It’s hotter than hell in a heatwave here in lovely Virginia, and tempers have been flaring. Mostly mine, I will admit. We have a short table, just one big WTF?? because, well, it’s too bloody hot to cook! 105 degrees here yesterday, and if it keeps up with no rain, looks like I got me some oceanfront property in Arizona.
Welcome to the table, folks, and let’s get started.
WTF?? – The Martyrdom of Shirley Sherrod to the Altar of Fox News. I was going to have a say about this entire episode of Breitbart’s edited videos picked up by Fox, the resultant accusations of “reverse racism” (which is really just a euphemism employed by white people who are afraid one might detect that they are, themselves, racist to some degree) and her ouster from the USDA, only to be offered reinstatement when it was discovered that the POS Breitbart doctored the video so badly that nothing about it was true anymore. I was going to have a say, but my friend Isaac, whom I have extended a “contributors” license here at The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and who I hope will come by occasionally and drop some wisdom on us, said it better. Here is what Isaac had to say about it, and let me make this clear: The following comes from a series of emails where he wasn’t even trying. If you want to see a formidable writer in action, just wait until he’s trying.
I think there’s another context here and it’s not a pretty one.
In the last couple of months there have been other instances of people saying or writing something that pissed off the right and immediately their jobs disappeared with no questions asked.
Helen Thomas, one of the best, if not THE best reporter ever to grace the White House Press Corps saw her distinguished career end when she made a brief public comment regarding Israel and Palestine.
The same thing happened to Octavia Nasr, who was fired by CNN over a comment about the Middle East.
Dave Weigel was immediately let go from the Washington Post after he made a comment on an e-mail list for journalists, which was not a public email list, about the Right wing that the bowtie-wearing shit stain Tucker Carlson didn’t like. Carlson made the comment public, and *poof*, Weigel gets fired.
Now Shirley Sherrod.
Anyone with more than a handful of brain cells working should be asking where are the examples of right wingers being terminated from their jobs for saying something somebody didn’t like?
Look at what also happened to ACORN and Van Jones, with public verdicts coming in before there was even a trial.
And when the answer to the above question comes back “zero,” the next question should be why are news and government organizations so quick to bend over backward looking out for the hurt feelings of the Right and cut people loose who don’t kiss right wing ass?
Liberal media, my hairy ass. Although Sherrod wasn’t in the media, it was the right wing media that drove this thing. A couple of accounts I heard said that she was forced to resign because Glenn Beck was going to run the story that night. Glenn fucking Beck?
When did not pissing off the Right become the standard? They do what they do because they know they can get away with it. They know that the people in charge on the Left will fold faster than Superman on laundry day if a right winger looks at them cockeyed. These people are bullies and they know they can keep taking our lunch money without a fight.
Octavia Nasr, Dave Weigel and Helen Thomas weren’t in the government, they were members of the media speaking their minds outside of their professional roles as journalists.
If I remember correctly, Octavia had sent a Tweet that the right didn’t like. Helen Thomas said what she said into a microphone during an interview, and Dave Weigel, as I said, spoke his mind on a private e-mail list. Their media organizations didn’t waste any time showing them the door at the first sign of right wing hissy fit.
Media organizations should be the last ones to react that way, given specific Constitutional First Amendment protections. The gist and spirit of that amendment must be something that a media organization is mindful of when it comes to the speech of its employees.
The proper response to free speech is more free speech and the Right exercised their right to it. But the spirit of free speech isn’t that someone only has the right to it until someone doesn’t like what was said. The proper response should have come down to some version of “She/he said, she/he has the right to say it, we stand behind their right to have and express an opinion, and if you don’t like it, you can piss up a rope. If you’re so all fired hot to make a big deal of it, submit your thoughts and we’ll run it on the opinion page or we’ll make time on one of our shows for a representative of your point of view to appear and articulate your position. Until then – choke on it.”
Instead, what happened is that these organizations gave more weight to the free speech rights of the Rightwing, and granted them another right that doesn’t even exist – the right not to be offended. The Right essentially now has more free speech rights than the rest of us.
These were the personal views of journalists, but the Right were able to successfully call into quesiton the “objectivity” of these journalists. To me, that signals a humongous case of projection on the side of the Right – that a journalist’s personal opinion will be what drives their coverage rather than giving them the credit to be able to objectively report the facts. When I was a working reporter, I could report objectively. I was forced to write negative stories about people I liked and complementary ones about people I didn’t like. Fox News never reports objectively, with the exception of Shepard Smith, who refused to go along with the Shirley Sherrod smear. He knew what no one else at Fox either knew or would admit – that anything coming from Andrew Breitbart is questionable, at best.
