme candidates. We need to thank the Tea Party for these candidates. If it were not for them it would be a clean sweep for the Republicans.
gnken
If Glenn Beck can rise to great fame and be supported by very rich corporate Americans (Rupert Murdoch), dont be too sure that Candidate Coons would win in Delaware.
Another vote for a damn Democrat because of fear of a Republican loony?
Tony Vodvarka
It's good to vote AWAY from the two parties, but it's important not to pick an independent loony either.
Let her have her fun, Gridlock will be good for the next two years. After all Liberman is still there and McSame, whats another nut in the nut house. Let'em rant as long as they can't get togther and mess up our country for the next two years.
>^^<
Don't worry, Jeff. She's not really a "serious U.S. Senate contender". She rode a wave of ignorance and misguided anger to the nomination; her "victory" will be short-lived. Any Republican anywhere near the ideological center will avoid her like a pack of skunks and vote for ABO.
Oye Sancho sez: "Any Republican anywhere near the ideological center will avoid her like a pack of skunks and vote for ABO."
***
There hasn't been a Republican near the ideological center since the Eisenhower administration. OK, maybe a couple of dead-enders in the Nixon years.
I look forward to the spate of articles and commentary -- all expressing shock, surprise and dismay -- that will follow her election in November.
Seems to me that this is a trend and that it's much bigger than one fundamentalist wack-job winning a primary. There is a trend in this country of fearfulness and reactionary voting that seems to be ascendant. Perhaps it's due to all the AM radio demagoguery or perhaps it's due to the fear of losing something we never really had or perhaps it's the fear of finally having to honestly face who we are as a people. In any event, the ill-wind that is blowing in this country is not a one-off, it is a deep strain and we will be dealing with this for a long time to come.
IMO, running away from it is not an option - we may as well run away from our children and tell them they're on their own. We must confront our fears and then understand the fear and anger that is running wild across the land.
The Tea Party is not an anomaly, it is a reaction to hundreds of years of denial and abuse. The better we understand the reaction (which we share), the better we can lead our nation in another direction.
Actually Ted I see this disturbing trend you note as stemming from the ascendence of Ronald Reagan.
After the disillusionment and confusion of the 70's this guy...sponsored by very wealthy backers...came along and said it was good to be greedy...good to be selfish. I heard people say things publicly they would have been ashamed to admit when I was young. He moved people away from the notion of there being a common weal. Selfishness wasn't only Ok now...it was a good thing! If we all just think of our own interests everyone will benefit.
This is Chicago-school lunacy...and I agree it will be infecting this country for some time to come.
GENERAL & TED: You both raise compelling valid points; and yet I think you minimize the message being delivered from rightwing Christian churches all across the land, primarily in the South.
The idea of unselfishness has been reversed not just by Reagan, but by churches that tell their flocks that it is God's will that they prosper. The old Calvinistic premise that if you're doing well you prove God's favor has been regenerated.
So churches have been pushing a very materialistic agenda, disguised as a religious tenet.
It's the same with war. By teaching their congregations that there IS a holy war going on, and that God is on the side of the Christians, what should be the onus against killing is removed.
I live in the Bible belt, and even when I enter a bookstore, the Christian titles are on prominent display. Things like, "God Wants You To Be Rich." And I see young kids of both genders wearing gold crosses suspended from their naive necks signing up to go to Iraq (or now Afghanistan) because they think this is a holy war!
Religious entities have removed the taboo against greed, and thus anesthetized the sentiment that "the love of money is the root of all evil." Similarly, they have also disabled the conscience of far too many souls... by turning the act of killing into a demonstration of fealty to the "one true" god.
This stuff is spreading through our military, especially the Air Force; and it's deeply troubling that a man who profits from the murder of others (Erick Prince) can call himself a Christian.
There are over 50 million Evangelical Christians, many of which believe in End Times and think it is God's will that this world be terminated. They are a strong voting block, and they are pushing their candidates into influential positions.
They don't understand what democracy means because fundamentalist teachings are by their very nature, authoritarian and intolerant towards diversity or heaven forbid, actual liberty!
