Keith Olbermann is an Awful Human Being

Look, Glenn Beck is crazy. Like, clearly a maniac. I accept this. I usually put Keith Olbermann on the same level, although I find him somewhat more self-righteous and annoying. Maybe it's because he should have stuck with sports commentary and left politics to the better-informed. In any event, I'm more than content to let these two raging maniacs get fodder for their own shows from the other and continuously rant and rave at each other like a couple of children fighting on the playground

But now Olbermann's gone after one of my guys. According to Olbermann, Mr. Dallin H. Oaks, one of the global leaders of my church and someone whom I respect very much, both for religious and non-religious reasons, is one of the "Worst People in the World." I guess it's a kind of segment he does on his show where he puts a bunch of people on blast for saying or doing ridiculous stuff. Entertaining, right?

Well, according to Mr. Olbermann, Oaks is one of the worst people in the world because he equated the religious persecution in the wake of the Prop 8 vote to voter discrimination practices directed at blacks back in the day. So what could Oaks have possibly said to deserve such vitriol?

Oaks gave a speech at BYU-Idaho on October 13. In it, he documented what he believed was a continued assault on the open expression and practice of religion in America. As an aside, this is something I've been talking about since my first Con Law class, but that's an issue for another day. In my experience, media commentary is often wildly overblown, to the point that even Stephen Glass would have to blush. I read the whole thing to find out what exactly Oaks said. Here's the only excerpt I could find that relates to black voter discrimination:

It is important to note that while this aggressive intimidation in connection with the Proposition 8 election was primarily directed at religious persons and symbols, it was not anti-religious as such. These incidents were expressions of outrage against those who disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public contest. As such, these incidents of “violence and intimidation” are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation.

Okay, let's break this down. Oaks makes the argument that the Prop 8 backlash wasn't so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. Essentially, the people that lost Prop 8 weren't so much angry about religion as they were about losing. It's probably a little of both, to be honest, but I've always believed they were just mad about losing and decided to take it out on those who won.

Let's look back at voter intimidation incidents in civil-rights America. We all know that, despite being given the constitutional right to vote, blacks were often intimidated into not voting, and it took an act of Congress to get it to stop. Here we have another example of a winning party (minorities) being antagonized by a losing party (whites) after losing a democratic contest (voting amendments).

So how, exactly, is Oaks the "worst person in the world" for making this comparison? Seems like a legitimate analogy to me. Sure, African Americans experienced some of the worst discrimination in modern history. But does that mean it's not okay to draw an appropriate comparison? Sure, Mormons aren't getting lynched in the wake of Prop 8, but that's not the message Oaks was trying to send. The analogy is a philosophical one at best, not a practical one. It's a general comment that in many instances, losers in the democratic process often demonize the winners and use violence to intimidate them.

If Oaks had wanted to say that Mormons are persecuted today just as much as blacks were back in the day, I think he would have said so in clearer terms. Since when is it improper to talk about violence and intimidation in the democratic process and use one of the best-known examples in American history as a yardstick? And if this is so improper, why doesn't Olbermann make the same accusation at the gay rights groups who routinely compare themselves to blacks in the civil rights era?

Screw you, Keith Olbermann. Leave us alone.

When I Rule the World...

...I'm definitely going to make some changes around here, believe you me. Friday, I had an experience that made me add another mental policy note to my burgeoning agenda, which also includes the elimination of the E! and Bravo networks, free enchiladas for everyone on the first Friday of every month, and the beatification of Bear Grylls.

So I'm driving home from court Friday, getting stuck in a traffic jam on Brighton Ave. near Harvard Ave. For you non-Bostonians, that area of town at 5 p.m. on a Friday is positively nightmarish, a snarl of peeved motorists, careless pedestrians heading home for Miller Time, and enough CO2 emissions to make Al Gore curl up in the fetal position. I'm trying to turn left at a light that has no left-turn arrow, and traffic constantly coming the other way. While sitting about three cars back in this hopeless situation, I see a beautiful silver Acura RSX at the front of the line, evidently trying to turn left. Unfortunately, he doesn't get the chance to turn due to the massive oncoming traffic, so he does the Utah thing where he juts his nose into the intersection and waits for the light to turn red. That's fine, except he decides to actually pull a U-turn rather than turn left. He almost pulled it off, except he stopped 3 feet behind a car that was parked on the side of the road. Fearing to harm his beautiful RSX, he backed up with traffic criss-crossing behind him, while pedestrians tried to get around him on the crosswalk. The guy could have easily cleared the U-turn, but no, he had to back up like a moron. To make matters worse, I guess he needed to parallel park, so he proceeds in front of the car he almost didn't hit, and executes the most piss-poor parallel parking job I've ever seen. And by now he's got traffic coming at him on a 2-lane road, so essentially he clogs up an already-crowded Brighton Ave. such that traffic gets stuck in the intersection and I can't turn left. Idiot.

