AOL/Disc.Chnl 100 Greatest Americans list includes Obama, Edwards, Clinton

[AP]

Top 100 Greatest Americans Unveiled Today and Featured in World Premiere Discovery Channel Television Event
Monday April 18, 10:28 am ET
- New Primetime Seven Hour Series Begins Sunday, June 5 at 8 PM (ET/PT) with 'Today' Show's Matt Lauer as Host -
- America Online to Offer Top 100 List and Biographical Content at aol.com/greatestamerican and AOL(R) Keyword: Greatest American -

SILVER SPRING, Md., April 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Who will be the Greatest American? Political giant Abraham Lincoln or Bill Clinton? Sports legend Babe Ruth or Tiger Woods? Media mogul Oprah Winfrey or Walt Disney? These remarkable people, and many more, have been named by America as some of the top 100 Greatest Americans.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050418/DCM023 )

After tallying more than half a million online nominations, Discovery Channel and interactive partner America Online today unveiled the list of the top 100 nominees. Ranging from inventors to athletes, politicians to musicians, the list takes the pulse of the nation and reveals the qualities we most admire. (The full list follows. The list, nominee biographies, and additional information can be found on aol.com/greatestamerican and Keyword: Greatest American)

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050418/dcm023.html?.v=6

There are some great progressives on that list -- FDR, ER, LBJ Truman, MLK, Cesar Chavez, Ali. Potential Republican presidential candidates on the list include Giuliani, Powell, Rice and Arnold. For the Democrats: HR Clinton, Edwards and Obama.

You can sign up for an email notification reminding you to vote for final round.

Incidentally, 500,000 people voted in the round producing the 100 finalists. I think it's fascinating that Edwards made the list, but not Kerry. Also, it's really amazing that Obama made the list.

[blm]

1. Not fascinating at all if you know that AOL/Case and the Saudis controlled

the list.

Fascinating that the man who helped to end three wars and who investigated and exposed more government corruption than any lawmaker in modern history did NOT make an AOL list?

I think not so fascinating as it is deceitful.

Case is one of the money men behind the Dominionists and the Saudis and the Bushes LOATHE Kerry for BCCI which exposed their dirty dealings with the terror banks.

Edwards and Obama were thrown in to make the list appear more legitimate.

[AP]

9. Why's Michael Moore on the list then?

You'd think the Saudis would have told Case to take the guy off the list who made a movie saying that the Saudis are being protected from an honest investigation into 9/11 by the Bush family.

[blm]

13. Come on...you've got to be kidding. Media has already established Moore as

a partisan smear-monger. They know they successfully defined him in the historic sense. Putting Moore on that list furthers the perception that the left deifies him enough to vote for him as their standard bearer for greatness.

Surely you don't consider this list legitimate, AP. You REALLY, TRULY believe that most of those on the list deserve to be there over those who are left out? You REALLY believe that Kerry doesn't belong there while Obama and Edwards and Moore DO?

I have no problem with them being on a LEGITIMATE list, but don't pretend fascination that they are on it while Kerry is not.

[AP]

14. I have no idea how people were nominated, but 500,000 voted for these 100

and your theory was that the Saudis told Case to make sure Kerry wasn't on the list. Yet Moore's argument in F9/11 is that the Saudis are the reason we haven't had an honest investigation into 9/11, so I'm not sure that theory holds water.

As for the people who are in the final 100, the common theme seems to be that they're people who have either had a significant impact on American history, or, if they've only been popular in the last decade, they have pretty interesting life stories and/or are currently in high profile positions.

BTW, usually, when there are opportunities to vote for things like this, DU'ers get excited and go vote for the liberals.

[blm]

15. Moore's F911 doesn't have the weight of the BCCI congressional records

when it comes to the Saudis, AP. Because they have SUCCESSFULLY defined Moore as a polemicist, not a historic record-keeper. It doesn't matter what Moore says from here on out....he's a polemicist to the mainstream media. They have disgustingly put his work on par with Ann Coulter. No matter that there was more truth in his work than all of CNN's broadcasts of the last 4 years. He is no longer a threat.

This list is illegitimate because it was under the control of AOL, who is NO friend to Democrats or to truth. YOU be satisfied that they got it right. I think it's a crock of shit.

Noone with ANY true sense of history would believe this list.

[AP]

16. Whatever. After googling, I discovered that the Discovery Channel...

ran the first part of this poll last January. Viewers were encoruaged to email in a list of their 5 most important Americans. It was an open ended question, so I'm sure a few people on the list got lots of votes, but there are many people on the list who made it with only a few 10s of thousands.

Frankly, I think it's absurd to believe that the Saudis told Case to keep Kerry off the list, but whatever.

If you google, you'll see that there were some bloggers talking about the vote in January (but it somehow didn't get picked up at DU). The bloggers picks and the people discussed by posters to the blogs were just as eclectic as the final list, and it also turns out that people who were discussed at the blogs who must have seemed eclectic at the time ended up making the list (like Lucas and Jobs) along with obvious picks (Jefferson) and less obvious, but sensible picks (like Twain).

