Jeff Hoard informs us that Bill Moyers is one of his heroes. So far, so good; everyone is entitled to pick their heroes and, if they think it matters, to inform us who they are. But Hoard goes further and tries to take Michelle Malkin to task for claiming that Moyers is a left-wing propagandist. Hoard does so without addressing the substance of Michelle's claim. Apparently, he believes that a reference to his high regard for Moyers, coupled with a recitation of the cost of the war in Iraq, is an adequate substitute for argumentation.
In point of fact, Moyers is a leftist who uses his forum at PBS to push his political beliefs. In other words, he's a propagandist. Here's a typical example of Moyers' left-wing utterances. In it, he claims that Republicans favor using "the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich," an absurd claim inasmuch as no serious Republican advocates increasing taxes on working people or otherwise taking their wealth.
Moyers also claims that the Republican "agenda" includes includes "giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment." Moyers cites no evidence for this leftist talking point, which will come as a shock to corportations and the lawyers who are helping them comply with the multitude of environment laws and regulations the Bush adminstration is enforcing. One can argue that the Bush administration's enforcement effort hasn't been aggressive enough, but to assert that its agenda includes freeing corporations from regulation is, well, propaganda.
Moyers also asserts that the Republican agenda includes putting "God in government," and in a particularly paranoid rant, tells us to "get ready for the Rapture." As usual, Moyers has no evidence to support this claim.
Moyers tried to combine his environmental and religious paranoia when he alleged that James Watt, a former Secretary of the Interior in the Reagan administration, believes "that protecting natural resources is unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ." Moyers claimed that Watts had given public testimony that "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."
This claim was flatly false. As John Hinderaker demonstrated, Watt never said any such thing -- the charge was purely an invention. Eventually, Moyer apologized to Watt though, according to his own account, he used the occasion to tell Watt how much he deplored Watt's tenure as Interior Secretary and how the policies Watt promoted are inconsistent with Christianity, properly understood.
Hoard is right about one thing, though, Moyers is "an American media icon." But that's more a reflection on the American media than on the merits of Moyers' overwrought, uninformed, and borderline paranoid contributions to the public understanding.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. The Powerwhiners would complain that Thomas Paine was a propagandist.
Webster Hubble Telescope at 8:30PM on May 7th 2007
2.
Paul Mirengoff says, "In it, he claims that Republicans favor using "the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich," an absurd claim inasmuch as no serious Republican advocates increasing taxes on working people or otherwise taking their wealth."
Simply giving the wealthy huge tax claims, on the one hand and manipulating oil prices on the other hand produces the effect of reducing the wealth of working people. Plus there's those gas/oil taxes which effectively go up when oil prices go up too.
Paul Mirengoff is a simpleton or Paul Mirengoff is a liar.
pboyfloyd at 8:47PM on May 7th 2007
3. @ comment 2
I said 'tax claims'... of course I meant tax breaks.
pboyfloyd at 8:51PM on May 7th 2007
4. Mirengoff,
It's good to hack back Moyers when he over-reaches, and his apology is a template Republicans should use.
I don't really care that you call non-(R) journalists propagandists because you've called for Michael Ware to be taken off the Iraq beat. You giddily bought into Drudge's lies about him heckling McCain. And this post of yours http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/02/worse-than-heckling/#comments is RIDICULOUS in light of McCain's lies about "walk(ing) around freely" in Baghdad. "Freely" with the helicopters and huge security force? http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/01/mccain-iraq-stroll/ When are you going to apologize to Ware for his accurate claims about and non-heckling of McCain? You wouldn't want to be a "propagandist" like Moyers, would you?
lil_turk at 9:00PM on May 7th 2007
5. Hey Mirengoff -
Speaking of absurd claims, at least Moyers has never pulled a hatchet job like you tried to pull on Michael Ware with your BS "heckling" story of a couple of weeks ago. What ever happened to that "developing" story ? How did it so suddenly magically disappear ? You and that weasel Drudge are two of a kind - you're both lucky Ware is too busy in Iraq to mess with such professional slime merchants. Don't you have enough decency or intergrity to at least apologize after making a bunch of false accusations ? Your silence says it all about what you are really all about. Just lie and then let it lie. Nice touch.
You making a judgement about anyones character is a joke.
max at 10:11PM on May 7th 2007
6.
Okay, if exploitation of the working class does not exist than outsourcing for cheaper labor also does not exist. Companies have constantly bucked the American working man/woman who expects to make a liveable wage in favor of the cheap labor of other countries who have a much lower standard of living and thus expect lower wages, if that does not support the leftist agenda I don't know what does.
Peter at 12:53AM on May 8th 2007
7. Yada yada yada.
Derek Pointer at 3:55AM on May 8th 2007
8. John - Wrong on all counts except for the Watt comment that I do not know about.
If you do the math, only the wealthiest one percent of America receives more of a tax break than their share of the huge debt Bush and the Republican Congress wracked up. Thats what happens when you send billions in pork back to your home district, lower taxes, and wage an incredibly expensive baseless war on borrowed money.
Add to that shipping millions of middle class jobs overseas so wealthy shareholders or sole proprietors of multinationals take money from the middle class in two ways: (a) first, their good manufacturing jobs with benefits are gone, replaced by lower paying service jobs with no benefits. So, healthcare costs increase for the middle class, or 47 million members of middle class families have no health insurance because they've become the working poor or insurance premium payments will make them part of the working poor. At the same time, the middle class and working poor are hit on health insurance, multinationals that outsource make higher profits off goods produced at slave labor prices, AND pay no taxes on the profits of those goods unless the profits are reinvested in the US. Few, if any, of these companies reinvest in America, because there is a huge tax incentive not to; and reinvestment in our country carries a huge tax DISincentive.
