While discussing a new Facebook app that allows users to list their enemies during the Tuesday panel segment on NBC's Today, liberal advertising executive Donny Deutsch claimed guest host Sarah Palin had done the same thing with President Obama: "I was listening to your interview and your whole point was anybody but Obama....Setting up the enemy versus this is what we need to do."
Deutsch was referring to Palin's comment to co-host Matt Lauer during an interview earlier in the show: "I've been of the mind-set that anybody but Obama will be so much better for our country....I honestly believe that anybody running on that GOP ticket would be infinitely better than what we have today, with these failed socialist policies."
In that interview, Palin confronted Lauer on media bias.
Palin pointed to other sources of "pure negativity": "That's not just in the political arena. I mean, look at the Bill Mahers of the world....in the entertainment business, too, there is a lot of – there's power in people's words. We know that. And when an app is being used to take somebody's words, as I say, to demean somebody, to tear somebody down, that just adds more darkness to our world, it's just absolutely unnecessary."
Palin noting Bill Maher's negativity was the first time the left-wing bomb-thrower's name was mentioned on NBC News on the subject of civility in the wake of Rush Limbaugh's comments about Sandra Fluke in February.
It was then that Deutsch decided to go after Palin as one of those politicians promoting "enemy-ism."
Deutsch himself has made his share of negative comments about conservatives, including using racially-tinged language to attack to attack then-Senate candidate Marco Rubio in 2010, something he later apologized for.
Back in 2009, Deutsch said of Palin: "The reason we have a fascination with Sarah Palin – men and women: This is the first woman in power that has sexual appeal and people don't know what to do with it. That's why people are fascinated with her. Everything else is secondary."
Here is a transcript of Deutsch's April 3 exchange with Palin:
8:14AM ET
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SARAH PALIN: Nope, it's all about tearing people down. Hurting people. I don't see anything positive, anything good about this.
SNYDERMAN: I don't either. I think it's crap. I don't agree.
DONNY DEUTSCH: Maybe they're learning from the politicians.
SNYDERMAN: No, you know what? Honest to God, I think this is where Cheryl Sandberg-
DEUTSCH: Wait, wait!
LAUER: You can't let that just go.
DEUTSCH: Can you let the Governor respond to that? I just – that was why we just left it-
SNYDERMAN: I'm sorry, I missed the lob.
DEUTSCH: But obviously I think it's horrible what they're doing. But all we see from politicians is pure negativity, and enemy-ism, for lack of a better word. So, this is kind of throughout our culture.
PALIN: That's not just in the political arena. I mean, look at the Bill Mahers of the world. Look at the, some of these-
DEUTSCH: I'm not saying liberal or conservative, both sides.
PALIN: But in the entertainment business, too, there is a lot of – there's power in people's words. We know that. And when an app is being used to take somebody's words, as I say, to demean somebody, to tear somebody down, that just adds more darkness to our world, it's just absolutely unnecessary.
DEUTSCH: But it was interesting, I was listening to your interview and your whole point was anybody but Obama.
PALIN: Yeah.
DEUTSCH: Setting up the enemy versus this is what we need to do. I'm not criticizing you, it's all politicians today. So this is an extension of that.
PALIN: Well, I don't think that saying anybody but Obama is – is necessarily such a negative thing, because that opens the door to talking about the positive solutions that I would like to talk more about-
DEUTSCH: But it wasn't positive-
PALIN: To talk more about when it comes to the other side of the aisle and the solutions to propose.
(...)
