BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com
Friday, November 30, 2007
Right-Wing Nutcases Laugh It Up Over Clinton Office Hostage Crisis
By MARC MCDONALD
"Anyone care to bet the protagonist is a card-carrying member of the Democrat Party (aka nutroot) who is frustrated that Hillary hasn't personally defunded the War in Iraq yet? Might even be a member over at Daily Kos?"
---Rotarymunkey, commenter at MichelleMalkin.com
I have to admit, I never really understood the right-wing sense of humor.
Like when Ronald Reagan joked in 1964 about the 17 million people who then went to bed hungry every night in America, saying that "they were all on a diet."
Or when Rush Limbaugh called 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton a "dog."
Or when George W. Bush yucked it up over the issue of the non-existent WMDs in Iraq during a "comedy" skit in the Oval Office.
I don't know---maybe I just don't have much of a sense of humor, because I saw nothing funny about yesterday's hostage crisis, in which a distraught man wearing what appeared to be a bomb walked into the campaign office of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.
However, plenty of right-wing folks thought the whole episode was real funny. Take (please) the wingnuts who hang out at the blog of right-wing nutcase Michelle Malkin.
As of Friday night, Malkin's comments section was full of posters who were joking about the crisis and speculating about how the "liberal" media and the Democrats would conspire to spin the episode to Hillary's advantage.
A poster by the name of "Fodder Jack" seemed to find humor in the crisis, writing, "Maybe it is a last ditch effort by the press to get an interview with Hillary."
Another writer called "Reppac122" was (like many across the right-wing blogosphere) already using the occasion to attack the Clintons. "My cynical political thinking here is that the Clintons (yes, both of them) will use this horrible situation for their political benefit."
Another writer, using the handle, "RetFireman," raised the issue of conspiracy: "Now be honest...with all that has come out lately, and I am not saying it is staged, but how many people would be that surprised to find out at some later date that it was? Be honest with yourself, and consider who we are talking about."
Commenter "Eric CharlotteNC" sarcastically mocked Liberals in his post. "If our troops weren't in Iraq this never would have happened! Or maybe global warming got this guy very hot!"
"Blacktygrrrr" added his own two cents: "The bottom line is if the hostage taker is a liberal, he will be dismissed as deranged, since many liberals are deranged anyway."
"Rotarymunkey" had this to say: "Anyone care to bet the protagonist is a card-carrying member of the Democrat Party (aka nutroot) who is frustrated that Hillary hasn't personally defunded the War in Iraq yet? Might even be a member over at Daily Kos?"
And so it goes, on and on.
Of course, none of this comes as much of a surprise to those of us who are at all familiar with the vicious hatemongering in the right-wing blogosphere.
The scary thing is Malkin's blog supposedly has a policy of screening out "offensive" remarks. If the above comments weren't screened out, one can only wonder what truly deranged nutcase comments were deleted. The mind boggles.
I'm sure there are those who would argue that Malkin isn't responsible for the deranged posters who comment on her blog. But anyone familiar with Malkin's own writings knows that she herself is a truly psychotic nutcase whose babblings over the years have been far scarier than any of the comments above.
As prominent Malkin critic Glenn Greenwald pointed out, Malkin once wrote a book "defending the ethnicity-based imprisonment of innocent American citizens in internment camps."
As media watchdog site Media Matters pointed out, the mainstream media has given, on numerous occasions in the past, significant coverage to episodes in which controversial comments appeared on progressive blogs.
How much do you want to bet that the MSM ignores the right-wing hatemongering that appeared in the aftermath of the Clinton office hostage crisis?
"Anyone care to bet the protagonist is a card-carrying member of the Democrat Party (aka nutroot) who is frustrated that Hillary hasn't personally defunded the War in Iraq yet? Might even be a member over at Daily Kos?"
---Rotarymunkey, commenter at MichelleMalkin.com
I have to admit, I never really understood the right-wing sense of humor.