They are all for free speech when it benefits them, but let someone organize a boycott of Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, and you’d think the sun had just exploded. The Right doesn’t boycott – they go after the heads of their enemies, and the government and the media follow right along rather than investigate the situation or even offer token resistance or support for their own.
So now we’re in a position where “free speech” is only for the right wing and the First Amendment means whatever the right says it means, and we just keep getting our lunch money taken away.
Why does our side suck so bad?
I have to agree with Isaac, we suck, and we suck badly. Right now after Shirley Sherrod was martyred on the alter of fox news, the Obama administration and the man himself are looking like the kings of suckers because they not only fell for the edited video from an extremely suspect individual, they ran with the stupid thing.
The left has never been as good at the devious and dirty pool tactics that the Right has consistently used to its advantage. If the most recent polls showing Obama’s favorability ratings taking the fast road down the proverbial toilet are true, then the Left has already lost. Hell, we lost when John Kerry got his war record in Vietnam swiftboated by a bunch of yahoos who never knew him, and the ones who did know him in Vietnam lied through their teeth just to ensure that doubt would be cast during a “time of war” and that the horse’s ass didn’t change in mid-stream. We ended up with a second term of Georgie Bush because too many fell off the cliff for that “he’s no war hero” line. Now, republicans have zero to bring to the table but trash, trash and more trash, be it Sarah Palin’s dipstick bumpkinisms wrapped up in an Armani suit, or the resurrection from total political annihilation of Newt Gingrich, of all people. They have no ideas on how to clean up their mess (and make NO mistake, these wars, this economy and the constant infringements on the Constitution were republican messes. Bush had 8 years to fix whatever perceived mistakes Clinton made, but didn’t bother because he was too busy faking that he liked horses and could be a Texas rancher and in the process managed to make more, and bigger mistakes, so save the “no new taxes” crap). But they’ll blither and blather on for ages about those “reverse racists” in the USDA, sacrificing a woman’s career to their baggage-laden hubris. The sad and pathetic part is they can’t even find anything really, really nasty to get a Shirley Sherrod, or a Helen Thomas, or an Octavia Nasr, or an ACORN on. They have to game the system, edit the videos and run their little half-assed personal “sting” operations, and even those they have to edit the living daylights out of to get anything they can pass off as “reverse racist” or “marxist” or whatever crap they’re drinking out of the Koolaid bottle this year.
So let’s talk about “special interests” and “entitlement society.” If the NRA isn’t a special interest, then tell me, What is?? And if the Right thinking that they should be able to talk any trash they please because of their “first amendment rats” while the rest of us are supposed to shut up and say “thank you sir, may I have another?” isn’t an entitlement society, then I don’t know what is. From their politics and their personal boogeymen to their wacked out religions, they think we’re supposed to all join them on the bandwagon to nowhere-real-fast and I’m taking a pass on the crazy, thank you very much.
I’ll leave you with something I ran across this week as a nice little “Strikes My Fancy.” Enjoy some Sarah McLachlan and Run DMC:
Tags: Acorn, CNN, Dave Weigel, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Helen Thomas, liberal media, Octavia Nasr, Run DMC, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah McLachlan, Shirley Sherrod, Van Jones, Washington Post, White House Press Corps
This whole episode just shows you to what depths the right wing media people will go to smear someone. Not one of them has come back and issued a sorry for any of spreading this gossip. To hell with them all.
AW man, I watched the video after replying. EXCELLENT vid for us adopted babies young and old.
Hey, where all you lazy butts at today? You should have been here already.
Jess Calm down, I had to go shopping for Dinner.lol
Well be what a way to start my Sunday Visits. I think many will suffer in comparison. Your right, it was well written but so to was your input. I can only think of one or two people in Politics that has a spine. One of them just received serious death threats.
I see no such backbone in our President or his Administration.
I certainly wish it to be different. It is overdue to mount an attack. No more defense, we must be the aggressors for a change.
That change I might believe in.
Sorry Tim, wasn’t meaning to rush you
. That was more a joke to one of Bee’s other readers *yeah you* he knows who he is. Happens to be VERY late to the party as of this moment. That and I read everything, did my reply and forgot to add a blurb about the video, so it kinda looks like I was getting all bossy.
