Rachel Maddow on Obama's Speech: 'Dude. No Way...Dude. Come Again? Dude?'

Photo of Tim Graham.
  • Bookmark and Share

Rush Limbaugh has begun humorously describing MSNBC as "government-controlled television." Trying to watch coverage of President Obama’s Cairo speech on MSNBC last night would certainly give you that impression. Obama’s speech was so impressive that not only were mouths agape in amazement in Afghanistan, Rachel Maddow’s official critical reaction was exactly these words: "Dude, no way. He said what? Huh-uh. Dude, come again. Dude? Did he really just say that?"

The American audience was rocked because Obama "hit them with hard truths and you want to make them fall over." She also compared the speech to an incredible fireworks display. First, Maddow ran footage of NBC’s Richard Engel from the evening newscast:

MADDOW: Our friend, Richard Engel, NBC‘s chief foreign correspondent, watched the speech in Afghanistan and described to "Nightly News" tonight the way he saw Afghans reacting to the speech.

RICHARD ENGEL: A lot of people in Kabul and across the Islamic world simply had their mouths open when they were listening to this speech. They couldn‘t believe what they were hearing. They have not heard this kind of language from an American president.

MADDOW: And it‘s not just in the Muslim world. Judging from the media reaction today in the United States, the American audience for this speech appears to be rocked back on its heels as well -- which is exactly where you want an audience if you‘re about to hit them with hard truths and you want to make them fall over.

Then she was stunned that Obama was so frank that he talked of an American role in the Mossadegh takeover in Iran:

Wow. He just admitted that the U.S. overthrew the Iranian government in 1953. If you were at the state fair and this was a fireworks display, at this point, you might turn to the person next to you and say, "Wow, can you believe that? What an incredible finale. No topping that, time to go home." The thing is, this fireworks display was just getting started.

Later, she adored this passage about 9/11 and the Obama admitting the U.S. tortured:

OBAMA: 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable. But in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideas. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.

MADDOW: For those of you keeping score at home, that would be, dude, no way. He said what? Huh-uh. Dude, come again. Dude? Did he really just say that?

She counted off eight amazing things Obama said that were the "third rail" of Middle East politics, so the "Dude" reactions came with her counting on eight fingers. 

She followed up with an interview with former Jimmy Carter adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski : "When the president took time and he went into both of these issues in some detail, he took time to debunk both 9/11 and deniers of the Holocaust, and then announced pointedly that he was on his way to Buchenwald next. Is there a reason to believe that he thinks that those issues are holding back political progress—that those specific sort of conspiracies and misconceptions about modern political history are part of the problem in terms of moving forward?"

Maddow did not consider that President Bush also decried Holocaust denial and 9/11 conspiracy theories, so is he somehow utterly unique? But how clumsily can Maddow put it, that the president "debunked" 9/11? That makes Obama sound like a conspiracy-theorist, not an opponent of conspiracy theorists.

NBC’s Richard Engel also showed up on The Ed Show hours earlier to tout the Cairo speech:

ED SCHULTZ: Richard, I understand you listened to the speech in Arabic. How did it play? How did it translate, in your opinion?

RICHARD ENGEL: It translated very well, Ed. It was clearly designed to be translated. It was broadcast live on all of the major Arabic language networks, Egyptian state television.

And he was using all of the key tools of Arabic rhetoric. There was a lot of flattery involved, many references to history, and extensive use of Islam. All of these are common in the Arabic world. It sounded very much like an Arabic speech that was given by a well-spoken leader in the Arabic world.

The location was also highly significant. Cairo, being the cultural and media capital of the Middle East, and from the Cairo University, which has seen so many important graduates leave that great rotunda where he spoke, including the Nobel Prize winner for literature, the Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, and many politicians, even some controversial, like Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein have all studied there.

So it was the right city. It was a place of great symbolic importance and it was used—the speech was carried out in translation in Arabic very effectively, Ed.

According to Engel, "all of the commentators" he saw on Arabic-language networks (all of them) described Obama’s address as a historic watershed:

It was described by people that I spoke to today, and all of the commentators that I listened to on a variety of Arabic language networks, as historic, as a potential turning point. This speech will actually be the focus of a major debate show tomorrow on al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is the main Arabic language broadcaster here. Their program, similar to "Meet the Press," and they‘re billing it as a potential turning point, a potential new beginning for relations between the United States and the Muslim world. It was something that many in this part of the world had been waiting for.

How can people watch this, and not see MSNBC bathed in the glow of utter servility?

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.


Comments Policy

All comments are owned by whoever posted them and are subject to our terms of use. They should not be assumed to represent the views of NewsBusters.

Viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Dude!

I need to get me one of them Harvard Degrees so I can talk like Spicoli. That would be gnarly.

The absurdity never abates.

The absurdity never abates.

Madcow!

"FURRR SHURRR DUDE"!

She's just auditioning for

She's just auditioning for "Dude, Where's My Car 2"

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4056eW2hiCc&feature=PlayList&p=7237EBEEBDAE1921&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=21  [1:52 in]

More like   "Dude,

More like

 

"Dude, Where's My Journalistic Ethics?"

or

"Dude, Where's My Truthfulness?"

or

"Dude, Where's My Brain?"

Actually, she was just

Actually, she was just imitating the Muslims' reaction to him. 

They are the ones who were saying  Dude, no way!!  Did he really say that, Dude?? (Peace be, like totally upon him!)

I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows.  -Bart Simpson

 

Maddow does Spicoli

Give her a break folks, all that Xanax in the mineral water makes the folks at MSNBC very excitable.

I can see by the photo that

I can see by the photo that Maddow's learned to count to 12. Keep on, keep'n on, Rach...

She learned it from

She learned it from Olbermann on "Count Down", Dude. 

"DumbAssity of Dope"

Rush is right-the MSM is now the SCM.

May as well be.

-Dave

"Dude....I'm a Dude...."

 "woh, man...dude...look at the size of my package!!! Chris Mathews eat your heart out, dude!!!!"

 

 

"You see Obama is going to tax those not paying taxes...those making over 97,000 dollars ayear. Once you make that much you don't pay taxes...he's going to make them pay. And I will finally get a break." -My mom who is on welfare and food st

This should all be

This should all be embarrassing to anyone seriously in the news business....but we all know they could care less anymore...the majority of them are all in the same bed.

They are a despicable disgrace...every last one of them.

Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea. ~Andrew Breitbart

They're a running joke...

... you can't fix stupid!

but you damn sure dont have

but you damn sure dont have to watch "stupid"

 

 

yet

Chris Matthews

The big question: Did Chris Matthews gotten more tingles down his leg?

Gee Rachel Maddow - did you ask Brzesinski & Carter about this?

She [Maddow] followed up with an interview with former Jimmy Carter adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski

Gee Rachel, did you ask Brzesinski & Carter about this - 'how we got the USSR to invade Afghanistan (my bold, for obvious impact)?

Zbigniew Brzezinski:
How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen

Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76*

Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Just curious here - did Obama apoloize for that one also?

A personal note: The fact that Brzezinski claims that they knowingly suckered the USSR to invade militarily is certainly of historic interest here. The fact that he and Carter helped the Mujahideen defend against the USSR - I support, as I did Pres. Reagan's effort. And, thank you Charlie Wilson.

What I find disgraceful - hypocritical, etc., here, is that our left wing media has smeared Reagan, and Reagan only, for two decades now for aiding the Mujahideen in the fight against the USSR imperialists. Why don't they hate President Carter, instead?

Of a curious nature here, is that the MSM has not used this story to diss the Right's claim that Reagan brought down the USSR, via giving credit to the Carter administration (oddly enough, in hindsight - I guess Carter gets a bit of credit as well - in an odd sort of way). Might it be that by the time this story became public (1998) they had so so thoroughly trashed Reagan over Afghanistan covert funding (stingers, etc) that they couldn't admit the truth. Better to keep it a secret? 

(;~/ gary

Gary... Once again thank

Gary...

Once again thank you...I just learned some info I didn't know here in your post.

You reminded me that I need to read that book Charlie Wilson's War I think it is...I need to stop being on the computer so much...on the other hand, I learn a lot here too.

Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea. ~Andrew Breitbart

bt..

Actually the movie, Charlie Wilson's War - was rather good. A whole lot is left out, of course - but if you know much of the actual history - it's a hoot. That reminds me, a lot of the reviews of the movie took great care to trash Ronald Reagan over the covert funding to help the [then] freedom fighters beat the USSR. They never bashed Carter! I suspect that most in the national media don't know the actual history here either - all they know about are the left-wing anti Reagan talking points, and their news has been presented thru those colored lenses for more than two decades now.

Yea - I'm with you on the computer time issue, ha. (;~> gary

Re Rachel and Brzezinski

Whoa now, I was not aware of this. If this is true, then the lefties' nutball claim that it was Reagan's support of the mujahideen that gave al Qaeda and UBL their start means that Carter is in fact responsible for that as well. With one goes the other.

Hey slick..

On the "if this is true," thing. What ya mean, "if?"

