Topic: NewsBusters
An Aug. 3 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard portrayed a discussion between Alan Colmes and conservative radio host Mark Levin (Sheppard parrots Sean Hannity's description of Levin as "The Great One," then riduculed Colmes for saying, "You know, when I heard 'The Great One,' I thought Jackie Gleason was coming back") as if it were a prize fight:
Colmes tried to recover with his typical left-wing blather about the Mideast conflict:
But this administration has had nothing but disengagement. That's been their policy for the last six years. Clinton was engaged. Carter were engaged. Bush 41 was engaged, with Lawrence Eagleburger. This administration, their policy has been disengagement. Isn't this partly the result of that?
Levin clearly watched videos of his opponent, and was in no way surprised by this strategy. The Great One quickly responded with a series of rights and lefts that Colmes was clearly unprepared for:
LEVIN: Excuse me. Excuse me. Why are you excusing the enemy? Why are you excusing the terrorists?
COLMES: What did I say about the enemy? I'm not talking about the enemy.
LEVIN: Excuse me! Let me finish my...
COLMES: That's not what I said.
LEVIN: Let me finish -- you're blaming George Bush for Hezbollah killing Israelis and...
COLMES: I didn't say that.
Clearly seeing that his opponent was against the ropes, The Great One moved in for the kill:
Excuse me. What do you -- we have 140,000 American troops in Iraq. I would call that engagement! We've got 20,000 American troops in Afghanistan. I would call that engagement!
Eight, nine, ten…The Great One in a first-round knockout.
Let's see -- Levin accused Colmes of saying something he never said (that he was "excusing the enemy"), then used a dishonest misdirection ploy in bringing up Iraq and Afghanistan when Colmes was talking about Israel. How, exactly, is that a "first-round knockout"?
Rather than being an honest fight referee, Sheppard in fact appears to be a pro wrestling referee, the kind who gets so distracted by whatever diversion the heel's cronies are pulling outside of the ring that he's oblivious to the illegal holds the heel is putting on his opponent inside the ring. The WWE could use a guy like Sheppard.