Grayson is the wrong one for them to go after. He will go right back after them and not flinch doing it. He did write a diary on Kos the other day, about the idiot saying he would give 100 bucks to the first congressperson that would punch him. Grayson said basically, ok bring it and remember I’ll punch you back.
Sorry late to the party, little bit of chores and a lot of laziness causing me to nap!
Bee great WTF, I feel you on everything and Isaac is an excellent addition to your “arsenal” here. He really helped to connect the dots, I saw much of that but hadn’t connected the venerable and wonderful Helen Thomas to this, as well as Octavia Nasr.
I don’t know why the low-info voters tend to congregate, or coagulate, or just cohabitate at the bottom right end of the political spectrum. And they have no shame in pointing their dung-streaked fingers at us reality-based folks and calling us elitists. They would probably spell it eleedistes.
“. . . where are the examples of right wingers being terminated from their jobs for saying something somebody didn’t like?”
Right wingers rarely get fired. Mostly, they humbly request an audience with Rush Limbaugh so they can kiss his ring, apologize profusely, grovel disgustingly and beg his forgiveness.
“These people are bullies and they know they can keep taking our lunch money without a fight.”
Indeed they are bullies, and will go on being bullies. First, they’ll persist in being bullies because that’s how they came up as kids. Second, they’ll persist because being a bully usually works for them, as you note. I’m sure Breitbart was shocked out of his socks to have his dishonesty and bullying backfire so spectacularly. It was the exception that proves the rule.
“Media organizations should be the last ones to react that way, given specific Constitutional First Amendment protections. The gist and spirit of that amendment must be something that a media organization is mindful of when it comes to the speech of its employees.”
There was a period from the 1940s-1980s or 1990s when most ethical journalism organizations maintained a fairly high wall of separation between the business end of things and the editorial operation. About the only thing expected of the editorial operation was that, say, a big story on an airliner crashing not be put on the same page as an ad for an airline or travel agency – that kind of thing. Run the story, just not on that particular page.
That was then, when the media were doing quite nicely with sales and profits. Nowadays they’re scared spitless of the impact of the uncontrollable Internet and diffusion of sources of information and diversions. As newspaper and magazine circulation levels fall, so does the advertising that pays the freight. As TV viewership declines and disperses, so do the rates networks can charge for advertising. A lot of print journalists’ jobs have gone away for good. The reporting/editing and enterprise efforts of the three major networks plus CNN combined are but a faint shadow of what CBS News alone was in its heydey, in the 1950s and 1960s.
Desperation has lowered the wall of separation and in some cases eliminated it. The scared and desperate don’t tell what they perceive to be large audience segments to like it or lump it – especially not vocal segments with strong ties to big business interests.
It’s not a matter of constitutional rights. No one questioned Helen Thomas’ right to sound off she’s like equal parts anti-Semite and anti-Israel. The problem in her case was that along with deeply offending many readers and news business people who are Jewish and pro-Israel, she called into question the likelihood of her reporting on anything involving Jews and Israel in a fair and evenhanded manner. That alone would make any ethical national news organization reluctant to keep her on. Then, there was the serious matter of Jewish and pro-Israel advertisers in the newspapers that carried her columns and reporting objecting and maybe withdrawing advertising or canceling subscriptions.
I’m not familiar with the Weigel and Nasr situations. I will just say that within editorial operations there is supposed to be a wall of separation between those who opine and editorialize and those who report facts in straight-news stories. That, too, has broken down to some extent. But many a broadcast news director or newspaper managing editor or publisher will still be quick to can a reporter they feel has undermined his or her own credibility or reputation for fairness, or who has somehow made it appear the news operation is slanted.
That video made me smile.
I will start on a positive note. I absolutely agree with Anderson that once upon a time there was indeed a separation between news reporting and editorial journalism. Such is rarely the case nowadays it seems regardless of the source of one’s news. Further, “journalists” typically nowadays seemingly do not bother to check their facts and sources before reporting. They have either gotten lazy, or have to respond too quickly because their deadline will not allow a thorough vetting of facts, or possibly and most likely a degree of both cases.
That being said, Helen Thomas has purportedly been an “objective” journalist since the Washington administration. Her objectivty is farcical to say the least. She has every right to her opinion, especially if she were an editorialist; however, as part of the the White House press corp, she should at least pretend to only state the facts of who, what, where, when, and why in her reporting and ask questions of that ilk, accordingly. Unfortunately her anti-Israel/anti-Semetic comment most recently was hardly her first transgression. I think her firing was appropriate, considering this.
