Last Saturday more than 80,000 people in North Carolina gathered to march in protest of the Republican mission to strip minorities of their civil rights and gut the social safety net for low-income citizens. It was the largest protest march since the peak of the civil rights movement in 1965.
So how does Fox News cover this news-making event? By having Sean Hannity send an African-American Tea Party leader to ambush and embarrass the marchers. How else would Fox do it?
Hannity’s “correspondent” was David Webb, founder of TeaParty365, Fox News contributor, and Breitbart News columnist. Webb landed at the protest with a bag of questions that had nothing to do with the agenda for the march. He harangued the protest’s organizers with off-topic questions (the video of which cut out most the answers). Then he asked a few participants if they thought Obama is a successful president. Most answered correctly that he has been obstructed at every turn by Republicans committed to blocking anything he proposes, even if it was originally a GOP initiative.
However, the feature of the video was Webb asking marchers to give examples of racism by the Tea Party. This is the sort of ambush tactic that serves no purpose other than to create a negative impression of the respondents. First of all, Webb’s video showed him interviewing only four people out of the more than 80,000 who attended the march. Without the uncut footage we have no idea if there were forty others who supplied Webb with bona fide examples of Tea Party racism that he left on the cutting room floor. It’s easy to splice together just the remarks that make his point and discard the rest.
Furthermore, the respondents were not official spokespeople for the protest and they did not come prepared to have answers for Webb’s loaded questions. It’s unreasonable to expect that random citizens participating in a march to protest specific policies of North Carolina’s ultra-right Republican administration will be carrying documentation of Tea Party racism to an event that isn’t related to that subject. Yet that is precisely what was expected of the four victims of Webb’s inquisition. Fox Nation even placed a story about this at the top of their website with a sensationalized headline that implied that liberals as a group were unable to cite examples of bigotry in the Tea Party. Maybe they should ask more than four liberals before making such a ludicrous assertion.
That said, I wouldn’t want Fox News, Sean Hannity, and David Webb to be disappointed by not getting a substantive response to their inquiries. Therefore, they might want to look into the Tea Party agenda for evidence of racism. For instance, their reactions to the recent commercials for Cheerios (with a biracial family) and Coke (with a multilingual rendition of America the Beautiful) revealed a thinly disguised prejudice for anything not purely of Euro-Caucasian descent. Then there were the infamous Birthers whose allegations are inherently racist. The Tea Party’s opposition to social safety net programs is often portrayed as a response to the lazy moochers in the inner city they regard as the beneficiaries. Then there is their advocacy of voter ID laws that largely impact minorities, as well as seniors and the poor. And they continue to refer to undocumented residents as “illegals,” even if they broke no laws. The Tea Party’s legislative and social agenda is rife with this sort of bigotry.
And if that isn’t enough, take a look at these images gathered from Tea Party rallies and websites:
Of course, Hannity and Webb would never address these examples that they disingenuously requested. Their intent from the outset was to let the question hang out there unanswered to leave the false impression the charges of racism were unwarranted. But any paying attention knows the truth about the Tea Party, and a little research confirms it. Too bad Fox News viewers will never see it.
Remember way back about four days ago when Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, wet his britches over a tweet by someone at MSNBC that said that right-wingers would hate a new Cheerios ad that featured a biracial family?
The reaction from Priebus and the rest of the conservative throngs was to lash out at MSNBC and demand satisfaction for what they regarded as an insulting insinuation that there were racists in the ranks of the right. Priebus even threatened to boycott the cable network. Never mind that the tweet was thoroughly justified by the fact that right-wing racists actually did hate the very same biracial family when they appeared in a previous version of the ad. In fact, YouTube had to close off the comments on the video due to the volume of vulgar responses. That didn’t stop Priebus from throwing a tantrum and insisting on an apology.
In a classic demonstration of just how pusillanimous a corporate media weasel can be, the president of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, disgorged a sniveling apology and announced that the person responsible for the tweet had been terminated. It was an embarrassing supplication to conservative bullies whose outrage was transparently fake.
