No More Wimps Representing Democrats On FOX

I’m generally anti-tirade, but I detest that millions of people watch wimps and incompetent debaters represent Democratic / progressive positions on FOX.

When will the progressive movement object in earnest to the likes of Alan Colmes – who Robert Greenwald’s film Outfoxed rightly points out is a weak, “squirrelly” faux-Democrat? FOX leaves the hapless Colmes out to whither against a polished, in-the-loop, smoothly-deceptive right-winger, Sean Hannity.

Friday night’s Hannity & Colmes introduced America to yet another weak, incompetent debater: Rep. Bob Filner, a Democrat I never heard of from California and hope never to hear from again.

FRIDAY NIGHT’S OUTRAGE:

HANNITY: When George Bush said to America that Saddam's WMDs and nuclear capability are a threat to the United States, are you saying the president lied?

FILNER: He knew that was not the case. The CIA knew it was not the case. And they just kept pressuring the CIA to say that.

HANNITY: Well, I didn't just quote George Bush. I just quoted John Kerry in the election. That was John Kerry who said that.

FILNER: Well, John Kerry was...

HANNITY: Did John Kerry mislead America, sir, or did you vote for John Kerry?

FREEZE

Did Hannity really just prove Democrats are hypocrites?

Or did he just bolster the exact point that Democratic leaders are making – that John Kerry, other Democrat and Republican Members of Congress, and the American people all were deceived by the cherry-picked evidence presented by the Bush Administration?

What did the Democratic “Representative” say in response? Did he stand up strongly, make this point, and go on the offensive?

UNFREEZE

FILNER: Yes, and that's why he lost the election too.

HANNITY: Did you vote for him?

FILNER: That's why he lost the election. He was not clear about his choice.

HANNITY: Did you vote for him?

FILNER: Listen. Listen. We have lost 2000 troops to misstatements and to lies. And we should get out, as John Murtha said. We should redeploy our troops immediately consistent with their safety.

HANNITY: That's not what he said. He said it's time to bring the troops home is what he said.

FILNER: Consistent with their safety. No, he said consistent with their safety.

HANNITY: J.D., here is the problem. Here's the problem. Mr. Filner is the typical of the average Democrat today. If I say to him, George Bush said this, "That was a lie. That person misled." When I point out it was actually John Kerry who said it, he doesn't have the same intellectual honesty to say the same thing about the man that he voted for, which proves our point. That Democrats have politicized the war.

AND THERE THE DEMOCRATS ARE

Depicted on national TV as weak, mealy-mouthed hypocrites who can’t be trusted because they are politicizing the war.

Where’s the outrage?

No, really, where’s the outrage? Alan Colmes? You out there? You’re co-host, are you going to do justice to this argument?

Oh, wait, I forgot, Colmes already got his turn in the beginning of the segment.

“This is a FOX News alert,” announced Colmes as he led off the Iraq war discussion by giving an update on a wildfire in Southern California.

Colmes then got to announce that “House Republicans stunned their Democratic colleagues” with Friday’s House vote on Iraq, dutifully introduced a video clip of Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) calling double purple-heart recipient Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and other Democrats “cowards,” and then sat out for Hannity’s entire excoriation of “Democratic Representative” Filner.

To his credit, Colmes followed good debate tactics by getting the last word in – with a “We thank you both.”

Colmes then got the honor of telling viewers that after the commercial break, former Dukakis campaign manager Susan Estrich would be debating for the Democrats. The cavalry has arrived…

(Views expressed in this posting are the author’s and not necessarily any affiliated organizations.)