Then, as pboyfloyd has mentioned, there is the absolute lack of any real regulation of Big Oil. The one who gets hit is the middle class consumer or a member of the working poor. Whats so sad about the Republican coddling of Big Oil is that all of those record profits could have been subject to a windfall profit tax, as suggested by both Bill Frist and Hillary, to create alternative forms of energy. We could have become a nation of ethanol powered vehicles during the Bush years, just like Brazil. Instead, we're still dependant on foreign oil, Americans routinely have paid the highest prices for gas during this administration in the history of the US, and the wealthiest are not harmed by oil costs because they simply pass them on to the middle class and working poor consumer.
Never in the history of America has a ruling party at a time when it ran all three branches of the federal government coddled radical right wing Christianity to this extent. It was a deliberate Karl Rove ploy to demonize gays and cater to Fundamentalism. And even though Fundamentalist leaders (only) have a direct line to the White House, Rove's staffers cynically call them "nuts." John, perhaps you also didn't read the recent news story about the incredible percentage of graduates of Pat Robertson's law school, one of the lowest rated in the nation, who are hired with minimal or no experience and placed in top positions in the DOJ and non-political bureaucratic federal jobs. I'm not making this up, it was reported right here on AOL. Monica Goodling (or Gooding - I forget) is a perfect example. A year or two out of law school and she's involved in firing decisions for the DOJ of attorneys with vastly more experience than she has. This type of hiring practice, choosing the inexperienced from an academically shoddy Fundamentalist law school to pepper the ranks of our federal leadership, is unprecedented.
Then, of course, there are all the right wing judges and our Supreme Court. Its conservative to the max and poised to overrule Roe v. Wade. He even tried to pass off Harriet Miers as a potential neutral justice, and now we find her closely involved in a purge of US Attorneys based on whether or not they fit into the Republican agenda. It was unimportant to her that they got stellar performance ratings and had years of experience. What mattered were their Republican credentials.
You are also seriously downplaying the Bush Administration's utter disregard for corporate pollution. Not only did Bush relax enforcement of standards, he also lowered EPA standards. Bush did not even admit green house gasses had anything to do with global warming until after the 2006 election. I really appreciated this when the infrastructure for 6 million people was destroyed in 10 minutes where I live by Hurricane Wilma. It was quite a sight to watch water from the lake in front of my place wind driven 10 stories high.
As I've mentioned to Dinesh, I know its Powerline's and other conservatice bloggers' job to be the apologists for Bush and the Republican party, and at this point, its an impossible job. No one but the die-hard 30 percent of hardline right wingers will believe you - as shown by the recent new Newsweek poll whose results shine like a beacon of hope.
Phil at 5:40AM on May 8th 2007
9. Moyers also asserts that the Republican agenda includes putting "God in government,"
==============================================
Example: Monica Goodling and the other 150 or so Jeebus hacks from Regent University.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/17/is-regent-embarrassed-or-is-bush/
Steve J. at 5:44AM on May 8th 2007
10. Moyers also claims that the Republican "agenda" includes includes "giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment."
=================================================
ANN COULTER:
"God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"---Hannity & Colmes, 6/20/01
Steve J. at 5:46AM on May 8th 2007
11. borderline paranoid contributions to the public understanding.
==================================================
Do youu mean like Bill O'Reilly's attempt to blame everything on George Soros?
Or do you mean Dinesh D'Souzas attempt to blame 9-11 on liberalism?
Steve J. at 5:49AM on May 8th 2007
12. Phil,
I wish I cold respond to every incorrect statement in your rant against Paul, but I only have time for a few important things. First, the top one percent of earners in this country pay almost 37 percent of all taxes. That percent went up after the Bush tax cut. I’ll say that again, under the Bush tax cut the wealthier paid a higher percentage of income taxes. Also you ranted about corporate taxes. Corporations pay no taxes, individuals pay taxes. It would be much more honest if we just eliminated corporate taxes altogether
You say that right wing Christians demonize gays. I have never seen that and you offer not proof. It seems to me the only demonizing is you demonizing people of faith.
You also attack “big oil” (how predictable.) These are companies that produce a product that we desperately need in this country and they do so while fighting leftwing lunacy. They were making investments in oil reserves and infrastructure in the 90s when oil profits we minimal or nonexistent. Now that those investments have paid off you want to take away the reward for there speculation. These so-called windfall profits are good for America. The more profit’s the oil companies make the more incentive there will be for others to develop new oil recourses.
You derided this “conservative” Supreme Court and bemoaned that they may overturn Roe. As a former lawyer can you please give me a legal justification for the Roe decision. I spent three years in law school and I never heard any justification for that decision. The best defense I heard from liberal professors is that, while it was logically suspect, it has been on the books for a long time and it is morally correct. Do you have a better defense or do you think that do you think that supreme court decisions should be based on what you think is morally correct.
Just something for you to think about. Good day.
Greg at 11:33AM on May 8th 2007
13. Greg,
Falwell's statement after 9/11:
"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"
doesn't "demonize gays?" Maybe DD got the ideas for his last stupid book from Falwell.
Have you read Dobson on THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA? It's as if he's talking about an invading army:
"Those goals include universal acceptance of the gay lifestyle, discrediting of scriptures that condemn homosexuality, MUZZLING OF THE CLERGY AND CHRISTIAN MEDIA, granting of special privileges and rights in the law, OVERTURNING LAWS PROHIBITING PEDOPHILIA, INDOCTRINATING CHILDREN AND FUTURE GENERATIONS THROUGH PUBLIC EDUCATION, and securing all the legal benefits of marriage for ANY TWO OR MORE PEOPLE WHO CLAIM TO HAVE HOMOSEXUAL TENDENCIES."
MWR,
lil_turk at 12:19AM on May 9th 2007