Laura Flanders

Conservative Asks Lib 'Are You Literate? Do You Own a Newspaper?'

Have you ever been in an argument with a liberal and got so frustrated by the non sequiturs being uttered that you wanted to ask, "Are you literate? Do you own a newspaper?"

Well, on Wednesday, conservative talk radio host Michael Graham did exactly that to liberal talker Laura Flanders.

Appearing on MSNBC's "The Ed Show," the pair were contentiously debating the need for healthcare reform when Flanders said, "We are seeing a handful of naysayers basically derail our whole process. Americans voted for change."

This was all Graham could stands, cuz he couldn't stands no more (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t HotAirPundit):

On the Left, Jackson Memorial Reminds That America's a 'Dishonest Custodian of Black Life'

In a day dedicated to overcoverage of the Michael Jackson memorial service in Los Angeles (complete with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on the morning shows today dismissing any notion that the pop star ever had an unhealthy relationship with children), some on the left are championing the freakish side of Michael and bashing the rest of America as sick.

At The Nation magazine, Laura Flanders dug up a 1985 tribute by gay black author James Baldwin:

"The Michael Jackson cacophony is fascinating in that it is not about Jackson at all," Baldwin wrote. "All that noise is about America, as the dishonest custodian of black life and wealth....the burning, buried American guilt; and sex and sexual roles and sexual panic; money, success and despair…"

Baldwin put his finger on it: we're provoked -- and call "unstable" those who actually destabilize us. While Jackson may have been struggling with his own demons, he powerfully stirred up ours.

"Freaks are called freaks and are treated as they are treated -- in the main, abominably" continued Baldwin, "Because they are human beings who cause to echo, deep within us, our most profound terrors and desires."

Olbermann: Bristol Palin Pro-Choice, 'Repudiating' ‘Anti-Choice’ Gov Palin ‘Hypocrisy’

On Tuesday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann seized on a portion of Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol’s Monday interview from FNC’s On the Record with Greta van Susteren to portray the 18-year-old as having expressed a pro-choice view on abortion, even though Bristol Palin did not clearly state her general view on the legality of abortion. During one of the show’s before-commercial plugs, Olbermann trumpeted: "While head-in-the-sand social conservatives are pushing fairy tales [abstinence] over sound policy, life happens. As for a woman`s right to choose, it is implicitly accepted in Bristol Palin`s comments, despite her mother`s anti-choice position."

Before interviewing Laura Flanders of GritTV.org, Olbermann introduced the segment: "There is a whistle blower in the house of hypocrisy that is Governor Sarah Palin: her daughter, Bristol. In our third story on the Countdown, she is now speaking out about being a teenaged mother, and she says that abstinence is not "realistic" (PRONOUNCED WITH EMPHASIS), and that having her baby was her own "choice" (PRONOUNCED WITH EMPHASIS), and that her mother`s view on that, quote, "doesn`t matter" (PRONOUNCED WITH EMPHASIS). At one point, as he posed a question to Flanders, Olbermann referred to "Bristol Palin using that one word, 'choice,' such a, in that word such a profound repudiation of the social engineers on the right."

But in playing clips from the interview, the Countdown host edited out some of Bristol Palin's words which may suggest an alternative meaning to Olbermann’s interpretation.