‘Media Mash’: Media Ignore Belafonte Slam on Tea Party; Amanpour Accuses Conservatives of Inciting Violence
October 8, 2010 No CommentWhile the “media will wade into a Tea Party event with hundreds of thousands of people looking for that one brain-dead Lyndon LaRouche follower” who says something asinine that they can plaster “all over the news,” they have ignored the insane rhetoric coming from featured speakers at last Saturday’s “One Nation Working Together” rally, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told viewers of the October 7 edition of “Hannity.” Appearing on last night’s 9 p.m. Eastern program for the popular recurring “Media Mash” segment, the Media Research Center quoted the extreme rhetoric of musician Harry Belafonte, which was ignored by the mainstream media: Let me just read to you what Harry Belafonte said in his speech. “Perhaps the greatest threat of all is the undermining of our Constitution and the systematic attack against the inalienable rights of the citizens of this nation…. At the vanguard of this insidious attack is the Tea Party. “This band of misguided citizens is moving perilously close to achieving villainous ends.” Now ABC was there, they covered that, they could have showed that footage. In case their cameras broke, it’s all over every left-wing blog site in America, and yet they won’t put it on their national news. Bozell also addressed ABC “This Week” host Christiane Amanpour’s allegation of violence-engendering Islamophobia against Gary Bauer and other social conservatives: Sean, since 9/11, people like Christiane Amanpour have been lecturing Americans about how we shouldn’t be tarring the entire Islamic nation because of the acts of the extremists who attacked us. Well, fine.Then what in the world is she doing tarring all of Christianity and attacking Gary Bauer personally because of some knucklehead in Tennessee who vandalized a mosque?! What a double standard!
Continue reading …Hardball Panic Attack: Tea Party Victories Will Make GOP More Conservative
October 8, 2010 No Comment
There was almost a full-fledged panic attack on Thursday’s “Hardball” as three devout liberal media members fretted over the possibility that Tea Party success at the polls next month could make the GOP more conservative. Horrors! So worried about this was MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that he opined at the end of the segment, “At some point, they`ll become not the party of the elephant but the party of the barking dogs as the cars go by” (video follows with commentary and full transcript at end of the article): The first thing that should jump out at readers is the absurdity at play here. The Republicans got clobbered in the past two election cycles because their members abandoned conservative principles and moved to the left of most of their constituents. As a result, many establishment GOPers and Tea Party candidates have tacked to the right to capture Republican and Independent voters that were either ignored in 2006 or 2008 or angered by moderate Republican policies in George W. Bush’s second term. This rightward shift has proved highly successful and appears to have positioned the GOP for a possibly historic victory on November 2. Yet Matthews and guests David Corn of Mother Jones and Sam Stein of the Huffington Post see this as damaging the Republican brand. What’s most hysterical here is that all three of these so-called journalists have scolded Obama and the Democrats for trying at all to work with Republicans the past 20 months, and are angered that legislation signed by this President wasn’t progressive enough. In fact, if Democrat candidates around the country had primary success by moving further to the left, Matthews, Corn, and Stein would be having a hard time hiding their glea. As such, it’s highly desirable and not at all harmful for Democrats to shift far to the left in their policy proposals, but catastrophic for Republicans to do a similar pivot to the right. In the end, for these liberal press members, a good Republican is a RINO, and anything else is just far too dangerous for the GOP and this nation. Full transcript follows: CHRIS MATTHEWS: We`re back. With just 26 days now to go before the elections this year, there are a bunch of Tea Party Senate candidates who could end up winning. Today`s “Wall Street Journal” has a headline sure to scare senators who aren`t on the ballot this November. Tea Party wants to ambush more GOP senators in 2012. But who`s “The Journal” talking about? Well, people like Utah`s Orrin Hatch, Maine`s Olympia Snowe, Tennessee`s Bob Corker and Indiana`s Dick Lugar. Should they be worried? David Corn is the Washington bureau chief for “Mother Jones” magazine and a columnist for PoliticsDaily.com. And Sam Stein covers politics for “The Huffington Post.” David first, and then Sam. Should they be worried? Should Orrin Hatch be scared a little bit that he`s not conservative enough and certainly Bob Corker in Tennessee and people like that? DAVID CORN, MOTHER JONES: Yes, I think all Republicans should be concerned. I think Ronald Reagan wouldn`t be conservative enough for some of these Tea Party types. And as we`ve seen in the past few months, Chris, that if you have these small Republican primaries, this group of very angry, you know, far-right Tea Partiers can have tremendous impact. We don`t know if they`re going to have a big impact on the general election, but we do know in the Republican primary, they have a lot of weight to pull. So, if I was — you know, if I were Orrin Hatch or any of these others, I`d be running to the right and we already see that happening as “The Wall Street Journal” reported. MATTHEWS: You know, it`s hard to launch a defense in this game, Sam, because if you`ve got a 95 percent conservative voting record, they`ll just say, but you