Sally Kohn
[Beneath The Spin]
In her Article, “What I Learned As a Liberal Talking Head For Fox News,” for The Christian Science Monitor, Sally Kohn indicated that while working for Fox News, she had what can best be described as an epiphany. She said, “For a radical progressive who once harbored negative stereotypes about folks on the right, it was a turning point for me: Though Sean Hannity or Sarah Palin and I disagree profoundly on politics – they’re personable, kind, and human. If you want to persuade people, you can’t demonize them.”
She went on to say, “And no one will even listen to your argument, let alone agree with you, if they think you don’t like them . . .That is the essence of my lessons from working at Fox News and the idea behind what I call “emotional correctness” – that the key to persuasion, the key to being an effective communicator in general, in any aspect of life, is making authentic, compassionate emotional connections. Emotional correctness is how we say what we say. It’s not only the words or tone we use but the feelings we signal when we communicate. It’s how we show respect for others even if we don’t agree with their opinions.”
In response to Ms. Kohn’s love letter to the people at Fox News, I can only say that while she’s obviously learned to embrace the lyrics of Kumbaya in a very passionate way, she’s just as obviously learned very little about fact-driven, objective journalism.
The national interest of this country is much too important a subject to be based on “emotional correctness.” It is essential that we base our policies and governance on facts, not our ability to schmooze one another. And the fact is, the conservative agenda is based on selfishness, bigotry, greed, and carefully contrived lies, and we should never try to tap dance around that issue. Another fact is, the problem is not that the left is being too strident in attacking the fraud of the conservative agenda at all. The problem is, they’re not being strident enough in making it clear to the American people that conservative propaganda is just that – propaganda – and should be dismissed out of hand.
One of the biggest problems that we’ve had in this country for the past 35 years is that progressives have been so polite in addressing the conservative agenda that it’s led the public to believe the facts are debatable. This tendency toward timidity on the part of the left started during the Reagan administration. The American public became so enamored – and bamboozled – by Ronald Reagan’s “aw shucks,” John Wayne-like persona that the left gave him a pass in fear of antagonizing the public, and then later, when Dan Rather was excommunicated from his public platform for relating the facts regarding George W. Bush’s missing-in-action status when he was supposed to be serving this country in the military, that reinforced that timidity on the part of the press, when it came to confronting the GOP.
But history is clear – for the past one hundred years the conservative agenda has repeatedly shown itself to be a disaster, and a bane to the economic health of this nation, and it’s past time for both politicians, and journalists, to start bringing that fact out for public scrutiny. Due to the brutal assault on our educational system over the past thirty years, there’s an entire generation of Americans who are completely clueless to the GOP’s history.
The Wall Street meltdown took place after eight years of George W. Bush, and the Great Depression took place after twelve years of Republican rule. Thus, Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to come in and save America from, Republican, Herbert Hoover’s incompetence; Democrat, Bill Clinton had to come in and save America from, Republican, Ronald Reagan’s incompetence; and now, Democrat, Barack Obama has had to come in and clean up after, Republican, George W. Bush’s gross incompetence. For the past one hundred years, every time the Democrats have moved the nation a step forward, Americans begin to feel comfortable, upwardly mobile, and elect Republicans, only to be dragged two steps back. Now those are the facts.
Off course, I expect to be brutally attacked by Ms. Kohn’s “emotionally correct” friends on the right, but I assure you, it’ll only be a spitball attack, and not on the facts, because they can’t challenge the facts.
Ms. Kohn also said, “Sean Hannity is one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet – and even now that I’ve parted ways with Fox, he remains a good friend and mentor.”
What does Sean Hannity’s personality have to do with truth, or this nation’s survival? Absolutely nothing, and the mere fact that a nationally known journalist would take the time to write an article spewing this nonsense is not only beyond chilling, but quite instructive of the huge problem that we have in journalism today.
Schmoozing should never be a part of any serious debate. We’re trying to save this nation, not sell vacuum cleaners. There’s only one issue that’s relevant to the public debate on this issue – who was the last Republican president who didn’t drag America under a bus?
And every progressive in America should be shouting that question from every rooftop – period.
