Contact Kucinich to reconsider "Hardball".

[the_real_38]

He turned them down - and it's a bad decision. He would have an hour to himself in a
highly publicized setting.

Here's an address to e-mail:

http://www.kucinich.us/contact.htm

And kick this to keep it up, please.

[GinaMaria]

1. Haven't watched tweety in a while but

I doubt he would have an hour to himself. He would get two words out with tweety constantly interrupting him, never letting him finish a thought, questions fired at him that sound like accusations and distortions, things that sound like poll pushing and no real opportunity to set the record straight. Tweety isn't watched by that many people that this would benefit Kucinich. His time is better spent other places, not with tweety the right wing hack.

[the_real_38]

3. It can't hurt...

.... this makes Kucinich look gutless - the other candidates stood up and went on the show, he should, too.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Tweety is the biggest narcissist on the television today.

If Kucinich decides to make an appearance on Hardball, I would highly recommend he take a large mirror and position it just over his shoulder. That way, he'll have plenty of time to talk because Tweety will be too distracted admiring his own reflection to notice anyone else on the set.

[GinaMaria]

31. it would help Matthews

it would give him the appearance of legitimacy and some importance where he has none. His audience is small and he's a small minded person. His show is a joke.

[Tinoire]

43. It does huh? Wake up. Kucinich was already on Hardball. n/t

[Skittles]

2. are you kidding???

and listen to Tweety screaming FLIP FLOP!!!??????

[jayfish]

12. I Have To Agree.

I saw the Hardball were Tweety, absolutely, hammered Dennis on the abortion issue. It was disgraceful on Tweeties part and I give Dennis a lot of credit for turning that som'bitch down. The problem is, that because of the "Liberal" media, he will have no defense against the barrage of negativism, that is sure to fly his way, once his decision does the pundentry waltz.

Jay

[CatWoman]

39. I remember the last time Kucinich was on Hardball

Tweety was viciously mean towards him.

Berated him, called him names, wouldn't let him explain himself.

fuck tweety.

[Terwilliger]

4. I say we don't encourage Dennis to participate in this, and in fact...

we should encourage the other Dems to pull out and give this media whore absolutely NO legitimacy!

[BurtWorm]

8. I totally agree with you.

Don't feed the media beast.

[Dude_CalmDown]

5. Who cares if Tweety is a jackass - DK needs to be heard by

a primetime audience. Plus he would put Tweety in his place. 5 minutes into it Tweety would wish that he instead opted to stay home and shit razor blades.

[T Wolf]

11. Why

does he need to be heard by an audience of brain-dead dittoheads who would sooner kiss a Muslim than vote for a "Demoncrat" who would bring an end to civilization as they know it?

It would only give Matthews cover to say that he is fair.

[Nederland]

7. If DK can't stand up to Chris Matthews

...he has no business running for president.

[the_real_38]

15. fuc*in' A

n/t

[Mel]

9. No Way!

If anything I'd contact him in support of his standing up to the corporatist media!

[xJlM]

21. There you go

Yeah, I'm going to write and let him know I think he's doing the right thing. Fuck Chris Matthews, only chumps take him seriously.

[in_cog_ni_to]

10. The problem is...

Tweety will try his hardest to make a fool out of Dennis. He did it the last time he was on. He didn't get to say ANYTHING. I say Dems should BOYCOTT RW talk shows! Tell them where to shove it. JMCPO.

[ShaneGR]

13. Here's my problem with the DK decision

One of my biggest critiques of Bush is his unwillingness to face the press and answer the tough questions.

Why is it any better for Kucinich to do the same?

[in_cog_ni_to]

14. It's a little difficult to stand up

to Tweety when he won't let you get a word in edgewise! He does control the show and has a very BIG mouth. Tweety can take a hike. Kudos to Dennis!

[VaLabor]

16. I support DK's decision 100%

Hardball is as hard as the Democrat is to the left of center.

The further to the right you get, the softer the balls come.

Other Democrats should follow suit and leave people like Matthews, O'Reilly, Scarborough, and FOX News in general talking to themselves. That's what they like best. Parroting their warped views of reality to one another.