voted for TARP. SAM STEIN, HUFFINGTON POST: Yes. MATTHEWS: Or you made a deal with somebody on health care that looked, you know, dicey. So, it`s this weird way that people are engaging in politics now. They find one way and then they obsess over it like a tooth abscess. That`s all they talk or think or feel is that one thing you did. STEIN: Yes. And, you know, I hate to say it, I agree with David on this one. The institutional hurdles that usually exist for grassroots` candidates to run for office have been sort of leveled down. And if a lot of these Tea Party candidates win in 2010, it`s going to incentivize a lot more of them to run in 2012. And I was at a briefing just now with David Plouffe, the Obama Enhanced Coverage Linking Obama -Search using: * News, Most Recent 60 Days * Biographies Plus News campaign manager. He said, if you are a moderate Republican thinking of running for office in 2012, you need to have to have your head examined. There`s no reason to do it. You have to spend a lot of money, you come under attack, and you`d likely lose. MATTHEWS: OK. Here`s the cutting question. You can go Sam — you, Sam, first. How does the Republican Party build itself as a governing party, a majority party, which really needs to get the middle if it carves out its own middle? STEIN: It`s a good question and there`s people within the party who are really wondering that. I was an event earlier this week with Mel Martinez, the former senator for Florida, and he expressed real angst about the future of the party. He said, if everyone`s going to be lockstep with Jim DeMint, there`s going to be really no room for governance. And he said actually bluntly that he thinks it`d be better that the party didn`t win the Senate because they wouldn`t be held to standards of governance and would still be the Democrats who are held to standards by voters. And so, they`re going to have real problems figure out how to actually govern if they take power, and like you said, the middle has been moved — or hijacked way over to the right on this one. MATTHEWS: I want to ask the same question to, David. What do you think, buddy? What happens here if the party basically says if you`re a middle-of-the-road or even a moderate conservative, you`re gone? At the same time, they go after the Reagan Democrats, the independent voters, the people that are a little upset with Obama Enhanced Coverage Linking Obama -Search using: * News, Most Recent 60 Days * Biographies Plus News or angry at him right now, and they want them to join a party which is only going to be a right wing party. CORN: I think they`ve turned into a zombie party. They`re just not going to be interested in governing. We saw already in the last two years the obstructionism on the right. And if you get Rand Paul in the Senate with Jim DeMint, they will just say no and they`ll stop everything. You know Senate rules basically allow that, they don`t believe in governance. They believe — MATTHEWS: OK, let me try something by you guys. CORN: — reinventing, right? MATTHEWS: This is serious business. CORN: It is serious business, Chris. MATTHEWS: Supposed a gay person in your family or someone you care about or you just didn`t care about human rights, suppose you think — you live in a suburban, you`re not armed at home and therefore you believe in gun control. Supposed you are pro-choice on abortion rights, is there a Republican Party for you, Sam, if you have any of these? Because they don`t want you in the party apparently if you believe any of these things? STEIN: Well, let`s be careful here because it`s not across the board — there have been interceptions to the rule. You look at Mark Kirk for instance. He`s not their choice in Illinois but he ended up there. My theory is that in 2012, once all these Tea Party candidates win if 2010, you`re going to see real pressure on people like Olympia Snowe to actually make a party switch a la Charlie Crist. MATTHEWS: OK. You`re making my point. You`re making my point. STEIN: Yes. No, I`m making your point. That said, you know, we have to wait until 2010. We have to see how these results play out in the general election because if some of these Tea Party candidates actually lose, for instance, Christine O`Donnell or Sharron Angle, maybe there will be a backlash against the Jim DeMints of the world. MATTHEWS: Well, Christine O`Donnell, you`re setting up a strawman. STEIN: I`m not. MATTHEWS: Christine O`Donnell is going to lose. STEIN: Yes, of course. (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: Anyway, here`s the question, suppose Mark Kirk gets in this time because they need a candidate, they`ll be gunning for him next time, David? CORN: Yes, well — (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: Corker just got in and they`re after him already. CORN: He`ll have six years to move to the right the Tea Party doesn`t end up exploding the Republican Party to bits and pieces. But the senators that you just mentioned, some of those people, like Orrin Hatch and Bob Corker, you know, not my favorite guys, politically, but they have shown in the past the willingness to try to work with Democrats on governing issues, whether it`s health care or financial reform. And there`s going to be so much pressure on these guys — to get to your earlier point, Chris — to do nothing with any Democrat, not even to sit down and — in the cafeteria with them that will make things really impossible. And then you know, the Republican Party will become the party of not just of no, but of anti-government and people like that to a certain degree, but it won`t solve any of the problems that we have. MATTHEWS: Yes, at some point, they`ll become not the party of the elephant but the party of the barking dogs as the cars go by. Anyway, thank you, David Corn. And thank you, Sam Stein. STEIN: Thanks, Chris.
