May 12, 2010

This was great. We already saw The Young Turks Cenk Uygur take down wingut Wayne Allyn Root. Now it was conservative blogger S.E. Cupp's turn. I'd love to know what happened at the end of this, but it appears she hung up on Cenk.

Cupp is pushing her new book "Losing Our Religion, The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity". Here's a bit from Simon & Shuster's review and I use the word "review" lightly:

From her galvanizing introduction, you know where S. E. Cupp stands: She’s an atheist. A non-believer. Which makes her the perfect impartial reporter from the trenches of a culture war dividing America and eroding the Judeo-Christian values on which this country was founded. Starting at the top, she exposes the unwitting courtship of President Obama and the liberal press, which consistently misreports or downplays Obama’s clear discomfort with, or blatant disregard for, religious America—from covering up religious imagery in the backdrop of his Georgetown University speech to his absence from events surrounding the National Day of Prayer, to identifying America in his inaugural address as, among other things, "a nation of non-believers." She likens the calculated attacks of the liberal media to a class war, a revolution with a singular purpose: to overthrow God and silence Christian America for good. And she sends out an urgent call for all Americans to push back the leftist propaganda blitz striking on the Internet, radio, television, in films, publishing, and print journalism—or invite the tyrannies of a "mainstream" media set on mocking our beliefs, controlling our decisions, and extinguishing our freedoms.

Now, discover the truth behind the war against Christmas—and how political correctness keeps the faithful under wraps . . . the one-sided analyses of Prop 8 and the gay marriage debate . . . the media pot-shots at Sarah Palin’s personal faith . . . the politicization of entertainment mainstays such as American Idol and the Miss USA Pageant . . . and much more. Also included are her penetrating interviews with Dinesh D’Souza, Martha Zoller, James T. Harris, Newt Gingrich, Kevin Madden, and Kevin Williamson of National Review, delivering must-read analyses of the latest stunning lowlights from the liberal media.

Cenk asks Cupp for specific examples of how the media has a liberal bias and she starts out by exaggerating how many people attended the tea party rallies, which Cenk calls her out for.

Cenk disputed her claim that the media is liberal by pointing out that MSNBC fired Phil Donohue for his stance on the Iraq invasion and they wouldn't allow Jesse Ventura on the air either and her response is to say that the entire country was behind invading Iraq. When Cenk tells her she's wrong she tells him that "he was the only one" against invading Iraq.

I guess this numbnut wasn't paying much attention to all of those millions of people who were protesting against the war back then. Jebus what an idiot! Cenk Uygur, the only person in America against the Iraq war, yeah, that's the ticket. Conflating the fact that Bush scared the hell out of the idiotic Democrats and got way too many of them to vote for the invasion after 9-11 into there was no public outrage against it is completely ridiculous and revisionist is the kindest thing I can think of to describe that amount of blatant dishonesty.

Then she moves on to complaining about US News and World Report doing a story on Joe Biden getting ashes on Ash Wednesday as an example of media bias against Christians, which makes no sense as Cenk points out. As an opposing example on how the media covers conservative politicians and their religious views, she complains that anyone in the media dared to point out Sarah Palin's encounters with a witch doctor which she calls a lie.

Hey S.E.... I hate to break it to you honey, but there's video on that one out there. Cenk should have pointed that out to her.

What he did point is the way Obama's relationship to Reverend Wright was covered. Of course Cupp thinks that ClusterFox was the only one to cover that story honestly. He also pointed out is that US News is owned by Mort Zuckerman and that he's a conservative and that it's ridiculous to think that an organization owned by a conservative would be part of this liberal conspiracy.

Then her last argument that he rips apart is her claim that movie reviewers are biased against Christian movies but movies by atheists are warmly received before anyone even sees them. When Cenk starts to point out how ridiculous that is, her response is for him to read her book. He replies "Yeah, I'll get right on that" and she hangs up. He follows up by saying that he doesn't know of any movie reviewers that write a review of a movie before they watch it and he would have loved for her to give him an example of a single movie reviewer that's ever done that. After she'd hung up, he asked for her to name one person who's ever done that.

I don't think you're ever going to get an answer later Cenk. I'm sure she'll be received much more warmly over on Hannity's show when Fox starts pushing her book for her.

Digby wrote a really good post on this hack back in January right after Tucker Carlson started his new Daily Caller site which Cupp contributes to. Check it out for another reason besides this interview to never buy her book. As Digby said of her first column at The Daily Caller:

It is a perfect example of the snotty, sophomoric humor in which Carlson has long specialized.

This is yet another in a long line of proudly obnoxious, conservative woman with chips on their shoulders the size of Alaska complaining that everyone hates them because they are so incredibly sexy and special. The main thing you need to know is that she loves God, hates liberals and likes to kill things, which makes her so awesomely cool that only the manliest of manly men will be able to handle her violent, macho, scotch-swilling womanliness.

It wish she'd get this same treatment she got from Cenk every time she goes on the air trying to plug this book of hers. I'm sure if it doesn't sell the wingnut welfare Republican establishment will be buying it up in mass to make sure it shows up on a best sellers list where it doesn't belong.

(Updated as the the Democrats voting for the Iraq war. As I noted in the comments, not all of them voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, but enough of them did to help get it passed and the majority of Democrats in the Senate voted for the resolution.)

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