[lcordero]

17. OH PULEEZE

I would rather have him boycott MSNBC and FOX. The people that watch them will NEVER, EVER, EVER vote Democratic. He has no reason to be on there.
MSNBC and FOX don't even deserve the time of day.

[JackSwift]

18. I wouldn't appear on Hardball if I were a candidate

It's an undignified show that demeans the office, they guy screams, interrupts, and lies, and lies and lies. He is a right wing water carrier and Bush worshipper.

[mikehiggins]

19. Dennis is correct.

There is no way to come out of this interview on top unless he shoots Matthews within the first three minutes. CM will open up his big yap and shout Dennis down no matter what he says. What happens then?

Does Dennis walk out? Does he sit there and take it?

The only way to handle this is to simply say that Matthews has no credibility as a journalist and Dennis doesn't see the point of kissing the ass of right wing hacks.

The real question is why the rest submit to this kind of crap.

The last question thrown at Kerry came just as the credits were about to roll. He did his best to answer it but how many people heard the answer as opposed to how many heard the question?

And that question about Kerry's heart from Gargoyle? What the hell was that all about? It sounded like something Barbara Walters would ask.

Senator, if you were a tree, would you let a dog like CM piss on you?

Apparently, Dennis says no.

Good for him.

[piece sine]

23. Thanks for the e-mail address...

for the sake of advancing our values, I am going to use the convenience of his cyber-addresss (above)to emplore him to DROP OUT OF THE RACE TODAY. It's time to start winnowing the herd. Dennis can't possibly win the nomination, let along the presidency. He must go! And his supporters hereat DU need to enthusiastically get behind either Dean or Kerry or even the totally faux-Dem Clark if we're going to win in 2004. Gephardt and Edwards are both running for Veep anyway, even if they pretend they are not. Carol and Al, like Dennis, are drawn to the spotlight and could never, ever be considered viable presidential material. Publicity-mongers, maybe, but they are fooling no one. It's a crying shame! They HOG time and space in the Dem. Pres. Candidate debates, sucking valuable air-time from the guys who have at least a chance of beating Bush.

[Ficus]

24. Give me a break

Winnow the field when we haven't even voted or caucused yet? And sorry I don't think I could be "enthusiastically" behind anyone like Kerry or Dean.

:dem: :dem:

[el_gato]

20. they should all boycott lardball

and all the other phoney news whores

[Desertrose]

22. No way would I ask him to reconsider....

why give that worthless CM a chance to spew any more crap than he already does. He showed Dennis absolutely no respect ( doesn't show respect to anyone really).

KUDOS to Dennis for saying..."uh, thanks but no thanks!"

What I love about DK is that he is doing things in the way that fits with his conscience and taking the campaign in a new direction- away from big corporate dollars and advertising and giving it back to the"people"...He speaks to us directly and not through corporate talking (shrunken) heads.....

I mean, do you need Tweety screaming and spewing when you have a young man who is walking across the country to promote you?????
http://kucinich.us/walkfordennis/walkfordennis.php

I say YOU GO, DENNIS!!!!

Peace
DR


typo edit

[Ficus]

25. Contact everyone else

and tell them to quit pandering to the RW media.

Contact Dennis and tell him to make a much bigger issue out of the mainstream press. In fact, that is something that a candidate like him needs to do.

:dem: :dem:

[Zuni]

26. He needs the publicity

He can take Chris matthews. He needs to reach out to soccer moms, working people who only watch the news in the evening, people just bs-ing around etc.
Why back down from Matthews? Just go on and answer his questions.

[the_real_38]

30. mail him..

... he's got to hear stuff like this.

[Neecy]

27. I support his stand

And I don't believe that you need to get the message out regardless of the messenger.

Is it better to have our candidates endure shrieking (Matthews) or lectures on playing nice with the pResident (Woodruff), thereby making Democrats look weak and pliant when faced with people who obviously despise them? Isn't that just playing into the hands of the wingnuts, who seek to portray us as "weak" and the pRsident as "manly"?

I think that the message that's being sent here is far more important than appearing on a show that appears on a third-rate cable network that nobody watches.

[oc2002]

28. Kuchinich is smart enough to know Tweety will just badger him the whole 60

Tweety is a poor interviewer, he only wants to interupt and ask beligerantly worded(poll pushing) loaded questions, Especialy when its a Democrat on the show.