As for rightwingers that have been fired for their comments, should we start with Trent Lott? He said a few seemingly innocuous comments at Strom Thurmond’s birthday and was denounced and removed from his chairmanship for such racism. And yet KKK Robert Byrd with his sordid past and even dropping the N-word on one of the Sunday talk shows a few years back is perfectly fine.
Further, how about the king of the conservatives? Rush Limbaugh was fired from Monday Night Football as a commentator because of his editorial comment (something that I thought a color commentator was supposed to do) about the fact that Randal Cunningham was not as great a quarterback as the league would have you believe and they kept up the facade because of the positive impact of having a black Pro-Bowl quarterback in the league. Something his fellow announcer, Michael Irvin, a man of color agreed. And yet Rush was fired for racism.
Sherrod was given a raw deal in certain respects because the Obama administration didn’t bother to check its facts before reacting. It had nothing to do with the “right wing media”. Indeed the firing occured before Fox ever aired the video or commentary on O’Reilly or Hannity that evening. Glenn Beck didn’t air it at all, and when he spoke of it the following day, he did so in DEFENSE of Sherrod. I don’t suppose Daily Kos reported that little fact though. See this link for the timeline:
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=6778
Further, O’Reilly apologized and unequivocally said he was at fault for not checking the sources first.
It would seem the progressives are projecting. They use Alinsky tactics in the attempt to marginalize and destroy conservatives and then cry foul when the tables are turned on them.
It is okay for the media to frame Palin, Bush, Reagan, (fill-in a conservative name) as being stupid but the likes of Carter and Obama are brilliant despite the horrific results of their policies to the contrary. History and facts be damned, I guesss.
@TPaine. Lott was ousted by republicans, so that analogy, Bzzzz wrong. Plus the fact he was a congresscritter, different from a news reporter, giving an off the cuff interview. Byrd, is dead and he had said all his apologies. So are we to go back into the history of the country to say, oh this one did it so that one doing it is equal? WRONG on so many different levels, I don’t have time to tell you why. I will though, because it’s just how I am. We are talking about TODAY, in the present Two Thousand and Ten, not nineteen fifty or earlier, when the country was a much different place than it is. No need to grasp at democrats from 60,70,80 years ago to have that whole, he’s doing it too thing. TODAY, Sherrod, ACORN, Van Jones were lambasted by Breitbart, Beck and Fox news. Not 40 yrs ago.
As far as O’reilly’s apology, did you listen to it? PUHLEAZE, he gave the non apology apology, then went back and dogged her again.
Here is what I got out of his apology, correct me if I am wrong and I will admit it.
“I owe Ms. Sherrod an apology for not doing my homework, for not putting her remarks into the proper context,” he said on “The O’Reilly Factor,” adding that his own words had been taken out of context by critics in the past. “I well understand the need for honest reporting.
Right after that,kaboom that being said, Ms Sherrod is a longtime “liberal activist” and very well may see things through a racial prism. Oh what Bill, you don’t see life through a pasty faced, white man’s** prism. again PUHLEAZE. If you are wrong and you want to apologize, suck it up, say you are sorry and move on. No need to get a little dig in.
You saying this is Obama’s deal he didn’t check. UM NOPE, No it is not. The news organization that got this and put it on its website before the shit hit the fan, Fox is responsible, Breitbart is responsible. Hell Shep Smith wouldn’t go with this story, because of past interractions with Breitbart and making shit up. Beck defending Sherrod, got him the win either way, in his insane mind. He did what the rest of them did, turned it outwards from themselves. I mean can you imagine the mental gymnastics it took for that. One day, it is Sherrod being a racist, next, it is NAACP, Obama and Fox, well our hands are clean we didn’t know what was happening. Any way on any given day, these international fuckwits, if they can dig at the president is a good day for them. If you don’t have the courage to admit that, then I don’t know what I can tell you. They are in it to just destroy him, no matter what he does, he cannot win with them.
**No offense to pasty faced white men other than O’reilly.
Jess, come on now. Your defense of Byrd is really weak. His lack of character is excusable because he was a klan member 40 years ago? His N-word comments on TV occured maybe 5 years ago. What about those?
As for Lott, he was ousted by the Republicans… you are right. He was ousted because of the hate & discontent raised by the Democrats. The double standard in congress is apparent too. Mark Foley sent suggestive texts and was excorciated and became the poster boy of GOP malfeasance during that election cycle. The idiot Democrat, who’s name escapes me at the moment, that had “tickle-fests” with his staffers a year or so ago is excused by Pelosi and not punished.
