There is a curious element in the Democrat party of misogyny in going after Palin and O'Donnell, and in the case of O'Donnell of bigotry against witchcraft. While Palin is probably only thought to be a witch, O'Donnell actually dabbled in the Craft in high school. A huge swath of the feminist group is interested in Wiccan ideas, and it's in fact the fastest growing religion in America (with about 500,000 official adherents -- doubling every year). O'Donnell should use the Seinfeldian maneuver -- "I'm not a witch -- not that there's anything wrong with that." Instead, she simply denies her association with covens!
Even the US military now allows Wiccans to practice their faith.
The Wiccans ARE a little outside of the mainstream, but I thought the Democrats were all-inclusive?
Has anybody spoken up for witches? Islam is apparently a religion of peace, and we let Nazis march through Skokie. Should witches not be allowed to present themselves as senatorial candidates? Isn't this against the first amendment? I am personally not for boiling babies and I take regular airplanes when I travel, but I've been shocked at how the Democrats are willing to demonize witches just because they have a pact with Satan. Many mainstream churches including the Episcopalian are all for redeeming Satan and bringing him back into the fold. It's almost like there's an assumption that boiling babies is wrong.
Where's the tolerance? I mean, it's a growing culture for heaven's sake. You'd think both parties would be scrambling for this demographic.
Why hasn't B'nai Brith spoken up on the anti-witchcraft rhetoric? Or have they? You'd think feminists would come out in favor of witches, and offer to ride escort for O'Donnell. Since the days of The Wizard of Oz (oh, it's ok to be a wizard, but not a witch?), we've been demonizing the witchy element. Hey, come on. Halloween is around the corner, and we're already brewing a barrel of cider for the little ones chez nous.
Bubbling bubbles of matriarchal brewski! Those Democrats used "voodoo" against Reagan, and are now appealing to the prejudice of Americans against Satan himself! What they won't do to magically turn an election!
35 comments:
Kirby,
Let me take this on.
I don't believe that the Democratic party as an institution has a stake for or against Wicca, but it wouldn't surprise me if Wiccans are disproportionately Democratic given the Evangelical-Conservative alliance that defines modern Republicanism.
So why the tying of O'Donnell to Wicca?
Winning an election is about getting more votes than your opponents. To that end, you want to convince as many undecided voters as possible that they should vote for you, you want to convince as many people who have decided for you as possible to actually come to the polls to cast votes for you, and you try to convince people who have decided to vote for an opponent not to bother actually casting that vote. This isn't news to you: voter suppression is a part of the Republican DNA after all. What you're not used to is seeing what it looks like from the other end.
And to that end, O'Donnell is someone who dabbled in witchcraft, and someone who has lied about doing it. She may be the tea party favorite, but if we can convince evangelical voters that she dabbled in witchcraft (which is no more than the truth), we make it more likely that they'll want to stone her than vote for her. If we can convince conservative voters that she's someone who will lie on the record to protect herself (which is no more than the truth), many will recoil, and will not be willing to commit themselves to favoring a dishonest ideological ally to an honest opponent. In short, these adds are targeted at your voters. Ours don't care.
I feel that all voters should care about the principles underneath their stances. It's often hard to arrive at the rock bottom principle, but in this case it should be easy. The first amendment doesn't allow for an established church. Therefore, discrimination against witches should be a banned policy, especially for those who purport to support the first amendment. I'm astonished to see the cynical pandering to prejudices on this issue.
It may work, but it isn't good for the country to play cynically on what amounts to a prejudice. I think we should always fight this as a question of principle.
I think we have to remain open to Islam, open to Episcopalians, to the left (so long as they orange too crushing in their acrimoniousness, which at any rate, closes my mind to such openness), and even open to the darned Wiccans. Emmy stood up for them a few weeks back and said she knew some who were ballerinas and high-functioners, not just bargain-basement bozos living off of SS.
I don't think we still know exactly what O'Donnell did with regard to The Craft. But it was dismissed by her decades ago. It seems quite dishonest to play on this now. It tends to make me doubt Democratic sincerity, which I would think would in turn make me want to vote for the Republicans by and large.
I got a flyer yesterday from the local Democrat that had Paladino on the front cover looking like Herman Munster. Every wrinkle was tripled, and his skin was very very gray.
I couldn't believe it. I felt sorry for Paladino being used like this. It tends to fly in the face of the interdiction against bearing false witness.