Like when Ronald Reagan joked in 1964 about the 17 million people who then went to bed hungry every night in America, saying that "they were all on a diet."
Or when Rush Limbaugh called 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton a "dog."
Or when George W. Bush yucked it up over the issue of the non-existent WMDs in Iraq during a "comedy" skit in the Oval Office.
I don't know---maybe I just don't have much of a sense of humor, because I saw nothing funny about yesterday's hostage crisis, in which a distraught man wearing what appeared to be a bomb walked into the campaign office of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.
However, plenty of right-wing folks thought the whole episode was real funny. Take (please) the wingnuts who hang out at the blog of right-wing nutcase Michelle Malkin.
As of Friday night, Malkin's comments section was full of posters who were joking about the crisis and speculating about how the "liberal" media and the Democrats would conspire to spin the episode to Hillary's advantage.
A poster by the name of "Fodder Jack" seemed to find humor in the crisis, writing, "Maybe it is a last ditch effort by the press to get an interview with Hillary."
Another writer called "Reppac122" was (like many across the right-wing blogosphere) already using the occasion to attack the Clintons. "My cynical political thinking here is that the Clintons (yes, both of them) will use this horrible situation for their political benefit."
Another writer, using the handle, "RetFireman," raised the issue of conspiracy: "Now be honest...with all that has come out lately, and I am not saying it is staged, but how many people would be that surprised to find out at some later date that it was? Be honest with yourself, and consider who we are talking about."
Commenter "Eric CharlotteNC" sarcastically mocked Liberals in his post. "If our troops weren't in Iraq this never would have happened! Or maybe global warming got this guy very hot!"
"Blacktygrrrr" added his own two cents: "The bottom line is if the hostage taker is a liberal, he will be dismissed as deranged, since many liberals are deranged anyway."
"Rotarymunkey" had this to say: "Anyone care to bet the protagonist is a card-carrying member of the Democrat Party (aka nutroot) who is frustrated that Hillary hasn't personally defunded the War in Iraq yet? Might even be a member over at Daily Kos?"
And so it goes, on and on.
Of course, none of this comes as much of a surprise to those of us who are at all familiar with the vicious hatemongering in the right-wing blogosphere.
The scary thing is Malkin's blog supposedly has a policy of screening out "offensive" remarks. If the above comments weren't screened out, one can only wonder what truly deranged nutcase comments were deleted. The mind boggles.
I'm sure there are those who would argue that Malkin isn't responsible for the deranged posters who comment on her blog. But anyone familiar with Malkin's own writings knows that she herself is a truly psychotic nutcase whose babblings over the years have been far scarier than any of the comments above.
As prominent Malkin critic Glenn Greenwald pointed out, Malkin once wrote a book "defending the ethnicity-based imprisonment of innocent American citizens in internment camps."
As media watchdog site Media Matters pointed out, the mainstream media has given, on numerous occasions in the past, significant coverage to episodes in which controversial comments appeared on progressive blogs.
How much do you want to bet that the MSM ignores the right-wing hatemongering that appeared in the aftermath of the Clinton office hostage crisis?
Labels: GOP, Michelle Malkin, wingnuts
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Threats In The Blogosphere: How Credible Are Michelle Malkin's Claims?
By MARC McDONALD
Possibly more than any other writer on the Web, right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin constantly refers to all the hate mail and threats she receives. In the eyes of her followers, this has enhanced her reputation and made her into a sort of right-wing hero for the truth, in her ongoing battle against liberals.
There's only one problem. Malkin isn't exactly the most reliable and trustworthy writer online. Frankly, I don't trust anything she writes.
The latest round of Malkin's claims of hate speech and threats began recently when Fox News' Bill O'Reilly compared the liberal Daily Kos to the Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan.
O'Reilly based his tirade on a tiny, cherry-picked handful of anonymous comments left on Daily Kos (a site with millions of daily visitors, all of whom are free to post comments).
