Tuesday, October 26, 2004

John O'Neill, Lawrence O'Donnell and the War of Ideas

We are winning the War of Ideas. How do I know? Check out this "debate" between SwiftVet John O'Neill and Lawarnce O'Donnel on Scarborough Country.

Ann Coulter's third rule from How to Talk to a Liberal (If you Must) is "Outrage the Enemy." Well, the sputtering, name calling outburts from O'Donnell seem to prove that this works.

O'Neill is a true patriot and has faced many Liberals who virulently and disgracefully scream invective at him. As I have pointed out before, and as he does towards the end of his appearance, his arguments are good and most certainly have not been refuted. Kerry has offered testimony to counter the SwiftVets, but the SwiftVets both have more testimony and better textual arguments. The fact that O'Donnell resorts to this sort of childishness is proof that he can not stand up to O'Neill's arguments.

Tonight Pat Buchanan, again in for Scarborough, announced that O'Donnell's "manner" "crossed the line" and was "disrespectful" to the audience. He said that O'Donnell's "insults did not forward the debate." Pat assured us that this would not happen again. He also said, to O'Donnell's credit, that O'Donnell agreed with all this. It was a sort of apology, but not quite. I will try to add the transcript of it when available.

1 comment:

Endymion said...

Provisional transcript excerpt:

we welcome a vigorous, but respectful exchange of ideas and debate. Lawrence O‘Donnell is and has been a valued contributor. However, the manner in which he expressed his disagreement crossed a line. MSNBC believes he was disrespectful to you, the viewer, and that his insults did nothing to forward the debate or the understanding of a very critical issue.

We have spoken to Lawrence O‘Donnell, and he agrees. We can assure you that this will not happen again on this program