It may be true that Republicans do this. Bush apparently wiped out McCain by insinuating that his Indian-born adopted daughter was a black child he had had out of wedlock. Amazingly cynical ploy.
But it worked.
I suppose that this kind of thing is effective. I still think it's bad. The big O's lies about how he was going to be transparent you'd think have also worked against him in the long run.
Even if one side does it, we should all forbear it, I think, in the long haul. Because two wrongs do not make a right.
Kirby,
I feel that all voters should care about the principles underneath their stances. It's often hard to arrive at the rock bottom principle, but in this case it should be easy. The first amendment doesn't allow for an established church. Therefore, discrimination against witches should be a banned policy, especially for those who purport to support the first amendment.
This is unintentionally ironic, given that your candidate (you know, the one who values the Constitution) didn't know that the first amendment outlawed the establishment of a national religion.
I'm astonished to see the cynical pandering to prejudices on this issue.
Do you remember the Willie Horton ads? As cynical pandering goes, this is pretty tame stuff. And as prejudices go, the one's we're targeting are your side's. Isn't it a bad thing to have those prejudices in the first place? We can't cynically exploit what's not there, after all.
I got a flyer yesterday from the local Democrat that had Paladino on the front cover looking like Herman Munster. Every wrinkle was tripled, and his skin was very very gray.
I couldn't believe it. I felt sorry for Paladino being used like this. It tends to fly in the face of the interdiction against bearing false witness.
I agree, but I'll note that we've discussed this specific point before, in the context of systematic FOX alteration of Obama pictures to make him appear blacker, and with a wider nose, than he is. Again, prejudices were being cynically exploited, and again, it was prejudices on your side (who else watches FOX, after all?!). It was just your side exploiting its own prejudices. There's a whole lot of ugly there.
It may be true that Republicans do this. Bush apparently wiped out McCain by insinuating that his Indian-born adopted daughter was a black child he had had out of wedlock. Amazingly cynical ploy.
But it worked.
South Carolina primary, 2000. Yup.
I suppose that this kind of thing is effective. I still think it's bad.
Yeah. But neither side is likely to unilaterally disarm.
stu, what I guess you're saying is that character assassination's OK if your side can profit by it and besides, it's probably just cosmic payback for some or other previous character attack by my side some time or other.
When I was a schoolboy I remember the thousand-odd politically motivated shrinks who signed the group character assassination document about Barry Goldwater's supposed derangement.
Yes, both sides do it, but I'd like to see evidence for your assertion that FOXNews photo-shops for the purpose of race-baiting. Race-baiting claims are like Inspector Clouseau--at once everywhere and nowhere, and I think most people are tired of seeing them magically spun out of thin air.
Perhaps you might also locate the reference to Christine O'Donnell's supposed ignorance of the non-establishment of religion clause in the Constitution. I know she said that "the separation of church and state" isn't there, and of course you well know it isn't; it's in Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, right? So where's the evidence for your assertion?
I do think that in the last election the McCain campaign did a pretty good job of avoiding character issues like President Obama's unsavoury past associations with radicals and terrorists like Ayers and Dohrn.
But this election cycle my candidate for best attempt at character assassination of a political opponent goes to (tears envelope open and reads) . . . Democrat Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida (raucous applause) for his stupifying "Taliban Dan" ad! Who's yours, stu, doubtless from our side?
http://tinyurl.com/forjadl
Here's an article with the video...he clarifies that the phrase 'separation of church and state' is an idea that comes later, but that 'establishment of religion' comes from the first amendment, and she is still incredulous.
James,
stu, what I guess you're saying is that character assassination's OK if your side can profit by it
Then you're a poor guesser. The Democratic assertions about O'Donnell are true, if inconvenient for her. She did dabble with witchcraft. She did deny (which is to say, lie) about it later. Since when is relating the facts "character assassination?" In my opinion, the latter is an appropriate description only if the "facts" are not grounded in truth.
but I'd like to see evidence for your assertion that FOXNews photo-shops for the purpose of race-baiting.
James, there's this really cool web site called "Google." Perhaps you've heard of it. Type in "fox photoshopped obama photograph" to Google image search, and it coughs up this:
obama_fox.jpg
I can press further, but I suggest you spare me the effort, and yourself the embarrassment.
Perhaps you might also locate the reference to Christine O'Donnell's supposed ignorance of the non-establishment of religion clause in the Constitution.