Blogger Glenn Greenwald, among others, responded to O'Reilly's lunacy, pointing out that if you go to the site of Malkin (a frequent guest host on O'Reilly's program) you'll encounter loads of vile hate speech in her comments section. In Malkin's case, however, this really shouldn't be surprising. After all, as Greenwald notes, Malkin once wrote a book "defending the ethnicity-based imprisonment of innocent American citizens in internment camps."
In response to Greenwald's charges, Malkin has fallen back on a tactic that she's used before: she trots out the claim that she herself has been the victim of all kinds of terrible, violent hate speech and threats.
As she wrote in a July 26 piece:
"If you're going to get into it, the qualitative difference between blog comments on liberal blogs and my blogs is Grand Canyon-wide."
I really don't believe anything that Malkin writes and frankly I have doubts about her claims of getting inundated with hate speech and threats.
Am I saying that Malkin and other right-wing bloggers basically make up anonymous comments to try to make liberals look bad?
Well, not necessarily. But I wouldn't put it past any right-wing site. And I simply don't believe that liberals are posting hate speech, or violent threats, on right-wing sites.
The fact is, we liberals don't do hate speech. We don't do racism. In fact, we're not big on threats or violence in general.
Hell, we're from the party of Jimmy Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, for God's sake. It's hard to imagine George W. Bush ever winning a Nobel Peace Prize.
I know a lot of liberal Democrats. And I know a lot of conservative Republicans.
And frankly, in countless conversations I've had over the years, I've never heard a liberal make any kind of serious threat of violence against anyone, period. Violence is not our thing, after all.
I mean, we're not the ones who adore and cherish guns. We're not the ones who always throw a hissy fit when our paranoid little brains become convinced that the government is going to kick in our doors and take away our precious firearms. We're not the ones who demand the right to completely unrestricted access to guns (so that we can violently overthrow the U.S. government if we ever decide that we disagree with it).
Frankly, we're not big on guns, period. We'd rather solve our differences with reason and logic and rational debate.
I'm not sure where all these violent, hate-spewing bigots are coming from who supposedly post comments on Malkin's site. But if these are genuine comments, they're definitely not being posted by liberals.
By contrast, the right-wing hate-spewing comments that Greenwald references in his article sound EXACTLY like the sort of stuff I've been hearing FIRST-HAND from numerous self-described Republicans over the years. And in my conversations with fellow liberals over the years, I can tell I'm not alone.
I have heard, on numerous occasions, self-described Republicans advocating violence again Democratic politicians and liberals in general. I've heard them advocate violence against African-Americans. I've heard them say that America ought to "nuke the shit" out of the Middle East. And I heard them laugh during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, making comments like "Who cares? It was just a bunch of fucking niggers who drowned."
And on and on and on.
These are comments from self-described, George W. Bush-supporting Republicans that I've heard first-hand over the years. And I'm not alone. I've heard other progressives describe similar accounts of hate speech and violence-tinged rhetoric that they're heard first-hand from Republicans.
We're not talking about anonymous comments on a Web site here. We're talking about people we've listened to in person, first-hand---be it someone we encountered in the line at the supermarket, or our crazy right-wing uncle who spewed his venom during Thanksgiving dinner.
Over the years, I've had many discussions with liberals on every topic under the sun. And I have to say: I don't believe I've ever heard a liberal seriously advocate violence against anybody.
I've known a lot of bigots over the years. I've known a lot of people who threatened to use violence. And I've known a lot of racists.
True, not all of them were Republicans. But many were. And NOT ONE of them was a liberal Democrat.
Possibly more than any other writer on the Web, right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin constantly refers to all the hate mail and threats she receives. In the eyes of her followers, this has enhanced her reputation and made her into a sort of right-wing hero for the truth, in her ongoing battle against liberals.
There's only one problem. Malkin isn't exactly the most reliable and trustworthy writer online. Frankly, I don't trust anything she writes.
