Here's
a brilliant column from the WaPo's
Dana Milbank.
Taking Hillary's stump rhetoric and translating it into simple back-and-white text starkly reveals the absolute banality of our current public discourse.
------- +-----
While we're on the subject of language and politics... I see nothing particularly positive in
the dropping of
Ann Coulter's syndicated column by a half-dozen papers across the country.
What a writer says in a public (or private) speech should not be the basis of carrying or not his or her column -- no matter how offensive. Let's keep in mind, precisely, that free speech is best defended when what is being said is outrageous.
I hardly applaud the editors who have axed her. In general, newspaper editorial page editors are a spineless lot (there are exceptions of course). What kind of cretin do you have to be to have run her columns in the first place? What is actually written should be the criterion for accepting or rejecting a columnist. A quick read of just about any of Coulter's weekly rants should have been enough to have denied her a weekly berth on any serious op-ed page.
The editors who have now, very belatedly, bumped her column because she called
John Edwards a "faggot" at a political convention last week, are acting only out of fear.
You'd be surprised to learn how unprofitable most syndicated columns are unless you're in the MoDo category--- a compelling reason to NOT write one. But if I did, I wouldn't want to think that I'd be risking my placement because of what I said at political rallies -- no matter how off-the-wall.
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March 9th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Having a syndicated column printed in major newspapers isn’t a “free speech” issue. That’s priviliged speech. Coulter has more “free speech” than most of the rest of America put together. It sounds like you’re saying that Coulter doesn’t deserve to have a column because she’s such a loon, but when she uses abusive language in a major public forum we should rally to defend her perch in umpteen media outlets. God, that’s the worst kind of “liberal” horseshit.
The folks on Coulter’s case aren’t pushing back because she’s got conservative opinions. They’re moving against her because her steady stream of abuse and trash talk doesn’t deserve to be treated as “punditry”. Let her appear on her website, in right-wing Nuremburg rallies and at comedy clubs. The notion that consumer’s of news and opinion don’t have the an equal right to protest their being treated to vile crap is plain nuts. There are standards of civility that any self-respecting media outlet should enforce as a general rule. When someone makes a career of crossing the line – as opposed to a faux pas – they . Flaunting the language of bigots should be one of them. Frankly (fantastical “Bizarro World” hypothetical) if you appeared at a border rally against immigration and said, “I’d like to discuss the views of Antonio Villagarosia, but since my employers won’t let me use the term “ignorant fucking wetback” in my columns I can’t write about him”, I’d be pleased to see the L.A. Weekly tell you to take a hike and stick to the web. I don’t think that rationalizing, “Well, Cooper always was a shitty columnist. Why’d they hire him in the first place, only to fire him now” would convince anyone that they should keep you on. You’re reminding me of the famous line about liberals afraid to their own side in an argument. Thankfully, that liberalism is over. I’m an absolute believer in free speech and don’t like things like campus speech codes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t protest giving privileged berths to paid columnists who are consistently abusive, use bigotry for get attention or are simply totally crackpot for that matter. This is even more true today than ever, when everyone can, in fact, have a forum for their own particular form of insanity.
Coulter doesn’t broaden or deepen our discourse with contrarian opinion – unless Andrew Dice Clay also fits that bill and deserves to be hosted on NPR to discuss race and gender issues. I’ll defend Coulter’s right to debate Ward Churchill on cable access, mud wrestle Monica Lewinsky for a DVD release or set herself on fire to get press when she’s no longer a media favorite – but the “mainstream” media that give her a steady forum need to be challenged for having zero standards of civility in choosinig their opinionmongers when they try to use Coulter’s notoriety to draw eyeballs. Her smackdown is long overdue.
March 9th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
chewed up a couple of sentences, but the point is clear
March 9th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Marc: I see nothing particularly positive in the dropping of Ann Coulter’s syndicated column by a half-dozen papers across the country.
I agree. I think its comparable (not that she compares) with throwing holocaust deniers in jail. It only empowers them and their followers. Keep Coulter’s column. She’s done far less damage than Charles Krauthammer, and I don’t see the soft liberal stop Fox News debates but skip out on the antiwar movement type people asking for Krauthammer’s neck.
She is an effective tool for which to understand the authoritarian personality in the American psyche. Its not Coulter that is disturbing. Its that people love her…and that liberals take her seriously. notice as well nothing happened when she said raghead last year.
This is the same response I had to the cheer over Libby’s conviction. Sure ist is wonderful to have a guy down and hasten Cheney’s political demise, but not with a terrible law and a bullying prosecutor. And once one legitimizes some corporate media censoring Ann Coulter, we’ll see other corporate media censoring, say, someone “left” who’s in the mainstream but said something about the Catholic church, for example.
March 9th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
http://counterpunch.com/simmons03092007.html
March 9th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Reg:
Climb down, old boy. I thought I said rather clearly that I didn’t think any sensible editor would have taken Coulter’s columns in the first place. She’s a clown, not a pundit.
I shed no tears over her columns now getting pulled. I’m merely saying they are being pulled for all the wrong reasons — and by the same toads who empowered her in the first place!
By the way… no, I don’t agree– I think I should be able to say any damn thing I want to in public and not have that affect my employment as a columnist.
March 9th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
“compares with throwing Holocaust deniers in jail”
That’s totally nuts… Coulter is empowered when she’s invited into the mainstream media. The only way to “disempower” her is to drive her into the marginis, where she belongs.
Also, the Dems told FOX to take a hike. Good! Cuz, it’s like a free country and we can tell right-wing propagandists who smear us daily while posing as a “fair & balanced news” outlet to go fuck themselves without, you know, having to go into rehab or whatever.
Why don’t you “lefter-than-thou” types petition NPR to give David Duke a talk show so we can learn more about the mentality of neo-nazis. Best way to keep from empowering people like him. Coulter is, in fact, every bit as bad as a holocaust denier. She’s easily that far out in right field. Since her “faggot” flap she gave a Focus on the Family address where she empathised with people who shoot doctors – calling assassination of abortion providers a “rifle-induced procedure”. This type of crap is her standard MO. I think that there’s a hell of a lot more danger of inciting people, here and now, to commit violence at women’s clinics than there is of Jewish people being rounded up or any significant portion of the population actually being convinced that there was no holocaust. Some perspective, please, on just how repugnant and inflammatory this woman is. Does being a rabid wingnut mean never having to say your sorry ?
I really don’t get this wussy stuff about the danger of censoring someone who’ “Saying something about the Catholic Church” ? I disagree vehemently with the reactionary wing of Catholicism, bu if it were fairly common that Catholics were being discriminated against, beaten up and killed, I’d be very concerned if someone used anti-Catholic hate language in a political forum. In fact, that wouldn’t happen unless opinion was heavily polarized against Catholics. It’s not. They’re not a despised minority. You can, rightly or wrongly, say all kinds of things about homosexuals’ rights – it’s part of our common discourse because the right-wing finds discriminationn to be politically opportune – but even their detractors should be stopped short of bandying “faggot” as a gesture of contempt. And if they do, I say kick their fucking asses, one way or another.
