UPDATE: Per comments. Walsh explains:
I think the logic of "I ain't no punk" has to be very selectively applied, when your over 25. This is coming from someone who lived by that logic in his younger years. But as you age, the instances where "I ain't no punk" becomes useful are few and far between.I was surprised when so many people I respect told me not to appear on "The O'Reilly Factor." I'd attacked Bill O'Reilly for his jihad against Dr. George Tiller, and he asked me on to discuss my "accusations." I thought that was fair. I could explain my point of view to his face; to say no felt like being a punk. But smart and supportive friends, family, co-workers, Twitterers and media stars all over the country reached out and suggested I skip it.
I thought about it, but not for long. I like doing TV. I'm not terrible at it. I criticized him, I should have the guts to repeat it to his face
Writers are particularly prone to "I ain't no punk"-ism. In the extreme, you see Norman Mailer and Stanley Crouch. But, in the main, we want to prove to people that we're not effete bespectacled eggheads, hiding behind our reports. We don't want people thinking we're afraid of a fight.
I don't know. Having been a few actual fights in my early years (and ran from a lot more), having knuckled up with some fools who weren't gonna talk you to death (and ran from a lot more), I find the notion of a shout-fest with O'Reilly (or anyone who talks for a living) as a mark of courage to be dubious.
When I was 14, I threatened a teacher, and got arrested, trying to prove I wasn't no punk. When I was 16, I got smacked in the head with a trash can, by a kid who, himself, was trying to show that he wasn't no punk. I've got nothing left to prove. And I know how it all ends. Stupidly.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Her reasoning here http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/
Almost every time I've seen her on TV, I've cringed. Who are the people who are telling her she's "not terrible" at TV?
I used to be of the mindset that it was important for people with differing opinions to go on Fox News. As they have become more and more radicalized, however, I no longer feel that way. Let the inmates babble at each other in the asylum.
Amen to that, why give these people the air of legitimacy that comes from trying to have a serious conversation as if they are either interested in and or capable (who knows what they really believe vs what they act out but does it really matter?)of an honest, detailed, discussion that would require listening and reflection, I would be all for a (voluntary) media blackout of these hatemongers that would stop treating their spouting off as news, what do we learn from giving them an audience?
The deck is so stacked there. Even the anchors who don't host the "talk shows" skew everything to their side, framing mostly rhetorical questions ("Don't you think some people won't approve of this?" "Is the government trying to tell you what to eat?") through that ultra-con lens.
That's what I thought at first, but I think I agree with Walsh on this one. It has to help somehow to go on the show and make steam come out of O'reilly's ears (admittedly not hard I guess) and all the while being totally calm, collected, and stuffed with statistics and meaningful argument. I live in Fox News central, and alot of people preface talking about Beck and O'reilly and the lot by saying, "well I know this guy's a little crazy and I don't always agree with him." Then they spew the BS, but isn't that a start? As distasteful as it is, someone has to have a discourse with these clowns. It's scary, but they do represent a big chunk of the people in our country. As much as they deserve to be totally marginalized, I think it's more important to try to salvage some of the crazies. So basically, it's a tough awful thankless hopeless job, but somehow has to do it.
Some days it's really hard for me to agree with you, because my reflex opinion is that serious historians should never have to sit down and "debate" Holocaust deniers for the benefit of a slack-jawed audience who never bothered to learn basic facts. Leave clowns to clown-talk with other clowns, I say. But we've seen from the evolution debate how harmful it is to allow liars to go relatively unchallenged. Serious people have serious things to do, but they need to take time out to explain things in plain English to those of us who may not be as educated in a particular field. Those that are relatively good in front of a crowd or camera, at least.
"Fatwa" on Tiller. And that's the real issue. Not Jihad.
I think the biggest thing to understand: the right-wing thrives on reality show soap operatics. Lacking substance, it makes enormous noise to capture the stage and attention of the American populace. And it is very effective up to a point. O'Reilly has more of an impact on the collective consciousness than all the testimonies of late term abortion on Sullivan's blog put together, but right now when times are hard, a majority of Americans are sick of it. They wanted something better and voted the way they did last year as a result.
