PRESIDENT OBAMA: Tiger Woods? Or Michelle Wie?

This is my reaction to a Patterico's Pontifications comment in this thread on the topic of what is acceptable commentary on the brief arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates on charges of disorderly conduct by Cambridge, MA police. In his July 23, 2009 press conference pushing for universal health care, President Obama said the police "acted stupidly."

voiceofreason2 wrote:

The most disappointing thing for me about Obama is the lost opportunity he had to really bridge some of the gaps in our racially sensitive society. Had he focused on the fact that he is biracial and been willing to acknowledge that all racial groups have bad apples whose behavior is not acceptable he would have won me over.

Contrast him with Tiger Woods who has been notably absent in the “national dialog” on race because it is just not that important to him. He accomplished his feats through hard work and perserverance and is a good role model for anyone.

Here’s what I wrote about Tiger Woods — and tennis’ emerging stars, Venus & Serena Williams — back in September 2000:

I wasted about a year rooting against Tiger Woods because I thought that if he was as successful as he has turned out to be, he and his father Earl would do for golf what the Williams family has done for tennis: make it a racial battleground on which everyone who doesn’t cheer their in-your-face attitude is suspected — or flat out accused — of being a bigot…

(snip)

[Tiger] has gained the admiration and respect of his peers not just because of his extraordinary talent, but because of his classiness … [On] his way up, he never engaged in the Williamsian taunting of the game’s reigning players, and his talk about his chances for winning whatever tournament he was in never seemed like an attempt at chest-beating intimidation — not when he would time and time again back up what he said by winning as he predicted.

It is my belief that had it not been for Tiger Woods, Obama wouldn’t have become President. I am incapable of proving it, but I am sure that if you hooked up Obama’s mentors and imagemakers to a sodium pentathol drip, they would admit their “high concept” of his candidacy took into consideration the admiration and respect the articulate, tall, half-black, and nearly unflappable Woods has generated for himself across not only America, but the entire planet.

Here’s the problem: Barack Obama isn’t Tiger Woods. Woods’ raw talent garnered multi-million dollar endorsements which he parlayed into a billion dollar empire (and a $30 million dollar charitable foundation) by first meeting and then far exceeding all reasonable expectations.

Obama is more like his putative fellow Honolulu native Michelle Wie.

Since she was ten years old, Wie was heavily promoted as The Female Tiger, bound to shatter gender barriers the way Woods did racial ones. In 2005 — having not won a tournament in two-and-a-quarter years — the statuesque Wie, after turning pro at the tender age of 15 on the strength of her otherworldly 300-yard-long tee shots, was handed an approximate 22 million in endorsement cash. Instantly, she was one of the world’s richest teenagers. But as golf fans know, the game isn’t just about hitting the ball far away, it’s about hitting it into a four-and-a-quarter inch diameter hole far away, which is harder. Compounding her obstacles were her ambitious parents, who allowed her to pursue her folly of entering men's tournaments rather than going against other women. She not only never credibly competed for a title in her attempts to beat men, she made a cut only once, finishing at or near the bottom several times. Wie did enter some major LPGA events, but only contended for a win one time. Accomplished female pros were either silent or supportive at first, but as Wie continued to blow off women’s tournaments only to bring up the rear battling the men, they grew weary of the way she sucked all the air out of the small room reserved for them. Neither did they appreciate her treatment of the women’s tour as being almost irrelevant. All of this, mind you, while getting paid more than any female individual athlete in history who hadn’t won a darn thing.

Now, the irrelevant one is Michelle Wie. While the sports world’s cameras were focused on the supposed future of women’s golf shanking, bogeying, and losing against men, other young ladies were actually, y’know, winning on the LPGA tour. Paula Creamer won a tourney the age of 18 years, 11 days, and Morgan Pressel took a major LPGA event at 18/313. This year, finally concentrating solely on the women’s tour, the improving yet winless Wie will turn 20 in October, too old to be worthy of the years of hype and dozens of millions of dollars. That’s money and attention she’s never going to see again unless she rallies and becomes the greatest golfer in history. But thusfar, she hasn’t proved she’s capable of overcoming her mistakes.

That’s where Obama is now. He’s been treated as if he’s the Tiger Woods of Presidents. But he’s sliced himself into a trillion dollar sand trap, and will be have to be extremely lucky to save par.

Who wants to take that bet?

DAVID LECHER-MAN GOES TOO FAR: Slandering the Palins, Protecting Obama, and "Humor" as a Partisan Weapon

After two decades and two networks, I stopped watching David Letterman on television on a regular basis when it became apparent to me that his Bush-bashing jokes were more than just him doing his job as the guy who makes fun of the powerful — he hated GWB with a passion, and there was nothing good-natured about the jibes during the final four years. It wasn’t that I was a huge Bush fan, because there was a lot I didn’t admire about him, and his woeful speaking skills made him ripe for lampooning. But Bush was still the President, and Letterman went out of his way to show him disrespect.

The final straw for me was the October 14, 2005 edition of Late Show with David Letterman, when announcer Alan Kalter referred to the President of the United States as a “bitch” in a pre-recorded joke. From a transcript on the Late Show website at CBS.com:

LATE SHOW WEEK IN REVIEW
Amidst everything that has gone wrong for President Bush recently, he has had some success regarding North Korea. People are optimistic about this week's negotiations. We take a look.