March 9th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
“I think I should be able to say any damn thing I want to in public and not have that affect my employment as a columnist”
And I think that any self-respecting editor should tell you to take a hike if you persistently make an ass of yourself. Why the hell should readers be subjected to foolishness. You can do anything on your website you damned well please, but unless you own the L.A. Weekly, “free country” means they can boot employees the deem morons. (I was putting you in a bizarre example to make a point, obviously.) Also, Coulter’s lack of standards and wingnut sensationalism are consistently reflected in her columns – some of the quotes are staggering. It’s not like she’s got an alternate life as a Satanist, but writes this great Home & Gardening column.
March 9th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
I don’t care if newspapers decide to stop carrying Ann Coulter’s columns. Media outlets routinely add and drop commentators for dumb reasons all the time and are totally free to do so.
What I DO mind are these newspaper editors smugly patting themsleves on the back in public for their rectitude in dropping her. Back in the 1980s the Wall Street Journal dropped its lineup of liberal op-ed writers (Alexander Cockburn, Michael Kinsley and even Barbara Ehrenreich) by simply not running them anymore. No WSJ exec penned any self-congratulatory piece — they dropped the writers they didn’t like and moved on.
You want to drop Ann Coulter? Fine by me. Just don’t make a big production number out of it.
March 9th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Reg:
“Coulter is, in fact, every bit as bad as a holocaust denier.”
I don’t think you really believe that.
March 9th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Marc writes: “I thought I said rather clearly that I didn’t think any sensible editor would have taken Coulter’s columns in the first place.”
For the sake of argument (as well as laughs), let’s assume there’s a plausible argument that to defend Coulter’s right to a voice in our newspapers, when her column is getting dropped left and right, constitutes a “defense of free speech”, somehow, perhaps even “the best defense”. If so, I think there would be a parallel line of “reasoning” that concludes thusly: NOT running her columns in the first place is a *pre-emptive attack* on free speech.
I open to he op-ed page of the Int’l Herald Trib, and there’s no Ann Coulter column. Why, the foundations of liberty in our great nation are obviously being gnawed by communist fascist atheist islamist anti-free-speech termites!
OK, back to reality. In response to the outcry against Coulter, maybe these papers did the wrong thing. Maybe they should have run editorials like this:
“Many people hate Ann Coulter. Recent remarks of hers have caused many more to hate her, and many to hate her more. We have received an outpouring of demands from our readers that we drop her column. We won’t do that.
“The reason is simple: this newspaper is a business, and Ann Coulter is good business. We have ardent fans of hers among our readers, and even many of those who hate Ann Coulter clearly *love* to hate her — they form part of her audience too, little as they like to admit it. So we’re keeping her on, even though we would have to go into rehab if we used language strong enough (and in a *family* newspaper? We think not!) to describe how loathesome we think she is, privately, professionally and politically.
“The column stays in. It’s just business. Don’t take it personally.”
March 9th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
What reg said.
March 9th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
From the Dana Milbank column:
—
She mixed metaphors like a Cuisinart: “Take our country back and put it on the right track ….
—
But wait, I like that one! It reminds me of when I used fight with my little brothers over control of the Hot Wheels cars!
Standing her up against Lincoln is hardly fair, though. He was a poet (albeit of a rather drab sort), an inventor (even if he had only one patent to his credit), a humorist (if not quite the laugh-out-loud quipster). A true broad-spectrum genius who just happened to end up in politics, through one of the shittiest wars Americans have ever seen, only to get shot in the end for all his efforts.
Stand Hillary up against Obama instead. Joe Klein, no hack himself, called “Dreams from My Father” one of the most beautifully written memoirs by any American politician.
Obama on 9/11:
“It’s beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day, and the days that would follow — the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another’s heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.”
http://www.wnyc.org/books/40725
[Preface to 2004 edition.]
Wow. Just … wow. Classic ironic apologia: “I can’t describe the indescribable,” followed by one of the best evocations of that horror I can remember reading. C’mon, admit it: you’d give up several fingers on both hands, maim yourself down to two-fingered hunt-and-peck, if that’s what it took to write half as well, half as often. I think I would.
March 9th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
“Coulter is, in fact, every bit as bad as a holocaust denier.â€
I absolutely believe that in the context of contemporary U.S. politics, because Holocaust denial is a non-issue here. Her relationship to the “question” of killing doctors who provide abortions is essentially the same as a Holocaust denier is to Nazism itself. But Nazis aren’t a danger in the U.S. People who bomb abortion clinics are. Coulter is pushing an American brand of fascism. I also think that there’s a point at which someone has crossed so many lines and they have so degraded themselves to the point that trying to split hairs over who’s worse than who becomes meaningless.
March 10th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Faggotgate is a classic example of being hoist on your own petard. When Coulter says it was just a joke she’s right, and it’s a joke that’s been around long enough that people ought to recognize. The form of the joke is that in avoiding saying an outrageous thing out of politeness, the joker incidentally says the outrageous thing. However, in the moment of the joke the outrageous thing has not been said, and the humor comes out of the idea that the joker does not intend to say the outrageous thing. The trouble for Coulter is, on the level of discourse she and people like her have created, no such nuance can exist. When you say that someone who believes abortion should be legal is a baby killer, then you’ve wiped out nuance. The nuance is that a fetus in the early stages of development is not the equivalent of a baby, and that not only does a baby have full human rights at the moment of birth but the protection extends months before that in all but the most extreme cases. The Coulteresque answer is, my way a baby gets born, your way a baby doesn’t, therefore you’re a baby killer. In the political culture Coulter herself was instrumental in creating, Ann Coulter is someone who called John Edwards a faggot.
What I think has actually happened in most of the papers is that Coulter has been replaced by a far right looneybird with better table manners. Michelle Malkin seems to be the go-to.
March 10th, 2007 at 12:54 am
“I think I should be able to say any damn thing I want to in public and not have that affect my employment as a columnist”.
Boy, that makes no sense at all, and in fact is pure arrogance. Not all speech is protected by the first amendment, nor does the right to free speech entitle one to a job as a columnist (a point already made by others).
Am I, as an employer, required to keep an employee who makes noxious, divisive statements in his workplace? Or are journalists somehow a magical breed that are entitled to absolute protection for any and all speech, even if it falls outside the first amendment?
March 10th, 2007 at 1:53 am
I frequently find Ann Coulter funny in the way I do Al Cockburn and Michael Moore—jokes have their own integrity, their own discipline. None of the above, of course, care about getting their facts straight, and that’s why news organs that claim to care about the truth have no business publishing them.
Take the test. The way to know that that you are a scary ideological creep is to object to Ann Coulter but not Michael Moore, Michael Moore but not Ann Coulter.
