Oh Shut Up

by digby

I can’t tell you how sick I already am of the latest incarnation of the angry, white male “star” as personified by Dobbs, Cafferty and lately (god help us) Matthews. It’s really just warmed over conservative talk radio ranting that people tend to confuse with ‘salt-of-the-earth’ regular Joe commentary which we’re supposed to think is excessively authentic because it’s rude and simple-minded.

Take this annoying knee jerk reaction from Jack Cafferty yesterday:

BLITZER: I want all of you to listen to the former vice president, Al Gore.

He was speaking at an international conference in Bali, in Indonesia, earlier today. The whole world — representatives of a lot of the countries around the world were there. And he — and he pinned the blame — most of the blame — on the global warming on the United States.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali. We all know that.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: All right. Now, that may or may not be true. But there’s a sense that, you know, they used to say politics stop at the water’s edge, Jack.

Was it appropriate or inappropriate for Gore to make that comment?

CAFFERTY: What a pompous jerk. Does he — I mean it’s time for Al Gore to get over himself.

Does he think there’s anybody at that conference in Bali that’s unaware of the U.S. opposition to the Kyoto Protocols?

I mean ever since he won the Oscar he thinks he’s some movie star. So I’m tired of Al Gore.

TOOBIN: Oh, Jack…

CAFFERTY: And I think he’s out of line doing that.

TOOBIN: I couldn’t disagree more. If Gore is right — and virtually every scientist in the world thinks he is — people are going to look back on this era and they’re not going to look at Iraq and they’re not going to look at immigration and they’re not going to look at the economy. They’re going to wonder why we didn’t do anything about global warming. And if he’s making a nuisance of himself, good for him.

[…]

CAFFERTY: But the point is…

TOOBIN: I just…

CAFFERTY: …he was talking to an audience that’s well aware of global warming. That’s why they’re all in Bali is to deal with global warming. This was just all about Al Gore trying to get the spotlight squarely on himself.

I know he sometimes says things we all applaud, but his “straight talk” is often nothing more than braindead knee-jerk contrarianism just like this. Yuck.

I’m depressed that this immigrant bashing, Archie Bunker style faux populist “character” is suddenly popular on the cable news shows again thanks to Dobbs (and O’Reilly, of course.) I will bet you money that we’re going to suddenly start hearing a lot of drivel from the gasbags about “angry, white males.” The rise of these boring curmudgeons is almost always a precursor to another round of tiresome whining that comes up whenever racial minorities and women seem to be getting too much attention.

Update: To those of you who think I’m making shit up about Cafferty and immigration, check this out:

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Wolf. Once again, the streets of our country were taken over today by people who don’t belong here.

In the wake of Congress failing to pass immigration legislation last week, America’s cities once again were clogged with protesters today. Taxpayers who have surrendered highways, parks, sidewalks and a lot of television news time on all these cable news networks to mobs of illegal aliens are not happy about it.

With every concession by the Bush administration, and the ever- growing demands of Mexican president Vicente Fox, America’s illegal aliens are becoming ever bolder. March through our streets and demand your rights. Excuse me? You have no rights here, and that includes the right to tie up our towns and cities and block our streets. At some point this could all turn very violent as Americans become fed up with the failure of their government to address the most pressing domestic issue of our time.

Here’s the question: What effect will the immigration protests have?

E-mail your thoughts to caffertyfile@CNN.com or go to CNN.com/caffertyfile — Wolf.

BLITZER: A lot of these demonstrators, you know, Jack, are legal. And many of them are citizens of the United States. They’re not all illegal immigrants, the people protesting.

CAFFERTY: How do you know?

BLITZER: Because I as out on the streets. I saw.

CAFFERTY: Well, where’s the immigration service? Why don’t they pull the buses up and start asking these people to show their green cards? And the ones that don’t have them, put them on the buses and send them home.

BLITZER: There’s a — well, that’s an expensive proposition, as you know — 12 million — 12 million of them.

CAFFERTY: As opposed to the cost we’re enduring by having 12 million of these people running around the country.

BLITZER: Jack, much more coming up. We have a debate. Lou Dobbs is standing by as well.