As the lords of mammon murder ecosystem after ecosystem, leave countries bludgeoned, they move on to do yet more unspeakable damage... while the choirs sing.
If angels could die, the heavens would now become a cemetary.
SR
Thanks for the comment. I live in the Peoples' Republic of Vermont and it's easy for me to forget what it's like in other parts of the country. I visited the South several years and was astonished at how prominent religious nonsense was everywhere...billboards, sidewalk preachers, etc. It's all something I saw through when I was around 12 and it's very difficult for me to understand how seemingly rational adults can be taken in by such obvious foolishness.
The most important part of chronic republican candidate O'Donnell's campaign is the way the republican establishment (Rove and Co.) have been attacking her.
This media pretension is to reinforce her image as an "outsider". Nothing more, nothing less. It is very clever and is going to get her more votes.
The thing which will likely put her in office though is that she more accurately represents the democrat's objectives also.
The tea party movement is essentially a creation of corporate funding and corporate media promotion, an illusion of a social movement created to move the political discussion further to the right.
Yup.
For 30 years the Democrats have been racing ever rightward in an effort to ideologically catch the Republicans. And just as the hunt seems completed and the parties merged, the entire herd must lace 'em up and resume the chase after this new kid on the block.
If you think it's that simple, your in for a big surprise, and you won't like it.
>^^<
Oh dear! Has any one located the bathtub yet for the drowning? I don't want to miss it.
I'm surprised no commentator has resurrected the term "Know Nothings" to describe the tea party group. They obviously deserve that appelation.
Jim Shea
They tried to write off Hitler too.... just saying.
>^^<
Keep on listening to the DNC. Keep on misreading what this is.
What a bunch of gossip mongering. Is she what the author says? As far as I know yes. Is she representative of the majority behind this surge, Not hardly.
That shark is about to swim up on the shore and do exactly what was suggested in "Jaws"
In Edward O'Conner's novel The Last Hurrah, an old-time Boston politician told a story about a politician whom the press disliked. Reporters destroyed the fellow's chances of being elected by quoting him accurately.
If the press today quotes O'Donnell and others like her accurately, it will be interesting to find out in November if the "majority behind this surge" will hold their noses and vote for them.
Of course, the implication in O'Connor's story is that the public actually listens to what politicians say. I wonder.
Well they didn't listen to Obomber,,, think they learned their lesson? I don't.
>^^<
calling people names - is not cute - just immature
You know, maybe if Obama would do something right and not wrong we wouldn't be this pissed off.
Check out Bradblog, today. The electronic machines used for voting mean that there is NO way to prove that she was actually voted for. According to the absentee ballots, she would have lost by a fairly decent amount. In fact, but exactly the same amount that her opponent lost be. It would be EASY to just have the machines flip the votes to the opposite, and since there is NO way to check into the actual results, no one would EVER know.
Alvin Greene is another case. NO way to prove that this guy even got ONE vote, let alone won the primary. This stinks like a dead fish. Like a LOT of dead fish.
What makes this even scarier is that these are the same machines they will be "voting" on in November. So it's very possible that this nut case, out to lunch for decades woman could end up in the house, doing damage until those damned machines are removed from service.
I worked with computers for about 10 years. I know how easy it is to make it say one thing and to record another. The "paper trail" crap is so easy to fake it's just unbelievable. I doubt for a heartbeat that there has been a fair and legal election since they showed up. I will never forget the head of Diebold saying in 2004 that it was his job to deliver the state of Ohio to George W Bush. How much clearer of an admission of guilt would one REALLY need other than that? His job SHOULD have been to deliver the fairest, most accurate elections possible to the American PUBLIC.
But you can bet that we got nothing of the sort. And we won't until we get rid of these damned machines. Paper ballots with hand counting has been good enough for us for hundreds of years, and it's harder to screw with than computers are. So it takes longer, I can wait for the truth.
Public financing of all elections, no more computers for voting, elimination of the idea of corporate personhood and we MIGHT have a chance at a real country again.
O'DONNELL: I pay out of my own pocket right now.
Well, Christine, did it ever occur to you that if you were not forced to pay for your own health insurance with its artificially inflated premiums, perhaps you wouldn't have found yourself in the financial mess that apparently you were in?