But then, in the heat of battle, many of us are capable of forgetting ourselves. That is why the psuedonymonous person who makes a regular practice of impugning the intelligence and motives of his interlocutors, and takes pride in it, is capable of delivering this laugh line with zero demur and objection:
“”‘Reg’”" says
“There are standards of civility that any self-respecting media outlet should enforce as a general rule.”
“Standards of civility”? This from the ego-blob who has published at length, here, about why he/she is not required to observe any such standards.
March 10th, 2007 at 2:12 am
Robert Fiore says:
“Faggotgate is a classic example of being hoist on your own petard.”
How true, if not in the way you might think. You might suppose that people who style themselves “progressives” would spend at least some of their time protecting and defending homosexuals against legal-religious-government prosecution and persecution, but if you think that, you would be wrong. Ann Coulter employed the word “faggot” as an insult and came under attack, rightfully, from all quarters. But what about standing up for the rights of homosexuals in Iran or Egypt. “Progressives” don’t do that, no they don’t.
March 10th, 2007 at 2:56 am
Stott writes: “But what about standing up for the rights of homosexuals in Iran or Egypt. “Progressives†don’t do that, no they don’t.”
That didn’t pass my sniff test, Samuel, so I just timed myself on how quickly I could turn up contradictory evidence. Which amounted to the number of seconds it took to type “site:www.zmag.org Iran gay.rights” into Google and pick out a few likely candidates. Here’s one:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?itemid=9835
in which the author castigates *American* gay rights advocates for “continuing the ostrich-like, isolationist attitude they’ve maintained in public toward the lethal anti-gay pogrom in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has already claimed the lives of a dozen young gay men who have been executed by the religiously fanatic regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” He contrasts the situation with groups in Europe — arguably *more* progressive (and probably more anti-American, pursuant to your subtext here), and praises Human Rights Watch for a more vigilant international outlook.
The same author, on Iran
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?itemid=10499
“…a new report on the hangings of the two Iranian gay teens, based on sources inside Iran, prepared by Simon Forbes, and issued by OutRage, further refutes the claims by the Islamic Republic of Iran that the boys were guilty of rape, and instead demonstrates that they were victims of a legal “honor killing” initiated by a family member of one of the boys who disapproved of their homosexuality.”
Similar results when substituting “Egypt” for Iran, in the above search.
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2001-11/11bronski.cfm
Bronski interviews Surina Khan, who says at one point about human rights violations in the Middle East: “…We’ve been very concerned that the level of support and attention given to human-rights issues will be compromised. For example, last May, 52 men were arrested in Egypt for alleged homosexual activities or for being perceived as homosexual. In the past few months we have worked hard to build international solidarity and pressure on the Egyptian government to release those men, on the grounds that it is a gross human-rights violation.”
Samuel, did it even occur to you to *check* your apparent biases before popping off with this one?
March 10th, 2007 at 3:38 am
I guess you have to take these things on a case by case basis.
The left is getting too touchy, and their candidates recent boycotting of Fox News is self destructive; that’s right where they should be taking the fight.
Having said that, Cooper’s post here makes zero sense. How is it brave to continue to employee a hack who has humiliated you? It’s certainly AS cowardly to keep her in her job just because Shes well known. At this point, Coulter’s been canned by a lot of publications for her stunts; liberal and conservative. She was giving a political talk at a political function and She writes a political collum, it’s hardly irrelevent to what an editor who’s having her represent the standards of their paper.
Beyond that, we should spend more time deriding the NYT’s for running hacks like Dowd; who’s journalist distance from Coulter is negligable.
March 10th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Newspapers are businesses. Coulter used to be good for business. After “Faggotgate,” she might just have become bad for business. That’s the newspaper’s call and always should be.
Free speech? As reg and others point out, let her spew on the Web or talkradio or Fox News Channel–they’ll never shitcan her…
All you have to do is look at the L.A. Times to see what happens when newspapers don’t pay enough attention to the fact that they are first and foremost a business.
March 10th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Actually, Samuel, the way to know you’re a scary ideological creep is to toss around bogus statements about “progressives”. I know you need ass-cover, what with your war having turned into a debacle, but your hackery is all too transparent. While I’m impugning both your intellect and your motives – as is my wont – I’ll maliciously up the ante and observe that the neo-connish crowd which you’ve clung to – even celebrated – have, in their hubris, incompetence and ideological zeal, manged to inflict far more damage on this country’s national security interests than Julius Rosenberg and have wreaked more death and destruction for a bogus cause than the 9/11 conspirators and Tim McVeigh combined.
March 10th, 2007 at 8:32 am
It is not just about the influence words can have, Reg. It is about being a clown as part of a vast fascist troupe (Coulter) or denying history. When would Coulter be “as bad”as a holocaust denier? Perhaps if she denies that America has killed X amount of people overseas.
It is a special schande to deny ANY actions that cause mass death. Whether it is the Armenian or Jewish holocaust, the US killing 650,000 in Iraq and a couple million Vietnamese…denying this is FAR WORSE than simply being one of many right wing clowns. I hate Ann Coulter, I agree she’s dangerous. I also think, as I said, her existence would bei nvented if it wasn’t there…she is so fascinating in how Americans of all stripes react to her. What I was most impressed with was ultra-right wingnut bloggers who are actually trying to shun her!!! Thats great!
March 10th, 2007 at 9:40 am
JC is the Ann Coulter of Marc’s Blog. The only difference is all of America is a faggot in his view.
When will you be completing your ‘studies’ for eventual graduation into the real world JC? When will you be finally getting off other working peoples subsidies, including your own parents no doubt, to begin to support yourself?
Where does a college student get so much time to spend running their mouths on blogs? Oh, I forgot, Canada’s single payer system and reduced college standards answers…..never mind.
March 10th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Addressing the Dana Milbank article Mark Cooper cites too, is Hilary responding to her handlers, or does the woman just have a dull mind?
March 10th, 2007 at 10:02 am
“Whether it is the Armenian or Jewish holocaust, the US killing 650,000 in Iraq and a couple million Vietnamese…denying this is FAR WORSE..”
Notice how this apparently ‘educated’ child cannot tell the difference between the intentions of two sides in a war and further, whether to dictatorialize or democratize, and further which side is killing innocents by mistake and the killers doing it on purpose.
A classic case of educated, uh…that would be indoctrinated, idiots lacking any ‘judgement’, or actually being educated not to make common sense judgements, being spewed out of the asses of so many whacko Universities.
March 10th, 2007 at 10:34 am
As to Coulter I’m afraid Marc is even more wrong than usual and his notion of what is or is not “Free Speech” is ludicrous. I’d advise him to sit in on a “Law of
Journalism” class the next time he is over at Annenberg but really – Just recall what A.J. Liebling said: “Freedom of the Press is for those who own one.”