Type "o'donnell first amendment" into the search box at news.google.com. Follow any of the 777 links associated with the first hit. Contemplate the meaning of "leading with your chin." Then get back to me.
I do think that in the last election the McCain campaign did a pretty good job of avoiding character issues like President Obama's unsavoury past associations with radicals and terrorists like Ayers and Dohrn.
I think they realized that there was no "there" there. And they had enough integrity not make an accusation that was based on nothing at all. Look, I know personally a rock-ribbed republican member of impeccable credentials on the Annenberg project board, your only real link between Obama and Ayers. There is no "there" there, and you're the only person I know who is so self-deluded to believe that there is.
OK. McCain does not share your paranoid delusions. This is to his credit, but the magnitude of that credit is very, very small.
But this election cycle my candidate for best attempt at character assassination of a political opponent goes to (tears envelope open and reads) . . . Democrat Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida (raucous applause) for his stupifying "Taliban Dan" ad! Who's yours, stu, doubtless from our side?
:-). Grayson's point is that theocracy is theocracy. If you prefer your Imams to wear crosses and collarless shirts, that's a stylistic preference, not a substantive one.
And I get a front-row seat for Giannoulious-Kirk, in which character assassination seems to be the only card in either hand, and with plenty of grounding in objective reality on both sides.
So, as much as I hate to disappoint you, I don't have a favorite. It seems to me that there are enough real differences between our sides that it makes sense to discuss them, and leave the dirt behind. E.g., do you believe that stimulus saved us from a deeper recession, or that it cost us in indebtedness, and why. (Don't answer, I know what you believe, I'm just talking rhetorically). Do you believe that HCR serves the interest of employers, employees, and the government, or that it represents an unqualified usurpation, and why. But we don't get that in campaign ads. We don't get that on the news. Heck, we don't get that on this blog.
It's not true that Peeping Tom was sent to Coventry for catching a glimpse of Lady Godiva when she led the protest against her husband's high taxes. Peeping Tom was already in Coventry.
They should have called it Conventry because the city was originally a convent.
Getting sent to Coventry was only a bad thing for the Royalist prisoners who were kept there and actively shunned during the Civil War, a time when the practice of witchcraft was widespread and severely punished. The Roundheads were far harsher with witches than the Royalists.
Witches generally supported the Royalist cause, as limited monarchy tended to dilute the effect of hexes and spells.
stu, what I guess you're saying is that character assassination's OK if your side can profit by it and besides, it's probably just cosmic payback for some or other previous character attack by my side some time or other.
JADL, et alli:
"Tu quoque" is the favorite tool of the Devil/Whigs/Liberals/Progressives/Democrats.
Grayson's point is that theocracy is theocracy. If you prefer your Imams to wear crosses and collarless shirts, that's a stylistic preference, not a substantive one.
Holy hell, Stu, really?
You really think that there is only a
stylistic difference
and not a
substantive difference between a Christian Theocracy and a Muslim Theocracy?
Show me the Christian Theocracy that approached the nadir of the Taliban.
stu, my comment on character assassination still stands--making a teenage molehill into a adult political campaign mountain included.
A quick scan of sources on the alleged FOXNews race-baiting photos seems to yield the usual left-wing sources--HuffPost, Media Matters, etc.--sources to you at least, with the routine "cry-wolf" charges. . . . The images you linked are obviously not the same photo with the same lighting, so what was your point, now?
Also my comment on the false O'Donnell charge stands unrefuted. And I did read the bit about the silent rewriting of the WaPo story by Ben Evans that edited out the charge that O'Donnell didn't know of the non-establishment clause in the First Amendment.
We've been through the bit about President Obama's unsavoury associations before--from the communist Frank Marshall Davis to the race-baiting radical Reverend Jeremiah Wright to the former terrorists Ayers and Dohrn (at whose house Obama launched his Illinois Senate career in 1995); the Wiki article provides others. These are unsavoury characters, but I made no charges other than that--so what's paranoid or delusional about citing facts?
I can't see even you defending Grayson's false ads; in his constituency he seems to have cooked his own goose by such tactics.
You did cite several good examples of substantive issues that are crucial in the election--and they are still mightily debated by most candidates; it's just that the juice of character assassinations frequently attracts too many journalistic flies.
TBH. I think most of the hullabaloo around O'donnell is silly - she's an inexperienced candidate who was on TV at a young age and therefore said some real dumb things that got caught on tape.