This woman is so unbelievably stupid. It's astounding to listen to her share her deeply held convictions on these topics that most normal people just don't think about, like the pros and cons of masturbation. I mean, seriously, is this the most important issue? The morality of jerking off? It's creepy to even think about, and I find it hard to believe that conservatives out there care so much about other people's masturbatory habits... I mean, WTF?
So, wow, this is where we are at as a nation. Instead of a mass movement to purge corporations from the political process, to save the world's ecosystem from certain catastrophe, to promote a more just and peaceful foreign policy, to bring the troops home from our numerous foreign adventures, to promote full employment in the USA with a living wage, we have this... an anti-masturbation crusader and her adoring throngs of teabagger nutjobs.
The USA is finished if this is the kind of politician Americans want to run the country. Even if she loses in the general election, it's a sad state of affairs that she has made it this far... and I shudder to think what this Delaware race is going to be like. (Republicans: Masturbation is BAAADD!!! Democrats: Masturbation should be safe, legal and rare...)
"Perhaps it's due to all the AM radio demagoguery or perhaps it's due to the fear of losing something we never really had or perhaps it's the fear of finally having to honestly face who we are as a people."
The only thing we have to fear,
...is the kind of thinking endemic to progressivism evidenced here so clearly by Jeff Cohen. Namely, the preference for distraction by narrowing the focus of an issue to personal character traits etc.
What is the real issue Cohen won't be talking about?
It's the fact the he and other progressives, liberals etc. have absolutely no argument or recourse to counter the effect tea partiers are playing in the pull to the right.
It's the fact that with the now obvious and growing more obvious by the day failing of capitalism, there won't be any "New Deal" in the offing--even if the Democrats/progressives/liberals tried it--which they won't.
It's the fact the tea partiers are the not unexpected result of a political vacuum--a vacuum created and carefully maintained by the likes of Jeff Cohen and other progressives, liberals and the rest of the fake left.
A political vacuum where "In the Delaware contest, for example, less than 58,000 votes were cast across the entire state" and "reported this week by the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, that for the first time since the 1930s, participation in Republican primaries exceeds participation in Democratic primaries."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/pers-s16.shtml
It's the simple fact that capitalism is going down the toilet and taking progressivism, liberalism and the rest of the fake left with it. In fact, Cohen should have titled this piece, "Doodoo and Me"
The right has created the Frankenstein monster. Christine O'Donnell is a Tea Bagger Palin clone down to the red blazer and hair. Try controlling Sarah clones once they take office. The real Republican party, billionaire big money, sees trouble on the horizon. The real Republican party has played with fire and has been burnt - Delaware, Alaska, Utah, Nevada. The real Republican party, who uses the votes of the easily led by FOX, is about to get real and reasonable really fast. Their Rovian think tanks see trouble down the road getting Tea Baggers to blindly follow directives. The big money interest could lose control of their traditional voters! Who knows what Tea Bagger demagogues will preach? Who knows what tribute they will demand?
The chickens have come home to roost. It all started years ago with courting the Christian right over abortion. In 2008 it cost them Romney. Things are spinning out of control as we speak. Billionaires will be taking steps to remain in control of this country. Lucky for them they have a back up plan. They may just throw some more money at corporate Democrats. These Tea Baggers are too scary for billionaires!
Well if Washington would stop poking the voters with sharp sticks (TARP, Corporate-bailouts, Obama-Care, Unemployment, Poverty) for awile,, even 6 months. I'd bet the american sheeple would forget all about the tea-party and being so upset at our gov'mnt.
But they Can't seem to knock it off. Every week we get news about more people out of work, more dead in the wars, more trouble with the economy. Just sharp sticks in the eyes of the sheeple.. And they have the nerve to wonder why the sheeple are revolting with blood in their eyes.
>^^<
I think we should all vote republican in November.
Give them enough rope........
Then in 2 years hopefully
the scales will fall from our eyes.
The republicans will be out
in the wilderness for a long long time.
The only political comment
my grandfather ever made was
"that to vote conservative you have to have something to conserve"
(he meant money, not social matters)
If this is true
and given the economy,
how come republicans do well when the economy is poor
when all they talk about is
cutting taxes for the rich
cutting services for the poor.
