Sensing that his O’Reilly Factor was losing the competition for most ludicrous punditry to his old nemesis Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly has just uncovered the conspiracy of the century. It’s a convoluted scheme that has confounded all other pundit participants. O’Reilly laid out the basics in his Talking Points Memo segment tonight.
O’Reilly: “As we reported last night, the Factor believes the Sandra Fluke contraception controversy was manufactured to divert attention away from the Obama administration’s disastrous decision to force Catholic non-profit organizations to provide insurance coverage for birth control and the morning after pill.”
Did you catch it? The Factor (Bill’s pet name for himself) believes that Fluke was sent (by Obama? Soros? Fidel?) to divert attention away from the perilous issue of health insurance coverage for contraceptives by – get this – talking about health insurance coverage for contraceptives. What could be more devious? It was a brilliant subterfuge, but not brilliant enough to fool O’Reilly. The Obama team should never have tried to outsmart the Factor. Especially with lame antics like this one.
O’Reilly: “Nancy Pelosi staged a mock hearing starring Sandra. After which Rush Limbaugh made derogatory comments elevating her to left-wing martyrdom. So it seems there is a powerful presence behind Sandra Fluke.”
Only O’Reilly could have figured out that Rush Limbaugh was one of the conspirators. The plan would never have come so close to success were it not for Limbaugh’s ham-handed incivility toward Fluke, or so it appeared. And it was O’Reilly who recognized that Limbaugh was the powerful presence behind her.
In hindsight it seems obvious that this whole affair was designed to benefit the President, as O’Reilly observed. Somehow the President’s strategists concocted a plot wherein an unknown law student would manage to manipulate the Republican chairman of a congressional committee to refuse to let her participate, and then she would trick the country’s top radio talk show host into verbally assaulting her. What could be simpler?
O’Reilly even nailed down a suspicious connection. Apparently Fluke is now represented by the PR firm of former White House director of communications, Anita Dunn. And even though that relationship began after Fluke had become embroiled in this national controversy, O’Reilly still thinks there is something significant about her hooking up with a Democratic affiliated firm that employs someone who left her job at the White House over two years ago. A lesser mind might have mistakenly thought that Fluke would sign with a GOP PR firm. And it was a stroke of genius for Dunn to wait almost two and a half years before executing this plot so that people might forget about her presidential resume.
You have to hand to O’Reilly for persevering in his quest to pierce the cloak of secrecy surrounding this chicanery. After all these years the old boy still has it.
Yesterday was the day that the video Andrew Breitbart promised of a racially divisive Barack Obama in his days as a student at Harvard was released. It was almost universally panned as a pathetic and desperate boatload of nothing. After first yammering that the video posted by Buzzfeed (scooping Breitbart) was “selectively edited,” the Breitbartians posted what they said was the “uncut” video. Their version contained about two seconds more that consisted entirely of Obama hugging Prof. Derrick Bell, whom he had just introduced at a rally.
Since the video itself was proven to have no material evidence of anything the least bit detrimental to Obama, much less the cataclysmic data that would doom his career, the Breitbartians resorted to Plan B: Demonize Prof. Bell and tie him around Obama’s neck. This was a coordinated plot that began with Breitbart editor-in-chief Joel Pollak robotically repeating the mantra that “Derrick Bell was the Jeremiah Wright of academia.” Pollak even went on CNN and admitted that the video was irrelevant, and when Soledad O’Brein asked him “Then where’s the bombshell, I don’t see it?” Pollak responded that “The bombshell is the revelation of the relationship between Barack Obama and Derrick Bell.” But that wasn’t any revelation at all.
The argument that the Breitbartians are making rests on their assertion that Bell’s writings on Critical Race Theory define him as a racial radical. In fact, CRT is an aggregation of legal concepts that bring together law, politics, economics, etc., in a broad-based study of race and power in society. It posits that there are institutional barriers to eradicating racism that must be addressed at the root level. Those barriers are evident in things like employment practices and school admissions. Another example is the judicial system that incarcerates a higher percentage of African-Americans than their representation in the population. Affirming that example is the fact that crack cocaine, used by more African-Americans than whites, is punishable by sentences ten times more severe than powder cocaine, for which you find more white offenders.