Continue reading …Jerry Brown’s associate calls Meg Whitman a “whore ” over pension reform and Moonbeam agrees. Wait, where is NOW, or the various other “woman’s groups” in America showing their outrage? Oh wait, thats right, the so called woman’s groups … The audio is also available at KFI as well (MP3 format). “Do we want to put an ad out? … That I have been warned if I crack down on pensions, I will be – that they’ll go to Whitman, and that’s where they’ll go because they know Whitman …
Continue reading …NYT Fails to Mention 9/11 in Faulty Comparison of Mosque to Catholic Church
October 7, 2010 No Comment
In the latest installment of its pro-bono PR campaign for the Ground Zero mosque, the New York Times attempted to draw parallels between opposition to the mosque and opposition to the construction of St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, built in lower Manhattan in 1785. But somehow in his discussion of the mosque opponents, Times reporter Paul Vitello neglected to explicitly mention the September 11 terrorist attacks – you know, the events that form the entire basis for that opposition. The omission allowed the Times to continue drawing false parallels, and to implicitly perpetuate the notion that objections to the mosque are unfounded, dishonest, or bigoted. More fundamentally, the article avoided mentioning 9/11 since doing so would have required the reporter to address the one monumental disconnect between the two cases: Catholics did not slaughter 2,852 innocent civilians in God’s name two blocks from St. Peter’s Church. The Times, with the help of Rev. Kevin Madigan, the pastor at St. Peter’s, draws three parallels between the controversies surrounding the Ground Zero mosque and St. Peter’s Church: opponents asked the proprietors of each to move the location elsewhere, concerns were raised over sketchy sources of funding for both projects, and, like Catholics in 18th century America, Muslims are now considered second class citizens. Discussion of the first of those parallels leaves readers wondering how the article could possibly have omitted mentioning the 9/11 attacks. After all, the memory of the attacks undergirds every single request that the project move elsewhere. Vitello notes that New Yorkiers in 1785 wanted St. Peter’s moved “to a site outside the city limits.” So it wasn’t that New Yorkers didn’t want the church built at a specific location in the city – they didn’t want it in the city at all. Opponents of the Ground Zero mosque, on the other hand, would be perfectly content if the project’s backers would agree to move it outside of the 9/11 attack’s debris field. Opposition to the construction of St. Peter’s was based on general anti-Catholic sentiment; New Yorkers didn’t want a Catholic Church in the city, period. But Ground Zero mosque opponents have no such objections – they aren’t protesting the presence of the other 100 mosques in New York City. They just want this one to move a bit further from the site of the worst massacre in American history. The second parallel the article draws focuses on funding for the two projects. Vitello wrote: Just as some opponents of Park51 have said that the $100 million-plus project will be financed by the same Saudi sheiks who bankroll terrorists, many early-American Protestants saw the pope as the sworn enemy of democracy, and feared that his followers’ little church would be the bridgehead of a papal assault on the new United States government. So Ameicans today are worried that the project will be funded in part by people who have already attacked us – devastatingly – and continue to do so both domestically (Ft. Hood, unsuccessful attacks in Times Square and on Christmas Day) and abroad (in Iraq, Aghanistan, and elsewhere). In contrast, opposition to St. Peter’s on the grounds of its funding sources alleged a completely hypothetical, often fantastical enemy (the Vatican) who had never and would never perpetrate any violent acts against American civilians. So once again, we see the effect of Vitello’s refusal to mention 9/11: Americans’ concern over the mosque funding is justified at least in part by the fact that there are organizations in the world funded by the Saudi government that have attacked the United States, openly state their plans to do so again, and, as we have so tragically discovered, posses the means to do so. Those are details conveniently omitted from the Times article. And then we come to the parallel that really forms the crux of this piece. Vitello quotes Rev. Madigan: “We were treated as second-class citizens; we were viewed with suspicion,” Father Madigan wrote in his letter to parishioners, adding, “Many of the charges being leveled at Muslim-Americans today are the same as those once leveled at our forebears.”