Today we have additional evidence that Griffin’s knee-bending was uncalled-for. An ad for Coca-Cola aired yesterday during the Superbowl (video below) that featured Americans of various nationalities, races, religions, and cultures, all singing “America the Beautiful” in a rich tapestry of the languages that represent our country’s diversity. The response from conservatives to this heartwarming advertisement was predictably hostile. They lit up Twitter and Facebook with hateful messages vilifying Coke, as well as all Americans who do not fit the European, Caucasian mold favored by these bigots. Some of the more prominent feces-flingers were:
Todd Starnes of Fox News, who tweeted“Coca Cola is the official soft drink of illegals crossing the border.”
Tea Party ex-congressman Allen West, called the ad“a truly disturbing commercial,” because “the words went from English to languages I didn’t recognize.”
Michael Patrick Leahy of Breitbart News, who lamented that the “ad also prominently features a gay couple.” and somehow found a message in it that the U.S. “is no longer a nation ruled by the Constitution.”
Eric Bolling of Fox News, who objected to this use of a patriotic song saying “Don’t put it to ‘America the Beautiful.’ You used the wrong song.”
Armageddonist Glenn Beck, who inexplicably derived division from this ode to unity, saying “That’s all this is – to divide people.”
If anything exonerates the unjustly fired MSNBC tweeter, it is this parade of conservative xenophobes who validate the original message about right-wingers hating an ad that honors what really makes America beautiful: as the song says, brotherhood. And if anyone should be fired by MSNBC it’s Phil Griffin, the executive who didn’t have the balls to stand up for what’s right.
When you preside over a political party that is the subject of frequent criticism for the racist rhetoric of its members and supporters, it might be a good idea to avoid bringing attention to that gaping wound of oozing hatred. But never let it be said that the leaders of the GOP are capable of recognizing a good idea.
The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, went berserk today over a tweet by some anonymous social media intern at MSNBC. The comment that so furiously enraged him was a reference to a commercial for Cheerios that features a biracial family (video below). It is a sequel of sorts to a similar ad that played last year. Here is the offending tweet:
Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go aww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ bi-racial family. http://t.co/SpB4rQDoAR
That was all it took to send Priebus into a frenzy over what he perceived as a deplorable insult directed at innocent right-wingers. His response was to announce that he would order a boycott of MSNBC unless its president, Phil Griffin, made a personal and public apology. He sent letters to Griffin as well as an open letter to “all Republican elected officials, strategists, surrogates, and pundits,” that said that he was “banning all RNC staff from appearing on, associating with, or booking any RNC surrogates on MSNBC,” and asking anyone affiliated with the GOP to join the embargo.
And of course Fox Nation made this their top story.
Read Fox Nation vs. Reality for more tales from the loony side.
First of all, how would anyone know that a boycott had been initiated by the GOP against MSNBC? Most Republicans already refuse to go on the network simply because they know they will be challenged when they lie, unlike the friendly reception they get at Fox. But for the RNC chair to feign outrage over such a trivial tweet defies reason. The message conveyed by the tweet was simply that this heart-warming advertisement was likely to irk many conservatives whose intolerance for diversity is well documented. And where would the tweeter get an idea like that? Perhaps from the response that followed the release of the first Cheerios ad with the same biracial family. As reported at the time…
“A new Cheerios commercial that included an interracial family drew so many racially motivated hate comments on YouTube that the video-sharing website shut down the commercial’s comment section. […] some of the comments made reference to Nazis, ‘troglodytes’ and ‘racial genocide.'”
With that historical perspective, why would anyone doubt that the same right-wingers who spewed such vile hatred at the ad’s charming family last year, would react any differently today? Conservatives who are offended by the tweet ought to look at their own confederates to understand why everyone else regards them as hardened bigots who would hate the Cheerios ad. It isn’t MSNBC’s fault that conservatives openly express themselves in such a thoroughly reprehensible manner. However, the behavior of the rightists when this ad’s first installment was aired justifies the sentiment in the tweet. For some additional evidence of the unbridled bigotry on the right, have a look at…
These comments on the Fox Nation website following the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.
Or note the graphic racism by the Fox News photo editing department in a story about murdered teen Trayvon Martin.
And recall that Fox continues to disparage Latinos as “illegal aliens,” even when they are here legally.
And who can forget the time Fox distorted a poll so that they could feature the headline “Obama Has A Big Problem With White Women.”