It's a cynical ploy for the left to use these, and not helpful.
Is it 'character assassination?' Since it's mostly based on truth, it's more 'exploitative' and 'substanceless' and 'juvenile.'
So I'd rather they didn't do it...
Even Jon Stewart thinks it's silly to attack her for that stuff, and it's his Job to be silly.
So dredging up old, unflattering videos of a teenaged O'donnell is not Quite as bad as concocting lies to attack an opponent...but it Is stupid.
JADL,
stu, my comment on character assassination still stands--making a teenage molehill into a adult political campaign mountain included.
With respect, no. What we have here is a failure of vetting. It was enough for the Republican voters in Delaware that she was not the incumbent, and that she self-identified with the insurgent Tea Party. They didn't feel they had to look any deeper. Now we can argue as to whether Mike Castle's campaign was incompetent in failing to do due diligence in opponent research, or that he figured out that the most effective way to screw a party that was intent on screwing him was to let all of the bad stuff come out in the general. It is quite simply not the fault of the Democratic Party that the Republican Party has chosen to run a candidate whose history makes her unacceptable to a large part of its own base, and it is perfectly in bounds to make that point now.
A quick scan of sources on the alleged FOXNews race-baiting photos seems to yield the usual left-wing sources--HuffPost, Media Matters, etc.--sources to you at least, with the routine "cry-wolf" charges. . . . The images you linked are obviously not the same photo with the same lighting, so what was your point, now?
Yeah. Heck. I guess that if FOX never reports on how it ran blatantly altered photos, it never happened. I see your point. And as soon as I read about how terrible Grayson is on Kos, I'll know it's so, too.
But actually, there is a bit of an ameilorating angle for your side here, and because I take the position that parties to a debate have responsibility towards one another in their mutual search for the truth, here it is. The original doctored photos were evidently produced by Hillary Clinton's campaign during the primary. FOX was just happy to give them lots of free airplay, down through the general.
And as for the photo -- it's lifted from the Democratic candidate's debate. Here's a URL, from Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/4/21311/85811/447/468408
with the video of the debate.
Your argument about different photos, differently lighting, is rubbish. Yes, the particular images previously cited are different frames, but different frames from the same debate, as shot by the same camera, with the same lighting. The manipulation is blatant.
Also my comment on the false O'Donnell charge stands unrefuted. And I did read the bit about the silent rewriting of the WaPo story by Ben Evans that edited out the charge that O'Donnell didn't know of the non-establishment clause in the First Amendment.
There are YouTube clips out there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-8kAVwO3ZA
You can argue all you want about editorial manipulations in reports about the debate. Those reports are not primary sources -- the debate itself is, and we have video of the debate, and video proves the veracity of the charge.
JADL,
As evidence of what an epic fail Ms. O'Donnell is as a candidate, and further proof, as if it is needed, of her constitutional gaffe, I bring you this:
The Onion: Candidate Unaware Constitution Provides For Separation Of Church, State
Enjoy.
stu, I agree that candidate vetting is important, but if you think O'Donnell's brief teenage dabble in witchcraft should disqualify her perpetually for public office, then I can't see how you could possibly abide the number of politicians on both sides (including President Obama) who confessed to committing felony drug crimes.
O'Donnell does lack experience, and I'd have preferred the electable Castle, yet I can't see that his party was out to "screw" him--he just lost the primary to an determined opponent. I agree with Brett's take on this, though I'm sure he'd never vote for her.
The difference between FOXNews and Daily Kos is that FOX actually features liberal commentators while Kos is pure apartheid-left. In any case, the right photo is darker in tone, yes (and I didn't know they were taken by the Democrats at the same primary debate), but not unflattering. So your unshakeable view is that the darker-toned photo was chosen by FOX deliberately to repel its Caucasian audience? Huh.
stu, I saw the video, and I'll agree that after Coons's constant repetition of phrase "the separation of church and state" (words not in the Constitution), O'Donnell seemed unable to sort out the difference between the actual words and the idea, an amateurish debating lapse. But then Coons frittered away his advantage when he himself seemed unable to name the five freedoms in the First Amendment (religion, speech, press, assembly, and bearing arms--just kidding!--petition), but could only parrot, inevitably, "separation of church and state"--Awk!
So your unshakeable view is that the darker-toned photo was chosen by FOX deliberately to repel its Caucasian audience?