Nevertheless, the Breitbartians are deliberately misinterpreting the legal theory in order to condemn its proponents, including Bell. In this way they can assert that Obama, as a result of his having studied at Harvard, is also a racial radical. The object is to incite fear among those who are ill-informed that Obama aspires to threaten their status in society. He is coming after your jobs, your schools, your churches, all the trappings of your comfortable, privileged lives.
In the wake of the initial flop of the video’s release, the right-wing media has been redoubling its efforts to stir up a phony controversy. Fox Nation has posted multiple stories on the subject (it has been at the top of their page for two days running). Fox News has featured it on their broadcasts, notably the video “exclusive” presented by Sean Hannity. Ironically, Fox Nation posted a video of a debate about Bell between Michelle Malkin and Juan Williams, but edited out Williams entirely.
Note the edit at about 2:20 where Hannity says that Juan’s gonna disagree, but then fades to Malkin saying “No, no. no.”. What Williams said in between was…
“Well, first of all, I must say, I thought this was going to be so much more. I thought this was going to be the smoking gun, as you describe it. But it really didn’t come too much. I mean, I just don’t think that there is.”
And that’s all that Williams was permitted to say in the entire segment, but they even cut that out when they put it online. And then they have the nerve to complain, falsely, that others “selectively edited” video.
Pollak and his Breitbart colleague Ben Shapiro have been making the rounds on the lamestream media. On CNN they argued with Soledad O’Brien over the meaning of Critical Race Theory, but spoke very little about what any of it had to do with Obama, despite O’Brien’s attempts to steer them back to the topic. That’s a tactic designed to keep the focus off of substance and aimed squarely at innuendo and slander. For good measure they threw in a bashing of the media for trying to suppress the video (for what reason, they never make clear), and to silence them (even while they are speaking on the air).
For its part, the Breitbart web site has been piling on with articles that reek of racism. One article was authored by J. Christian Adams, a notorious race-baiter who has accused Eric Holder’s Justice Department of coddling civil rights violators if they happened to be black. He wrote that…
“Both Obama and Bell demanded that Harvard hire professors on the basis of race. […] The Obama-Bell connection is the latest in a pattern of Barack Obama’s associations with individuals who promoted a racially divisive America.”
That’s an open assault on affirmative action, which was not developed to produce hiring on the basis of race, but to put an end to it. Adams also repeated the lie that Obama had appeared with a member of the New Black Panther Party. In fact, Obama attended a civil rights rally that was attended by thousands of people, one of whom happened to be an NBPP member. Obama had no control over who came to a massive, public rally. Adams also characterized cases of civil rights abuse as “crackpot racial grievances.” That pretty much reveals his personal bias.
Another story posted by the Breitbartians alleged that “Obama Forced His Students To Read Bell at the University of Chicago Law School.” Their evidence was a document describing a course that Obama was teaching. The course was “Current Issues in Racism and the Law.” It would be difficult to teach such a class without the textbook materials by one of this generations most respected scholars on that subject. But the allegation is made even worse by that use of the word “forced” as if it were under duress. By that measure isn’t every student forced to read something? In fact, many of the references to Bell’s writings specifically said that they were optional reading.
Meanwhile, over at NewsBusters, there was an article that alleged that the non-event video was being suppressed as part of a conspiracy orchestrated by George Soros (Isn’t it always?). The evidence of that was that Soros’ foundations had made donations to Harvard (where the video took place) and WGBH (the public TV station that owned the video). Using their logic I can surmise that the Koch brothers are behind this whole phony video scandal because they have made contributions to NewsBusters.
And, believe it or not, they even have a Plan C: It’s a Cover Up! The video was a bust. The racial attacks could backfire. So if all else fails, blame it on a massive cover up. The Breitbartians took on another black Harvard professor, Charles Ogletree, by posting a video wherein he said that “We hid this during the 2008 campaign…” He was referring to the video of Obama at Harvard. Of course there would have been no reason to do that since, if anything, the video shows Obama in a positive light. The truth is that Ogletree was joking. He even laughed immediately after, which proves that he was humorously dismissing the throw-away line. but, not surprisingly, the humor-challenged righties didn’t get, even though Ogletree’s audience did.
