Michael Gaynor
"Take this" taunting
By Michael Gaynor
If the former President should not have publicly challenged terrorists to "bring it on," surely Mr. Brokaw and Ms. Brezezinski should not make the job of the United States Secret Service harder by goading "bigots and rednecks."
When former President George W. Bush publicly used the phrase "Bring it on" with respect to terrorist attack, criticism reverberated throughout the liberal media establishment.
The theory was that it was foolish for the President to provoke the terrorists.
Apparently the same reasoning does not apply to "bigots and rednecks," at least when NBC folks are doing the provoking.
Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw was thrilled with the inauguration of President Obama.
That was his right.
But Mr. Brokaw publicly told the "bigots and rednecks" he had met in the Sixties "when we were evolving as a country" to suffer through the Obama inauguration: "Take this. You know?"
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" crew was discussing how Barack Obama was so different than past administrations in their lack of drama and in-fighting:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: As I was explaining to my wife, as my conservative brethren continued to beat me up, 'Why do you say, you know — this guy is not going to be a leftist, how do you know he will not?' — I said because of the people he is surrounds himself with. They are steady people. They are professional. A lot of ugliness you have seen in White Houses over the past 16 years, absent with this group.
BROKAW: Comfortable in his own skin, to use that phrase, he had the self-confidence. It was not overbearing and could laugh at himself easily. He could hammer him and critical of a quote. At one point he burst out laughing, I was in the middle of reading back one of these things. "Some people said nice things about me as well."
Listen, I just want to say one thing. Having been in the South in the '60s and Los Angeles, in Watts and northern urban areas, when we were evolving as a country, I'm thinking of all the bigots and rednecks and people I met along the way. I'm saying to them, "Take this." You know?
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I like that thought. I think you might be right.
I think he may be stupid.
If the former President should not have publicly challenged terrorists to "bring it on," surely Mr. Brokaw and Ms. Brezezinski should not make the job of the United States Secret Service harder by goading "bigots and rednecks."
© Michael Gaynor
January 22, 2009
If the former President should not have publicly challenged terrorists to "bring it on," surely Mr. Brokaw and Ms. Brezezinski should not make the job of the United States Secret Service harder by goading "bigots and rednecks."
When former President George W. Bush publicly used the phrase "Bring it on" with respect to terrorist attack, criticism reverberated throughout the liberal media establishment.
The theory was that it was foolish for the President to provoke the terrorists.
Apparently the same reasoning does not apply to "bigots and rednecks," at least when NBC folks are doing the provoking.
Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw was thrilled with the inauguration of President Obama.
That was his right.
But Mr. Brokaw publicly told the "bigots and rednecks" he had met in the Sixties "when we were evolving as a country" to suffer through the Obama inauguration: "Take this. You know?"
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" crew was discussing how Barack Obama was so different than past administrations in their lack of drama and in-fighting:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: As I was explaining to my wife, as my conservative brethren continued to beat me up, 'Why do you say, you know — this guy is not going to be a leftist, how do you know he will not?' — I said because of the people he is surrounds himself with. They are steady people. They are professional. A lot of ugliness you have seen in White Houses over the past 16 years, absent with this group.
BROKAW: Comfortable in his own skin, to use that phrase, he had the self-confidence. It was not overbearing and could laugh at himself easily. He could hammer him and critical of a quote. At one point he burst out laughing, I was in the middle of reading back one of these things. "Some people said nice things about me as well."
Listen, I just want to say one thing. Having been in the South in the '60s and Los Angeles, in Watts and northern urban areas, when we were evolving as a country, I'm thinking of all the bigots and rednecks and people I met along the way. I'm saying to them, "Take this." You know?
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I like that thought. I think you might be right.
I think he may be stupid.
If the former President should not have publicly challenged terrorists to "bring it on," surely Mr. Brokaw and Ms. Brezezinski should not make the job of the United States Secret Service harder by goading "bigots and rednecks."
© Michael Gaynor
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