Barney Frank runs a gay house of ill repute via his boyfriend out of his house and is excused, but some idiot GOP guy taps his toe in a public restroom in an airport and is tarred and feathered.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not standing up for the behaviour on either side of the aisle; I am simply marveling at the disparity in consequences.
As for Ms. Sherrod, the timeline (again, see the link provided) shows that the Obama administration fired her BEFORE the story was ever aired on Fox. Further, even if your assertion had been true, doesn’t the government owe it to its employees to verify if such news stories regarding its employees are accurate before taking action like termination of employment, ma’am?
Great food Bee, I have seen the underbelly of Corporate Media. It is now a different animal than it was 40 years ago. Someone told me yesterday that the “News” part of ABC News may last at best two more years before it is gone into the ether…and I will have to find another job, but that is beside the point. Over the last 10 years I have seen the changes happening in my own “Organisation” as the others…CNN, CBS, NBC etc…even Fox to some extent. The fact is they are all reducing their “News” aspect in exchange for “Infotainment” This is the New World of reporting and it will spread Globally. I have seen News stories that people worked on for weeks get cut because of this or that Advertiser who wanted another story instead. That happens more than you know around election time. The surprising thing to most that the Right Wing has a bigger say than people realized is really the norm that has been happening over the last Decade, it’s just that most people in the public did not know it, but I and many others saw it develop over the years.
Ok, in this present day, this is the story…Most of the Media houses are really run by Conservative Executives who say what will Air and What wont. In my News house, it has always been the unspoken wink and nod knowledge that this is how things are run. We see the filtering out of the “real news” and the substituting of “slanted stories” by the boys “upstairs”. So do not expect any change or swing to the left, when it comes to real reporting and Journalism. The reality is that apart from the few who are on CNN and MSNBC, which amounts for 10% of Left leaning or unbiased reporting, the rest is just cloaked Right Wing Propaganda machines. This phenomena has been increasing for decades…them getting the right wingers to run the Executive Boards at major Media Companies…and Wall St. too I might add, so the question and truth of the matter is…who will be the frontline of truth in the face of this 90% of Right wing media bias? The answer my friends is US. We the people who make up the Blogosphere. We are the new frontline and we need to become aware of it. I have seen and the proof that I am not mad is the fact that hundreds in my company (ABC NEWS) have also seen it. Over the last two years they have been cleaning house and has offered buy-out packages to most of the news and related departments, including camera men, audio, technicians etc…who are the little guys, this has already been done to Producers, editors and the like, months ago. Many who are “kept” to run the operations are curiously in my opinion…”company men”…right wing white men obviously…a few right wing women too of course. The objective being to eventually get rid of the “News” operations departments altogether and just have a right wing media blanket over the whole country. There are not many of us left…over 1500 of us in the NY location have already been “bought out” ….fired in my opinion. So yes, what you see is now what you get, there is almost no middle of the road reporting anymore…save for us, the new frontier…the frontline…bloggers for democracy…US. Lets take on the fight, because there is no one else to.
As an after thought, please be aware that this is a real fight, and the right wing media will come after us with both barrels blasting…this is only the beginning of the war…and we are the enemy. You have all seen that they have been taking over the Media…Radio, TV, Electronic and printed for a long time now, well it is out in the open now…unfortunately we only have a 10% presence in the “White Man’s Media”…and they are beginning to push…hard, against us. Thay are going to come at us from all angles, they are buying up the Newspapers, Publishing Companies, and their online presence is massive and growing.
What we saw with Sherrod is only a reaction and reflection of what the White House already knows. The White House knows about this right wing media hold on the country and it is engrained in the executive boards of MOST companies. So yes they did try to get a jump on the issue and someone decided to have her fired, but the story is mush bigger and runs deeper than that unfortunately. They have the White House on edge, as well they should be, because the atakes are high, and the country as we knew …not know it…hangs in the balance. So prepare yourselves my blogger friends…we are now cowards and we have a fight at hand…lets take them on! I say FUCK EM!
I need links about Byrd and then I might have to reconsider. I am talking his involvement in the Klan and how that is always the card people pull out, along with Ted Kennedy when they want to put the boogeyman out there. Those men are dead, let’s leave them in peace and go with the ones currently in office.
