How are you going to celebrate? July 15, 2021 marks the 25th anniversary of the far-left MSNBC network going on the air. To commemorate the day, MSNBC.com is featuring 25 days of essays by the network’s liberal hosts. As of Thursday, the first four are out and they are about as untethered to reality as you might expect.
For his essay, Lawrence O’Donnell fantasized about Biden being the beginning of four straight presidential wins by Democrats:
President Joe Biden is more popular now than Trump ever was because of the reality-based way Biden governs. Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to four consecutive terms as president by governing the way Biden is now. Term limits now prevent a four-term president but four consecutive terms of Democratic presidents governing in the FDR-Biden reality-based mode is possible, especially if Republicans remain committed to Trumpian big lies. The ride back to reality for Republicans will speed up with every presidential election they lose. We can hope it doesn’t take 25 years.
Isn’t that nice? He just wants the best for the GOP? Old lesson for conservatives: Ignore advice from someone who doesn’t have your best interests at heart. On his July 14 show, O’Donnell touted his own essay and then recounted his Senate days when (he claims) Democrats refused to demonize Bob Dole. The host promoted, "Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of this network. As part of MSNBC`s 25th birthday, we are all writing essays that appear on MSNBC.com/next25."
In my essay, I quote the famous line of my former boss, Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. "You`re entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts."
To make the point about how far from reality the Republican Party has traveled in the last 25 years and to consider what it will take in the next 25 years to bring the Republican Party back to reality, the day MSNBC premiered 25 years ago, Republican Senate leader Bob Dole was getting crushed in the polls by Bill Clinton in the presidential campaign.
Senator Moynihan never suggested that his friend Bob Dole was creating his own facts, because the Dole campaign against President Bill Clinton was about differing opinions, not differing facts. The Republican tactic of demonizing the other side had not yet taken hold in the Senate although Newt Gingrich had been using it in the House of Representatives for years at that point. Little did we know at the time, that the Senate was mounting the last stand against the politics of demonization.
Thankfully, O’Donnell doesn’t demonize. Oh, wait. He compared conservatives to Nazis “just following orders” and said that Trump was like “Hitler or Stalin.” The idea of anyone at MSNBC decrying demonization is absurd. On Wednesday night, Joy Reid painted Republicans as wanting to create another 9/11.
Speaking of Reid, she used her 25th anniversary essay to glorify the history of MSNBC as “telling stories” for “history”: “In the end, our goal at MSNBC is to keep telling the stories of who we are and where we are as an ever-changing, ever-striving and struggling nation. And to keep a keen eye, always, on history.”
Brian Williams, who eventually lost his job at NBC for lying, trumpeted the future for MSNBC in his essay: “Our launch may have been modest. But a quarter century of hard work has guaranteed the next 25 years will be anything but. Our future is limitless.”
This is only day four of the blog series. Check back at NewsBusters to see what other extreme/bizarre/ridiculous claims are made as MSNBC celebrates its 25th anniversary.
A partial transcript from O’Donnell’s show is below. Click “expand” to read more.
The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell
7/14/2021
10:50 PM ET
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of this network. As part of MSNBC`s 25th birthday, we are all writing essays that appear on MSNBC.com/next25. In my essay, I quote the famous line of my former boss, Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. "You`re entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts."
To make the point about how far from reality the Republican Party has traveled in the last 25 years and to consider what it will take in the next 25 years to bring the Republican Party back to reality, the day MSNBC premiered 25 years ago, Republican Senate leader Bob Dole was getting crushed in the polls by Bill Clinton in the presidential campaign.
Senator Moynihan never suggested that his friend Bob Dole was creating his own facts, because the Dole campaign against President Bill Clinton was about differing opinions, not differing facts. The Republican tactic of demonizing the other side had not yet taken hold in the Senate although Newt Gingrich had been using it in the House of Representatives for years at that point. Little did we know at the time, that the Senate was mounting the last stand against the politics of demonization. Some Democrats wanted to try that tactic. On August 11th, 1994, when the Clinton health care bill was being debated on the Senate floor with Finance Committee chairman Moynihan, as the floor manager of the bill and me with a front row seat on the Senate floor beside the chairman. We had one of those luncheon gatherings of Democratic senators like the one President Biden attended today. The president never attended those luncheons then, but often sent high- ranking representatives from the White House. The Clinton White House official who joined us in the luncheon that day told us that the message of the day on the Senate floor should be demonize Dole. Nothing about the policy in Bob Dole`s Republican health care bill that was competing with the Clinton health care bill on the Senate floor, just demonize Dole. The White House was understandably frustrated that the Clinton Health Care bill was stuck in the predictably slow motion of the senate floor where it would a few weeks later eventually die.
From that frustration came the message of the day from the White House: demonize Dole. I knew there were no more than a couple of Democratic senators in that room who might be willing to do that. The rest of them fully respected Bob Dole, and many of them were proud to call him a friend. The wounded combat veterans in the room shared that special bond with Bob Dole, who was severely wounded in World War II in combat in Italy. One of the combat veterans in the Democratic senators` lunch was Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, who lost a leg in Vietnam. He said nothing about the demonize Dole strategy in the room but as soon as the meeting was over, he walked on to the Senate floor and asked Chairman Moynihan for time to speak. And when you hear what Senator Kerrey had to say that day, consider how far we`ve come, and how impossible it would be to apply these words to the current Republican leader of the senate.
FORMER SENATOR BOB KERREY (D-NE): I have read Senator Dole`s bill. I see principles in this bill that are similar to principles that I have as well. And I believe that the distinguished senator from Kansas is first and foremost a patriot. He`s a patriot before he`s a Republican. I have seen him lay aside his party concerns for his concerns for this nation on many occasions. And I believe sincerely and genuinely that he`s prepared to do it again now. And I intend to participate not only with the distinguished senator from Kansas but with other members of this body who see a problem in this country and are prepared -- urgently prepared to work to try to solve it. And I yield the floor.