And FOX News? After the remarks of Roger Ailes at the RTNDA the other day WHAT would you have the Dems do? I’m sure comparing Obama to Osama was just good clean fun – like calling Edwards a “Faggot.”
“Fair and Balanced” my ass!
March 10th, 2007 at 10:40 am
And while I’m no fan of Hillary I find the notion of criticizing her for not rising to the Churchillian or Lincolnesque heights of rhetoric, as Dana Milbank did, to be another example of the fatutousness that makes Bob Sommersby’s columns so entertaining.
Tell me please. Which current candidate for President reaches those heights on a regular basis? And compared to the Chimp-in-Chief her Rhetoric is Ciceronian (That old guy in Rome not me – but I’ve been dying to get him to this thread some time).
March 10th, 2007 at 11:52 am
I actually thought that Reid’s using Ailes’ comment as the brief against FOX was kind of lame. I didn’t see the comment in context, but it looked kind of like Ailes was making fun of Bush more than Obama. In any event, the real argument against letting FOX sponsor a debate is that there’s no evidence from their continual onslaught of RNC talking points that they are capable of organizing any political event involving Democrats that sane people would consider “fair and balanced”. If the League of Women Voters or some non-partisan such citizen’s group could be in charge of making the arrangements, choosing a panel, etc. and FOX wanted to carry it, fine – but letting FOX sponsor a Dem primary debate is like hiring Ted Bundy to set up a dating service.
March 10th, 2007 at 11:54 am
or maybe it’s “some such non-partisan citizen’s group”
March 10th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
And while we’re at it what does it say about the “Radio-Television News Director’s Assn” that it decides to give Roger Ailes – of all people – a “First Ammendment” Award! See Todd Gitlin’s piece today over at TPM CAFE. Ailes champion of Free Speech!
March 10th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I think that Milbank’s right about the quality of Hillary’s rhetoric – it’s stupefying when you start stacking these comments up against each other (although they are also as well-intentioned and often appropriate in their banality as the Hallmark cards that Milbank references). What I think he’s got wrong is that this stuff doesn’t represent her actual sensibilities – just as “Bring ‘em on” and the rest of it represents the sensibilities of W. She is who she is. If she seems like a phony, I suspect that at the level of her public persona, she’s a real one. Many politicians of all stripes are. One reason I found that video of Rep. Obey venting his frustrations so openly to be almost refreshing.
March 10th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Ailes is certainly a champion of free speech – he owns more of it than all but a handful of his fellow Americans. You know what they say about the need to protect outrageous word warriors like Ailes, rlc…I may disagree with what they say, but I’ll defend to the death their right to turn into an hour of annoying television and sell the commercials.
March 10th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
It’s been barely a month since Anna Nicole Smith died, but all that some of you want to talk about are Ann Coulter and Hillary Clinton. If Anna Nicole were alive today, she’d be saying, “Huh?”
March 10th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Any editor who hired Coulter to begin with is a moron and it’s charming that of all her horrifying opinions only one slurring authority gets her canned. Glad to see any financial consequences for her ilk, but until the conservative culture changes she’ll be replaced with another soldier. One day conservatives will realize that the culture war mentality is rotting their souls.
March 10th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Jim R.
Don’t make personal remarks. I am a part-time grad student, a copy-writer and freelancer. I sit on a computer a lot, so I waste my time on blogs when I procrastinate.
That you would use the “f” word in my direction is quite small minded. Perhaps you are fantasizing?
March 10th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
You’re right about the welfare state helping me, by the way.
March 10th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
The only thing worth noting about Milbank’s space killer is it’s consistancy with the standard operating billshit: the Clinton’s will be held to a standard thought up just for them by their wacko detractors.
Reg and Ric put it delicately…. I am a bit taken aback by the sudden thirst for transendant oritory from The Washington Post Editioral Page. These are the people who defended “Mission Accomplished” from all detractors “The President who wins the war gets to celebrate it the way he wants to (!)”. So NOW they have a problem with banality? Let’s say it breifly: whoever takes over in 08, the standard for retoric will not decline.
Indeed, when it comes to public speaking, Bush pretty much wrote the book on the evil of banality, with little critique from the Op Ed corner. In fact, liberals writers often seemed to get a dirty little thrill from this ( “I don’t care if he calls Sadam Evil, gosh darn it, he IS evil!” ) that counterbalanced whatever polite disagreements they had with an invasion that would do in tens of thousands Iraqis. They haven’t seperated the liberated from the evil doers yet.
As for Cummings “not with a terrible law and bullying prosacutor”, well, the Nadar campaign showed us how happy the left “radical” is to borrow bullshit from the Republican playbook.
Fitzgerald got convictions on purgery difacult to prove with flagerant violation of said “terrible law.” You have to question to what extent anyone who doesn’t like this vertict is really even against the war.
March 10th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
“who doesn’t like this vertict is really even against the war.”
I DO like the verdict. I don’t like the intelligence identities protection act, which was created because of a hero, Phillip Agee…
I spent most of the last few years agitating and giving talks and writing articles opposing the war. I have helped with resisters who are here in Canada. I’ve done a hell of a lot of ACIVE work to oppose the war. What the hell have you done?
March 10th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
jcummings I mentioned an article on NEXT HURRAH the other day on “The Strange Case of the IAPA”. I always thought the act was passed because Phil Agee was alleged to have made the name of the CIA Station Chief Athens public – and that fellow was subsiquently assasinated. Turns out I was wrong. The info came from the E German Stassi as records from that agency, made public after the Wall came down, make clear. So the whole law was premised on a misunderstanding.
Go figure!
March 10th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Thanks for the heads up….I just checked it out. I knew most of that, but it was concise and educational.
March 10th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
So…you LIKE a guilty verdict with a bad law and a bullying prosacutor?
March 10th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Just an unbiased observation…you guys are nuts to be so wrought up over Ann Coulter. She’s as much a comedic entertainer as she is a journalist. But, I wouldn’t expect people who have no sense of humor to catch on to that. Do you think that she’s any more biased or crude as many of the commenters here?
March 10th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Yes. But I’ll be fair, Woody. Find something on a par from major or minor liberal commentor or comic that’s on a par with the Jersey Girls stuff, as truely craven and ugly as that was (the humor excuse here simply expanding the crime) and I’ll cop to it. Till then, I’m left with the conclusion: the Bush rightist is a fairly sick individual, who’s basic sense of right and wrong is warped by a relativeism few liberals have ever imagined. To be fair, certain right wingers distanted themselves from said sludge,
but they were few and far between. Now, who on this list “Joked” that the family member of a murdered loved one was glad they were dead? Come’on Woody… I’m waiting. When Coulter or the right hit that level, the “just ignore them” stuff seems pretty craven. Oh, by the way, Woody, on a scale of 1 to 10, how did you rate the “9-11 Widows were glad there husbands got killed so maybe they can be in Playboy” stuff? A real bell ringer, or just
so-so Ann?