Has the american electorate
drank gallons of kool-aid?
The majority of the tea partiers are working class white people. They are upset about the economic decline of the country and the bailout of the bankers. The correctly point their finger at the corrupt politicians in DC and say throw the bums out... and work against every GOP, DNC, MSM approved candidate. This is not craziness. It is perfectly logical. If Obama came into office full of rage at the bankers and focused on job creation and made it the cornerstone of his presidency he would have their support. Bill Clinton had their votes. He understood he had to at least pretend to address their concerns. It was why he was so popular. Obama is alot like you progressives here... You want nothing to do with these unsophisticated losers until they stop shopping at wallmart, recycle, become vegetarians, atheists, support abortion, and grovel at progressives feet begging for forgiveness for their wretched existence. This is what it means to be a modern day progressive.
"The majority of the tea partiers are working class white people."
Little do they know that your Tea BAGGER Party is funded by the same corporate elites smashing the white working class people.
I like Gregs thinking. Their is a political vacuum. The left treats the working class poor as uneducated idiots who don't deserve to be talked to. They believe they should shut up and do what their "betters" tell them to do. It is this complete lack of engagement that pushes them into the arms of Palin who at least pretends to listen to them. Ron Paul is trying to temper the miltarist impulse and hatred for Muslims among them... It is really too bad the left turned their back on Paul's outreach to them. Having more people opposing our DC masters the better. It is just a shame to see so many commendreams readers spit such hatred for people who want to throw our corrupt leaders out of DC. Sure maybe this woman will be just as bad but at least they aren't allowing the media and the GOP to tell them who to vote for. You pathetic so called "progressives" are already to line up to do the MSM and DNCs bidding. How pathetic is that?
And rightwingers treat the poor well? You don't know the Tea Party do you?
Miss Hypocrite probably reaches for her hidden vibrator as soon as the hubby leaves for work and "cheats" on him in their marital bed.
Yeah, her argument that self-pleasuring requires that we have lust in our hearts and the Bible says we should not have lust in our hearts begs two questions: 1. Does she not have lust in her heart when she sleeps with her husband? and, 2. When she considers the option of pleasuring herself, is she planning on lusting after someone other than her husband. More and more I'm convinced that the people/politicians who rail against this sex act or that sex act, are giving us a window into their own proclivities....and I'm guessing she has a LOT of issues!!! (Loving her reference about "man pants". You think she wishes she was wearing "man pants?)
Glenn Greenwald's commentary today is about O'Donnell and puts this Cohen crap to shame. He correctly points to the very longstanding Republican Radical Right ideology that's totally in line with O'Donnell and easilly proves the Tea Party as being no different from the Republicans--except--that the upstart Tea Baggers don't know how to hide their radicalism with coded talk, plus the fact that they aren't rich and cultured. The only problem I had with Greenwald's essay is he didn't go back in time beyond the 1960s to the real spawning time of the late 1940s to the eruption of McCartyism and the inclusion of extreme radicals in Eisenhower's administration.
Cohen's closing remark shows he knows very little about the history of religious zealots being elected to the Senate, which sealed his lack of credibility.
One reason the tea-party is doing so well is, people are sick of the coded talk. People like honesty even if it doesn't please everyones ear. We've been code-speaked to death and poverty. Anyone who speaks clearly and with seeming honesty is gonna find sheeple flocking to their door.
Their aren't enough of these tebaggers to matter but it is fun to watch the MSM and progressives squirm :)
Maybe you can reeducate them :)
>^^<
"Maybe you can reeducate them :)"
Those folks were so carefully taught that I doubt they'd listen if it was their parents telling them to reform. The only people I see "squirming" and Democrat pundits and Republican reactionaries. I've been immersed in a universe full of teabaggers for decades, so I'm used to them, US culture is very adept at breeding them. When I taught, I "turned" around 100 or so, a very paltry few. About half I knew from High School, 20 or so, are dead already (I'm 55). All that internal angst can eat up a person from within, And both parties have them, although the wool needs to be thicker for pulling over Democrats's eyes whereas all Republicans require is gauze.