The absence of any substance on the video has led to a redirection by the right to their usual stance against Obama – he’s black. His associates are black. And they advocate for radical concepts like equal justice under the law. They support fairness in hiring and other social contracts. They oppose discrimination.
If anyone is advancing a racialist philosophy, it’s the right-wingers who are peddling this repulsive nonsense. And if there is anything positive to take away from this, it is that they have once again shown their true colors. It isn’t about a video of a young future president. It isn’t about health care or oil prices or deficits. It is, and always has been, about one thing for these meatheads. They just can’t accept a black man in their White House.
At last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Andrew Breitbart said that he had videos of President Obama in his college days at Harvard. The implication was that the content of the videos was so scandalous that it would have an impact on Obama’s reelection. Breitbart gleefully announced that…
“I have videos. This election we’re going to vet him from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008. The videos are going to come out, the narrative is going to come out.”
Well, they came out today. But Breitbart’s survivors at BigGovernment.com had nothing to do with it. The “vetting” was done by Andrew Kaczynski at Buzzfeed. Kaczynski acquired video from WGBH TV in Boston of the future president speaking at a rally for more diversity in the Harvard faculty.
The Breitbart crew immediately blasted Buzzfeed for releasing what they said was a “selectively edited” copy of the video.
“[T]he video has been selectively edited–either by the Boston television station or by Buzzfeed itself. Over the course of the day, Breitbart.com will be releasing additional footage that has been hidden by Obama’s allies in the mainstream media and academia.”
Gee, I can hardly wait. This should be endlessly informative since the Breitbart clan is intimately familiar with the practice of selectively editing videos. BigGovernment’s Joel Pollak says that the unveiling of the uncut video will take place tonight on Sean Hannity’s program on Fox News. There’s another sign of how much credibility any of this will have. Hannity is famous for airing videos of sparsely attended Tea Party rallies that turned out to be from completely different, and crowded, events.
The most remarkable thing about this video is how little Obama has changed. He had the same oratorical style and poise then as now. At the time Obama was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was speaking on behalf of Prof. Derrick Bell, the first tenured African-American professor in Harvard’s law school. The occasion was a rally in support of greater diversity in general, and specifically the hiring of an African-American woman in the law school.
Pollak further promised to expose Bell as a “radical academic tied to Jeremiah Wright.” I’m surprised that he isn’t also tying him to George Soros, Van Jones, Saul Alinsky, and Che Guevara. However, Bell was a respected legal scholar and author who served in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, at the NAACP as an associate counsel, as the dean of the University of Oregon School of Law and, in addition to Harvard, also taught at USC, Stanford, and NYU. Clearly a dangerous anti-American. But Breitbart’s ghost is already setting in motion the smear campaign.
Perhaps Pollak has portions of the video where Obama advocates the violent overthrow of the government by black nationalists or discloses his Kenyan birthplace, but somehow I doubt it. It appears that the Breitbart folks are just upset that their phony plot to trickle out snippets of an entirely harmless video in order to create a fake controversy has been foiled by the lamestream media (if Buzzfeed qualifies as that). Now they will have to resort to smearing the name of a deceased law professor and pretending that there is something wrong with Obama supporting a more diversified Harvard faculty. Fox Nation has already jumped in with an item about this story headlined: Obama Harvard Video: Rally for Race-Based Hiring. So there’s your talking point, righties. Go at it.
Late Breaking: Breitbart’s site released the “uncut” video and the only additional footage on it is of Obama embracing the professor he had just introduced. It was not exactly a secret that Obama admired his Harvard law professor. But the real problem for the Breitbart clan is that they have been bashing Buzzfeed all day long about having “selectively edited” the video, but now they have been shown to be lying.
Hannity and Co. spent over 20 minutes discussing this embarrassing flop of a scandal, even though the exclusive broadcast of the uncut video offered nothing new. The pair from Breitbart.com (Ben Shapiro and Joel Pollak) fidgeted nervously as they desperately tried to set some sort of fire under this non-event, but they utterly failed to come up with anything other than a bumper sticker criticism of Bell which they repeated incessantly to make sure the brainwashing stuck: Derrick Bell is the Jeremiah Wright of academia.
Just as I suspected, that’s the talking point they are running with. It’s so pathetic that I actually feel a little sorry for them. Their leader passed away last week and now they are floundering like lost orphans. What a sad spectacle.
Here we are on the morning after the Super Tuesday primary that may decide the GOP nominee for president of the United States, and what does Fox Nation regard as the most important story of the day, posted atop their web page?
As usual, some context is necessary to grasp the overt prejudice in the story and headline published by the Fox Nationalists.
The incident occurred at a high school basketball game. Ordinarily the jingoistic chanting of “USA! USA! USA!” is something that occurs when an American team is playing a team from another country. But that’s not the case here. This was a Texas high school team (Alamo Heights) playing another Texas high school team (San Antonio Edison). The difference is that the Alamo Heights team was predominantly white, while the opponents from San Antonio were mostly Latino.
The clear inference was that the other team was not American. The only other explanation was that the chanters were cheering for both teams, which was definitely not the case. An Alamo Heights district official even noted that this isn’t the only time this has happened:
“If this chant was commonplace – chanted at their games with other schools — it would not be a problem. It was targeted at a school that is predominantly Hispanic.”
There is no other interpretation of this behavior than racism. Even the district official from Alamo Heights (the white school) recognizes it. But Fox doesn’t. And they leave their readers with the false impression that the school district has engaged in some sort of rabid political correctness and is opposed to national pride.
Fox News has proven that it will go to any lengths to dismiss allegations of racism in the hopes of making every authentic claim appear to be invalid. That’s the tactic of a propagandist with an agenda to peddle. That’s the tactic of a racist.
The outrage over Rush Limbaugh’s despicable attack on Georgetown law student, Sandra Fluke, continues to rage unabated. In just a few days he has lost at least 28 major sponsors. That rash of advertiser responsibility led to a fearful Limbaugh issuing a pitifully insincere “apology” that failed to address his serious infraction of civility.
However, rather than deal directly with the specific abhorrent behavior by Limbaugh, much of the right, and particularly Fox News, has decided to try to redirect the debate and shield their corpulent hero from criticism. Fox Nation’s latest contribution to this public relations crisis management campaign is a bankshot from Limbaugh to comedian Bill Maher that also takes a swipe at President Obama.
The Fox Nationalists have really outdone themselves this time with a propaganda piece rich in targets. First of all, what scandal? There is nothing here that even resembles a scandal, which generally refers to some legal wrongdoing. Secondly, Obama has nothing to do with this. The Fox Nationalists are referring to a donation Maher made to an independent SuperPAC that he does not (and legally can not) control. Finally, Fox has managed to whine about offensive comments in an article that makes an offensive comment in the headline. This particular slur is one that Fox has been repeating for years. Almost every time they publish anything about Maher they substitute the word “Pig” for his first name. I don’t think anyone knows why, other than just to be as childishly insulting as possible.
That infantile cheap shot could only be posted on Fox Nation. Could you imagine NBC News or CNN posting such a childish taunt? Fox did the same thing with Sen. Al Franken, repeatedly calling him “Sen. Smalley,” after a character he created a decade ago on Saturday Night Live.
The underlying argument to which Fox is trying to shift is that offensive comments are only objectionable when made by conservatives. This is an empty lament that is being propagated throughout the right-wing media in a coordinated attempt to run interference for Limbaugh. The Fox nationalists ask “why the same outrage doesn’t occur when offensive comments are made by liberals.”
Not only does the same outrage occur, liberals are invariably held to account in material ways. When Keith Olbermann or Ed Schultz or David Shuster made inappropriate comments, MSNBC suspended them from their hosting duties. When was the last time that ever happened to Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh? Liberals have actually been notably conscientious about condemning inappropriate rhetoric, not only in words but in actions. In fact, even the article that Fox cites to make their case that liberals don’t criticize their own was written by Kirsten Powers – a liberal!
Contrary to demanding accountability for misbehavior, rightists seem bent on rewarding it. When Don Imus was bounced from his radio perch for making disparaging, racially charged comments about members of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, Fox hired him. When Lou Dobbs was released from CNN for his ongoing insults to immigrants, Fox hired him. When Juan Williams lost his NPR gig for admitting that he was afraid of Muslims at airports, Fox hired him.
The management at all of the media companies above are considered to be liberal by conservatives, yet they all took corrective actions against their own employees. Compare that to the right. Limbaugh’s radio syndicator released a statement backing him. Rupert Murdoch publicly stated that he supported Glenn Beck when Beck called the President a racist. The pro-Gingrich SuperPAC, Winning Our Future, just announced that they are buying more time on Limbaugh’s show in the wake of this controversy.
So from both a financial and ideological perspective, the right lines up behind the most vile behavior of their advocates, while the left punishes and even fires those on their side who slip below their ethical standards. Yet the right, and Fox News, are now trying to portray the left as being tolerant of offensive rhetoric. If nothing else, this proves how upside-down the world is in the media realm.
If Fox and other conservatives think that Bill Maher’s donations should be returned, then I suppose they would also demand that the Republican Governor’s Association return Rupert Murdoch’s donation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce return Glenn Beck’s donation. After that we can go through the rest of the donor files of every public person and make sure that no one who has ever said something that someone thinks is off-color has ever made a contribution to any political person, party, or program. And if people with objectionable histories are prohibited from making political contributions, then the same should go for corporations, right?
Don’t let the media weasels distract from the issue at hand. This campaign to hold Limbaugh accountable is about fundamental values of fairness and decency, and should continue despite his utterly disingenuous attempt at crisis management. Here are some resources you can visit to keep the fight alive:
Once again Fox News is demonstrating their overt hostility to anything and everything in the Obama administration. It doesn’t matter if unemployment has dropped two points or that Osama Bin Laden is dead, somehow everything this administration does is tantamount to treason.
Case in point: The Department of Justice recently announced that it had promoted Tony West, the head of the Civil Division, to a new post as Associate Attorney General. This promotion was the result of his exemplary performance. In his role as the head of the Civil Division, West “recovered more than $8.8 billion in taxpayer money, the highest three-year total in department history.” Ordinarily that sort of accomplishment would be heralded by a deficit-obsessed right-winger. But we are dealing with an epidemic of Obama Derangement Syndrome, the symptoms of which are all too predictable. Here is how Fox News framed the story:
The headline on the Fox News web site declared “Terrorist Lawyer Gets Influential Justice Post.” On the air Fox News described Mr. West as a “Taliban Defender.” Both of these were deliberately designed to create the impression that West is affiliated with America’s enemies. Even worse, the story is being driven by a former DOJ attorney from the Bush administration, J. Christian Adams, who is defaming West and the entire Justice Department. Adams appeared on Fox & Friends with an all-encompassing allegation that Attorney General Eric Holder is…
“…filling [the Justice Department] with attorneys that, before they came to Justice, took on the most radical causes. And now they’re filling the Justice Department from top to bottom.”
Adams provides no support for his charge. And for someone with a record of dubious accusations that were easily debunked, Adams should be more careful with his unsubstantiated rebukes. He has previously tried to concoct DOJ conspiracies to prosecute civil rights cases against white defendants while letting black defendants off the hook – again, with no evidence to support it.
The characterization of West as a terrorist sympathizer stems from his having worked for a law firm that defended John Lindh, aka the American Taliban. That service is viewed by right-wingers as fraternizing with the enemy. American conservatives have long sought to portray themselves as the defenders of the Constitution despite the fact that they frequently show disdain for its most fundamental principles. For instance, the Sixth Amendment that guarantees a right to an attorney. That is the principle that West was patriotically upholding when he helped to represent an American citizen charged with a serious crime. But Adams expressly believes that respecting the Constitution in this manner disqualifies you from ever serving your government.
The larger condemnation that Fox is attempting to assert is that Obama and his entire administration is in cahoots with Al Qaeda. It is part of their years long effort to paint the President as a foreigner, a Muslim, and an anti-American socialist. That anyone actually believes those allegations is a testament to the success Fox has had in instilling ignorance in their audience. In the three years that Obama has been in office there have been more terrorists brought to justice (captured or killed) than in eight years of the Bush administration – and that includes Osama Bin Laden. So obviously Obama is working with Al Qaeda. It is part of their devious plot to allow him to dispose of their own members to make the American people think he isn’t one of them.
It is also notable to observe just who the right chooses to target when they make nonsense allegations like this one against West. The previous targets have included Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, Eric Holder, UN Ambassador Susan Rice – all African American advisers and cabinet members. And let’s throw in Energy Secretary Steven Chu (Asian American) and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis (Latina American). But how often do you hear right-winger complaints about Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, Tom Vilsack, Shaun Donovan, Ray LaHood, or Arne Duncan – all white cabinet members? I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
The recently deceased Andrew Breitbart delivered a stem-winding speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last month. In it he dangled a tempting treat before the assembled disciples of rightism in the form of a promise to expose the radical, Marxist roots of the young Barack Obama. Breitbart announced that…
“I have videos. This election we’re going to vet him from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008. The videos are going to come out, the narrative is going to come out, that Barack Obama met a bunch of silver ponytails in the 1980s, like Bill (Ayers) and Bernadine Dohrn, who said one day we would have the presidency, and the rest of us slept as they plotted.”
That’s pretty heady stuff. It got the CPAC crowd worked up and initiated a stream of anticipation throughout the conservative community. What does Breitbart have? Are there videos of Obama conspiring with fugitive members of the Black Panther Party? Does the future president show up on film plotting the overthrow of the government?
Not exactly. The first part in the presumably continuing series of slander is not a video at all, but consists entirely of a poster for a play about conservative bogeyman Saul Alinsky.
The play “The Love Song of Saul Alinsky” was staged in 1998 in Chicago. Obama was a state senator at the time and, as a student of local history, had some knowledge of Alinsky and his work in the city. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Obama would participate in a post-play panel discussion about the author and community organizer. Nevertheless, Breitbart’s survivors at BigGovernment think they have unveiled the next Watergate via their crack investigation of the world of the theater.
Despite the dishonest headline that calls the play “Barack’s Love Song To Alinsky,” he had nothing whatsoever to do with it. This is another attempt to smear the President by association with a demon that the right invented. Alinsky was not the Marxist menace that Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich, and Fox News make him out to be. In fact, he explicitly rejected the communists of his era saying…
“My only fixed truth is a belief in people, a conviction that if people have the opportunity to act freely and the power to control their own destinies, they’ll generally reach the right decisions. The only alternative to that belief is rule by an elite, whether it’s a Communist bureaucracy or our own present-day corporate establishment. You should never have an ideology more specific than that of the founding fathers: ‘For the general welfare.’ That’s where I parted company with the Communists in the Thirties, and that’s where I stay parted from them today.”
Alinsky was always, first and foremost, an advocate for the underclass in society that was abused and oppressed by the powerful. That’s a message that Tea Partiers could adopt if they weren’t such tools of powerful manipulators like the Koch brothers.
It is a sad and ironic tribute to Breitbart that his web site has published his last article and it is brimming with the sort of lies and distortions for which Breitbart was famous in life. If this is any indication of what Breitbart meant when he claimed to have explosive materials that would impact the President’s reelection, then the Democrats don’t have much to worry about. But I wouldn’t rest too easy because the Breitbart machine is still alive and it is probably working overtime to fabricate its next batch of propaganda.
The likely GOP nominee for president of the United States, Mitt Romney, already has some pretty repellent supporters, including Birther King Donald Trump and the abhorrent Ann Coulter. But it seems impossible to come up with someone more repulsive than Romney’s newest endorser, the incontinent Ted Nugent.
With the recent ruckus being made over Rush Limbaugh’s blatantly misogynistic attack on Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student, it should not be forgotten that Ted Nugent is no slouch when it comes to hating and insulting women. The cover for his album “Love Grenade” features a nude woman on a platter, in bondage like a pig, with a hand grenade in her mouth. It is an undisguised fantasy of dominance and violence. Yet this is the man that Romney personally solicited for support. He granted Nugent some portion of his scarce time on the campaign trail to persuade the schlock-rocker to endorse him. Nugent was convinced and proudly Tweeted…
after a long heart&soul conversation with MittRomney today I concluded this goodman will properly represent we the people & I endorsed him
The question that must arise for the media is whether Romney will be held to account for actively seeking the endorsement of a psychopath who has threatened the President and others with assassination in a vulgar public display of hatred and overt hostility. Let’s go to the videotape:
And the transcript:
Nugent: I was in Chicago last week I said, “Hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these, you punk?” Obama, he’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on one of my machine guns. Let’s hear it for them. I was in New York and I said, “Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset you worthless bitch.” Since I’m in California, I’m gonna find Barbara Boxer she might wanna suck on my machine guns. Hey, Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these you worthless whore.
That’s the caliber of man from whom Mitt Romney went out of his way to secure an endorsement. This was not some random, unsolicited freak who confessed his adoration for the candidate, and over whom Romney had no control. Nugent was a prize that Romney actively pursued. Nugent even told reporters that he had compelled Romney to pledge that there would be no new gun laws or regulations during his administration. So Romney has not just begged for this endorsement, he has traded policy positions for it. And this particular position is especially troubling considering Nugent’s preoccupation with guns and politicians he doesn’t like.
Is anyone in the press paying attention? If the shameful obscenities were not enough to warrant further inquiry into this relationship, then surely the flagrantly hostile rhetoric ought to be. There is absolutely no excuse for this sort of vilification to be used in the political arena. Reasonable candidates should shun people like Nugent, not court them. Mitt Romney has to be made to answer for this, and the press should do their job to see to it that he does.
Today Rush Limbaugh issued what he must regard as an apology for having insulted a young woman – actually all women – who are seeking to obtain health care coverage from private insurance companies.
For three days Limbaugh has been defending having called Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” merely because she spoke out on behalf of women’s rights to equal treatment under the law. The firestorm of revulsion that Limbaugh created has resulted in several of his advertisers removing their support for his radio program.
This is the sort of groundswell that developed into a successful campaign to get Glenn Beck booted from Fox News. And Limbaugh knows it. Consequently, after digging in his heels for three days he has capitulated and posted a statement on his web site in an effort to quell the controversy:
For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.
I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit? In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone’s bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.
My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.
If Limbaugh thinks that that mealy squeal is sufficient to get his neck out of this noose he is denser than the skull bone that houses his pea-brain.
First of all, what Limbaugh’s PR flacks have composed for him is not an apology at all. He is expressing regret only for having chosen “the wrong words,” not for the substance of his tirade. In other words, he’s sorry he called Fluke a slut, but not sorry for having and expressing that as his opinion. And there is nothing in his statement that is anything close to a recantation of that opinion. In fact, he reinforces it.
Limbaugh’s continuing and deliberate distortion of the underlying issue is evidence that he has no contrition whatsoever. His so-called apology says that “I do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities.” The activities he is referring to are rampant, unbridled orgies of lust. Or at least that’s how he sees it in his perverted, lecherous, Viagra-fueled brain. But no one else is suggesting that any private sexual behavior be financed by the state. This is about decent women and couples having access to health care products that are legal and necessary through their private insurance policies, not government handouts.
What’s more, these contraceptive products actually have medical uses that transcend pregnancy prevention, including alleviation of menstrual cramps and lowering the risk of ovarian cancers. Although we shouldn’t expect either idiots or misogynists (or both in Limbaugh’s case) to understand this. It’s too bad there is no pill to correct the insensitivity and hostility that has infected Limbaugh’s corpulent soul. If there were, unlike Limbaugh, I would gladly support making it available under his medical insurance.
[Update: Note the difference between the left and the right. When Keith Olbermann or Ed Schultz or David Shuster made inappropriate comments, MSNBC suspended them from their hosting duties. When Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh do so, there are no such consequences. In fact, today Limbaugh’s radio syndicator released a statement backing Limbaugh, saying “The contraception debate is one that sparks strong emotion and opinions on both sides of the issue. We respect the right of Mr. Limbaugh, as well as the rights of those who disagree with him, to express those opinions.” Apparently they also respect Mr. Limbaugh’s right to be a hateful pig.]
The campaign to hold Limbaugh accountable should continue despite his utterly disingenuous attempt at crisis management. Here are some resources you can visit to keep the fight alive:
The busy news fictionalizers at Fox Nation are hard at work this Saturday creating the stream of asinine idiotainment that their glassy-eyed readers demand. Here is an abridged selection of what Fox regards as newsworthy reporting today:
Starting off with a hard-hitting investigative news item, the Fox Nationalists uncover a juicy morsel about a new Obama campaign hire. Apparently this low-level social media promoter in a Wisconsin campaign office used to be employed by Charlie Sheen. That automatically makes him the subject of ridicule deserving of taunts from the Fox family of dimwits. No matter what you think of Sheen, his social media presence is impressive. He has 6.7 million followers on Twitter and 2.3 million people “LIKE” his page on Facebook. Anyone who contributed to that success could be a real asset for any political campaign.
On the other hand, in the world of unfortunate associations, Mitt Romney has picked up the endorsement of the incontinent Ted Nugent. It will be interesting to hear Romney defend Nugent’s assassination threats against President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and senators Feinstein and Boxer (if anyone in the media has the integrity to ask him).
Nugent: I was in Chicago last week I said, “Hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these, you punk?” Obama, he’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on one of my machine guns. Let’s hear it for them. I was in New York and I said, “Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset you worthless bitch.” Since I’m in California, I’m gonna find Barbara Boxer she might wanna suck on my machine guns. Hey, Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these you worthless whore.
Fox Nation continued its quest for journalistic malpractice with a story it headlined: Memo: Obama To Raise Taxes For Middle Class If Re-Elected. The source to which Fox linked was an article at a web site called WeaselZippers. That should be the first sign of its credibility. The truth behind the data that Fox is deliberately misconstruing is related to the tax cuts for the wealthy that Bush pushed through more than a decade ago with a sunset provision that has already passed. It was Bush who predetermined that taxes would go back up. Obama has repeatedly tried to cut a deal where only the tax cuts for the rich would expire, but the GOP has fought him every step of the way.
The next story is one that tries to imply that Obama’s Department of Justice is aligning itself with Taliban terrorists. Just how stupid do they think their readers are? (Don’t answer that). The real story is that an attorney who has been working for the DOJ for three years has been promoted as a result of his exemplary performance. In his role as the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, Tony West “recovered more than $8.8 billion in taxpayer money, the highest three-year total in department history.” One of the many things that the right-wingnuts never understand about the Constitution is that every defendant is entitled to representation. It is the foundation of our justice system. And trying to smear an attorney for carrying out his constitutional obligations is reprehensible.
Finally, the Fox Nationalists were kind enough to post a link to the GOP response to Obama’s weekly address. But astute observers will note that they never posted a link to the address that the GOP were responding to. You know, the one Obama delivered. It’s like posting the answer to a question without ever posting the question. Fox is valiantly protecting its readers from any exposure to information that would give them a full and complete understanding of current events. That explains why they are so pitifully ignorant. Thank Fox’s dedication to fairness and balance for that. Here, by the way, is the Obama video:
Sensing that his O’Reilly Factor was losing the competition for most ludicrous punditry to his old nemesis Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly has just uncovered the conspiracy of the century. It’s a convoluted scheme that has confounded all other pundit participants. O’Reilly laid out the basics in his Talking Points Memo segment tonight.