I’m would note here that some liberals have gotten too snotty about the Bush Twins, one of whom seems to trying to do something quite admireable with her life.
March 10th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Ann Coulter comedic? Now that’s funny!
March 10th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
The Milbank story was hilarious, Marc! Thanks for the link.
thanks for stepping up.
you believe in the future.
the buck stops here.
March 10th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
“Addressing the Dana Milbank article Mark Cooper cites too, is Hilary responding to her handlers, or does the woman just have a dull mind?”
Good question. Go over to her site, fire up one of her videos, and notice how fast your brain goes numb. They go on and on, bromide after bromide. I haven’t been able to get all the way through any of them. We’re getting to the point with graphics and animation technology where this kind of thing could be automated: just enter the filename for the script, and the head starts talking. But the question is: is this really Hillary, or is she just dying the death of a thousand image-consultant cuts?
I believe the #1 mistake being made here by her media strategists is an overresponse to a vulnerability that’s more perceived than real. What those image consultants seem to want is the picture of a woman who actually *had* a sincere desire to “stay home and bake cookies,” but who just couldn’t, because she had a higher calling. But who can’t even *say* so — it all has to be subtext. Now, if Hillary actually *were* such a woman, the result might be pretty convincing. Think Pat Schroeder (or for that matter, Helen Caldicott). The problem is, that’s not what she is.
She has her ideals, perhaps, but there are a lot of high-minded people who don’t go don’t get very far without running out of steam, who can’t take the hits and keep going. She’s driven by political ambition, she always has been. She might as well make that ambition a part of her image, for the sake of authenticity.
March 11th, 2007 at 1:55 am
Woody, on Coulter: “She’s as much a comedic entertainer as she is a journalist.”
Substitute “propagandist” for “journalist” and you might have a point. Her columns are remarkably fact-free. In a recent broadside, she claimed that a wind turbine doesn’t produce enough energy over its lifetime to make another wind turbine. Actually, wind turbine energy payback is now about six months. In any case, it’s a statement that hasn’t been true since the 70s, if not before. With “journalists” like her, who needs the Flat Earth Society?
March 11th, 2007 at 2:37 am
Turner, again, “banality” “driven by ambition” all seems like pretty suspect, selective (and lazy) targeting to me. Her career is based on her being a maryter to a freak show of political scandels less authentic than the Clintons at their hokeyest. Which seems to me less a reason to hate her than to say “enough’s enough.”
March 11th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Michael Turner, I’ve seen made up stories at The New York Times and CBS, so you better label them “propagandists,” too. Also, note that she is a political writer–not science. Look at Coulter’s latest article:
If you read her columns without having already made up your mind that you don’t like her, then you would have a broader understanding of issues and might have a more fair view of conservatives.
Now, I’m watching ABC’s “This Week’s” roundtable on the Libby verdict. How can you not agree with the views of George Will over David Corn of “The Nation?”
March 11th, 2007 at 8:47 am
To focus back on Hillary Clinton:
HILL: I’M THE JFK OF 2008 – VOWS TO BEAT ODDS
By MAGGIE HABERMAN, New York Post Correspondent
I knew Jack Kennedy, although he was no friend of mine. Senator Clinton, you’re no Jack Kennedy.
March 11th, 2007 at 9:24 am
“With no crime to investigate, *Starr* pursued a pointless investigation into nothing… so he could charge some *Democrat* with “perjury†and enjoy the fawning media attention.”
The more things change…
March 11th, 2007 at 9:26 am
“With no crime to investigate, Starr pursued a pointless investigation into nothing… so he could charge some Democrat with “perjury†and enjoy the fawning media attention.”
The more things change…
March 11th, 2007 at 9:38 am
“Monica,” I heard you the first time. However, President Clinton was involved in a civil case and lied to the court to deny Paula Jones her rights. He was criminally guilty but was not charged with a criminal offense and was never sentenced to prison, like Libby. So, there was something there and there was special treatment for Clinton–and, believe me, Starr didn’t enjoy “fawning media attention.”
March 11th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Woody I’m sorry but you’ve been reading too much bs from the likes of that wacky couple Vicki Toensing and Joe DeGenova. The fact that Valerie Plame was a NOC (Non official Cover) was so well established that only the dire hard rightists have tried to deny it. How do you think the whole thing started? Because the CIA (you know those guys in the big box down in Langley with the fences and gates and all) sent a criminal referral to the Justice Dept to see if the IAIPA had been violated. Now call me naive but I think the spooks know who is one of their own – don’t you?
March 11th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
rlc, are we talking about the same CIA that advised President Bush that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
March 11th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Shorter Woody: Because some elements of the CIA were dead wrong on WMD’s in Iraq, no one in the entire organization can ever be right about anything.
March 11th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Shorter Randy: I only believe the CIA when it suits me.
March 11th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Actually Woody that’s really what you’re saying. You’re projecting again.
March 11th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
“How can you not agree with the views of George Will over David Corn of “The Nation?—
For starters, because Will made a couple of patently false statements. Including the canard that “Wilson lied and said Cheney sent him to Niger.” Even Stephanpolous stepped on that one.
March 11th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Incidentally, Woody – Corn owned that discussion. The crazy gal who worked as Rummy’s mouthpiece and Will had to, literally, scramble to make things up to support their defense of Libby’s multi-count perjuries. If you listened to McLaughlin Group this morning you heard both Tony Snow and Pat Buchanan agree that Libby’s perjury was serious and he deserved his verdict. The most interesting thing on that This Week panel – and I’m sure it passed you by totally because it’s too complex a thought and turns your little world upside down – was Fahreed Zakharia noting that the people inside the Bush administration charged with pushing the Maliki government to begin to take its responsibilities seriously and not just continue as a vehicle for sectarianism, are having a much easier time of it BECAUSE Congress is pushing to draw down the U.S. presence in Iraq. It’s like a wake-up call for the Iraqis. IF – and it’s a very big “if” – progress begins to be made in Iraq and the Baghdad government begins to “stand up”, it will be due to the fact that Congress has made it clear that this is not an open-ended commitment to keep our soldiers in the middle of a civil war that even Maliki himself tolerates. Also interesting that BushCo have started negotiating with Iran and other regional players – after dissing Baker, et. al. This crowd are so incompetent that they have to have reality rubbed in their face by outsiders – otherwise Rumsfeld would still be in charge and Cheney would be unimpeded in steamrolling his brute ideology. I think there’s a split in the upper reaches and Cheney is meeting pushback from others who can influence Bush. Of course, this mess is, to some extent, a result of having an insecure half-wit with a stubborn streak and Daddy issues as “The Decider”.
March 11th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
reg, your comment exceeded my reading limit.
Randy, who’s projecting? You or me?
BTW, last week I met with a new client where everyone speaks only Portuguese and requied an interpreter. Have you ever been in a room full of people from Brazil? What is it with those people that they don’t learn English like the rest of the world? Also, they had never heard of you…or wouldn’t admit it.
