Did anyone just See Rachel go at it with this guy from FAIR?

I came into the conversation a little late, but it seems to me that the Guy sort of did a good job at pushing aside Rachel's trying to link this group to Racists and bigots. The argumnet that it was all "guilt be association" was pretty darn effective.


Not saying the guy is not part of a racist group. Just saying that he seem to win the round were I scoring it as a debate judge.

:shrug:

...he thought he was on 'Crossfire' - where all they did WAS yell..

Wasn't that the beginning of all the b.s. media we're enduring now?

i certainly hope you've never been a debate coach...

But I agree that he did. She seemed a bit frustrated at times.

I'm not making an judgment about his positions at all, just that he controlled the debate.

Yelling over someone, pointing fingers, not answering any direct questions, saying that all the different board members' racists' comments don't reflect FAIR, the people aren't unhappy with this Arizona law, and all his nastiness didn't convince me of his opinion. Rachel has facts and she didn't back down. The guy from FAIR was just a typical A-hole in every sense of the word.

not.

I'm white and this crap embarasses the hell out of me and my race.

her bullets. She read quotes from the founder of Fair, showed pictures of people on their board who subscribed to the sepratist physolophy, and much more.I don't think you can spend 29+ years as an officer and now Chairman of this group that has such a history and then deny the entire past.

Watch Rachel on a rerun or check tomorroe on the MSNBC web site to play that segment of her show. I think you'll see what I mean.

I thought it was annoying. It does not matter if FAIR can be linked to racists. They are in the game whether we like it or not. It is far more important to allow them to make their case openly and challenge them on specifics. The issue of immigration is in front of us and we need to resolve the problems asap.
I felt the guy from FAIR was articulate and would have given us a chance to see into that culture and if it is racially biased it would show.

Rachel wasn't prepared for this guy. He made valid points that she should have been able to counter. Going back 25 years in someone's history is never a good strategy - you could argue that any D who associates with Robert Byrd supports the KKK, or that anyone who champions the Constitution is supporting the beliefs of a bunch of white slave owners. This was Rachel playing gotcha journalism, and she looked bad doing it.

She would have been better off questioning him about FAIR's CURRENT activities, which include writing this AZ law. She would have been better off going at him and the current organization directly, not bringing up the views of one of their founders who is now a marginalized figurehead at FAIR. And, she blew it by giving an extended and negative intro about the group that ended up preparing her guest ahead of time for the tact she would take during the interview. Surely, this guy has been through this before and had a strategy ready to go to counter Rachel, complete with his own set of "words that work."

I think Rachel fell into the trap of thinking that guys like this never engage in adversarial interviews, and that they can be easily knocked off their game if you just confront them with a few facts. On the contrary, they are well practiced in handling the media, and it showed in this interview.

In several of his claims, so she got the last word for sure.

I'm not defending this stooge, but it's a little unfair to pull a "gotcha" the next day without giving the guy the opportunity to face the music.

Besides, any fans of the stooge would have watched his appearance on Rachel, not the following day's show. To them, it looked like he won the debate.

And that's the point. Rachel didn't need to go down the path she did in the interview. The guest effectively countered her arguments in the moment, even if he resorted to lies and half truths to do it. The time to expose the lies was during the actual interview, not the next day.

Rachel "got the last word" because she has her own show on TV 5 nights a week. So do the O'Reilly's of the world, who regularly "set the record straight" post the appearances of liberal guests who cleaned the host's clock the night before. It's unfair, even if it's now a time-honored tactic of the gabfest host.

Sad to see Rachel stooping to that level.

Not.....

You need to grow up. Progressives aren't always perfect. How can you expect conservatives to be objective and maybe change their minds if we progressives can't evaluate our own spokespeople objectively?

And I don't think you're evaluating Rachel "objectively." Not by a long shot......

Why not do like KO and invite only progressives? Even fuckin O'Leilly has progressive guests on his show.

As far as evaluating Rachel - I calls 'em as I sees 'em. I'm a big fan of Rachel's, but I'm not a blind fanatic.

He gave not one iota of evidence that the SLPC was out to get FAIR other than the fact that it did it's own research and found the organization to have some questionable board members - one of whom was the damn founder of the thing.
Yes, you can be judged guilty by association when association after association prove to be bigots and your group proudly takes credit for writing a racist bill.

button half way through. I am absolutely opposed to the Arizona bill but that shouting match did nothing to enlighten me. It only set my teeth on edge.

so the interviewer can't ask any follow up questions. She should have cut his microphone off so she could get a word in.

Rachel was able to provide specific statements that these people had made in the past. That's different than when some have tried doing this with some of Obama appointees saying they're corrupt, etc without providing any specific wrongdoing.

The liberal media have been doing that to Democrats and liberals for years.

Rachel's line of questioning was not particularly productive in terms of drawing out information about the AZ law, it was more a means of keeping the guy on the defensive.

And as far as I'm concerned she did a goddamned good job of it. Nice to see the tables turned on these assholes.

Which freed her up to slap him around a little.

that she brought up. She had the facts. IMO he dodged her questions. She was more riled up than normal because she knows she's right. She even showed a photo. One thing about Rachel, I've NEVER known her to not completely know her stuff.

Rachel brings up that members of his organization are affiliated with every racist organization just shy of the KKK -- snf provided documented proof of their statements.

He pisses and moans about McCarthyism and guilt by association without ever addressing the group's racially-insensitive pedigree.

And you think he won.

Oh really...

has been exposed. He was horrible, and she kept to her "facts", while he ranted.

She was terrific!

Guilt by guilt is more like it. When the shoe fits, then one should be forced to wear it. Especially when they are crying foul about people pointing out facts about them.

Rachel asked legitimate and pointed questions about him and other people on FAIR's board and about other organizations that this guy has been affiliated with. There seems to have been a significant number of white supremacists among the people he hangs with and he has in past interviews condoned these sentiments according to Rachel's research.

He started off the interview attacking Rachel as being a mouth piece for the SLPC and thought he had stun her. He didn't like it that she had the audacity to come back at him with facts. He wanted to do a filibuster and Rachel wouldn't allow him to. He made the claim that his organization was bipartisan and not racist, and that the people criticizing it were the ones trying to create a racial divide. And she slammed that right back down his throat.

He lives in a fantasy world....

not sure what you were watching.

I caught only the last sentence (literally). Is the video out there?

I love Rachel.

came across more forceful. I love Rachel but she really sucked at this debate.

In her factcheck last night she debunked most of his bullshit. He was lying. Heads up, a honest "debate" this was not.

I like her... I don't ALWAYS agree with her, but she's honest and what you see is what you get.