The latest round of Malkin's claims of hate speech and threats began recently when Fox News' Bill O'Reilly compared the liberal Daily Kos to the Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan.
O'Reilly based his tirade on a tiny, cherry-picked handful of anonymous comments left on Daily Kos (a site with millions of daily visitors, all of whom are free to post comments).
Blogger Glenn Greenwald, among others, responded to O'Reilly's lunacy, pointing out that if you go to the site of Malkin (a frequent guest host on O'Reilly's program) you'll encounter loads of vile hate speech in her comments section. In Malkin's case, however, this really shouldn't be surprising. After all, as Greenwald notes, Malkin once wrote a book "defending the ethnicity-based imprisonment of innocent American citizens in internment camps."
In response to Greenwald's charges, Malkin has fallen back on a tactic that she's used before: she trots out the claim that she herself has been the victim of all kinds of terrible, violent hate speech and threats.
As she wrote in a July 26 piece:
"If you're going to get into it, the qualitative difference between blog comments on liberal blogs and my blogs is Grand Canyon-wide."
I really don't believe anything that Malkin writes and frankly I have doubts about her claims of getting inundated with hate speech and threats.
Am I saying that Malkin and other right-wing bloggers basically make up anonymous comments to try to make liberals look bad?
Well, not necessarily. But I wouldn't put it past any right-wing site. And I simply don't believe that liberals are posting hate speech, or violent threats, on right-wing sites.
The fact is, we liberals don't do hate speech. We don't do racism. In fact, we're not big on threats or violence in general.
Hell, we're from the party of Jimmy Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, for God's sake. It's hard to imagine George W. Bush ever winning a Nobel Peace Prize.
I know a lot of liberal Democrats. And I know a lot of conservative Republicans.
And frankly, in countless conversations I've had over the years, I've never heard a liberal make any kind of serious threat of violence against anyone, period. Violence is not our thing, after all.
I mean, we're not the ones who adore and cherish guns. We're not the ones who always throw a hissy fit when our paranoid little brains become convinced that the government is going to kick in our doors and take away our precious firearms. We're not the ones who demand the right to completely unrestricted access to guns (so that we can violently overthrow the U.S. government if we ever decide that we disagree with it).
Frankly, we're not big on guns, period. We'd rather solve our differences with reason and logic and rational debate.
I'm not sure where all these violent, hate-spewing bigots are coming from who supposedly post comments on Malkin's site. But if these are genuine comments, they're definitely not being posted by liberals.
By contrast, the right-wing hate-spewing comments that Greenwald references in his article sound EXACTLY like the sort of stuff I've been hearing FIRST-HAND from numerous self-described Republicans over the years. And in my conversations with fellow liberals over the years, I can tell I'm not alone.
I have heard, on numerous occasions, self-described Republicans advocating violence again Democratic politicians and liberals in general. I've heard them advocate violence against African-Americans. I've heard them say that America ought to "nuke the shit" out of the Middle East. And I heard them laugh during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, making comments like "Who cares? It was just a bunch of fucking niggers who drowned."
And on and on and on.
These are comments from self-described, George W. Bush-supporting Republicans that I've heard first-hand over the years. And I'm not alone. I've heard other progressives describe similar accounts of hate speech and violence-tinged rhetoric that they're heard first-hand from Republicans.
We're not talking about anonymous comments on a Web site here. We're talking about people we've listened to in person, first-hand---be it someone we encountered in the line at the supermarket, or our crazy right-wing uncle who spewed his venom during Thanksgiving dinner.
Over the years, I've had many discussions with liberals on every topic under the sun. And I have to say: I don't believe I've ever heard a liberal seriously advocate violence against anybody.
I've known a lot of bigots over the years. I've known a lot of people who threatened to use violence. And I've known a lot of racists.
True, not all of them were Republicans. But many were. And NOT ONE of them was a liberal Democrat.
Labels: Fox News, GOP, Michelle Malkin
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