The notion that MSNBC would be a target of a boycott simply because they recognized the bigotry that is inbred into much of the American conservative movement is especially ironic when you consider that Fox News, the mouthpiece of the rightist agenda in the media, is so brazenly racist. It’s a network that regularly demonizes minorities as criminals or moochers. What’s more, Fox feverishly advocates public policies that are detrimental to minorities, such as voter suppression laws and slashing benefits for low income workers. If any news outlet should be boycotted for insulting broad swaths of the American public it should be Fox
Which brings us to the subject of hypocrisy by the infuriated right. There actually have been efforts to embargo Fox News and persuade Democrats to avoid appearing on the network. During the Democratic primaries in 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus successfully shut down a Nevada debate that was to be broadcast on Fox. The response by Republicans was that the Democrats were either misguided or cowards, and would be afraid to face our enemies if they couldn’t face Fox. Fox anchor Chris Wallace said that “the Democrats are damn fools [for] not coming on Fox News.” Do these criticisms now apply to the boycotters of MSNBC?
This isn’t even the first time that Priebus has floated the boycott balloon. Just last year he sent similar threatening letters to NBC and CNN because they had plans to produce films about Hillary Clinton. However, he didn’t make the same threat to Fox, who also had Hillary projects in the pipeline. It seems that Priebus is just itching for a boycott, unless the offender is his PR department (aka Fox News).
The pitiful part of this story is that MSNBC has already caved in to the demand for an apology. Phil Griffin issued a statement calling the tweet “outrageous and unacceptable,” which it certainly was not. Even worse, he said that he had “dismissed the person responsible.” That is a monumental injustice and overreaction. This merely proves that the network that conservatives like to demean as unfailingly liberal is just a facade that will collapse at the slightest whiff of controversy. It’s why MSNBC issues apologies every other week and fires people for little reason.
Fox News, on the other hand, is far worse when it comes to offending liberals and Democrats, but they will never apologize, nor do they correct their many “errors” of fact. But if MSNBC keeps bowing down to competitors who seek its destruction, they will remain a perennial loser and shed any credibility they hope to maintain. This silly boycott threat should be cause for celebration by MSNBC. It serves as an opportunity to remind people of why Republicans are correctly perceived to be racist. It relieves them of the burden of making excuses for why the GOP is not represented on the channel. And it allows them to focus on expanding their audience among the key demographics that are most likely to tune in.
What this all comes down to is that Priebus is throwing a tantrum to attract attention and donations. The tweet that started the whole thing was provocative, but perfectly justified. But that doesn’t stop the disingenuous onslaught of phony rage that turns into a ludicrous threat that no one will notice should it be carried out. We are witnessing a drama that is more painfully shallow than the typical reality TV tripe that consumes way too many hours of broadcast time. And, sadly, “Keeping Up With The Republicans” has even less reality in it than you’ll find over at the Kardashians place.
[Update: 1/31/2014] Fox News is cashing in on this controversy. So far they have featured it on The Five, Fox & Friends, and the Kelly File. Greg Gutfeld of The Five injected the mandatory Nazi reference by calling MSNBC a “one-stop shop for master-race-baiting.” And Megyn Kelly asserted that liberals have a “kneejerk instinct to accuse conservatives of racism.” In her segment that featured uber-rightist flame-thrower Brent Bozell, she went on to say…
“They [liberals] saw this ad and said, ‘Oh the conservatives will hate it because it’s a black man and a white woman together in a family.’“
Wrong Megyn. They said “Oh the conservatives will hate it because that’s exactly the response they had to it when the first version of it came out last year.” What better evidence can you have of how someone will respond to something than their own prior response?
And this morning Fox’s media analyst, Howard Kurtz, called the MSNBC tweet “an outrageous and really disgusting message,” before excreting this BS:
“You do have to wonder about the culture there, and whether there is such a loathing for conservatives that things that are so clearly way, way, way over the line are somehow deemed acceptable.”
Once again I have to say ARE YOU FRIGGIN’ KIDDING ME? The outpouring of loathing by Fox of liberals (and African-Americans, and Latinos, and gays, and women, and the poor) is a daily – even hourly – occurrence. For Kurtz to say that with a straight face is proof of his total devotion to the dishonest promulgation of Fox’s propaganda, hate, and commitment to the corporatocracy they were invented to defend.