March 11th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Also, they had never heard of you…or wouldn’t admit it.
You’re such a little boy, Woodrow.
reg, your comment exceeded my reading limit.
Shorter Woody,
Facts are too complicated for me to understand.
March 11th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Woody, I’m still waiting for some example of comments from the left that are roughly like Coulter saying the 9-11 widows were glad there husbands were dead. I guess you were talking out yo butt.
Anyway, Mavis will be interested to know that Bill Maher is being groomed to be the new Micheal Moore. Taking notes, my “tit for tat” suckers? Take a look at “Has Ann Coulter Hit Her Tipping Point?” over at Yahoo….
March 11th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Have you ever been in a room full of people from Brazil?
Every Sunday when I attend mass.
I’ve been in rooms filled with Georgians and Alabamians as well. I wish some of them would learn English.
March 11th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Randy, so, youse guys can understand them?
Regarding reg, I really don’t read long comments. If you can’t say it quickly, then don’t waste my time.
K Nardy, the left doesn’t expose people who put politics above tragedy and injustice…they pander to them and use them.
March 11th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
“reg, your comment exceeded my reading limit.”
later:
“I really don’t read long comments”
Ask me if I give a shit…
March 11th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Incidentally, before you repeat yourself once more on this, that post of 8:38 I was responding to suggests that while you claim not to read long comments, you certainly aren’t loathe to waste other people’s time with your own. In fairness, I have to admit that all I read was your last sentence about Corn and Will.
March 11th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
reg, …waste your time with my comments? I specifically asked you in the past to not read them and to not respond to them–and, you agreed with that. So, you chose to waste your own time, as you call it, yourself! Is that hard to understand?
Regarding Corn, he makes rash and exaggerated accusations that only someone blinded by the left could accept.
Thanks for keeping your comment short. It still turned out to be uninformative and fairly useless.
March 11th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Woody, indulge me and go slow with me here…. You’re saying that the 9-11 Widows “put politics above tragity and injustice?”
If that’s your posisition, would you expand on that a bit?
March 11th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
” knew Jack Kennedy, although he was no friend of mine. Senator Clinton, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”
Funny how you had to borrow that from a Democrat. No, not really since the Republicans no no good lines.
It’s a false syllogism though. A woman is not a man but could be a Catholic, but she isn’t. She’s a woman who will most likely be president. Put that in your wingnut pipe and smoke it.
March 11th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
And insert a “kn” before that first “no” while you’re at it.
March 11th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
With “journalists†like her, who needs the Flat Earth Society?”
Well they are the aforesaid so…
March 11th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
K Nardy, the 9-11 widows were quickly sorted out by the press and only those who were liberal were given attention and allowed to express themselves on the air, and those widows loved it. They took great advantage of the attention and stuck right to the left-wing scripts provided to them, none of which had anything to do with mourning or honoring their dead husbands. And, of course, the Democrats took advantage of these women and used them, because “Republicans are not allowed to take exception to a victim.” Hah! I’ll call ‘em as I see ‘em.
At some point, some widows started sounding pretty phony, as evidenced by Marc Cooper’s radio blog with one who had this doleful and put-on sadness in her voice, which was years after the disaster. Ask him to pull it up. If he’s honest and insightful, he’ll admit that the distraught tone was a little over the top.
I hope that helps.
——
George Boyle aka Mark York, you fail to catch the irony in my use of Lloyd Bentsen’s comment. Should I just call Hillary a bitch and be done with it?
March 11th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Speaking of “rash and exaggerated accusations” -
“some widows started sounding pretty phony, as evidenced by Marc Cooper’s radio blog with one who had this doleful and put-on sadness in her voice, which was years after the disaster”
The nerve of this woman to express grief and sadness “years after the disaster”. Phony doesn’t even begin to describe it. Why don’t you just call her a bitch…
March 11th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
“those widows loved it”
You know something, Woody. You’re a sick fuck. Really nothing is beneath people like you and Coulter. Morally and intellectually dissolute assholes. Nothing more and nothing less.
March 11th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Yeah, why not just do that Wood brain? She’s a bitch and you’re an asshole, so? So, my question is, where are the “right wing” 9-11 widows and who paid them not to talk?
March 12th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Woody quotes Coulter: “It was not a crime to reveal Valerie Plame’s name because she was not a covert agent. ”
At best, this is not a firmly settled legal issue, and Ann Coulter, who has a law degree, and who edited the Michigan Law Review, would know that it isn’t. Which makes the above statement a lie.
Plame had “Non-Official Cover”, which means that, had she been apprehended as a spy abroad, she could be at *greater* risk than any CIA spy operating under official cover — diplomatic cover rules would not apply. Since the point of the Intelligence Identities Protection act was to help ensure the safety of American spies, Plame was plausibly covered by it. Whether she had “true-blue NOC” is an interesting question,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame
but without clear written guidelines for what “true-blue” constitutes, we have to go with how the CIA classified her.
So tell me, Woody, when excerpt from a Coulter column starts right off with a lie, as its premise, why should I even bother reading the rest of it? I did read the rest of it, and “discovered” that Plame sent her husband to Niger. Well, she didn’t, and that’s established. For one thing, she couldn’t. She could only advise. She suggested that he had the bona fides for the trip, and for the very good reason that he did have them. Did she pull strings? Yes. Did she have any guarantee that pulling strings would have any favorable result? No — she didn’t have the authority. And as far as I know, Wilson did the trip for expenses only, so the two didn’t even profit from it.
The CIA deserves blame for letting NOC get sloppy. Maybe Plame should never have had an embassy address, should never have been allowed to list the State Department as one of her employers, and when it became whispered common knowledge in the Beltway that she worked for a CIA front operation, they should have either yanked her NOC status, or yanked her employment with Brewster & Jennings. But over and above all this, George Tenet should never have called the Iraq WMD case a “slam dunk” when the intelligence available to him indicated otherwise. If it’s partisan distortions of professional intelligence practice you’re after, you (and Ann Coulter) are barking up the wrong tree.
Not that you’ll ever consider any of these points, because … I’ve exceeded your length limit! (You might consider getting professional help with that problem — ADHD is surprisingly treatable these days.)
March 12th, 2007 at 5:18 am
“Michael Turner, I’ve seen made up stories at The New York Times and CBS, so you better label them “propagandists,†too.”
When they stop issuing retractions and errata when proven wrong. Ever seen anything like that from Coulter, despite her myriad errors of fact?
As for Coulter not being a science writer (do tell), and thus forgiveable for misrepresenting technology, you don’t *need* to be one. You just need to check facts, which is pretty easy to do with search engines these days. You claim she’s a journalist. OK, so why doesn’t she check facts? If she’s bad at fact-checking, or too busy, well — she’s gotta be a multi-millionaire by now. She can employ them.
