It's "Our Team" and Who, Exactly?
Published by BG on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at 9:11 AM.Media Matters - Jim Cramer on MSNBC
ROBACH: I also think it's funny that Jimmy Carter, of all people, is telling people who the worst president in history is. If he could recall -- maybe, I don't know -- did -- was that threat -- or that was leveled against him as well, correct?
GEIST: Yeah, he's looking for a successor, I think. He wants somebody to fill his shoes.
ROBACH: He's giving the tiara --
GEIST: Exactly.
ROBACH: -- to President Bush.
GEIST: Exactly.
CRAMER: Who does he play for, Carter? Does he play for himself? Does he play for another nation? Does he play for his own fifth column? Who is he speaking for?
ROBACH: He's working on his legacy, I don't know.
GEIST: Yeah, legacy. He wants to be the greatest ex-president of all time --
ROBACH: Right.
GEIST: -- because he wasn't the greatest president of all time -- clearly, maybe the worst. He wants to be the greatest ex-president of all time.
I think he'd tell you he plays for us. A lot of people would disagree
I swear to god if I were CEO of General Electric, Geist and Cramer would be off my airwaves so fast they wouldn't even be able to stand in the crowd outside the "Today" show.
Who are these "a lot of people" who think Jimmy Carter's not "playing for our team?" If this is a fair piece of commentary, who is this other team he's presumably playing for? Is it al Qaeda? Maybe, if you're being charitable, the French?
Why is this acceptable discourse? Christ, no one is saying you have to agree with Carter, and no one is saying that his opinions are on some pedastal above reproach, but the insinuation that criticism of our Noble and Just Leader means you must be speaking for "them" and not "us?" This is the fundamental problem with TV and radio punditry at this point. It's full of this hyperbolic bullshit that's simple-minded, polemic, nasty, semi-sarcastic, and specifically designed to appeal to the basest instincts of people already predisposed to agree with the viewpoint presented.
If Rush Limbaugh were as dry as a BookTV interview on a C-Span Saturday morning, he'd have been off the air a long time ago. I get that. But I maintain that these sorts of base and patently false associations are slanderous at best, dangerous at worst. Jimmy Carter may very well be the worst president ever, I accept that as a talking point, and I accept the irony of the possible worst president ever trying to crown the guy who's washing the taste of Carter out of America's collective mouth. I get that, and there's humor that can be mined out of that irony. Hell, I find it funny.
But it is not the least bit funny to accuse a Nobel Prize-winning democratically elected former leader of this country of speaking for the terrorists (or whoever this presumed "other team" is supposed to be). Actually, it's not the least bit funny to baselessly accuse any American citizen of speaking for the terrorists. It's not funny, and it's not serious. It's patently lazy and slanderous, and in my eyes is far far worse than anything Imus ever said to get kicked off the airwaves.
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