The left, if it wants to take this on directly, needs to learn how to jiu-jitsu a bit. Crooks and Liars framed this to Walsh's advantage; and in fairness to Walsh, it's easy to see how one can get sucked in, but going onto his home turf strikes me as a mistake. Nothing has been gained by all this; the camps are ever more entrenched. The trance of argument reducing as always to "your mama." And O'Reilly gets to jump up and down and brandish his gold-plated mud wrestling belt once again.
Like the idea of jiu-jitsu. But most media discussions (such as the own being discussed) are performances, with no real interest in debate. The President has done well in the past discussing issues with folks who yell at their other 'guests.' That's the only occasion -- when respect is so obviously required, as it is to the POTUS, either because of demeanor and position (early on, as a candidate) or office (now) -- where the jiu-jitsu can actually work. Beyond those rare cases, as you say, it's just a mud fight.
This is why Rachel has developed a niche. She is one of the very few who offer even loathsome people (I'm thinking Uncle Pat) the respect a debate requires. And she has the brains to have developed her own jiu-jitsu style.
So, to answer the original question of the post, I have no idea why she would appear with O'Reilly. Ms. Walsh was never going to be effective. Her rationale of fairness assumes she was actually going to have the opportunity to debate, to convince the other side. She should have known it would be a circus for the citizens on either side. I completely agree with you that "Nothing has been gained." As we all know, better to ignore the trolls wherever they are.
I think she was awesome. Did you see at the end when she shut him up? Pure comedy. I agree with Walsh as well, there has to be some pushback on these clowns who spew forth nonsense.
I tend toward Ta-Nehisi's view on the abstract question. But this is a really weird conversation to be having when she, to my eyes, wiped the floor with O'Reilly.
Why would Joe Louis fight Max Schmeling a second time? Why did Ali fight Frazier twice more? The rationale doesn't matter so much if you've got the goods.
I think the essential problem here is that, if one leans toward agreeing with Joan Walsh, then it will appear that she did well. But I think that would be a very small part of OReilly's audience. Most of the rest of the audience, I believe, will think of this as further confirmation of their beliefs about late term abortions and "baby killing." That is because OReilly isn't interested in, and may not be capable of, a conversation that is based around a free exchange of information and argument. His reliance on ad hominem, emotional bullying, argument from authority and the need to "stack the deck" with questionable testimony is effective with his audience and so Joan Walsh, and anyone else he disagrees with, just becomes a punching bag for those debate techniques. I think she did about as well as you could under those circumstances but if the task was to persuade anyone in OReilly's audience to think differently about the late term abortion issue, then going on his show under these circumstances was probably never going to advance that goal. OReilly got his "admission." You see how happy that made him because in his simpleminded logic and essential pettiness, he "proved" something and, for his audience, he probably did.
To me, it's not about trying to convince O'Reilly's audience. His audience skews extremely old, and their reactionary politics are kind of untouchable at this point. To my mind, the goal of having people like Walsh go on his show is to build up enough videos of him being a bully and a clown to fatally damage his poisonous legacy going forward. Make him and the rest of those tools look like buffoons, and you convince the next generation that O'Reilly is not a person to emulate.
I think you have to go onto O'Reilly with a plan, a real strategy. The best is still that son of the 9/11 victim who made O'Reilly look deranged. If you go in there expecting an honest debate he will lower your mic and shout over you until you take the bait. You have to treat it like a protest-- the point is to unsettle him and get a message across, not to make him understand something (see Upton Sinclair's famous quote).
If you believe that degrades your intellect, your humanity, etc., then please step aside. Someone else progressive needs to step up to the plate. Because like it or not, boycotting the guy just gives him carte blanch to blather about a voiceless "far left". Walsh shows that you can't destroy the format, but you can crack the facade.
This. Exactly. Walsh has too often taken these shouting matches as rational debates, and it doesn't work that way. I'm glad she did all right, I'll have to watch the video tonight.
It remind me of the Dave Chappelle skits :" When being Real Goes Wrong"! Joan Walsh doesn't have to confront that clown to be a credible voice of the left. O'Reilly is a buffoon and no one will ever win a debate of his show.
I think she actually handled herself quite well here. She never backed down, and I thought her last point was very good.
Still, I'm not sure what was gained by coming on this show. Who did she convince?? Who did she get through to? What minds/hearts were changed?? Who became more introspective or considerate of others for having heard this?? I'll wager absolutely no one--which makes O'Reilly the real beneficiary here as he was able to keep her mostly on the defensive the whole time and take the attention off of the O'Reilly-type rhectoric that fuels these right wing jihadis.