Well yeah, because Faux "News" and its audience are skared by "darker-toned" people and automatically repelled by their presence.
Unless the "darker-toned person" is a vile racist like Juan Williams. Then he's welcome to play.
JADL,
stu, I agree that candidate vetting is important, but if you think O'Donnell's brief teenage dabble in witchcraft should disqualify her perpetually for public office, then I can't see how you could possibly abide the number of politicians on both sides (including President Obama) who confessed to committing felony drug crimes.
You misconstrue the argument. I don't think that teenage dabbling in witchcraft is a disqualifier, although it does raise questions about judgment. As do, for example, the use of drugs by WJC, GWB, and BHO. Each individual voter has their own values and beliefs which provide a framework for evaluating these questions, and chosing what evidence to accept. E.g., typical voters for WJC and BHO who were aware of their confessed drug use (Marijuana, in their teens) generally accepted the reports, but decided that this was not a disqualifying lapse of judgment, whereas typical voters for GWB decided that the reports of his drug use (alcohol and cocaine, through his 30's) were either excusable (alcohol) or false (cocaine), and so reconciled their vote with their values.
I said at the beginning of this thread, the target for the "O'Donnell is a confessed witch" ads is the evangelical component of the Republican base. This is all about giving your base reason to doubt that O'Donnell is qualified, by appealing to their particular priorities. And this is what you're dodging, not the issue of whether she is qualified by my standards or yours, but whether or not large fragments of the Republican base, applying their particular values, will be able to reconcile themselves to a vote for a self-proclaimed former dabbler in witchcraft.
The difference between FOXNews and Daily Kos is that FOX actually features liberal commentators while Kos is pure apartheid-left.
This gives FOX a bit too much credit. The liberal commentators on FOX are generally there to act as targets/foils. Each, of course, hopes that the platform offered by FOX is an opportunity to get their point of view across to an otherwise inaccessible audience. [Honestly, there has to be a market for big screen TVs without selectable tuners -- they just turn on to FOX. They'd be cheaper to build than a full-function TV, and without confusing remotes, would appeal to a certain demographic.] I'm not aware of any successes.
But Kos also has conservative commentators, and generally the way folks get kicked off of Kos is by making asses of themselves, not by arguing for conservative values. In most of the real world (i.e., outside of the partisan echo-chambers) people have a mosaic of values, and are conservative on some questions, and liberal on others. My mother, e.g., describes herself as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative, and therefore a Democrat because at least they got one right.
So your unshakeable view is that the darker-toned photo was chosen by FOX deliberately to repel its Caucasian audience? Huh.
Given that unphotoshopped images of Obama outnumbered photoshopped ones about a thousand-to-one, the choice of FOX to prefer the photoshopped images is significant. Remember our earlier discussion of Bayes in the context of precipitation and climate change. It applies here too.
Re: Coons vs. O'Donnell. I'd argue that O'Donnell's lapse is the greater. Not knowing that an essential freedom is guaranteed by the constitution (i.e., no governmental favoring of some religions over others) seems like a much bigger problem than not being entirely sure which guarantee belongs to which clause. The former reflects a failing of civil knowledge, the later just means that the person in question needs (and knows) to consult the constitution from time to time.
The Courts HAVE (since Roosevelt) increasingly attempted to secularize the government, using the first amendment as rationalizing the separation (which is not, historically, what the First Amendment was meant to do). Many actually think this means that Christians can't be representatives.
Of course they can.
As can Muslims and Wiccans and card-carrying Nazis.
All you have to do is get the biggest number of votes.
I doubt if there is time to turn this election around for O'Donnell, and perhaps the base wasn't there in the first place. But both O'Donnell and Coons had something right about their interpretation of the First Amendment.
She's right to say that SEPARATION is not in it. He's right to say that the Courts have REINTERPRETED the First Amendment to force a separation between church and state (however, this separation has NOT ALWAYS been the courts' interpretation). There is a trend to secularize the government. There is another trend (since the political awakening of the evangelicals in the 1960s) to take back government in the name of the Protestant Enlightenment -- which was there even in the Founding, especially in the ideas of James Madison.
Some want to scuttle the Ten Commandments and replace it with the Wiccan notion "an' it do no harm," then it's okay-dokey.
But others want a positive interpretation of the Ten Commandments. The war over marriage is a Christian versus secularist war. Other parties are looking on. Sharia law allows a man four wives, for instance.
