I'm no fan of Dylan Ratigan but I enjoyed seeing someone, anyone rip into Brad Blakeman for once. I've just got no use for Blakeman after watching one too many of his interviews on MSNBC. He's a class A jerk, liar and unashamed shill for the Republican Party no matter how wrong what they're doing may be for the country. Ratigan, unfortunately, is determined to push this whole "the left does it too" and "all sides are equal" B.S. during this segment, but it was just about worth putting up with to watch Blakeman flailing in the wind here.
Ratigan: Brad, if you were to look at the opening that seems to be there for the Republicans on the center-right, how they get to a place where they can simply come out in favor of free and fair markets, competition, all of the things that were lacking in these massive industries people are so angry about. The President has made it clear he would like to engage many of those things even if some on the left have said things that are more, that harken back to a previous era. We clearly have a President for a new era and yet I feel like on the left and right we are having old spitball fights. How do we move forward?
Blakeman: Well, for the President to be successful he has to come more towards, to the center, the center-right. That’s where our nation is. And lets face it, for Republicans to seek a nomination they have to get, run to the right and then once they get the nomination, run back to the middle, so the type of rhetoric you’re going to be hearing from Republicans this week as we approach the next Presidential season is that they’re going to talk to their base, whether it’s talk to the values… (crosstalk)
Ratigan: I guess the question is what is their base because if the base simply is epithets and accusations that obviously is not going to be a hugely viable political party and there’s a string of broken systems and broken problems in this country that you would think a healthy opposition could do a good job of keeping everybody honest on and from what I’ve seen so far, and I’ve only been here a few months, it doesn’t seem to be that that happens very often.
Blakeman: Well Dylan as we approach and get closer to the election, you’re going to hear more nuts and bolts of what the Republicans stand for and what they will do. (crosstalk)
Ratigan: Why are you going to wait until the election? Because is that the only thing Republicans care about, getting elected because they could care less about actually creating efficient health care systems, solving too big to fail, dealing with energy… why do we have to wait until an election to hear what these people think Brad?
Blakeman: Because we’re not in power. (crosstalk)
Ratigan: We’re paying taxes. Why do we have to wait until an election?
Blakeman: Because we’re not in power. We can come up with the best solutions and the Democrats would throw us to the side. They have not included…
Ratigan: Oh, nonsense. (crosstalk) Either step up and deal with the problems as a party or get out of the building.
Blakeman: We don’t have the votes!
Ratigan: I don’t care about the votes. This is a debate about ideas. Believe me if you are capable of (crosstalk) ideas, I guarantee you there are Democrats and Republicans who are persuadable to rational thought if you actually care about America and you actually want to solve (crosstalk)… you don’t care about America unless you care to be constructive to the conversation and if all you care for is personal destruction and personal assignation, whether it’s fear from the right or guilt from the left you are all eating this country from the gut, and it’s got to come to a conclusion…. Hang on one second Brad….
Karen Finney then points out that this is not a “center-right’ country and that this tactic of moving far to the right and then trying to move back to the center after everyone seeing you cater to your wingnut base isn’t working out so well for Republicans. She adds that it is pitiful that the Republicans excuse for everything is they can’t help get anything done if they’re not in power.
I would disagree with her statement since it looks to me like they're getting plenty done if you count Max Baucus' crappy health care bill that he was willing to give Republicans all they wanted on without a single vote in exchange for taking their amendments.
Dylan hits Blakeman one more time before the segment is over for his "we can’t do anything if we’re not running the show" nonsense.
Ratigan: The demand from the American people is not to play left right. The demand from the American people as I see it as a journalist right now is to demand that the politicians deal with the systemic problems. I’ve got to go. (crosstalk) We’ve only got two hours a day. Yeah. Thanks. (crosstalk) You can steal our money for another year, we’ll wait for you to win buddy. We don’t need to worry about it until you guys win. This is nonsense.