"One reason the tea-party is doing so well is, people are sick of the coded talk. People like honesty even if it doesn't please everyones ear."
Is that why they use a hundred different code words because they don't want to be honest and say they are pissed because a black guy is in the white house?
Everyone needs to go to http://www.deldems.org/ and make a contribution to the Delaware Democratic Party to keep Christine O’Donnell out of the Senate. According to Huffington Post she's been raking in $1 million a day since she won the primary.
Did you know that doing a Yahoo search on "Delaware Democratic Party" will not find a link to their website? A Google search will find it. Talk about lack of net neutrality...........
I think anyone who masturbates should be forced to sleep with Christine O'Donnell, both of them wearing 27 snow suits, thick mittens and motorcycle helmets. For 12 years.
If your palms are furry, you don't need the thick mittens.
In last night's debate, she was asked about her perceived political threat to America, and to her fear of furry palms, caused by masturbation.
In her answer, she stated that she said that when she was young and has since matured.
I take it from her response that she now occasionally rubs one out.
"What is the real issue Cohen won't be talking about?
It's the fact the he and other progressives, liberals etc. have absolutely no argument or recourse to counter the effect tea partiers are playing in the pull to the right....
It's the fact the tea partiers are the not unexpected result of a political vacuum--a vacuum created and carefully maintained by the likes of Jeff Cohen and other progressives, liberals and the rest of the fake left."
Exactly to the point. The fake left is all about culture wars, goading the right wing rabble while the neo-liberal corporatists and the neo-conservative fascists that cultural "liberals" on the fake left really support can go on destroying the country from within (and from without, too).
"This woman is so unbelievably stupid. It's astounding to listen to her share her deeply held convictions on these topics that most normal people just don't think about, like the pros and cons of masturbation. I mean, seriously, is this the most important issue? The morality of jerking off?"
Actually, yes. Over the past 15 years or so the fake left of cultural "liberals" like Cohen has reduced the women's movement to the self righteous f*ck me feminism of ignorant 20-somethings and a smattering of hypocritical excuses deployed by neo-conservative fascists when they want to kill more Muslims.
By comparison, O'Donnell's censure of "lusting in your heart" is pretty mild Jimmy Carter stuff. Apple pie, really.
Just wait till she wakes up from that bible belt induced haze and figures out what's really going on.
"By comparison, O'Donnell's censure of "lusting in your heart" is pretty mild Jimmy Carter stuff. Apple pie, really."
Good point.
Most people--including me--immediately think of Reagan as the father of the kind of market society we've had for the last 30 years or so. And there's a very deliberate reason for that.
Because as evil an opportunist as Reagan was--the focus on him is just another example--like this piece by Cohen--of how progressivism, liberalism and the rest of the fake left serve to distract and lead astray peoples' thinking as to what the fundamental problem is.
And as for that fundamental problem--the Carter presidency was the first, fullest and purest embodiment of it. His adminstration set the standard for the bipartisan use of neoliberalism in narrowing the focus to "compassion" and certain cultural values at the expense of justice--especially economic justice. As our nation's first neolibral president, Carter was quite willing to weep over personal morality while at the same time instituting the kind of savage "free market" economic "reforms" that would devastate society and add to the suffering and destruction of so many in the years ahead.
And the tip off to the success of the fake left's role in obfuscating, diverting and covering this up lies in the continuing belief that the Carter presidency was politcally left and humanitarian--if only a little too soft and too much of the way of the bleeding heart!
That is, thanks in no small part to the "left," many people today think the problem with Carter was that he was a wimp.
We'll see how viable she is as a candidate. I see her as another fault line in the crumbling edifice of American conservatism.Sooner or later the Republican party will have to remake itself, it's no longer a viable, cohesive political party.
"We'll see how viable she is as a candidate."
Yeah, we will. Don't underestimate Democrats/progressives etc. ability to "oppose" her with a lackluster candidate who doesn't like to seek votes--ala Martha Coakley.
Anyway, you seem to think the Democratic Party is somehow in competition with the Republican Party. Yet more thanks to the pivotal role the fake left plays in messing with people's heads.
It's okay, I won a contest.