Trying to point out every occurrence of idiocy by Fox News would drive most people to an asylum. The quantity is just overwhelming and sometimes you have to let some truly mind-boggling treasures of dumbfuckery go by because there just isn’t enough time in the day. But not this one.
[Update: On Martin Luther King Day, Fox Nation decided to move this racially provocative article to the top of their web page with some curious modifications. See below.]
For more than 50 examples of blatant lies by Fox Nation,
read the acclaimed ebook Fox Nation vs. Reality. Available at Amazon.
The race-baiters at Fox Nation have extracted a single sentence from an extensive (over 16,600 words) article in the New Yorker about President Obama. The obvious intent of this journalistic malpractice is to deliberately convey the false impression that Obama is playing both the victim and the race card.
Now, if this was all that Obama said, he would be unarguably correct. There is no end to the proof of racial animus that has been directed at our nation’s first African-American president. Many of his bigoted opponents barely disguise their racist tendencies. So Obama could not be faulted for observing something that is so indisputably true.
However, as you might already have guessed, that is not all that Obama said. Here is the full quote from the New Yorker’s article:
“There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President,” Obama said. “Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black President.”
So does that sound like a victim or a realist? The New Yorker went on to note the evidence of broad based biases that are reflected in the national character.
“Obama lost among white voters in 2012 by a margin greater than any victor in American history. The popular opposition to the Administration comes largely from older whites who feel threatened, underemployed, overlooked, and disdained in a globalized economy and in an increasingly diverse country. Obama’s drop in the polls in 2013 was especially grave among white voters.”
Nevertheless, they quote Obama defending his critics and warning that their reservations about him should be judged on their merit, not on historical prejudices.
“I think it’s important for progressives not to dismiss out of hand arguments against my Presidency or the Democratic Party or Bill Clinton or anybody just because there’s some overlap between those criticisms and the criticisms that traditionally were directed against those who were trying to bring about greater equality for African-Americans.”
Despite the exceedingly tolerant tone of Obama’s words, the Fox Nationalists knew that their out of context fragment would inflame their audience. And that was their purpose. As evident in the comments on the Fox Nation website, the response was predominately negative and critical of Obama whom they accused of being a thin-skinned, racially motivated, whiner. So…mission accomplished Fox. You successfully riled up a rabble of dimwitted racists just as you hoped. Not that that’s a particularly difficult achievement given the substandard confederacy of dunces that you cultivate.
[Update} Not satisfied with ordinary, everyday race-baiting, the Fox Nationalists chose to take this bigotry-inciting article and boost it to the top of their web page. And notice the modifications they made to make sure none of their cognitively-challenged readers would miss the point: They colored Obama’s name and the word’s “I’m Black” a bright commie red. And they underlined the words “Don’t Like Me,” So happy MLK Day, from Fox News.
When republican critics get tired of calling President Obama a Muslim or a socialist or a Kenyan or a homosexual or a tyrant or a mad genius or an idiot figurehead or a Black Panther or a Wall Street lackey or lizard overseer, they generally just resort to comparing him to Adolf Hitler. However, lately a new unfounded and irrational insult has been working its way up the charts of the conservative hitlist, and has-been, half-term governor Sarah Palin is the latest to give it her rendition.
Palin: When that note comes due … and this isn’t racist … but it’s going to be like slavery when that note is due. We are going to be beholden to a foreign master.
Palin was referring to the national debt, which she seems to believe is at risk of being sent to the International Collections and Captivity Corporation for redemption. While it was thoughtful of her to remind us that associating her remarks about the first African-American president with the historical scab of slavery isn’t racist, she nevertheless fails to grasp the intricacies of economics. But she does align herself with a growing congregation of noxious Tea Partiers who think that anything President Obama does that they don’t like is just like slavery. For instance…
Rush Limbaugh: Well over 50% of the American people don’t want [Obamacare]. And the Republicans are like ‘well we can’t do anything about it. The law’s the law, It’s the law of the land.’ Well, so was slavery one time, the law of the land.
Dr. Ben Carson: Obamacare is “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. […] In a way, it is slavery, because it is making all of us subservient to the government.