Tweety is disgusting, I am glad DK is smarter than most!

[govegan]

29. Dennis is absolutely correct

"You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you're making progress."

(Malcom X in 1964).

Cornel West uses this quote in his chapter about the crisis is black leadership in his "Race Matters" book.

One could argue that the Democrats have a leadership crisis. DK is a natural leader, and one who has the courage of convictions and intelligence to go with it.

Politicians in DC and in statehouses across the country have been twisting the knife lately, not even attempting to back it off a little. No, the propaganda fueled facism that is creeping into all aspects of life in the US is harmful to most ordinary citizens. To allow oneself to be a tool of the propagandists is deplorable. Kucinich's decision is certainly commendable.

[foo_bar]

32. no such thing as bad publicity

Even in a sham interview, DK would be seen by more people in one day than have read about him all year. Calling his campaign Quixotic is an overstatement.

[govegan]

37. No bad publicity?

Perhaps you should check with Al Gore and Bill Clinton about that.

Sometimes publicity that appears bad on the surface can be good, but to restate the tired old PR cliche seems to be bad logic.

Unlike publicity, bad logic is always bad.

Are you Spanish with an opinion on Cervantes or his work, or is quixotic just another tired old cliche? (I think they really appreciate cliches over at those freeper boards.)

Leaders lead. People of courage people act courageously. Honest folk act on principles.

Liars lie, and fools live by cliches.

[KittyWampus]

40. Well, If Kucinich Is Gonna Wait For "Good Publicity"

Or ANY Democratic candidate, for that matter, then NONE of them will EVER be elected. PERIOD.

[foo_bar]

42. to thine own self be true

Liars lie, and fools live by cliches.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

[kiahzero]

46. "Get a brain, Moran" comes to mind

You are aware that "quixotic" is a word, right?

Quixotic: Caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals; idealistic without regard to practicality.

Gee... sounds an awful lot like Kucinich's campaign.

By the way, since you seem to have a hard-on for misusing "cliche": a trite or obvious remark.

As for the actual content of your post, what's interesting is that, while "There's no such thing as bad publicity" is in fact a cliche (as opposed to quixotic, which is not), you don't address the truthfulness of that statement sufficiently. For instance, back when Reagan was President, Leslie Stoll ran a story that was incredibly critical and one-sided. She was expecting an angry phone call; the White House called her and thanked her for running the story, since it was 5 minutes of free airtime.

By the way, how banal would you say the following statement is?
"Intelligent people think. Hungry people eat. Followers follow."

Explain what's different about my statement and yours?

[the_real_38]

35. Kucinich is a message candidate ....

.. he's the only one standing up for Universal health care, and to empower labor again - he's trying to make it the REAL democratic party again.

He's got to get that message out - this is a spineless cop-out.

[ThirdWheelLegend]

36. spineless

?

Its hard to get that message out with CM yelling at you nonstop for 30 minutes. And you think he would even let Dennis get any message out on any of the issues? Yeah right.

Good move by DK.
Raise the standards.

TWL

[the_real_38]

38. It'll raise the standards, all right...

... right out-of-sight.

[Paulie]

33. Tweety is no Helen Thomas

He's a RW enabling talking head. Tweety can go pound sand.

[KittyWampus]

34. Kerry And Edwards Managed To Deal With Matthews

If Kuchinich can't handle harsh press then he needs to leave the race IMMEDIATELY!

And for all the hotheads who are saying "boycott the rightwing media", all I can say is WHERE THE HELL ELSE ARE THE DEMOCRATS GOING TO BE SEEN BY THE MAJORITY OF VOTERS.

In Dennis's own word HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[OKNancy]

48. Clark will be on tonight

not the college format..just a regular guest

[spindoctor]

41. email is out.

I agree, he is in no position to turn down any public exposure, let alone on this scale.

This move is totally incomprehensible from my perspective.

[rucky]

44. Sounds Like He's Getting More Attention

by turning it down.

[TheWebHead]

45. the history on this

My guess is that Kucinich is still rattled by his last appearance with Chris a couple months ago where he said some republicans wanted to make abortion a criminal act for women, and named Chris Smith.. Here's the transcript:

MATTHEWS: We’re back with more “Political Buzz” with Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who’s running for president, and Duncan Hunter.