Eric Massa is who you are talking about, tickle man. He is on his way out. That idiot did it to himself. We have Boehner this past week, telling his GOp people, don’t let anyone see you with female lobbyists. Are we hearing about that on the news, nope but damn, if we caught PO looking in the direction of another woman(see him with the French president that one photo) and he is a dirty old man.
Like I said, we could go back and forth and forth and back. Gary Condit ring any bells here? Just hammered in the press, because of a missing white woman and hey at the same time Joe Scarborough had a white woman DIE in his offices. Didya hear about that. Nope, which one of them was forced into retirement just because he got a little sumtin sumtin on the side? Bill Clinotn’s only offense was getting sucked hard in the Oval Office and lying about PERSONAL issues, and oh yeah he was impeached for getting his little sumtin sumtin. elliot Spitzer, his OWN money getting a little sumtin sumtin on the side, OUSTED
Ensign, using mommy and daddy’s cash for pay off. Oh wait, no he is still in office
David Vitter, doing the same thing as Spitzer, oh nope again STILL in office
Mark Sanford, tail chasing in Argentina. Dammit wait he is still there and is termed out. I could go on and on and on and guess what, the list I have is twice as long and more disgusting than the list you have. Larry (I only have a wide stance) David Dreier, Aaron Schock. don’t get me started on the injustices done to those men, who felt they had to hide themselves all the while shivving the blade into the backs of gay and trans people.
Let’s for balance go to Fox’s Ann Coulter see what she has to say. That is what I don’t want, the false equivalence but righties just want to keep doing it.
BULLSHIT with the whole she was fired first. She RESIGNED, what part of this is going over people’s heads. Fox had it up already on their website, when frightfart gave it to them. No need to defend them, it is what it is. Breitbart is pond scum and he has done this more than once, so has Beck and they will do it again and again till they are just like the boy who cried wolf. O’reilly has even said last week, his show taped at 5 BEFORE it was known, shown at 8 while it was all going down so him I can give a small pass.
The double standard from the “liberal media” is way past a joke and a half. The media is consolidated in such a way, it is a hanful of people control everything and guess what, most of them donate and slant in the right leaning direction. Liberal has been turned into an ugly word as progressive is trying to be turned now. NO ONE can tell me anywhere we have a liberal media. Noone, when we have Fox news not telling people about Ensign till he knew about it first. Megyn Kelly has admitted that herself. She knew about that story but wanted Ensign to have the ability to come out and say, I was a bad boy, crying doing the whole I came to Jesus crying moment for forgiveness. last words on it since I have to go to a quick meeting…BULLSHIT on having liberals running everything, it is not happening.
Sherrod got shafted by some nasty bastards, that have done this before and will do it again because they can.
Sorry I’m late for the potluck. Hope you’ve still got a little grub left for me
That video rocks! Run DMC and Sarah McLachlin collaborating on a song by Harry Chapin — it doesn’t get any headier than that.
I have to agree with Tim’s comment. It’s fine to rant about the sleazy bags of excrement on the Right; I’ve been known to do that myself occasionally
But the bottom line is, the Democrats have to start fighting back effectively — whatever it takes — or they’ll keep getting their lunch money stolen. Obama doesn’t have the personality to yell and scream and make threats, but there has to be somebody in his administration or Congress who can take on the role of Pit Bull. And/or he could hire somebody like Karl Rove. There has to be somebody on the Left who has that kind of no-holds-barred jugular mentality.
The Right isn’t gonna stop doing what they’re doing because A) they’re so damn good at it; and B) it’s all they’re able to do. What, you think they’ve got policies? Solutions?
The Democrats pretty much have two choices from here on in:
No More Mr. Nice Guy; or
“Wait, I’ll give you my lunch money; please don’t hit me.”
T.Paine,
It’s wrong on many levels to accuse Helen Thomas of anti-Semitism for being honest. How is honesty being anti-Israeli? European colonists drove Palestinians from their land. Simple historical fact. Ashkenazi Jews,Europeans. The only Semitic people in Palestine were and are Palestinian. The fact that Helen Thomas views Palestinians as people rather than objects to vilify is to her credit. It’s sad and unfortunate that Americans did not want Holocaust survivors to come to this country but rather supported the Zionist movement’s desire to steer those poor people to Palestine.
Helen Thomas’s willingness to stand up to the Israel lobby and US groupthink is to her credit. Too bad more people don’t have her courage, too bad people condemn integrity rather than applaud it.