Sen. Rand Paul: Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? You’re basically saying you believe in slavery.
VA Atty Genl Ken Cuccinelli: “The founders knew how bad [slavery] was. We have other things in this country today and abortion is one of them.
Former Rep. Allen West: He does not want you to have the self-esteem of getting up and earning, and having that title of American. He’d rather you be his slave.
NH Rep. Bill O’Brien: And what is Obamacare? It is a law as destructive to personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act.
Glenn Beck: What do you think these federal jobs are all about? These federal jobs are not about helping anything. They are about getting people enslaved to the state.
Is this trend of comparing Obama’s agenda to slavery better than comparing him to Hitler? It’s a tough call. But many on the right may not mean it as an insult. There are some prominent conservatives who have publicly expressed their opinion that slavery was actually a pretty good thing. So perhaps this is just Palin’s way of complementing Obama.
Yesterday there was a large scale demonstration in Washington, D.C. in favor of immigration reform. Protesters included national immigration advocacy groups, labor unions, and members of Congress. The rally was reported online by Fox News Latino, a Fox web site that panders to Hispanic audiences. The article noted that rally participants, including House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, were seeking to advance a bill currently in Congress that “would tighten border security, get stricter on immigration enforcement and provide a path to legalization.” They led their report saying that….
“Thousands converged on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Tuesday to demand that Congress pass a measure that would overhaul the U.S. immigration system, and in particular, provide a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants.
“Capitol police also arrested scores of protesters, including eight members of Congress, who allegedly engaged in acts of civil disobedience as part of the rally.”
Despite the significance of the well-attended demonstration and the prominent participants, Fox News covered it in its own unique and characteristically bigoted way. Their only report on the rally did not address the issues at hand, but a peripheral matter that was more in keeping with their fixation on demonizing the Obama administration over the shutdown (or, as they ridiculously call it, the “slimdown”). Fox’s entire reporting on the rally was to note that it was held on the National Mall which they erroneously said was closed.
That’s it. Nothing about the eleven million undocumented residents currently living in the U.S., performing services, paying taxes, and contributing to the community. Nothing about those who were brought here as children and have broken no laws, yet live in a resident status limbo. Nothing about passing a reform measure that was the work of a bipartisan congressional legislative effort. And nothing about the substance of the rally itself. The only newsworthiness of the event, so far as Fox was concerned, was where it was held.
This is typical of the way Fox News insults their audience. They frequently misreport Latino news stories or fail to report them at all. Then they condescend to posting brief items on the Fox News Latino web site. It’s their way of pandering to the fastest growing demographic group in the nation (and the largest television market), while simultaneously maintaining their hostility to Latinos that the Fox News Channel diehards demand.
Posted by Mark NC on September 22, 2013 at 10:17 am.
NOComments :
After all these years, the right’s fixation on ACORN is still burning with the heat of a thousand white-hot suns – with an emphasis on the white.
The chronic liars at Fox Nation posted an item that purported to quote Bertha Lewis, the former head of ACORN, as giving advice on “How To Put ‘Fear’ In The ‘White Man’.” However, Lewis did not say what the Fox Nationalists attributed to her. In fact, the text below the headline on Fox Nation proved the blatant misrepresentation by quoting Lewis in full. Her remarks to a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus were merely a call for the African-American community to support immigration reform.
Lewis: For the first time ever in history, African-Americans outvoted white Americans. Oooh. That’s the fear of the white man. That could change everything. That’s why [immigration] should matter to us.
Lewis was plainly stating her opinion that engaged minority voters are something that already brings fear to white politicians and strategists. She was not in any way advocating the use of fear to intimidate whites or any political opponent. Yet that is precisely the false inference that Fox put forth with the mutilated quote they posted.
To the contrary, Lewis was simply noting that Republicans are already running scared. That is unarguably true, as evidenced by the extreme steps Republicans have taken to suppress voting by minorities and to redistrict them out of existence. Lewis noted that in a few years America will be a majority-minority nation, and that frightens the GOP. Even Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said much the same thing in an election postmortem following their 2012 defeat:
Priebus: I didn’t need a report to tell me that we have to make up ground with minority groups […] By 2050, we’ll be a majority-minority country, and in both 2008 and 2012, President Obama won a combined 80 percent of the votes of all minority groups.