Also, for the record, she did fine. But yeah, I just don't know what it changes.
digby really liked her appearance on O'Reilly.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/into-monsters-maw-by-digby-joan-walsh.html
"I got smacked in the head with a trash can"
Oh, so you HAVE been on O'Reilly Factor...
LOL, well said!
Heh. Indeed.
There's a serious ethnic thing going on with Joan Walsh: she's at her very best against Irish-American blowhards, both in that clip and the round where she took on Patrick Buchanan about the Ricci case. It's like she's got rules in her head about how you handle a word-fight, that you don't avoid the fight, that you don't shout, and that you don't let the big guy shout you down, either. Rules she learned watching an aunt at a family reunion, or a sister at the family dinner table. Even though she made no headway at all with O'Reilly himself, I can't help thinking there were women in the Fox audience found themselves rooting for her against the bully.
So, so true.
Irish-American men generally can't deal with an assertive, intelligent, quick-witted woman -- no matter which side of the political aisle they're on (Kim Basinger, anyone?).
A woman *is* the best opponent for demagogues like Buchanan and O'Reilly, since those guys take the Irish passion for debate and turn it into a dick-measuring contest. But with a female opponent, they've got no place to go (think about it: you can't have a dick contest against someone who doesn't have the equipment) and end up full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I think sporcupine is exactly right. I've always said, much to many of my friend's surprise, that Bill O'Reilly is the right-wing demagogue I'd most want to have dinner with -- mainly because I already have in the form of various Thanksgivings and Easters and so on. For the Irish-American liberal, there's something deeply familiar -- and therefore defeatable -- about O'Reilly's particular brand of noxious billiousness.
He reminds me so much of my one uncle (who's actually my favorite family member). Whenever we debate, it gets a little heated, but it always ends with us finding common ground, mainly because I know how to turn his arguments around.
From the Department-of-Things-I-Just-Can-Not-Stand:
"when your over 25."
That should be "you're", as in "you are", as opposed to "your" internet style grammar.
pbh
No one cares.
And that should be "internet-style," as those words do not separately modify "grammar."
If you're looking for clean copy, this site's posts will perturb you. TNC has asked repeatedly that we not clog up comments with grammar policing. E-mail him directly.
I like Joan Walsh, she reminds me of the girls from my childhood who would vaseline up and throw down with the boys in a heartbeat. The woman is a Pit. She is one of my favorite counters to the racist Buchanan on Hard Ball. O'Reilly should consider himself lucky she was remote, he might have gotten mushed. That being said, she shouldn't give him ups with her presence on his show, she is real, and that legitimizes him.
This is like going into a professional wrestling ring and trying to use the moves you learned on the wrestling team in school. Sure, they're both called wrestling, but the similarities end there. It's not a perfect analogy, because there is nothing inherently evil about pro-wrestling; it's just goofy. (Or that's my impression; I can't say I've actually watched any.) Can't say the same for O'Reilly.
John Stewart has the best approach. Invite them into the boxing ring.
I thought that was fair. I could explain my point of view to his face; to say no felt like being a punk.
I don't know...
The fact is, the discussion wasn't taking place with both of them in the same room, face to face. He may have been better able to get in touch with the good parts of humanity within him if that were the case. Unlikely, I know.
I disagree with you TNC, and your analogy doesn't fly either.
The only time you shouldn't step up to debate Bill O' on his show is if you're not packing the intellectual or verbal gear to keep up. His show is about fighting and he will punk you bad if you don't put in the face time. If you can remotely keep up with him and your points are correct, you OWE it to the people who back you to stand up and swing with him as best you can. Ideas need to be supported. It's not about changing the audience's mind because we know that won't happen, it's about standing up for what you believe in the face of a bully.
Your equating this to a physical fight is just ludicrous. Physical fights should be entered into for only two reasons: When your life is directly threatened or that of someone you love.
Going on "The No Spin Zone" won't get you beaten around the head and neck by anything other than words. Joan Walsh was right. In a war of words, being a punk is something to be avoided at all costs. Stand up and get counted!
On the street, allowing yourself to get drawn into a fight over accusations of "being a punk" will get you broken or killed. NOT the same thing. With people like Bill O' who love to think of themselves as big swinging dicks they need to be brought to heal whenever possible and since the only thing on the line is a bruised ego: WELCOME TO THE TERRORDOME!