Here’s the Congressman Kucinich earlier today addressing the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian political advocacy group..

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KUCINICH: I would nominate any gay to the Supreme Court, or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered person to the Supreme Court, as long as they were ready to uphold Roe v. Wade.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: What are we to make of that, Congressman Kucinich, statement?

KUCINICH: You’re to make of it that equality before the law is an essential and cardinal principle of our government. And in
addition to that, women in our society will never truly have equality if Roe v. Wade is repealed, and so I’m take a stand of behalf of equality for everyone.

MATTHEWS: But it just looks like the most patent kind of pandering. You’re saying the only issue that matters to you in terms of picking a Supreme Court justice, in terms of the person’s background, the only issue that matters to you is an issue on which you took a 180 degree different position throughout your career. In other words, you will only accept judges on the Supreme Court who totally disagreed with you your entire life until recently when you decided to run for president and go national.

KUCINICH: Actually, Chris, what I’m saying here is that I believe that upholding Roe v. Wade...

MATTHEWS: But you were always against it. Now you’re for it and saying if a judge is against it, they can be gay, straight, transgender, whatever, as long as they agree with you this instant and they didn’t agree with you your whole career. It looks like pandering and it looks like, I don’t know what. Hypocrisy of the worst kind. But go ahead. Explain it.

KUCINICH: OK. Thanks, Chris. I think criminalization of abortion would set this country back.

MATTHEWS: Who is proposing criminalization of abortion?

KUCINICH: Actually, Congress has been increasingly moving in the direction.

MATTHEWS: Who supports criminal punishments for abortion.

KUCINICH: Congress has been increasingly moving in the direction towards criminalization.

MATTHEWS: Name a U.S. congressperson.

KUCINICH: It’s a fact.

MATTHEWS: Name a Congressperson who supports putting people in jail for having an abortion. Name one.

KUCINICH: Trent Lott, at the beginning of this Congress, stated that it was the number one agenda for his, the legislative agenda to move forward to make abortion illegal.

MATTHEWS: No, you said to put them in jail, to criminalize abortion. Name a member of Congress who wants to-name any member of Congress in either party who says put a person in jail for having an abortion. Name one.

KUCINICH: I campaigned for Congress in 1996 against an opponent who was backing a constitutional amendment to make abortion illegal. And what I’m saying that it’s important in this country-

MATTHEWS: You didn’t say that. You said criminalize it. You said put a person in jail for having an abortion. Do you believe any member of Congress wants to do that?

KUCINICH: Well, I think there are members of Congress who want to do that. That’s absolutely right.

MATTHEWS: Name one.

KUCINICH: This isn’t about naming one.

MATTHEWS: Name one. Name one.

KUCINICH: I think Chris Smith would support it. I do...

MATTHEWS: He would. Well, that’s a nice subjective move, but you don’t have his testimony supporting it. We’ll check with him on that. I think it’s a rotten thing to say. Let’s go on...

KUCINICH: What’s a rotten thing to say?

MATTHEWS: To say that somebody in Congress wants to put a woman in jail for having an abortion when you don’t even know their name.

KUCINICH: Well, you asked me to...

MATTHEWS: Name one.

KUCINICH: You asked me to who would be responsible and take that kind of a position. And I think Chris has had a strong position all of his life on it, and I think he’s probably be..

MATTHEWS: You’re desperate. Let’s move on here. Congressman Hunter, let me ask you a serious question because you’re a serious man. This was not a serious conversation.

[Mel]

47. Okay

I wrote him and told him thanks for not going on Chris Matthews. I for one am sick of the pink tutu wearing Democrats and DK is not one of those.
The reason a lot of people don't watch those cable news stations anymore is they realize it's BS and it's up to US the people to let the ones know that are still watching it that it's America's Corporatist Pravada!

I see it this way when people hear that DK refused they are going to want to know why that's publicity and it can be turned for the good. Also, the ones of us that are sick of pink tutu wearing Democrats are proud when a Democrat takes the stand DK did it takes guts to do the right thing. That's what we don't have much of in the three branches of government guts to do what's right for the little guy always afraid of not winning their election or not getting enough money from their corporatist sponsors!

Power to the People......RIGHT ON! DK