2009-09-08 Matthew Dowd's False Equivalence

2009-09-08 Crooks and Liars/Heather Crooks and Liars \Barack Obama vs. George W. Bush\Matthew Dowd\equivocation\mainstream media http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/matthew-dowds-false-equivalence-obama-hatr Matthew Dowd's False Equivalence: Obama Hatred Equals Bush Hatred Matthew Dowd's False Equivalence  On This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Matthew Dowd tries to equate the left's hatred for George Bush with the over the top attack by the right wing about Obama's speech to school children. I'm sorry Matt, but it's not the same thing.

As Digby pointed out in her post where she talks about the media fueling this nonsense, there is a difference.

...

Katrina Vanden Heuvel does a pretty good job of talking about how all of this is being fanned by "a right wing media that wants to cripple or take down Obama's presidency" and how we didn't see this when Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush spoke to school children, and then Dowd follows with this.

"Dowd: Well it reminds me, to be honest it reminds me of exactly what the left was doing to George W. Bush in this time. There was no way no matter what he said, how he did, whatever he talked about that they would accept, react to well at all, no matter what he did. And the same is happening to Barack Obama."

In Matthew Dowd's world, the left being upset about being lied into war, the spying, the torture, stolen elections, using 9-11 to scare the crap out of the American public, tax breaks for the rich who don't need it, using the Department of Justice as a political arm of the White House and getting a Governor thrown into jail, outing a CIA agent because her husband dared to speak out against Dick Cheney, putting industry hacks in charge of every government oversight agency, and I could go on but I'll stop... being upset about those things is exactly the same as the right wing freaking out over a speech given to school children by President Obama. I don't think so.

&ldquo;In Matthew Dowd's world, the left being upset about [long list of scandalous actions by the Bush-Cheney administration] is exactly the same as the right wing freaking out over a speech given to school children by President Obama. I don't think so.&rdquo;   