I think this sentence assumes that O'Reilly is actually hosting debates, that it is a test of intellect, and lastly requires verbal gear. If you believe that it's those three, than yeah, Walsh should go on the show. But I don't believe that.
Props to her for being brave enough to step into the lions den. She sonned the f outta him at the end there with the reference to the Knoxville shootings last year. Notice how he shut up after that and ended the segment quick. P's to her as well for not trying to spin her position on late term abortions, she said openly she supported them and considered the Dr a hero. Agree or disagree with that position, she deserves credit for not backing down on her real stance.
I completely disagree with the notion that you don't battle with clowns like O'Reilly and Hannity. You just can't allow their nonsense to run on the airwaves unfiltered and unchallenged. What you don't do is attempt to use logic and reason with them, you bash them over the skull using the same tactics they use. Cam'Ron and Dash gave a clinic on how to keep that dude in check, find the YouTube video. While it's a display of hood buffoonery at its finest, it shows you fight fire with fire. O'Reilly was completely flummoxed that night and probably scared Cam'Ron was going to rob him in the studio. I thought he was on Valium that night given how subdued he was.
Comparing this to high school bullying or other post-25 manhood challenging incidents is ridiculous. We're talking about life and death here where this type of dangerous rhetoric can drive people to do murderous things to people. You don't leave this stuff unchallenged and in it's own little space, thinking, "oh, that's just the crazies speaking, they're harmless". There is more than enough empirical evidence to show that this is something that needs to be pushed back on. Go check out Stormfront or N--germania sometime. There are "normal" people on those boards, people who you sit next to in offices and on the bus, with families, not loonies living alone in trailer parks. While most folks on there are pure punks who beat their chest behind a computer screen yet smile in your face in person, you have a small slice that take that stuff seriously and actively plan to do dangerous things to people who they believe are taking over their country and endangering the future of their race.
The better analogy is the bullying that occurs to newly jailed prisoners. If you don't prove you ain't a punk right off the bat, you have a chance at a "decent" stay in jail. If you even remotely come off as soft and people see they can get away with nonsense with you, you might as well kill yourself because your existence will miserable.
While I understand the 'don't stoop to the lowest common denominator" approach to try and come off as above the fray, to me at least it's weak sauce if you're not willing to stand up from time to time and take a firm stand in the face of pure unadulterated garbage or defend a position you put down in writing to the other person's face.
Next to last paragraph should say, "If you prove you ain't a punk", I missed the double negative before submitting.
Ugh...I basically agree with TNC, but there's an element to this that I'm surprised no one else seems to have picked up on (by reading through comments, I didn't notice anything.)
I don't mean to rehash the whole identity politics issue, but I do think it's very valid here. I'm about to bring up some points that really should be petty, but to O'Reilly's audience, they certainly aren't.
I literally couldn't believe it when he said "live from San Francisco." I don't know where Joan lives, but for a pro-choice person on O'Reilly, San Francisco is not the place to be coming from. Now, let's get a little more personal. Joan Walsh is a long time liberal feminist. She probably reminds O'Reilly's male viewers of the bitchy (see also: ambitious, no-nonsense) female coworker who just can't "lighten up." She probably reminds socially conservative women of the career-centric woman whose telling them that they aren't good people because they stay at home with their kids (these people exist in far fewer numbers than O'Reilly would have you believe). Thus, why wouldn't she be pro-choice; she doesn't care about families.
Now again, I think we've long passed the point where we should engage these people. I don't think any serious person, liberal or conservative should. But Joan has to have self-awareness; she should have known how this would look to his audience. It wasn't worth it. I watched the first 5 minutes and couldn't go from there. If she turned it around miraculously from there, then consider me a fool, but no one wins on that show, and it looked really bad from what I saw. The thing that upsets me most is that liberals let ourselves get wrapped up in this for about 12 years, from '94 to '06, and we conceded a lot of debates along the way. Those concessions are somewhat reflected in the more centrist leanings of Dems today.
And while we have these dumb debates, our country goes to shit because we let dumb arguments dominate the media. Great.
For the record, Joan Walsh was "live from San Francisco" because she lives here.
Do watch the whole thing, especially when she asserts her Catholicism. She isn't just a privileged liberal alien. She disagrees with his politics, but she shares his roots.