I began wondering what sort of cosmic justice would ever allow such an incompetent driver to drive such a nice car. I mean, he drives this and meanwhile, I drive this. Not too toot my own horn too much, but I think I'm a pretty freaking good driver. Where's the justice? Nowhere, that's where. Which made me think: when I'm king of the world, I'm going to impose a cap on what kind of car you can drive, depending on how well you pass a driving test. For example, if you can't make a simple U-turn, parallel park in 5 moves, or insist on driving 10 mph below the speed limit at all times, then congratulations, you get this beauty. Enjoy the accents on the side panels. If you're a reasonably competent driver who knows how to safely pass others, always pays attention, and isn't otherwise a blight on America's roadways, here you go. Nice, right? And for all you awesome drivers out there, how about something along these lines?

I think this would work out nicely, don't you? What kind of car do you think you deserve to drive?

He's Got a Point...

I shouldn't be up this early. After all, Monday morning is my one day to sleep in, between 8:30 classes and 9:00 a.m. morning call at the court house the rest of the week. This clearly did not prevent the gentleman towing a jackhammer behind his truck from blasting away around 7:00 this morning. So now I'm up about the house doing house-husband things. In between taking the wife to work and cleaning the dishes from last night, however, I wanted to take a moment and give some credit where it's due (also, I don't feel like doing dishes). Our good president Barry O. took to the small screen yesterday, making the rounds on five different shows pimping the need for health care reform. He turned in a few nice tidbits, however, about his beef with mass media. Instead of a link, I'm just going to paste the quotes he made on different shows. The original article I read was too grammatically hilarious to warrant posting, and I don't want to link to a FOX News article, which is where I found these quotes after a quick Google.

On CNN's "State of the Union": "I think it's important for the media -- you know, not to do any media-bashing here -- to recognize that right now, in this 24-hour news cycle, the easiest way to get on CNN or FOX or any of the other stations, MSNBC, is to say something rude and outrageous...And, you know, part of what I'd like to see is, is all of us reward decency and civility in our political discourse."

On ABC, to George Stephanopoulos: "I think, that, frankly, the media encourages some of the outliers in behavior, because, let's face it, the easiest way to get on television right now is to be really rude. If you're just being sensible and giving people the benefit of the doubt and you're making your arguments, you don't . . . get time on the nightly news."

I have to give props to el Presidente for his comments, because he's absolutely on point here. The political discourse in this country is becoming increasingly coarse, and I think a lot of it is fueled and perpetuated by a bloodthirsty quest for ratings. People like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, and whoever else you can think of wouldn't be nearly as popular if the major news outlets were more concerned with disseminating fact rather than opinion. Look, media does some wonderful things, and I think Barack Obama, if anybody, partly has the media to thank for putting him in the position that he's in. That said, it seems kind of sad to me that the news source I prefer most (BBC) doesn't even reside in the U.S. There's just too much spin, too much vitriol, and too much worthless junk that barely rises to the level of "news" and is probably better categorized as "blather." Yes, I'm talking to you too, Nancy Grace, Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore, Al Sharpton, and Al Gore.

You'd think (at least, I would), with comments like this, that Obama would be a little more successful with his bipartisan efforts than he has been to this point. He's been reduced to playing party politics as usual in Washington to get his agenda through, and I think that disappoints him quite a bit. It seems his efforts to extend the olive branch have gone virtually uncovered by the media, and the only comments of his that show up on the news are the ones that are more politically divisive. Now he looks just like any other president toeing the party line.

Unfortunate.