Mormons traditionally were permitted umpteen wives.
Will this be the new trend?
If love is the only criterion, will that be the new parameter? One strange candidate in New York Governor's race said he'd be willing to marry a man to a shoe, as long as he paid for the wedding license.
If family is the absolute center of society, then many think (and I am with them) that the unsocial nature of a shoe means that it shouldn't be allowed to marry. I also think that allowing a man to marry four women, or a woman to marry four men, is antisocial and asymmetrical, and will cause the family to become a source of oppression rather than freedom and mutual love.
I still think America's taproot is in the Protestant Enlightenment beginning with Luther.
Kirby,
If love is the only criterion, will that be the new parameter? One strange candidate in New York Governor's race said he'd be willing to marry a man to a shoe, as long as he paid for the wedding license.
This really bothers me.
Can a shoe give informed consent? What if the shoe is underage? What is the appropriate age-of-consent for shoes? If you're married to a shoe, does wearing it constitute abuse? How does the man (or more likely woman, as in my experience, women are much more likely to develop a meaningful relationship with a particular shoe) deal with jealousy issues between the two shoes of a pair, when both are worn, and s/he's only married to one? Indeed, if you're married to a shoe, wouldn't this imply that you can't wear any other shoes without violating your covenant with the shoe? And if we allow people to marry shoes, doesn't this imply that shoes ought to have the right to marry other shoes? And if they do, wouldn't it be wrong for us to break up the pair?
stu, I know your long roundabouts in flogging O'Donnell's teenage "witchcraft" fling (promoted recently by the odious professional vulgarian Bill Maher) pose the question of whether such character assassination smears by her opponents will be effective in turning away evangelical Republican supporters. I doubt it, and I hope you aren't hoping such tactics succeed.
In the case of the President, by the way, you omitted his self-professed use of cocaine as well during a 2007 CBS "60 Minutes" segment.
On the Daily Kos, I tried searching for "conservative" commentators, but I could only reference attacks on them at DK. I'm only an occasional reader of DK's alarmist leftist muck, and so perhaps you could enlighten me with a few contributors who express conservative positions that reflect the right side of the standard American political spectrum, rather than some standard arbitrarily chosen by DK or yourself.
I'm not sure if you're stepping away from your charge that FOX conspires to choose darkened images of the President's face to race-bait or not, or your nebulous "significant" is just shorthand for the accusation you've already made. As I said before, huh.
On O'Donnell's "lapse," your misunderstanding seems to be on several levels. I said lapse in debate tactic, not lapse in understanding of the what the First Amendment says. Coons erred in saying the First Amendment literally guarantees "the separation of church and state" (that's quite a different issue from Congress's non-establishment clause); he also misquoted the wording twice in then referring to the non-establishment clause ("the federal government . . ." and "the government shall make no establishment of religion," rather than the correct "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . ."). Law prof Ann Althouse's commentaries (http://althouse.blogspot.com/
on the debate perhaps can clear up some of your evident confusion and tenuous grasp of the issue here.
Witches have green faces in the Wizard of Oz.
I think that should be enough to put to rest the story that O'Donnell was ever a witch. You'd have to fiddle with the color knob to think that O'Donnell was a witch.
The Juan Williams demonization is another thing. Everyone on NPR has an opinion. I rather like NPR when I'm driving. Of course they are all leftists.
Williams wasn't.
But he was fired for his association with Bill O'Reilly.
Should he have been able to say what he was thinking? He is, after all, a commentator.
NPR has no other African American commentators, O'Reilly said last night on Fox.
He should only be able to say what he's thinking if it's officially approved.
Yes, GM, Mr Williams fell afoul of the media PC mandarins; but I've found his open-minded liberal commentaries on NPR and FOX preferable to the hockey-mask-with-the-mouth-hole denizens on MSNBC.
But I don't think NPR (or PBS) should be publicly defunded simply over the wrong committed against Mr Williams--I've held they should have been publicly defunded decades ago.
Yes, Kirby, NPR's OK when they cover stories like visits to an Arkansas banjo museum or a twelve-and-under Scrabble competition or a monastery specialising in fine jellies, but get them on politics or current affairs and suddenly the Black Lagoon horrors like Nina Totenberg rise up out of the murky depths menacing your little dog, too.
I used to think Daniel Pinkwater was ok, in spite of his name, and the Code Pink politics that went with it.