But she doesn’t. I can only conclude (1) that facts work against her, and she knows it, or (2) that she thinks she, and/or her informants, whoever they are, must be infallible. Is *that* what you want in a journalist? From your criticisms of the NYT, I’d think not.
March 12th, 2007 at 5:32 am
Oh, and I might add a third hypothesis: she does paid-placement of falsehoods.
“Hi, Ann, Grant here again, sorry to trouble you ….”
“No, no, always a pleasure. Always. Shoot.”
“We in the nuclear power industry have a problem, even if we’re on kind of a roll these days. The problem is: wind power is also on a roll.”
“Ooh, I hate those people. What can I do you?”
“Could you put something in your next column about that? Like ‘wind energy doesn’t even return the energy invested in it’?”
“Um, is that true?”
“Oh, fuck no! We’re not even sure we’ve got an EROI better than 8-to-1; wind is usually *18-to-1*. Drag, eh? So yeah, it’s distinctly economical with the truth, to say the least.”
“Well, in that case, it’ll cost ya.”
“What are we talkin’ about here, Ann?”
“Let’s say another five grand on top of my usual honorium when I speak to the industry association next time.”
“Oh, Ann, c’mon — make it ten, OK? Nice round number, and it’s what I quoted the board over lunch when they asked.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Grant. Sold.”
“A pleasure doing business with you, Ann.”
“This isn’t business, this is saving America from lunatic greens in league with islamofascists ….”
“Sorry, I forgot. Make that, ‘A pleasure collaborating on our patriotic duties together.’”
“That’s more like it, Grant. Don’t slip up again.”
“I won’t. Gotta go.”
“See ya.”
March 12th, 2007 at 7:47 am
“IF – and it’s a very big “if†– progress begins to be made in Iraq and the Baghdad government begins to “stand upâ€, it will be due to the fact that Congress has made it clear that this is not an open-ended commitment to keep our soldiers in the middle of a civil war that even Maliki himself tolerates.”
It’s so much more important which political party gets to claim any credits and how to avoid any blame. America itself is second hand.
Petty Reg. So fucking petty. And a big difference in parties IMO. Kerry, a once candidate for President of America, in a foreign country in the presense of other foreign leaders calling America, his own country, a paria is a classic example.The pathetic son of a bitch.
March 12th, 2007 at 8:21 am
What you call “petty” is of enormous importance. If you’re looking for a pathetic son of a bitch, look at this incompetent fuck of a “commander in Chief” who dragged us into what is easily one of the worst blunders in American history, both in conception and in execution. Then I would suggest that all of you folks who’ve been living in his asshole since 2000 look in the mirror.
Congress has already been remiss in letting these fools run amok. What you call partisan politics, most people understand as democracy. If you don’t like it, take a fucking hike.
As for my estimation of the impact of Congressional pressure on the Bush administration, it’s a fact. Rice has used domestic disgust with the war as a negotiating point to pressure Maliki. We are now in regional negotiations that include Iran. Rumsfeld is out. Even the “surge” wasn’t concocted until long after “stay the course” was an obvious failure. Bush’s scramble for a more coherent strategy is a direct response to the temper of Congress and the frustration of the American people. If it were simply a response to facts on the ground in Iraq, the strategy would have been shifted long ago.
I hate this fucking war, the crap that’s been floated to rationalize it, the people who concocted it and failed to understand how great a risk it was and how flimsy their case was, and anyone who at this late date persists as an apologist. My disgust and contempt knows few bounds at this point.
The outcome of this has been an enormous opportunity for al Qaeda and damage to the U.S. – in terms of strategic failure and weakening, image and prestige, lives and treasure – that is totally diasastrous. And it wasn’t something that couldn’t be predicted. So don’t give me shit about “blame” and “America itself as second hand”. Bush and the GOP’s BushLove have trashed this country. GOPers can sink into the fucking sea so far as I’m concerned and the sooner the better.
March 12th, 2007 at 8:52 am
My understanding is Plame’s bosses came to her about sending her husband. One would expect the CIA to know who was married to thier agents, and what his background was as a former public official in that area of Africa. Just more evidence wingnuts are ignorant lying fools. You are what you do and ascribe to in this world. Your choice.
March 12th, 2007 at 9:25 am
I won’t get into the CIA intelligence on Iraq and WMDS since Woody knows, or should know, that the Intelligence Directorate put so many qualifiers on its report that it was hardly a “Slam Dunk” (Which BTW Tenet says he never uttered) but forget all that. If you believe Woody then the CIA doesn’t even know who is on the payroll and in what capacity. Pardon me if I find that somewhat improbable. But that is what you have to believe to swallow the rightwing line on this.
March 12th, 2007 at 11:50 am
“It was not a crime to reveal Valerie Plame’s name because she was not a covert agent”.
Not just Coulter, but George Will and a lot of other “respectable” commentators make this same claim. If the government had a case under the statute, why didn’t they bring it?
March 12th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
MarkC read the statute. You not only have to reveal the name but you have to know that the person is a “Covert” agent. And in covert status at the time. If I tell you that George Tenet worked for the CIA that’s OK since he wasn’t covert. And as for Plame, Libby – or Cheney for that matter – could say that she was no longer covert. Now try to prove what’s in their heads at the time they made the statement.
March 12th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Intent is always part of a criminal case (other than criminal negligence), and can be proved by circumstantial evidence. Do you know for a fact that the case wasn’t brought because of intent? According to commentators like Will, the prosecution had no case because Plame wasn’t covert. If no crime was ever alleged, it does cast some doubt on the legitimacy of the investigation.
March 13th, 2007 at 12:42 am
RE: My Point: Western “PROGRESSIVES” Don’t Defend Gays Against Islamist Persecution and Prosecution
I am copying Mchael Turner’s supposed refutation of my point bottom below. Anyone who is actually willing to consider the merits of his argument, please, explain to me why you would prefer to walk around Tehran or Cairo, proudly defending the rights of gays to marry and have families, over “risking” your lives in Augusta Georgia or Tulsa Oklahoma or Houstan, TX, carrying the same signs, making the same arguments, making the same points.
I thought I made a simple, even irrefutable point: that supposed Western “progressives” aren’t willing to stand up for gays in places like Cairo and Tehran, where gays are being persecuted, oppressed, imprisoned and yes, in Iran, being executed.
In supposed refutation of my point, Michael Turner adduces some ostensibly Leftist websites that object to these enormities. But of course, I never argued that you couldn’t find a few Left-identified people or organizations who defend Liberal decency or human rights. (Of course you can: anyone who is a moral and coherent Leftist, or a Liberal, or a humanist of any stripe, is categorically opposed to any form of persecution or prosecution against gays) My point was merely that the current Left is about sweeping a single fact under the rug: that the current Islamist world persecutes and prosecutes gays and that Leftist apologists like Michael Turner will do anything to sweep this irrefutable fact under the rug.