Seriously - of course most people don't know about this. Read my view again. The national media is in a bind on this one. It's not in their  interest in the public knowing the story. When Charlie Wilson's war came out, they had every chance in the world to go back and review, and to come to the American people with a correct view of history and all the players. It actually could have served well, to breach some of the great political divide in this country between the warning parties. That, of course, is not in their interest. The MSM's main purpose each and every day is to promote hatred of the other side of the isle.

"Oh, I don't know.  I

"Oh, I don't know.  I thought that was really great journalism." - balboa

I went and read every word

I went and read every word from the transcript of his speech in Cairo, and it seems that the liberal taking heads heard a different speech. There was NOTHING in that speech that was mind blowing, earth shattering, or even news worthy.

It was a speech designed to pander to the Islamists in the Mid-East, but sadly for Obama, it did NOT have that effect. Please, can someone send me the speech that people like Maddow listened to!?

 

http://iamnotaracist.wordpress.com/  

Hey Clear..

They hear what they want to hear and not what they don't want to hear. What do you think they heard (of course -- the MSM didn't exactly put it up on top, did they) when President Bush delivered these thoughts to the Muslim world - while in Turkey - back in 2004?

President Bush did deliver a speech to Muslims, while in the Muslim world..

June 30, 2004
Bush urges Muslims to embrace his vision
By Maura Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Standing at the literal and metaphorical bridge between Europe and Asia, President Bush made an impassioned appeal to Muslim and European nations yesterday to discard the past and embrace his vision of a democratic and pluralistic Middle East.

Against the backdrop of the Bosporus Bridge, which links the Asian and European sides of this ancient capital, Bush held up Turkey as an example of a secular and democratic Muslim state, one he hopes Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations will emulate...

[..]

In the 27-minute speech, Bush apologized to Muslims for Americans who "speak in an ill-informed and insulting manner about the Muslim faith." Then citing the common origins of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, Bush warned of the danger of those who "incite hatred and murder with conspiracy theories and propaganda," and appealed in return for more tolerance and respect from the Muslim world.

"Whatever our cultural differences may be, there should be respect and peace in the House of Abraham," Bush said.

 

Obama was breaking new ground?

MADDOW: And it‘s not just

MADDOW: And it‘s not just in the Muslim world. Judging from the media
reaction today in the United States,
the American audience for this
speech appears to be rocked back on its heels as well
-- which is
exactly where you want an audience if you‘re about to hit them with
hard truths and you want to make them fall over.

Uhhhhhh, I don't think "judging from the media's reaction" regarding Obama is much different than judging from the steam coming off a pile of dog crap in January.

9-11

In Egypt, Barry claimed that after 9-11 we lost our values. What an insult to those who died that day. No, Barry, we have spent years after 9-11 honoring and defending those dead by fighting against Muslim terrorism. Our values are in tact. Is is yours that need to be questioned. Your arrogance and your ignorance are despicable.

NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"

"Dude, no way. Huh-uh.

"Dude, no way. Huh-uh. Dude, come again. Dude? You really have that viberator on HIGH? Dude!

Dude

"Dude, no way"--- how mature. I feel so safe and confident with this manchild in the White House and his little buddies in the MSM. America has been given over to the children and no good will come of it.

NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"

dude

there's like noway like dude that there are like people like that think like really believe this bs is like news, like network truth, like really?

Maddow, where is your dignity, like uh, you really, uh like are a credentialed journalist? lololololol

Not

Now we know the MSNBC audience dynamics

Stoned college students.

“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds”

Samuel Adams

"She also compared the

"She also compared the speech to an incredible fireworks display."

Now we know there's one man out there that can bring Madcow to orgasm.

Hm.

One of the 34% who thinks George W. Bush was a great President. One of the 61% who wants to bring back the stock and pillory (yep...approval for Congress now at 39%...do you believe that!?).

RR GOP

 You stole my line dude!!!! 

But to hear the libs speak, he is no mere mortal male, he is the "ONE", so it really isn't a suprise that he gets her off!!

Destiny rarely calls on you when it is convenient!

Despite his deplorable

Despite his deplorable political views, the one thing you could say about Walter Cronkite is that he always projected a quiet dignity and class in everything he did and said.  I grew up watching his coverage of the space program and he was always first rate and professional.  Contrast that with the behavior of these nut jobs on MSNBC.  It's like comparing Johnny Carson to Conan O'Brien.

Maddow Who?

Her ratings are so low does she even deserve mentioning on NB? The only people watching are the Left zealots and angry Conservatives who like torturing themselves. I watched her for about 1/2 a week when she first started. She is Olbermann's female counterpart.

Now these are adult

Now these are adult journalists on MSNBC?