Nina T. is a twit, for sure.
I can put up with her.
I do still watch PBS, too.
The quote for which Juan Williams was canned at NPR:
"Political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don't address reality. I mean, look Bill [O'Reilly], I'm not a bigot, you know the kind of books I've written on the civil rights movement in this country, but when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous. Now, I remember also that when the Times Square bomber was at court, I think this was just last week. He said the war with Muslims, America's war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts. But I think there are people who want to somehow remind us all as President Bush did after 9/11, it's not a war against Islam.[7]"
I think it is going to make another huge slap against PC media outlets like NPR and PBS. Why are they funded by taxpayers but only benefit one party? The commentators regularly demean Bush and other Republicans and the whole slant is rather venomous. I don't understand why this rather vacuous remark has resulted in Williams' need to see a psychiatrist.
It's just the most amazing story. Every day has another article in the press about another Islamic terrorist either over there or over here. It's like it's an endemic circle of violence, but the PC left seems determined not to look. Today some guy in Dallas was given life in prison for putting a sixty pound bomb underneath a skyscraper.
You'd have to be insane not to notice this, and yet because Williams had shown this basic sanity, he was himself remanded to his psychiatrist.
NPR is not directly funded by the Federal Government, and has not been since 1983. Indirect funding constitutes only 5.5% of NPRs budget (1.5% comes from direct grants from CPR, and member stations contribute 40%, and 10% of there budgets come from federal funds, for another 4%).
Once again, there's a tenuous connection between reality and "facts" as conservatives on the blog understand them.
O'Reilly said they have a new 40 million dollar complex in Washington that he indicated was funded by the government. I think defunding NPR will become a new priority with this bit about Juan Williams getting recycled quite a bit over the next two years. There are lots of tie-ins, apparently, where money is contributed in an ancillary fashion by different branches of government -- funding for grants that help to cover specific areas world-wide, for instance. NPR is a Democratic PR station, so in a sense it's a National Propaganda Radio station at least partially funded by what is supposedly a pluralistic state, but which is in fact a monopoly.
I assume too that there will be closer watch on the radicals within NPR to see if they are making any kind of personal opinions known to listeners and whether or not there isn't a double-standard.
Juan Williams is fairly moderate, and he's written many books about the black civil rights movement. That doesn't mean he can't be a bigot in other areas. Bigotry has no boundaries.
But the left is quite blind to its blindness.
To have any perspective at all you need at the very least a left and a right eye.
I don't know all the funding details of NPR, nor do I know the precise hue of all of their broadcasters. I used to listen to it fervently in my 20s, but you can't get it out here in the hinterlands. It's for the people in the cities.
Out here we're listening to Rush Limbaugh, Country Music, and Gospel Radio.
It looks like about 17.5 % of NPR's budget comes through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting according to the CPB wikipedia page.
It's incredible how quickly the story has morphed. At NPR itself a short article on the JW firing has received 9000 comments (I thought 100 was pretty good). Most of the comments are negative with many saying they will no long support NPR, but some saying they will, in spite of their disagreement with the firing.
Commentator Andrei Codrescu said that he hoped all Christians would be raptured away from the earth as soon as possible. Nina Totenberg said that she hoped Jesse Helms would get AIDS, or that someone in his family would get AIDS, so that there could be poetic justice (read the original quotes at the NPR wiki site, since I am only broadly paraphrasing.
McDonald's gave NPR 250 million dollars, an enormous endowment. Here's some more details. In the 80s when I used to listen to the radio stations in Seattle, the funding was largely driven by Federal Money, but now the funding is more heterogenous, with a big chunk of it coming from the CPB, but there is ANOTHER 22% derived from STATE AND LOCAL TAXES, which means that about 40% of the funding base is from the taxpayer:
"CPB's annual budget is composed almost entirely of an annual appropriation from Congress plus interest on those funds.[3] For fiscal year 2009, its appropriation was $400 million. A maximum of five percent of this budget goes toward the corporation's administrative costs, with six percent reserved for funds to support the public broadcasting system generally (as opposed to specific stations). CPB also distributed a separate appropriation for conversion to digital television, which was mandated to occur by June 12, 2009.