What is there to argue about? Nothing. For anyone who says otherwise, speak up, and
I will reply. Meanwhile, here is Michael Turner’s irrefutable proof that a few and honorable Leftists object to gays being executed. He would quote himself or other supposed defenders of the Rights of Man on this –ahhh–minor point but he can’t, because he himself and the other numerous hacks on this blog spend all of their time explaining why gays being arrested, persecuted and prosecuted is minor point, nothing to worry about, compared to the depredations of Western non-leftists. And of course, the fact that I bring such matters up is proof of the fact that I am a murderous, deluded, scary reactionary.
And now here is Michael Turner, proving that he can find some Leftists who care more about human rights than he does, ostensibly offered as proof that he cares more about human rights more than certain people who are not Michael Turner:
Michael Turner Says:
March 10th, 2007 at 2:56 am
Stott writes: “But what about standing up for the rights of homosexuals in Iran or Egypt. “Progressives†don’t do that, no they don’t.â€
That didn’t pass my sniff test, Samuel, so I just timed myself on how quickly I could turn up contradictory evidence. Which amounted to the number of seconds it took to type “site:www.zmag.org Iran gay.rights†into Google and pick out a few likely candidates. Here’s one:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?itemid=9835
in which the author castigates *American* gay rights advocates for “continuing the ostrich-like, isolationist attitude they’ve maintained in public toward the lethal anti-gay pogrom in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has already claimed the lives of a dozen young gay men who have been executed by the religiously fanatic regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.†He contrasts the situation with groups in Europe — arguably *more* progressive (and probably more anti-American, pursuant to your subtext here), and praises Human Rights Watch for a more vigilant international outlook.
The same author, on Iran
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?itemid=10499
“…a new report on the hangings of the two Iranian gay teens, based on sources inside Iran, prepared by Simon Forbes, and issued by OutRage, further refutes the claims by the Islamic Republic of Iran that the boys were guilty of rape, and instead demonstrates that they were victims of a legal “honor killing†initiated by a family member of one of the boys who disapproved of their homosexuality.â€
Similar results when substituting “Egypt†for Iran, in the above search.
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2001-11/11bronski.cfm
Bronski interviews Surina Khan, who says at one point about human rights violations in the Middle East: “…We’ve been very concerned that the level of support and attention given to human-rights issues will be compromised. For example, last May, 52 men were arrested in Egypt for alleged homosexual activities or for being perceived as homosexual. In the past few months we have worked hard to build international solidarity and pressure on the Egyptian government to release those men, on the grounds that it is a gross human-rights violation.â€
Samuel, did it even occur to you to *check* your apparent biases before popping off with this one?
March 13th, 2007 at 1:23 am
Hey “Reg”
We could hold a public debate about our numerous disagreements, but you decline to come out from under you rock.
How brave of you, however, to insult people under your psuedonym. (While criticizing the likes of Ann Coulter for insulting people). Its amazing that the CIA or the FBI hasn’t put you up against the wall. The only possible explanation is that they don’t put anyone against the wall. (Well, I’m being kind, another possible explanation is that you are a pissant.)
What are you hiding from, uh, “Reg?” Do you not have tenure or do you not want people to know that you live from unearned increments of wealth? Or do you actually think that you are bravely fighting The Man, at grave risk to yourself?
March 13th, 2007 at 6:31 am
Woody wrote about the 9-11 left-wing widows: And, of course, the Democrats took advantage of these women and used them, because “Republicans are not allowed to take exception to a victim.â€
reg rsponded with: Why don’t you just call her a bitch… and You know something, Woody. You’re a sick fuck. Really nothing is beneath people like you and Coulter. Morally and intellectually dissolute assholes. Nothing more and nothing less.
Thus, my point is thus proven.
Democrats give a podium to left-wing widows who know nothing more about terrorism and politics than anyone else, but the Democrats let them rave on because you’re a “sick f**k” if you point that out.
If a widow wants to talk about her grief, then I’ll be sensitive to that. If a widow wants to use her platfrom for left-wing political attacks, then she has forfeited her shield of victimization and shouldn’t be surprised when she is corrected.
March 13th, 2007 at 9:32 am
“Back in the 1980s the Wall Street Journal dropped its lineup of liberal op-ed writers (Alexander Cockburn, Michael Kinsley and even Barbara Ehrenreich) by simply not running them anymore.”
I’m sure Marc was all over that one. Anybody have a link?
March 13th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
The point, Woody, isn’t that you disagreed with her views but that you called her grief phony. I’m sure I disagree with some of the “Jersey Girl’s” views on terrorism. But I respect that they are people who’ve experienced its impact more profoundly than I have. It’s not my job to trash them or engage in character assassination. Coulter claimed they were enjoying their husbands deaths, etc. etc.
Which makes you sick fucks…who I’m more than willing to trash because you roundly deserve it.
(Talk about “Thus my point is proven.” Picking this shit apart is as easy as it is maddening that anyone is so full of their own crap.)
March 13th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Just because you may have been in a car wreck doesn’t make you an expert in traffic engineering. It just makes you an uninformed wreck victim with an opinion like uninformed non-victims.
In this case, the activist 9-11 widows were only left-wing, which they pushed even as far as Marc Cooper’s show, making their death sorrow appear quite secondary to their political causes. Once they crossed that line, their “widow badges of immunity” came off.
You never picked that apart, idiot.
March 14th, 2007 at 4:55 am
There was never any immunity to argument. If you’re too much of an ass to debate their views without descending into character assassination, impugning their grief, better to keep your mouth shut. Otherwise you lose your immunity to being percieved as a tawdry asshole.
March 14th, 2007 at 6:10 am
reg, you’re one to talk about character assassination. You’re absolutely wrong about the immunity argument. At any point of disagreeing with the 9-11 widows left-wing agenda, Democrats pulled out the “victim” card, just like they do with the race card. In your mind, they are allowed a forum to talk about issues for which they have no understanding, but no one is allowed to disagree. You’re crazy, which is generally understood, if you think otherwise.
March 14th, 2007 at 8:48 am
The “Jersey Girls” happen to have been praised by Tom Kean for their contributions to the 9/11 commission’s considerations. But that doesn’t matter. You’re a character assassin, impugning these widow’s grief as somehow phony because you’re too chickenshit to simply take on their arguments straight ahead. You’re as much of a psycho loon and indecent asshole as Ann Coulter. Too bad you’re not profiting from that fact, like she is.
April 5th, 2007 at 12:52 am
Excuse, and what you think concerning forthcoming elections?
April 9th, 2007 at 2:40 am
cool blog!
April 15th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
cool blog!
April 18th, 2007 at 12:02 am
nice photos of this blog
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:32 am
Garden&Fountains…
Have you seen the new garden fountains?…
May 10th, 2008 at 10:58 am
ce4ac3439291…
ce4ac3439291096e88c3…