… The discrimination suffered by the first Catholics in America, he said, “ought to be an incentive for us to ensure that similar indignities not be inflicted on more recent arrivals.” Religious bigotry, this article plainly implies, is the primary motivation of opponents to the mosque. Objections regarding the location and the funding for the projects were practical objections having to do with logistics. But in the narrative the Times presents, they don’t explain the motivation behind opposition to the projects. This third parallel explains it: Muslims today, as Catholics 225 years ago, are considered second class citizens. No other parallel drawn in the article speaks to why people objected to the two projects. And since Vitello omits any mention of the September 11 attacks, readers are left without any other potential factor that might explain the source of the objections to the Ground Zero mosque. The piece ends with the blockquote above. Americans today – at least the ones who oppose this mosque – are bigots, just as opponents to the construction of St. Peter’s church were in 1785. Of course the vast majority of opposition to the mosque’s construction is motivated not by bigotry, but by a feeling that the project’s proponents are peeling the scab off a wound that is far from healed. The Times didn’t mention that fact since it completely undercuts the analogy it was trying to push. But that’s hardly a surprise. The Times has made its stance on the issue known – editorially, sure, but its newsroom has apparently picked sides as well.
Continue reading …Some quick hits on today’s headlines: Biden: I Won’t Literally Strangle Republicans Well, that’s comforting. Hillary: I Don’t Want to Be Vice President She wants to be president. Presidential Seal Falls Off as Obama Speaks Even the seal is embarrassed to be seen with him. Obamacare Triggering Doctor Shortage People don’t spend years and years in college, medical school, internship and residency just to become civil servants. Cuomo Tries to Seize Momentum in NY Governor Race And if he wins he’ll seize the paychecks of every New Yorker. THE BRITISH ARE COMING! NEW CNN HOST VOWS TO TOPPLE FOXNEWS… Some British twit is gonna topple Fox News? Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Allows 11 Nations Join US Suit Against AZ… Typical Ninth Circus decision.
Continue reading …Chris Matthews Rips Liberal Journalist For Endorsing All Democrat Candidates
October 6, 2010 No Comment
An extraordinary thing happened on MSNBC Tuesday: Chris Matthews scolded a fellow liberal journalist for endorsing all of the Democrat candidates up for election in the Senate this November. While discussing the battle between Republican candidate Linda McMahon and Democrat candidate Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut, the “Hardball” host expressed serious concerns about the latter lying about his military service. After playing a tape from Monday’s debate of Blumenthal haplessly trying to explain his position, Matthews asked liberal guest David Corn, “How do you say you served in Vietnam unintentionally when they`ve got the quotes?” Quite surprisingly, Matthews aggressively took exception with Corn’s answer (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: You think it`s venomous now, wait`ll you catch this race. Here`s the McMahon campaign ad. It`s a devastating ad right before last night`s debate. We`re going to show you the ad, followed by Blumenthal addressing it in the debate last night. Let`s listen, see who won. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you lie about serving in a war? RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT), ATTORNEY GENERAL, SENATE CANDIDATE: We have learned something very important since the days that I served in Vietnam. — I served in Vietnam — UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dick Blumenthal did it again and again! (END VIDEO CLIP) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BLUMENTHAL: I`m proud of my military service. On a few occasions out of hundreds when I commented on it, I described it inaccurately, and I regret it. I take full responsibility for it. It was not intentional, but that is no excuse. And I want to say that I am sorry, particularly to our veterans and most especially to the veterans of Vietnam. (END VIDEO CLIP) MATTHEWS: Can you explain the fact that “I take full responsibility” for it but “It was not intentional”? How do you say you served in Vietnam unintentionally when they`ve got the quotes, just like they have on O`Donnell? CORN: You know, you`re — (CROSSTALK) DAVID CORN, “MOTHER JONES”: The interesting thing about this, Chris, is that even in some of the same speeches, he said it right sometimes and wrong sometimes. He contradicted himself really within five, ten minutes of one another. So it doesn`t seem like it was an outright deception, like we`ve seen in Congressman Kirk`s case and others — MATTHEWS: Why would he do it? Why would he say, I served in Vietnam? CORN: I think it`s inexplicable, and I think he`d be up 20 points in the polls if he hadn`t made these dumb mistakes. (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: So you`re saying it`s a mistake to say you served in Vietnam when — you say that`s a mistake, an unintentional, it`s an inaccuracy. It was like a slip of the tongue, is what he — CORN: Because at the same time in the same speeches, he described his service accurately. MATTHEWS: So you believe it was a slip of the tongue. CORN: If he`s trying to lie, he`s then a really bad and lousy liar, which might be a good thing to have in politics. MATTHEWS: Well, look – I think you speak with forked tongue on these issue. PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Look — MATTHEWS: I don`t know why you`re defending this guy. CORN: I`m not defending him! (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: Are you defending every single Democrat candidate for the Senate this year, every one of them? You defend every single Democrat. Is that your position? CORN: Every single Democrat? No, not necessarily. I`m not — MATTHEWS: Well, name one you don`t support. CORN: I`m not — MATTHEWS: Name one you don`t support! CORN: Well, I don`t — MATTHEWS: Name one you don`t support! CORN: Chris, I don`t endorse candidates! MATTHEWS: You just endorsed him! CORN: I tell you what I think about them. I didn`t endorse him. I told you what I thought — (CROSSTALK) CORN: You know, he talked about — (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: OK. Go ahead. (CROSSTALK) CORN: Do you endorse? MATTHEWS: No, but I see a problem with this guy`s statement. BUCHANAN: Well, look — MATTHEWS: I think it`s a problem more than anybody — (CROSSTALK) CORN: I agree with you! It is a problem! Readers are advised that this is not the first time Matthews has expressed his disgust with Blumenthal’s comments concerning his military service. Likely not coincidentally, Matthews’ closing remarks on Tuesday included further condemnation of the Democrat senatorial candidate’s war record discrepancies. That said, the hypocrisy on display was nonetheless disturbing. With little exception, Matthews is and has been a shill for Democrat candidates throughout his career. Never has this been more disgracefully apparent than in February 2008 when he claimed on the air that Barack Obama gave him a thrill up his leg. Complicating matters further is the indisputable fact that the entire network Matthews works for is completely in the tank for left-leaning candidates and isn’t at all ashamed to say so. As such, Matthews chastising a guest for what he and all of his fellow colleagues do on a regular basis is akin to Claude Rains being shocked to find gambling going on in Humphrey Bogart’s Casablanca casino. Taking this one delicious step further, Matthews certainly would have expected Corn and virtually every liberal “journalist” in America to have fully supported him if he had run for Senate in Pennsylvania. With that in mind, although it sure was fun seeing Matthews scold Corn – wouldn’t it be marvelous if every time a member of the press campaigned for a politician in front of the camera he or she was immediately admonished for it? – it would have been far more meaningful if he would have had the courage to point that big accusatory finger at himself for his own past journalistic indiscretions. We can dream, can’t we?
Continue reading …N.Y. Times Easily Embraces MSNBC ‘Lean Forward’ Motto as Liberal = Forward
October 5, 2010 No Comment
New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter found it easy Tuesday to embrace the idea that liberalism means forward progress. In a story on MSNBC’s new motto, Stelter began: MSNBC, once the also-ran but now the No. 2 cable news channel, has a new tagline that embraces its progressive political identity. The tagline, “Lean Forward,” will be publicly announced Tuesday, opening a planned two-year advertising campaign intended to raise awareness of the channel among viewers, advertisers and distributors. It can also easily be mocked as lean forward, as in to vomit — or lean forward in a bow, as Obama does to foreign leaders. The story continued: The tagline “defines us and defines our competition,” said Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, his implication being that the Fox News Channel, which is No. 1 in cable news and a home for conservatives, is leaning backward. Some of the new MSNBC ads include shots of President Obama on his election night; others, directed by the filmmaker Spike Lee, showcase hosts like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow preparing for their nightly programs; and still others feature quotes like “the future belongs to the fearless.” Stelter didn’t suggest that perhaps Olbermann could throw a trash can through the window of a pizza parlor, and then burn it down — as in the crucial police-brutality-race-riot scene in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. Since Lee is involved, unsurprisingly, Hurricane Katrina is one of MSNBC’s themes (if not his conspiracy theory that the levees were blown up on purpose): The resulting ads are not day-and-date promotions for specific programs; rather, they are emotional set pieces about the national debate that moves America forward. The MSNBC brand “is about ideas and change and making the country a better place,” Mr. Griffin said. “It’s an umbrella that’s pretty wide, but that does have a progressive sensibility,” he continued. “We’re confident. We’re strong. Let’s not live in the past, let’s not live by fear.” Two 60-second television commercials that introduce the message are patriotic and poignant. One begins with a child learning how to walk and intersperses scenes of war, rescues in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a peace protest and the moon landing. “When we understand the world around us, we lose our fear and we move ahead,” the narrator says. The other 60-second commercial says, “Starting today, may the ideas that advance our country, no matter who or where they come from, win.” The remaining commercials feature individual hosts like Mr. Olbermann, who is shown in his office writing one of his trademark commentaries, and Lawrence O’Donnell, the new 10 p.m. host, who is overheard saying, “We deserve answers, so we don’t ask the same questions tomorrow.” Stelter also doesn’t consider that MSNBC can be cited for pushing a lot of fear — first, fear of the impending Bush dictatorship, and now, fear of a violent Tea Party movement, not to mention pushing the fear of disastrous global warming. Stelter even suggests that it’s “coincidental” (instead of an obvious part of the branding) that Obama is featured in MSNBC ads: Mr. Obama is shown only briefly in the two 60-second commercials. He is both seen and heard in a video about the ad campaign that was screened for MSNBC employees on Monday, coincidentally summing up the channel’s progressive message. “We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward,” the president was shown saying in a June speech at Carnegie Mellon University. “And I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward.” There are no voices critical of MSNBC in the Times article.
Continue reading …Fresh from mocking Americans concerned about illegal immigration ( and from making a mockery of a congressional hearing ), comic Stephen Colbert showed his disdain for another group of Americans: Tea Partiers. In the introduction to the Oct. 4 “Colbert Report” on Comedy Central, the host said, “Then, the Tea Party reaches out to kids – I assume for help with spelling.” That’s a harmless enough little joke, except that it comes from the man who once called Sara Palin ” a f***ing retard .” In keeping with hi theme of contempt for conservative America, without pause, Colbert said, “And my guest Eugene Robinson has a new book about the four groups that make up black America.” Robinson, a left-wing Washington Post columnist, recently called the American electorate “spoiled brats” for their impending electoral rejection of President Obama’s big government policies. Robinson, who is African-American, also called Dr. Alveda King – the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – a ” figurehead or puppet ” for participating in Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally. In response to Beck’s rally and the Tea Parties, Colbert and fellow Comedy Central host Jon Stewart are staging their own simultaneous demonstrations in Washington, D.C. the weekend before the Nov. 2 midterm election. Colbert’s “March to Keep Fear Alive” and Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” are obviously intended to mock the conservative grassroots uprising while giving an immediate pre-election shot in the arm to liberal election hopes. Colbert and Stewart are wildly successful. Just think how much more successful they’d be if they didn’t show obvious contempt for half of the American people.
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Nation magazine editor Katrina vanden Heuvel made some truly disgusting remarks on MSNBC Monday. Chatting with Ed Schultz about Saturday’s “One Nation” rally, vanden Heuvel first offered a despicable racial comparison between the makeup of that crowd and the one at the “Restoring Honor” rally in August. Next, the unapologetic liberal said Glenn Beck and Fox News “shamed Martin Luther King’s great speech by appropriating that terrain” (video follows with transcript and commentary): KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: But you had some great activists there, and you had this Rainbow Coalition which was such a beautiful departure from the Wonder Bread of Glenn Beck and Fox News which shamed Martin Luther King’s great speech by appropriating that terrain. This is offensive on so many levels it’s tough to know where to begin. Regardless of how many races were in attendance at the “Restoring Honor” rally, vanden Heuvel is saying that “One Nation” was better because it was more ethnically diverse. Is racial makeup now the determining factor of a gathering’s success? Isn’t that racist? As for the shaming of King’s speech, what the former civil rights leader would possibly be most embarrassed about was how few people showed up to a rally sponsored by the NAACP as it’s a clear indication of just how little influence this organization has today. He probably also wouldn’t have approved of the overtly political, hyper-partisan, divisive tone of “One Nation,” unless of course claiming that 40 percent of the country wants discrimination is what King would agree with 45 years after the last Civil Rights Act and roughly 23 months since America elected its first black president. In fact, the man that dreamed of a day when his children would “live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” might have cringed at vanden Heuvel’s “Wonder Bread” remark. That a longtime editor of a national magazine doesn’t understand this is truly astounding.
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