The GOP has an ongoing obsession with ACORN, an organization that was dedicated to advancing minority participation in the democratic process. It was that focus on equal rights that made ACORN a target of conservatives in the first place. And despite the fact that it doesn’t exist anymore, and that multiple investigations never found any evidence of wrongdoing, the right continues to be preoccupied with its ghost. So much so that they disseminate fake quotations in order to make them look scary and dangerous.
This is a tactic that will only serve to further alienate the constituencies that will eventually dominate the electorate. Even while the GOP recognizes the need to reach out to minorities, their actions prove that they really aren’t the least bit interested in including them in the American family. They would rather continue insulting and excluding them. Nice work, GOP. Let’s see how that works out for you in 2014 and 2016 and beyond.
The Fox News community web site (and Fib Factory) Fox Nation, has a long record of insulting Latinos and lying about about issues that affect them. This was documented in my article last year: Fox News Flim-Flam: Conning Latinos For Politics And Profit. The marked difference between articles on Fox Nation, and articles on the same subjects by Fox News Latino demonstrate that Fox is deliberately trying to exploit Latinos, the fastest growing television market.
For instance, Fox News continues to refer to undocumented immigrants as “illegals” even when the person was brought into the country as a child and, thus, committed no crime. Many news outlets have abandoned the use of the term “illegal immigrant” because it is both inaccurate and insulting. Fox News Latino is among those who have officially banned its use. Fox News, on the other hand, uses it frequently. Fox is also a vigorous opponent of the Dream Act, that offers undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children, finish school or enlist in the military, and have no criminal records, the opportunity to become legal residents and eventually citizens.
Another example of Fox’s overt prejudice was displayed yesterday with an article on Fox Nation that announced that the “Amnesty Bill In House Collapses.” Of course, there is no amnesty bill in the House. There is an immigration reform bill that includes a pathway to citizenship after paying fines and meeting other rigorous conditions that may lead to eligibility for citizenship after some fifteen years. And since amnesty is a forgiveness of criminal behavior and a waiving of punishment, this bill is the opposite of amnesty. But this story isn’t about amnesty at all. It is about the breakdown of the legislative process. It was that angle that was addressed in the Fox News Latino article titled, “House Republicans Quit Bipartisan Immigration Group, Weakening Chance Of Legislation.”
Notice that the Fox News Latino article properly describes the substance of what took place without resorting to pejoratives, as opposed to Fox Nation’s version. The Fox Nationalists also didn’t bother to point out that the Republican exodus from the working group was based entirely on politics rather than on the best interests of the nation. Only in the Fox News Latino article was it pointed out that the GOP representatives who bailed on the reform effort said that “We want to be clear. The problem is politics.” They went on to admit that their objection is not to the substance of the law, but that it would be enacted under the administration of President Obama:
“If past actions are the best indicators of future behavior, we know that any measure depending on the president’s enforcement will not be faithfully executed. It would be gravely irresponsible to further empower this administration by granting them additional authority or discretion with a new immigration system. The bottom line is – the American people do not trust the president to enforce laws, and we don’t either.”
Contrary to the delusional claim by these Republicans, polls show that a significant majority of the American people back the President’s view on immigration reform. What’s more, it is idiotic to assert an opposition to a law due to who occupies the White House rather than the efficacy of the law.
But that’s just how the modern GOP works. Hating Obama takes precedence over everything else, including responsible governing, the economy, the welfare of Americans, even questions of military engagement. And you can always rely on Fox News to be right there advancing the obstructionist right-wing hatefest, because Fox doesn’t care anymore about the American people than the Tea-publican extremists in Congress.
For those not familiar with NewsBusters, it fancies itself as a conservative media watchdog whose mission is “Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias.” It is a subsidiary of the uber-rightist Media Research Center. And it is also one of the most prolific apologists for radical right-wingers and racists like Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan.
Last week they outdid themselves by posting an absurd item about a bank robber in New Hampshire who wore a mask of President Obama during the robbery. NewsBuster’s Noel Sheppard made the Olympian leap from that incident to the Missouri rodeo last month when a rodeo clown wearing a similar mask went on a racially offensive rant.