For all to enjoy. Timeline of the Sherrod smear, from Media Matters, well known non partisan fact checker of media.
http://mediamatters.org/research/201007220004
David Frum, well known righty. If you scroll down you will see where he talks about strategies for having stories talked about. Yeah it is NYT but I can’t find any right leaning site that is talking sensibly about this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07.....f=politics
Osori, right after the UN resolution declaring that the land that was and is now again Israel be the homeland for the Jewish people, all of the surrounding Arab nations sent word to the Palestinian people living there to leave their homes so that they would not be in the way of the invasion. After the Arab armies had pushed the Israelis into the sea, then they could return to their homes and share in the plunder.
The only problem was that the Israeli’s remarkably won the war. The people that left their homes became the Palestinian refugees and their descendants that live in poverty today. The Palestinian people that did not leave their homes in Israel, remained Israeli citizens with full rights, including the right to vote. They even have representation in the Knesset, the Israeli parliment.
You are correct when you say that it was sad “Americans did not want Holocaust survivors to come to this country…”. It is equally sad that the surrounding Arab nations will not allow the Palestinian refugees to immigrate to their countries today. They would far rather keep them in squalor and have the issue with which to beat the Jews.
As for Helen Thomas, as with all supposed objective reporters, she absolutely has a right to her opinions and should also be able to pronounce them loudly if she is an opinon journalist; however, in my opinion it is bad form for a supposed “objective” journalist that reports only on the facts to be inserting opinion into the discussion.
When journalism students today are asked why they want to be journalists, often times you will hear altruistic answers such as they want to make the world a better place. This is nice but has no place in true journalism. The point of journalism used to be the fair and unbiased reporting of facts and events so that people could be informed. Sadly this rarely happens nowadays, and Helen Thomas was as guilty as most “journalists” of that charge, sir.
T.Paine,
Even Benny Morris, the Zionist historian admits there’s no truth to the claim that the Arab nations called for Palestinians to leave their homes. What would be the point? Poor countries would want more refugees? Please. The Irgun conducted numerous terrorist attacks on villages to encourage this flight.Despite UN resolutions mandating the right of return, Israel has not allowed it.
The Israelis had numerical and ordnance superiority over the Arab armies, nothing remarkable about the victory. The few Palestinians who did not “leave” (I personally do not consider being forced out at gunpoint “leaving” but I guess it’s semantics) have been marginalized and demonized, and unless they convert to Judaism cannot get the security clearances to serve in the military or work in security industries.
I do not understand your point about other Arab nations not wanting Palestinian refugees. Because they look alike it’s okay to take their land, they can just move in with other Arabs?
I concede your point about Arab nations exploiting the situation, it distracts from their own repressive regimes.
Some people believe Ms Thomas was referring to the Occupied Territories as Palestine, inferring the Israelis should abide by the numerous UN resolutions to return to the pre-1967 borders. I don’t know if that’s true or not.
My personal opinion is just as in the United States, Europeans drove indigenous off the land. Each excused their imperialism as the will of God. Just as Indians’s didn’t cause the English to suppress the Pilgrim religion, the Palestinans weren’t behind the Holocaust.
The phrase “drive the Jews into the sea” was Ben-Gurions, not the Arabs.
I should have gotten here earlier as well Beekeeper. My bad.
Wait. I was here Sunday but didn’t have anything of substance to add. Everyone who was late owes me an apology as well.
Jess: I’m glad you liked the video. The song is on a Sarah McLachlan cd called “Rarities” and something else, I forget, just go to amazon and put in Sarah McLachlan “rarities” and it should come right up.
Tim: I hear you, buddy, believe me, I hear you.
Oso: I knew you’d like Isaac’s point of view – he’s a great guy. I think you fellas would get along great.
SW: desperation, even perceived desperation, is something to be watched. Desperation can lead people to do stupid things. Like vote real nazis into power. I can think of a few right wingers right now in the public eye who would definitely fit that bill.
