I had taken the day off to take care of some castle-keeping business that has been put off for too long, and had the chance to catch most of Sykes show today. I tell you, gentle reader, he was spinning more than your average
dervish, and if one had the opportunity to see him live, I bet his head was spinning like Regan's in the
Exorcist.
I won't get into all of the factual errors he made today, both intentional and unintentional, because it would simply just take too long to type them all out. But I am not the only one that notices Sykes having his meltdown this morning.
Bert,
Mav and
Dan also picked up on the fact that Sykes was being more than a wee bit hypocritical and out of control.
But what was causing Sykes' meltdown? That is the question that piqued my interest. He was literally besides himself in his anger to quell the sudden storm surge of information coming out about Sarah Palin. He kept going back to the point on how terrible it was that the media was talking about Palin's pregnant teenage girl, and telling us how terrible it was for the majority of his show, and about a half dozen posts on his blog.
Nothing like making some mileage doing what you are blaming others for doing, is there?
Sykes kept asking if Obama would be vetted the way that Palin has been. This I found especially amusing, considering that was probably about 80% of his show for the past two months and 50% of it for the previous eighteen months.
He also kept threatening to go into Obama's relationships, like with Rezko, Rev. Wright, Ayers, and whoever else they've tried to hang on his neck. Like he hasn't done that ad nauseum.
Sykes was using every hateful label he could think of for anyone that was part of the media or a blogger from the left. There was more name calling in this morning's show, than in all of the playgrounds in Milwaukee on this first day of school.
So why was Sykes manifesting this crazed behavior. Some of the less objective readers from the right would comment that Sykes was simply defending Palin's honor. Sykes might even try to make that argument himself. But, outside that a professional politician would need protecting from the likes of Sykes, and outside of the fact that that would be a rather sexist attitude to have, it is also inaccurate.
If that was Sykes' goal, he would have been much more effective to use facts in a reasoned and reasonable tone of voice to refute the allegations against Palin. He didn't do that. He resorted to name-calling, threatening, and intimidation and belittling people that would call and disagree with him. That is what most people would call being a bully.
Bullying is often most associated with
school children, but also happens in the work place. Or in this case, on a
social level. Either way, the reasons are usually the same.
The bully feels that life is out of control, and thus bullies other people that he or she believes to be weaker, in order to get a sense of control. The bully also may have low self confidence in themselves, and uses that sense of control they feel when bullying someone else to make themselves feel better about themselves. Building oneself up by tearing other people down, as it were. Sometimes it's just because the bully is an asocial asshole.
I'm not saying any of these necessarily apply to Sykes, in this specific situation, but it does seem to be more than a passing trend among some of the local right wing media and bloggers, but more of
a conscious lifestyle choice.
I personally think it's just because they were in panic mode, and that became hysterical panic mode when McCain announced Palin to be his running mate. They realize they are in a losing battle, and are just getting extremely desperate.