Public broadcasting stations are funded by a combination of private donations from members, foundations and corporations (60.4% of 2006 total revenues of all stations), state and local taxes (22.2% of 2006 total revenues), local and national underwriting, and federal funds, principally through CPB (17.3% of 2006 total revenues).[4]
About 90% of the 2005 budget was distributed to public broadcasters across the country, including both local and national organizations. Stations which receive CPB funds must meet certain requirements,[5] such as to maintain or provide:
1. Open meetings
2. Open financial records
3. Community advisory board
4. Equal employment opportunity
5. Donor list and political activities
CPB Corporation for Public Broadcasting."
Since the radio stations must have OPEN FINANCIAL RECORDS as part of their rationale, I think there are going to be many many new discoveries over the next year and a half since by law they are not permitted to keep closed books.
Kirby, thanks for the info on NPR, CPB, and PBS; I knew they were only partially publicly funded, but the percentage has varied from time to time. When I had TV some years ago I remember them actually doing partisan propaganda spots trying to convince viewers to write and phone their legislators to influence a pending vote in Congress on reducing their public funding. Some have wondered why, if they receive only a supposedly tiny bit of public funding (which is considerably more than they say), they should lobby so fiercely to keep that controversial funding. Perhaps they wish to keep up the image of political neutrality to the naive.
But Kirby,
Since that money doesn't come directly from USG it doesn't count.
Duh.
NPR threatened their funding base with national and local governments (about 40%) and also with their regular donors during a fund drive. They themselves admit that the firing wasn't handled well. The dig at Williams -- that he needed to consult a psychiatrist -- for thinking that Muslims could be dangerous -- when of course every other article in the news page is about wars and battles with Islamic terrorists, makes one wonder what world the NPR brass lives on. Juan Williams got a two million dollar deal from Fox, whereas NPR shot itself in the foot. I think Williams won this round, and NPR was seriously injured. Is there a way they could have handled this better? What should they have done?
Should they have kept Williams?
I do still listen to NPR when I'm driving near Oneonta -- where the signal comes in. I wrote a book about Andrei Codrescu -- who's one of their stars -- and who himself got in trouble for his statement that if Christians were raptured away the rest of America would be grateful and could then live in peace.
I don't like hate speech much, especially when it is directed at me and mine, but I also support the first amendment, and I think that that is the stronger value, and should be the stronger value for news organizations, too.
Williams was using a rhetorical strategy with O'Reilly at the time he spoke. I'm sure this strategy has a name, but I don't know it. He was allowing that he too has fears of Muslims (the bloody borders thesis is grounded in reality), but that he thought we should also try to see each person as they are (ML King's notion of seeing the individual character of each person is what I think he was arguing for).
NPR's brass had a knee jerk reaction that precluded them from seeing Williams' overall message, and they focused on only part of it, plus they were angry that O'Reilly got any cover at all for what they considered his blunder on The View when Whoopie and that other one walked out and decided to be intolerant and bigoted toward O'Reilly's viewpoints.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in terms of the bottom line. I used to like NPR, and like Jacques, I like some of their more amusing stories, but their hardline stance is socialist to the core, and multiculturalist, and probably, virulently anti-Christian.
Codrescu's comment comes close to genocide -- but it is a self-inflicted genocide -- I hope all those people find some way to disappear. Nina Totenberg wished AIDS on Jesse Helms' family. Juan Williams said only that he was afraid he would be killed on an airplane by Muslim terrorists. He didn't want to be killed. He didn't wish death on others, but hoped that he would himself survive. I think this is less atrocious than what the other two said, but because the other two expressed opinions that are widely held by the left (Christians should disappear hopefully quietly, and anyone who doesn't want the lion's share of CDC money to go toward helping the sexually profligate should die of AIDS along with their whole family), that Williams is the one to be set outside the gate.
I don't know how this is playing out in the various news channels. Has anyone else aside from Fox stood up for Juan Williams? Have there been any surprises?
US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT suggests that the CEO at NPR should get the can instead:
http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/battle/2010/10/22/npr-shouldnt-have-fired-juan-williams-but-its-ceo-instead
Kirby,
Those Democrats used "voodoo" against Reagan, and are now appealing to the prejudice of Americans against Satan himself! What they won't do to magically turn an election!
Oy. I should have picked this up earlier.
You're no doubt remembering the "voodoo economics" charge. What you're forgetting is that it wasn't the D's who accused Reagan of voodoo economics. It was George HW Bush who coined the term to describe the "supply side" economics that Mr. Reagan favored during the 1980 Presidential primary.
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