This is a perfect demonstration of how clueless right-wingers are about their own racist tendencies. Sheppard clearly has no idea how offensive it is to perform an allegedly comical routine before hundreds of spectators that calls for grievous harm to befall the president of the United States. His organization ran numerous columns defending the rodeo buffoonery, just as racists of a previous era defended black-face performances.
However, where Sheppard really steps off the plank is when he attempts to draw a comparison between an obnoxious and insulting rodeo act and the criminal behavior of a bank robber. Sheppard seems to think the media has some responsibility to analyze the mind of the criminal for racial insensitivity. The problem is that Sheppard is apparently too stupid to grasp that the crook wasn’t making any kind of a political statement. He was merely trying to conceal his identity (in a spectacularly dumb way). Contrast that with the rodeo clown’s routine that openly baited the crowd to cheer for the President getting gored by a bull.
So what does a bank robber wearing an Obama mask have to do with a brazenly offensive performance by an entertainer? You’ll have to ask Noel Sheppard, because no one in their right mind could possibly connect those dots.
On this day fifty years ago, Rev. Martin Luther King led 250,000 Americans to Washington, D.C., and inspired the nation with his dream of freedom and equality. Commemorating that historical event, Fox News led their reporting with an obscure, three day old story about a thoroughly repulsive bigot who was discovered to be working for the Department of Homeland Security.
Ayo Kimathi was a mid-level office drone with no management authority or responsibility. His job was as a small business specialist in a unit that helps department clients procure items such as handcuffs, ammunition and guns. He was also the man behind an overtly racist web site that advocated violence and civil insurrection. When his supervisors found out what he was up to, they immediately put him on administrative leave pending further disciplinary action. On multiple occasions Fox has deceitfully said that the DHS approved of his web site, however, the approval was only granted because Kamathi misrepresented it’s content.
The web site was discovered by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that studies and documents the activities of hate groups and works to expose the dangerous extremists amongst them. In the past, Fox News has disparagingly characterized the SPLC as a leftist operation that incites terrorist acts against conservatives. But on this occasion, Fox eagerly cites the SPLC’s reporting for one reason: The bigotry is that of a black man directed at whites.
Fox is only interested in racism when whites are the victims. On every other occasion Fox will portray the accuser as a race hustler who lacks any sense of personal responsibility. But the case of Kimathi is unique in that, while he is plainly prejudiced against whites, he is also fiercely opposed to President Obama whom he called a “faggot” and belittled as a “mulatto.” Setting aside his abhorrent contempt for Caucasians, Kimathi actually has much in common with the Tea Partying viewers of Fox News. In fact, many citizens of the Fox Nation have said the very same things about Obama. For instance…
By the way, if you haven’t read my ebook, Fox Nation vs. Reality you are missing out on an indispensable collection of documented dishonesty from the folks at Fox Nation.
So, in effect, Fox gets to whine about so-called reverse racism, while still disseminating a message of hate for President Obama. It’s a Tea Party Twofer. And in the comments attached to their story, the Fox Nationalists expressed themselves in particularly repugnant ways, including advocating mass murder:
Despite this story having been published last Wednesday by the SPLC, Fox chose to feature it as their top headline today, the anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Could there possibly have been a worse time to hype up an incident involving a lone crackpot with the only purpose being to inflame racial division?
That’s just the way Fox News operates. Rather than celebrating the achievements of one of America’s greatest civil rights leaders, or acknowledging the positive progress that has occurred over the last fifty years, Fox went for stirring up animosity and pandering to their bigoted audience.
RELATED NEWS (sorta): Glenn Beck also had something to say about this twisted freak at DHS. And as usual, it was wrapped in a cryptically insane conspiracy theory. Beck has connected the imaginary dots between Kimathi and the debunked nonsense about the DHS buying up all of America’s bullets so as to leave the citizenry unarmed and vulnerable to the jack-booted thugs of the federal government who intend to kill us all.
Beck gets pretty much everything wrong (naturally), beginning with his assertion that Kimathi “just happens to be the guy in charge of buying all of the weapons and the bullets for the Department of Homeland Security.” Of course, that’s an outright lie, but it makes for a hilarious video clip. See for yourself:
