I am now firmly convinced that the Fox Nation web site is edited by a high school intern. When you consider the absurdly hyperbolic verbs that animate their headlines (i.e. “Cheney’s Daughter Annihilates MSNBC Anchor”), and their infantile pet names for people they don’t like (i.e. “Pig” Maher), the only conclusion is that either they have recruited from a remedial program at a local high school or Fox has implemented an IQ cap of 95 for all employees (so as not to exceed Fox celebrity Sean Hannity).
Today the Fox Nationalists are featuring a story about a video produced by President Obama’s reelection campaign committee. The video (below) addresses comments made last week by Sarah Palin that accuse the President of wanting to take the country back to the days before the civil war.
Palin: “What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back to before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin.”
As usual, Palin’s comment makes perfect sense if you are suffering from schizophrenic hallucinations while in the midst of an alien abduction. Otherwise, you probably can’t help but laugh at the notion that America’s first black president wants to return to the days when he would have been shackled in chains and traded in slave markets.
The item posted on Fox Nation was accompanied by text that declared with astonishment that, “Four years later, President Obama is still running against Sarah Palin.” What makes this particularly amusing is that a little further down the page, Fox Nation’s juvenile and incompetent editor also posted this item: Hanoi Jane Says Fire Nazi Limbaugh. The article referenced in the title was an editorial Jane Fonda co-wrote with Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan. The article never called Limbaugh a Nazi, although it did criticize Limbaugh for using such rhetoric against his opponents.
“Limbaugh doesn’t just call people names. He promotes language that deliberately dehumanizes his targets. Like the sophisticated propagandist Josef Goebbels, he creates rhetorical frames — and the bigger the lie, the more effective — inciting listeners to view people they disagree with as sub-humans. His longtime favorite term for women, ‘femi-Nazi,’ doesn’t even raise eyebrows anymore”
So according to the Fox Nationalists there is something profoundly odd about responding to Sarah Palin because she was a candidate for vice-president four whole years ago, but making a big fuss about Jane Fonda’s adventures in Vietnam forty years ago (for which she later expressed genuine regret) is perfectly reasonable. The absurdity of that distinction is obvious. But it should also be noted that Fonda is a celebrity who makes movies and occasionally comments on public affairs, while Palin is currently a Fox News political analyst and still a potential candidate for office (she recently said that she would be open to being drafted as the Republican presidential nominee at the GOP convention).
And yet, the pimply-faced editor of Fox Nation thinks that engaging with Palin is a throwback to a bygone era and one of its most inconsequential and meaningless characters. He seems to regard Palin as a has-been who deserves to be ignored. He may just have a point.
Congratulations are in order for Mr. Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman and CEO of News Corp, who turns 81 today. However, as he surveys the empire that he built he must be bitterly disappointed with the tunnel-blind miscreants he employs. Their obsessive, knee-jerk hostility to all things liberal has clouded their judgment in ways that harm the very interests they are being paid to serve. The result is a rash of friendly fire from within the ranks of Murdoch’s menagerie.
The first casualty is a victim in the Limbaugh-induced war of indecency. Intent on spreading blame to everyone but Limbaugh, Fox News has embarked on a crusade against any liberal (or perceived liberal) who may have said something controversial. It commenced with a Fox favorite for vilification, Bill Maher, but has now extended to comedian Louis CK. Fox News host Greta Van Susteren was so incensed that Louis CK was tapped to provide the comic relief at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner that she publicly protested, called him a pig, and declared that she was initiating a boycott of the event. Subsequently, Louis CK dropped the gig. This is an unwelcome birthday gift for Rupert because the comedian also happens to be the star of “Louis” on his FX cable channel.
Next up is the battle between Fox News contributors. Tucker Carlson, one of said contributors, wrote an editorial on his DailyCaller blog that attempted to illustrate a hypocrisy in the media coverage of the Limbaugh controversy. Unfortunately, Carlson chose to include in his example the former LAPD officer Mark Furhman, who is best known for his use of racial epithets that was disclosed during the OJ Simpson trial. Carlson mocked Furhman as a pariah who is probably out of work, and deservedly so because “Nobody wants to be seen with a bigot.” The problem is that Furhman is actually employed by the same Fox News that employs Carlson. So not only is Carlson seen with Furhman, they are colleagues. All one big happy family of bigots. That can’t be making Rupert’s birthday any more joyful.
This is just the sort of thing that can occur when people are so blinded by their prejudices that they lose all sight of anything but their determination to harm their perceived enemies. The ultimate example of this mental defect occurred when Glenn Beck called Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal a terrorist. Alwaleed is the second largest shareholder of News Corp stock outside of the Murdoch family, and a close friend and business partner of Murdoch.
So anyway, happy birthday, Rupert. And good luck with that loathsome collection of reprobates you call a news team.
The fallout from Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on Sandra Fluke is growing exponentially. Reports to date have shown that advertisers are responding to the public revulsion of a political heavyweight battering a private citizen who was exercising her right to free speech. The latest accounting of bailing advertisers was reported by Radio-Info via an internal memo they acquired from Limbaugh’s syndicator:
“Premiere Networks is circulating a list of 98 advertisers who want to avoid ‘environments likely to stir negative sentiments.’ The list includes carmakers (Ford, GM, Toyota), insurance companies (Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm) and restaurants (McDonald’s, Subway).”
However, the memo made news of a different sort when it addressed specifics regarding which programs represent the negative environments to which it alluded. The memo continues:
“To all Traffic Managers: The information below applies to your Premiere Radio Networks commercial inventory. More than 350 different advertisers sponsor the programs and services provided to your station on a barter basis. Like advertisers that purchase commercials on your radio station from your sales staff, our sponsors communicate specific rotations, daypart preferences and advertising environments they prefer… They’ve specifically asked that you schedule their commercials in dayparts or programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).”
What this means is that the advertiser exodus will not be limited to just Limbaugh. Equally offensive radio bloviators like Beck and Hannity and Savage are going to see their ad placements, and revenue, decline.
In anticipation of the professional apologists and distracters, I would like to note that nobody’s First Amendment rights are being violated here. The government is not mandating any restriction of speech. Advertisers are freely deciding what is in the best interests of their businesses.
Conservatives are supposed to support free markets. Well, here’s their chance. If Limbaugh et al want their advertisers back, all they have to do is refrain from their overt incivility and slander. They don’t have to change their political beliefs or prejudices. And if that’s too much to ask, they can take their programs to venues that will support them without a dependence on commercial markets that must answer to their customers.
And for those who think that there is a moral equivalence between Limbaugh and Bill Maher, I would like to note that Maher is a comedian. He has a history of harsh satire directed at people across the political spectrum, including President Obama. That said, I personally don’t approve of racism or misogyny, even as a joke. But I do recognize the difference between a comedian and a political operative. Limbaugh has been an avowed advocate for Republicans and conservatism for decades. Maher has been an equal opportunity basher and satirist. While I would like to see the political discourse in this country become more civil and substantive, I would not impose those same standards for civility on people like Maher or George Carlin or Dennis Miller. Or for that matter John Rich or the Dixie Chicks. The arts have a unique role in expressing a broad range of opinion from a personal, creative perspective. Artists are expected to inspire, challenge, and even shock from time to time. Politicians and pundits are expected to inform, persuade and, hopefully unite.
It is also important to recognize that Maher’s offenses were always directed at public figures who had the resources and media access to defend themselves (i.e. Sarah Palin), while Limbaugh takes aim at people without such advantages. Where could Sandra Fluke ever reach 20 million people a day the way Limbaugh does? On MSNBC?
The beating that Limbaugh is taking at the hands of his advertisers is entirely deserved. And if conservatives want to cancel their subscriptions to HBO to protest Maher, then by all means go for it. If the final result is a more elevated discussion of the issues that impact us all as citizens, then it will have been worth it.
Despite his untimely passing, Andrew Breitbart still seems to command attention from the mainstream media hacks who think that what he did was journalism. His ghost has the uncanny ability to summon up fables and pass them on to naive reporters desperate for a hot story.
The much heralded release of Breitbart’s supposedly explosive video that he promised would unmask the racially radical philosophy that President Barack Obama has been trying to conceal for twenty years came out this week. And there hasn’t been a more anticlimactic unveiling since Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s safe. But worse than just the sad spectacle of a failed exposé, the whole production number orchestrated by the Breitbartians (the inept crew that Breitbart left behind) fell apart amidst a tsunami of hype and lies. The list of unmet assertions is long and pathetic:
Claim #1) The videos would “vet” the President in a way he had not been vetted before. The result would dash his reelection hopes. The Truth: The video was a harmless look back at a youthful and poised Obama advocating for more diversity on the Harvard faculty. If anything it makes Obama look better.
Claim #2) The Breitbartians accused Buzzfeed of “selectively editing” the video they released ahead of Breitbart’s big scoop. The Truth: When the Breitbartians released their “uncut” version it had about two seconds at the end that showed Obama hugging the professor he had just introduced. Not exactly the makings of a scandal.
Claim #3) Prof. Derrick Bell was an extremist whose relationship with Obama was evidence of Obama’s radical roots. The Breitbartians repeatedly called him “the Jeremiah Wright of academia” in an attempt to paint a false and derogatory picture of Bell. The Truth: Bell was a respected and admired legal professor and scholar whose work is still revered and taught at law schools around the country.
Claim #4) There was a conspiratorial effort to prevent the video from ever being released. The Breitbartians alleged that remarks made by Harvard professor Charles Ogletree were an admission of such. The Truth: Ogletree was obviously joking when he said that “we hid this during the 2008 campaign.” He and his audience were laughing at the statement. Ogletree spoke with the Boston Herald today and affirmed this.
Claim #5) Derrick Bell had made two visits to the White House in 2010. I’m not sure why there would be anything wrong with a law professor visiting his former student at his new job in the White House, but nevertheless, the allegation was put forth as some sort of suspicious activity. The Truth: It was a different Derrick Bell who was visiting the White House on a routine tour. Seriously, don’t these righties ever try to verify anything?
When you look back at all of the absurd concoctions that have been floated on the Breitbart network of web sites, you really have to ask yourself, why does anyone continue to pay attention to these people? Their record of mistakes, misrepresentations, and outright dishonesty should exempt them from being taken seriously by any other media outlet. How about we start to hold the media accountable for their poor judgment?
I would, however, like to thank the Breitbartians for having brought attention to the inspiring video of a young, activist Obama in his college days. I think that’s worth another look:
I guess it had to come to this. The undisguised racism of many pundits on the far right has at least avoided the most vile expressions of their hate when anyone outside of their private circles was listening. Today the hate came bubbling to the surface as Rush Limbaugh said this while mocking the way he thinks liberals view Republicans:
“You notice how everything Republicans do is venal? Everything is calculated for political advantage? Everything is done to try to harm our little boy president, Barack Obama?”
There it is – out in the open. Although this is nothing new for Limbaugh. For three years now he has been referring to Obama as a “man-child.” And what is a “man-child” but a boy. It was his way of calling the President boy without bearing the consequences of being more literal. His listeners knew what he was saying.
This sort of disrespect runs deep through the right-wing media. Fox Nation posted this graphic last year along with a story about Obama:
And even worse, they deliberately mangled the results of a poll in order to run a story with this headline: Obama Has A Big Problem With White Women. Could they have come up with a more racially charged banner with which to introduce a story on a public opinion poll? This framing deliberately recalls the worst of a hate-filled era characterized by irrational fears of marauding black predators stalking innocent and vulnerable Caucasian virgins. I’m just a little surprised that Fox didn’t go with this headline: “Obama Polling: Where Da White Women At?”
Perhaps this is an intentional ploy on Limbaugh’s part. He has been taking considerable heat lately for having insulted Sandra Fluke, a law student who did nothing more than speak her mind on a matter of importance to her and all women. Limbaugh has lost dozens of advertisers. His show airs in some markets with only free PSAs (public service announcements) or even dead air. This may be his way of trying to divert attention from that controversy to something he thinks will be less volatile. Good luck with that, Rush.
This weekend HBO is premiering its much anticipated adaptation of the book “Game Change,” the story of Sarah Palin’s selection to be John McCain’s running mate in 2008. The film stars Julianne Moore, Ed Harris, and Woody Harrelson, and has received glowing reviews from critics, although Palin defenders have trashed it despite never having seen it.
In a clumsy attempt at counter-programming, the Reelz cable channel has scheduled an airing of last year’s box office bomb, “The Undefeated” on the same day. The Undefeated is the painfully sycophantic Palin crocumentary that couldn’t make it through three weeks in movie theaters last year. In its opening weekend it made less than 1/10th of what “An Inconvenient Truth” made, despite plying on twice as many screens. In less than a month it was headed for the discount video bins at Wal-Mart.
On Fox & Friends this morning, Steve Bannon, the producer of the Palin flop, was interviewed about its upcoming airing on cable. Bannon was introduced by Eric Bolling who dishonestly told Fox viewers that, “This is a follow up, right? This is the real Sarah Palin story.” Of course it isn’t a follow up; it isn’t new; and it isn’t real.
It is no wonder that the Foxies have to pretend that this is something new. They can hardly pitch it as the same old garbage that moviegoers so markedly rejected almost a year ago. And the box office failure occurred despite a massive effort by Fox News to promote it. But do they have to be so brazenly dishonest? At Fox Nation they continued the hype campaign with this headline: “New Documentary Takes Intimate Look at Sarah Palin.” Not only does that misrepresent the film as new, it makes it sound a little pornographic. I guess they think that’s the only way they can trick people into watching it.
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.
On Fox & Friends this morning, Steve Bannon, the producer of the Palin flop, was interviewed about its upcoming airing on cable. Bannon was introduced by Eric Bolling who dishonestly told Fox viewers that, “This is a follow up, right? This is the real Sarah Palin story.” Of course it isn’t a follow up; it isn’t new; and it isn’t real.
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.