Stimpson: I’m glad to oblige
T. Paine: as always, thanks for visiting. I’ll let you and Anderson go at it, if that’s ok with you
Tee: I appreciate the insider’s view. Isaac’s is an insider’s view too – he’s a former reporter – won awards for some of his articles. That’s why I said you guys should see him when he tries, even though he’s great even when he’s not trying. That post was put together from some emails. I’m lucky to call him my friend. And HUZZAH, BROTHER! RIGHT ON! You know I’m not one to pass up a good fight
Tom Harper: you know I always keep a stash of grub (and maybe that good bottle of whiskey) set aside for you, darlin’
Truth101: You know you never have to comment when you don’t want to – sometimes I have nothing to say either (peanut galler: jokes about that being obvious can be held until further notice, tyvm). Now where’s that bottle of whiskey I was saving for TomH…
Hell, I’m always running late and I NEVER have anything of value to add. But, THIS IS ONE TERRIFIC POST BY YOU AND MR.ISAAC. I do wish these conservatives would go blow it out their collective asses instead of pooping their crap all over liberal blogs. Trying to reason with them is like trying to talk to teenagers.
T. Paine wrote: “Indeed the firing occured before Fox ever aired the video or commentary on O’Reilly or Hannity that evening.”
Ah, but Hannity and, I think, O’Reilly also, talked about it on radio through the day, sending people to Breitbart’s Web site to see the truncated video. And Fox put the video up on its Web site in late afternoon. So that Rightpundits timeline, like Breitbart’s video, is conveniently incomplete. This is via Randi Rhodes, who’s pretty careful about what she goes on the air with, and does corrections. So far, no has disputed her account.
Furthermore, it’s lame for the right to make big about how wrong Vilsack was to fire Sherrod the way he did, as if that somehow makes what Breitbart, Fox and a whole bunch of right-wing blogs did less wrong and less offensive. As if the right didn’t want to see Sherrod unceremoniously dumped. Vilsack acknowledged he was wrong. The president acknowledged the firing in haste was wrong. They both apologized.
The bottom line is, two wrongs don’t make a right.
The right wing seems to periodically rise up and say, “watch how quickly we can make Obama dance.”
It’s a fucking travesty that they can do it every time they want to.
L.P., based on your comment it appears that, like many of your other fellow political travellers (and indeed this is true for many on the right as well), you are rigidly fixed in your ideology and have no tolerance for dissent or diversity of ideals if they stray from progressive orthodoxy, huh?
I am sorry if my opinions annoy you, ma’am, but frankly I intend to continue visiting left wing blogs including Bee’s for as long as she allows my input.
Further, I know it is comforting to live in an echo chamber where your thoughts are always validated, but what if those people validating your thoughts are also wrong, ma’am?
I know I have moderated my views on some issues and even changed my mind completely on one major issue over the years because of good valid provable arguments that were able to convince me that I was wrong. I would submit to you that this is how one changes and grows in knowledge and wisdom.
Never to even hear the other side of the argument, let alone be challenged in your positions, does one no good, especially if one’s beliefs are based on flawed information.
T Paine for as long as you play nice, you’re always welcome here, you know that, dearie.
Leslie: I don’t moderate comments (unless they accidentally end up there, I think because of links), so anyone is welcome to stop in and say whatever they want, be they right wing or left, somewhere inbetween or out in nether-nether land. I’ve had a couple of drive-by’s from the Right who left a nastygram, and got their jock straps wrapped around their necks by me, but they never came back. I encourage dialogue on my site. So long as no one is calling each other names and starting enormous dogfights, I’m OK with it.
I don’t believe I mentioned anyone’s name except for the authors.
Thank you Bee! I am most appreciative of the fact that you put up with me, ma’am, and are at least tolerant of me posting my nutjob conservative thoughts. I respect you very much for allowing/fostering an exchange of ideals accordingly, especially since my side of the argument is almost invariably correct.
TP: I should apologize to you. Certainly you have every right to express your views even though they are never correct and are always different from mine. However, you are always most courteous for which I give you much credit and for which feel is a refreshing trait.
And Bee, you are right in calling me to order. Mea Culpa.
T. Paine: pfffft, you WISH you were always right, lol
Leslie: I wasn’t really trying to call you to order darlin’, I was just trying to explain why I don’t moderate comments, and why everyone is welcome here as long as they’re civil…and you know I love you more than my luggage
Leslie, I thank you for the apology, ma’am!
But to both you and dear Bee, I am indeed correct in my views most of the time!
T.Paine,
You are a good sport man, even if you’re getting it from several people you’re always a gentleman.Good quality to have.
Bee: Just as long as you make it Coach. ; )
T. Paine: Thank you. Oso is right.
Group hug!
j/k
and beers all around! OK in my case soda cause I don’t drink.
Well, I do, so I’ll drink your beer…I’ve become partial to Blue Moon with a slice of orange, hehe
I would like to exchange links with your site thebeekeepersapprentice.com
Is this possible?