Sam Seder, a Worcester, MA  native and Marc Maron's male companion on Air America's "Break-room", decided to call in to the Ken Pittman Show as an anonymous cranker for the sixth time.

Ken: "Hi, thanks for calling you're on the air"....
Seder: "Yeah, hi Ken I know this is a little off topic..I uh just wanted to mention about last week how you uh.." 
Ken (interrupting): It's great to have you Mr. Sam Seder, folks.. from Air America."
Seder: Oh! Ken hey, ..how are ya?"

The "capable" Seder decides to prank the show, you know as a true professional broadcaster, and then after being busted by a smarter man immediately Seder announces that he accepted a challenge to debate me with regards to the Tea Party Protests. So with Google at the ready and papers in hand on his part and me off the cuff, we engaged.

1) Seder seemingly corrected me on the debt vs deficit definition but the fact remains that debt is the accumulated deficits collecting interest for those who would lend the nation the money, aka public holdings and foreign which often times includes states like China, Japan etc.  Semantics aside let's review the "beating" Seder gave me according to Beau Friedlander who began the email dialogue between AA and myself and who blogs from AirAmerica.com. Anyway I guess I shouldn't blush too hard. The President and C-SPAN host Steve Scullly made the same honest mixing of the two;

C-SPAN host Steve Scully broke from a meek Washington press corps with probing questions for the new president.

SCULLY: You know the numbers, $1.7 trillion debt, a national deficit of $11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?

OBAMA: Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we've made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we've seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades. 5/22/09



2) In answering my question as to why he and Garofalo called the Tea Party Protests racist, he  stated that a number of people among the 350 - 500,000 Americans participating had signs which inferred racism. To my knowledge, between Garofalo and Seder a total of three signs were referenced.



But, Sam and Janeane don't seem to feel the same way about other signs in campaign offices, or
in similar kinds of protests for various agendas or even parades.
One has to ask whether Mr. Seder, Mr. Maron and Ms. Garafalo ever believed what they say they suspected was true.

 





Are Sam Seder and Janeane Garofalo now suggesting ALL of Islam is harboring violent death to non Muslims based on the few thousand signs we see in protests? Even if they are, neither has the courage to say it out loud. That sort of badgering actually requires principle. Badgering and slandering most decent Americans is not putting oneself at risk. So here we see a weak act double standard. How about the Che-Guevera sign posted inside a Barack Obama campaign office? Does that link all Obama supporters to violent communist revolutionaries? Are Sam and Janeane now linking all gay pride parade participants with pedophelia? * Before some of the more infamous pedophile murders GLAD used to invite NAMBLA to the gay pride parades as seen in the photo above. Poor Sam.



3) When he stated that the debt grew from 5 to 10+ trillion under George W. Bush and mostly under a Republican congress he was being basically factual and made a valid point to which I agreed. But the timing of the debt inclining had less to do with the president than it did with trade agreements Americans like Clinton, Gingrich and Bush signed. In fact, Seder said Bush inherited a shrinking debt but that too was wrong.

United States National Debt 1993-1999

 09/30/1999  5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998  5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997  5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996  5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995  4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994  4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993  4,411,488,883,139.38

In fact President Clinton walked into office with a $4.752 trillion dollar deficit and left with a $5.728 trillion dollar deficit. (LINK)

The rise of the EU and Chinese economies, war, 9/11, record damaging natural disasters, loss of jobs overseas, loss of jobs to illegal immigrants inside America all contributed to the decline of our economy. I think Sam believes that President Al Gore or John Kerry would have observed surpluses in the 2000s decade despite the realities I just laid out for you. Poor Sam. Looking at the growth rates each year, there is no extraordinary spending during the Bush years. In Obama's first year, we see the greatest growth in government spending since at least 1996 and he is just 120 days in office:

2010 United States federal budget - $3.60 trillion (submitted 2009 by President Obama)
2009 United States federal budget - $3.10 trillion (submitted 2008 by President Bush)
2008 United States federal budget - $2.90 trillion (submitted 2007 by President Bush)
2007 United States federal budget - $2.77 trillion (submitted 2006 by President Bush)
2006 United States federal budget - $2.7 trillion (submitted 2005 by President Bush)
2005 United States federal budget - $2.4 trillion (submitted 2004 by President Bush)
2004 United States federal budget - $2.3 trillion (submitted 2003 by President Bush)
2003 United States federal budget - $2.2 trillion (submitted 2002 by President Bush)
2002 United States federal budget - $2.0 trillion (submitted 2001 by President Bush)
2001 United States federal budget - $1.9 trillion (submitted 2000 by President Clinton)
2000 United States federal budget - $1.8 trillion (submitted 1999 by President Clinton)
1999 United States federal budget - $1.7 trillion (submitted 1998 by President Clinton)
1998 United States federal budget - $1.7 trillion (submitted 1997 by President Clinton)
1997 United States federal budget - $1.6 trillion (submitted 1996 by President Clinton)
1996 United States federal budget - $1.6 trillion (submitted 1995 by President Clinton)


4) Sam Seder at 4:14 of the impromptu debate claimed that George Bush more than doubled the national debt and at 6:41 of the recorded debate stated: "George Bush increased the national debt by 500%. An impossible lie. Bush inherited a $5.7T dollar deficit and left with a $10.6T, which in my mathematical configuration is less than doubling. The figure is nothing to be proud of if you are fiscally responsible but neither is Seder's poor offering of "facts".The first was closer to the truth than the second but why lie at all? Not only did he attempt an ambush but he didn't even attempt to stay accurate. Perhaps Mr. Seder needs to be educated on the matter. Poor Sam.

5) Sam asked me if I recalled any Tea Party Protests during George W. Bush's high spending years. I answered no. Not even when Democrats voted to raise the deficit spending in 2007. Hindsight being 20/20, I feel that I missed an opportunity to use a similar comparison to his anti-war (anti-Bush more accurately) compadres when Bush 43 was the president. Where was the liberal anti-war movement when President Clinton failed to get congressional approval to commit acts of war on Sudan, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan and also invaded Haiti with US military? Bush attacked Afghanistan after 9/11 and Iraq after a heated debate and inaccurate intelligence but still needed three more nations to attack just to tie Democratic President Clinton in aggressive acts.

President Clinton and General Wesley Clark did more than douse terrorists with water. They targeted civilians at a televison station in Serbia and killed 17 people. They knew some 100 civilians were within the building.

Operation Desert Fox in December of 1998 fired more missiles into Baghdad and over 100 sites around Iraq than all of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. There was no act of congress authorizing this massive use of force which killed over 2,000. Here is a quote eerily familiar to those by 2003 coalition military leaders:

"On the possibility of civilian casualties during an attack against Iraq forces near Basra, Our targeting and execution of our strikes are done in a manner to minimize any civilian casualties or damage to civilian property.

"No one can guarantee that these strikes will not have errors or that we might not have errant ordnance, but we do take every possible attempt to ensure that that doesn't happen, both in our planning and in the process of our execution.

"We deeply regret any civilian casualties, regardless of what the cause may be, but these exchanges have been initiated by Saddam Hussein," Zinni said. "This has been a deliberate (result) of repeated attacks against our forces."

In the end, the general made three points:

-- "One, we deeply regret any loss of civilian lives or civilian casualties or injuries;

-- "Secondly, we do everything humanly possible to prevent that; and

-- "Thirdly, and most important, the ultimate reason and cause for these casualties is Saddam Hussein.

"His attacks against us and his history of disregard for the welfare of his own people, which manifests itself not only in the humanitarian side but in the direct attacks he's conducted, and the use of human shields and the location of military pieces of equipment in civilian areas," Zinni said, "this has been, I think, well documented ever since Desert Storm and even before." Marine Corps Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, commander of U.S. Central Command January 27, 1999 as quoted in "Air Force News"



You know, I don't remember Michael Moore, Sam Seder or Sean Penn commenting. Poor Sam.


6) Now, to his credit, Seder caught me flat footed on the specifics of my objections to the American Economic Recovery Plan or the 'stimulus' package the president designed for improving our economy. Despite his interupting and digression tactics, I was abhorant in response in my opinion. The list is long and complaints many but all I came up with to begin was the infrastructure plans and he made sure I didn't get on track. This was the strongest point in the debate for Seder but I have to take the blame for perhaps being a bit over accomodating his constant interuptions which affected my train of thought. I look forward to another exchange on 1420 AM WBSM.