There was a short post at Freerepublic about the poll, and one poster's consipiracy theory was that because the liberal media was running the poll it was going to be fixed so that it wasn't all white men. I guess everyone has his or her conspiracy theory.

[blm]

19. I didn't SAY the Saudis told Case to keep Kerry off the list. Why pretend

I did to make your argument? AOL wouldn't NEED to be told as Case AND the Saudis have the same goal to maintain power for BushInc.

YOU think it's legit, fine. I don't believe that any poll taken by AOL is legitimate. Even if Kerry were on the list, I would be certain that they would present him as a bottom dweller.

So sorry that you can't see my point of view. I certainly understand your devotion to Edwards shapes YOUR point of view enough that you will defend even AOL/Case to promote the legitimacy of an AOL poll.

I would bet anything that Edwards doesn't believe this poll is legit, even if he does feel peripherally grateful that he is on it.

[AP]

20. I'm not celebrating the poll. I'm embracing the opportunity...

...to talk about and endorse progressive values in the media.

To borrow from your rhetorical style: sorry that you can't see my point of view. I certainly understand your devotion to Kerry shapes your point of view enough that you can't see the opportunity this offers for progressives.

[AP]

17. Another thing: the point isn't that the list is "right."

(And how could any list be right?)

The point is that we have a list with a lot of good progressives on it. The ones who get votes will be discussed in progressively more detail until there's a finalist. It seems like a great opportunity to make sure that the media talks about progressive values expressed by people like MLK, FDR, and Edwards.

[LiberallyInclined]

2. Barak Obama...?

i'm sorry- but what has he done that warrants his being in the top 100 greatest americans?
he's my senator, but i just don't see it.

[AP]

7. Great convention speech, lot of good coverage, only black man in Senate.

He also has a great biography.

I suspect that voting for the 100 happened around the time of the election.

And I guess Discovery Channel watchers must have watched the convention.

[LiberallyInclined]

11. but the top 100?

i just don't see it.
people are sheep.

[AP]

12. People liking Obama...I'm not worried about that.

If Rush and Laura Bush are on the list, then I'm just going to accept that people are motivated by popularity and current events, and so long as Edwards and Obama are on the list too, I'm going to be happy that people who are basically looking for good things in people can also be motivated by who's popular and by recent events.

[Hugin]

3. I'm thinking it's rigged too...

After all, *my* name isn't on there. ;)

*chuckle*

[GiovanniC]

4. Yeah, but look at these...

Barbara Bush
George H.W. Bush
George W. Bush
Laura Bush

I mean, come the fuck on already.

I can see why some people might try to make an ideologically-based case for H.W. and his chimp son, but does someone honestly think that Laura Bush is one of the 100 greatest Americans of all time? For what, pray tell?

[AP]

6. It's a popularity contest for Discovery Channel viewers with AOL accounts.

500,000 people voted.

I presume they gave a long list of people and had write-ins too. I'm not at all surprised the current president, his wife and parents made the list. There are a lot of Republicans out there and it was an election year recently.

[MadHound]

5. What pure, unadulterated tripe!

While there are a *few* atheletes, and a *few* entertainment figures that should be included on this list, the preponderance of the names is ludicrous. Brett Favre, Pat Tillman, Dr. Phil, Tom Hanks, the list of :wtf: is a long one. Even the number of :wtf: politicians is stunning, Clinton, Bush, Obama, etc.

Meanwhile, they are leaving off significant names in all categories. This seems like more political pandering by AOL, and focuses a great deal on modern "heroes", I suppose because they realize their brain dead audience doesn't know their history very well.

Sad thing is that political groups are going to take this misguided, biased POS as gospel, and if "their guy" wins, are going to crow loud and long, yet for no good reason.

Another exercise in stupidity, and sadly, many will fall for it.

[AP]

10. They're going to do a long show on the winner so it seems sensible that...

...progressives should vote for someone interesting, whether it's MLK, FDR or JFK.

And even though it's beyond the realm of possibility, it would be great if, by virtue of how interesting their short segments are, someone like Obama or Edwards ended up winning. I suspect the day might come when more than 50% of Americans will cast a vote for president for one or both of these guys based on information that is already currently available about them, so why not vote for them based on the short bio Discovery Channel will do leading up to June 5?

[KittyWampus]

8. Hey There AP, Where Have You Been Lately

:hi:

[Spider Jerusalem]

18. Most of those names DON'T BELONG on a list of the 100 greatest Americans.

Three first-term US Senators as "greatest Americans"? Utterly absurd. And the inclusion of Oprah Winfrey, Walt Disney and Tiger Woods? Bah. Not to mention Schwarzennegger, Giuliani and Rice.

Any poll like this, in which the public is allowed to vote, is going to be ridiculously skewed in favour of the inclusion of pop-culture figures (because most people are rather historically ignorant) and individuals who are still living (because most people lack any real historical consciousness).

Besides which, these things are exercises in futility anyway, because EVERYONE is going to have a different idea of WHO the "100 greatest Americans" are.