She walked into O'Reilly's attempt at a mugging and turned it back into a fight at the family dinner table.
By taking the fight, she proved herself as Irish as he is, with all the ferocity in a battle that entails.
Most of all, she operated on the assumption that liberals and conservatives can be one large, loud family. Fox wants to run some people out of the family, and Walsh refused to run.
You know, TNC, Joan Walsh is coming from a very different cultural place than this blog, and I don't think her meaning of the word "punk" is the same as yours. You read the piece as referring to the "I ain't no punk" meaning, the description of somebody who doesn't stand up for himself against bullying.
But there's another shade of meaning out there, which is that a punk is sort of a petty street criminal who causes harm but never takes responsibility for his actions. In other words, she isn't saying that avoiding O'Reilly would make her look weak, but rather that after attacking O'Reilly, she owed him the respect to say the same thing to his face; that not doing so would be like keying his car or spray-painting his wall.
And I think she's pretty clearly referring to this second meaning in her post, and that's how she has used the word in the past. For example, take a look at http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2009/05/28/rush_newt_coulter/, where she describes Newt and Giuliani as punks for the way they humiliated their first wives. You really can't apply the "I ain't no punk" meaning to the way she has used the word in the past, and I don't think that's what she's saying here.
I don't like this analogy. Getting in a physical fight, or threatening a teacher physically, is quite a different thing from standing up for yourself verbally.
I've worked as a nurse's aid with violent patients, and I've gotten into a fair few arguments. I'm quite happy to run away from life-threatening situations, but that experience has left me more willing to tackle other tough situations, as they're just not as scary as having someone trying to kill you.
In the interest of full dislosure, I am biased. I have written for Opensalon.com, and happen to respect Joan Walsh as a thinking person, as she has proven herself to be on numerous occasions. I don't always agree with her, but I respect her methods.
Joan Walsh is a very likeable person, manager of diverse intellects and excellent fellow writer. I'll get straight to it, before someone thinks I am f-o-s or just here to plug the sites and or kiss her backside.
Personally, I appreciate the strengths of my verbal adversaries, not necessarily looking to agree or disagree with them at every turn.
Once in a while though, someone weasels her/his way into our circle of colleagues - those I disagree with and those I happen to agree with on *most* issues.
Yet, someone who doesn't belong to this group of thinkers I am referring to still manages to get by security (my 1st amendment filter). Many regular spectators/participants at this and other worthwhile sites will instantly recognize this phenomenon I feel I must point out; irrespective of the fact that it really is *cliche*.
'No one knows you're a fool, until your open your mouth and remove all doubt.' I do know the more popularized version, but feel this speaks more directly to the point.
The more you are out there, on stage - either in the capacity of professional speaker (think media, not Tony Robbins) who must ad-lib from time to time, or as a fairweather commentator, the emperor will eventually be shown not to be wearing clothes.
It just so happens that for O'Reilly, Hannity and other self-anointed "journalists," fostering animosity and polarizing those incapable of /unwilling to form their own opinions; they have realized that a *really* lucrative career can and has been made by pushing junk-journalism on their 'programs.'
They've made themselves quite comfortable in the gutters of the profession, rather than doing the tough - and intellectually taxing I might add - work it takes to *meritoriously* carve out an actual niche.
No matter how faulty their logic, they still get paid to bate/bait and batter TRUE journalists. I almost had an aneurysm the first time I heard Hannity call himself a journalists - with gusto!.
I wouldn't mind him or O'Reilly saying that over the years they've "...had plenty of friends who were journalists...," but what they do is like the wolf slipping on another sheepskin in the middle of the barn. Unless, of course their audience is really composed of sheep..
Bottom line is - as far as I am concerned - liars, wolves in lamb-skin/wool suits, bullies, and yes - on occasion - just plain dummies pretending to be smart; have to be put in their place ...out in the cold.
While the almighty dollar is talking, why would they bother to learn walking? I consider it righteous to PUNK O'Reilly and his ilk. To do otherwise is tantamount to rewarding a lack of journalistic, if not human integrity.
- My $0.02
When he says, thank you for coming on, most liberals won't, you say demurely: "My friends told me that you would yell and scream and treat me like garbage. But I said, no, you would quietly and fairly let me have my say. Now we'll see which of us is right." It'll wind up on the editing floor but you might at least get the old SOB off balance.