Announcer:

"The U.S. and North Korea have begun direct talks on nuclear weapons. The U.S. is encouraged Kim Jong Il has halted his nuclear program. In exchange, President Bush has agreed to this." (we see photo of Bush in Kim Jong Il wig and glasses) "You gotta wear this for 6 months, bitch!" Kim Jong Il - Still crazy as a loon!"

I invite you to consider the circumstances under which David Letterman would allow Barack Obama to be referred to as "bitch" even in a joking manner.



A perfect illustration of Letterman’s severe case of BDS is what happened at the 2006 Emmy Awards broadcast. As is now a custom, the nominees for Writing for a Music, Variety, or Comedy Program are not read by the presenters; they are read by announcers over a comedic snippet created by the nominated programs. Nominated along with Late Show with David Letterman were The Colbert Report, Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and Real Time with Bill Maher. Colbert, Stewart, and especially Conan all turned in funny stuff. Maher’s bit, which used as its theme Sen. Larry Craig’s bathroom trolling, was disgusting, but at least it was original. Letterman’s crew simply sent a video collection of GWB pratfalls and funny faces, titled it “Please enjoy our favorite George W. Bush moments,” and backed it with a soundtrack of stock circus music.







The Obama Obsession didn’t just effect the news media, but the entertainment media as well, and in the late-night comedy shows, the two converge on a daily basis. In case you’ve forgotten, the New York Times noticed as early as July 15, 2008 that “The One” was getting a free pass (bold mine):

“The thing is, he’s not buffoonish in any way,” said Mike Barry, who started writing political jokes for Johnny Carson’s monologues in the waning days of the Johnson administration and has lambasted every presidential candidate since, most recently for Mr. Letterman. “He’s not a comical figure,” Mr. Barry said.

(snip)

Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and others have delivered a nightly stream of jokes about the Republican running for president — each one a variant on the same theme: John McCain is old.

But there has been little humor about Mr. Obama: about his age, his speaking ability, his intelligence, his family, his physique. And within a late-night landscape dominated by white hosts, white writers, and overwhelmingly white audiences, there has been almost none about his race.

“We’re doing jokes about people in his orbit, not really about him,” said Mike Sweeney, the head writer for Mr. O’Brien on “Late Night.” The jokes will come, representatives of the late-night shows said, when Mr. Obama does or says something that defines him — in comedy terms.

(snip)

There is no doubt, several representatives of the late-night shows said, that so far their audiences (and at least some of the shows’ writers) seem to be favorably disposed toward Mr. Obama, to a degree that perhaps leaves them more resistant to jokes about him than those about most previous candidates.

“A lot of people are excited about his candidacy,” Mr. Sweeney said. “It’s almost like: ‘Hey, don’t go after this guy. He’s a fresh face; cut him some slack.’ ”

Justin Stangel, who is a head writer for “Late Show With David Letterman,” disputed that, saying, “We always have to make jokes about everybody. We’re not trying to lay off the new guy.”


But Mr. Barry said, “I think some of us were maybe too quick to caricature Al Gore and John Kerry and there’s maybe some reluctance to do the same thing to him.”

(snip)

[Stephen] Colbert said he had been freer to poke fun at Mr. Obama than other late-night hosts because “my character on the show doesn’t like him. I’m expected to be hostile to him.”

(snip)

Mr. Burnett of the Letterman show said, “We can’t manufacture a perception. If the perception isn’t true, no one will laugh at it.”

Obama’s rise to the Presidency is commonly compared to that of John F. Kennedy, whose fans were also over-the-top at times. But back then, that didn’t stop the comedy. Kennedy satirist Vaughn Meader sold an astonishing seven and a half million copies of his LP The First Family, released in 1962.







Nixon was needled by (among many) David Frye and Rich Little. Then, Ford by Chevy Chase. Carter by Dan Aykroyd. Reagan by John Roarke (of Fridays — that’s when SNL totally sucked). H.W. Bush by Dana Carvey. Clinton by the late great Phil Hartman, and later by Darrell Hammond. W. Bush by Will Ferrell.

Fred Armisen’s Obama?





That’s not needling, that’s a deep tissue massage.


ABC's Jimmy Kimmel, also quoted in the article as reluctant to take on Obama due to racial sensitivity concerns, at least acknowledged the issue directly on his show. Here's Kimmel going to a barber shop in South Central Los Angeles to survey the African-American staff about what's acceptable when joking about Obama:






On the other hand, Letterman's response to those who have noticed his aversion to joking about Obama was to reach back and bash Bush yet again. From the May 8, 2009 edition of Late Show:






Take special note of what Letterman’s writer Mike Barry was quoted as saying: “I think some of us were maybe too quick to caricature Al Gore and John Kerry and there’s maybe some reluctance to do the same thing to [Barack Obama].”

Think about that for a moment.

Barry openly admits he has regrets about helping Letterman sock it to Gore and Kerry. He seems to be implying caricaturing both of those Democrats played a role in Bush being elected to two terms, and that was a mistake he wasn’t going to allow this go-around. To that end, having already cast John McCain as The Cranky Old Guy, Dave and his writers had no such qualms about caricaturing Governor Palin, as is evidenced by Dave's regularly rattling off a list of gravitas-free women to compare her with in back in September 2008:

I kind of like that Sarah Palin. You know, she reminds me, she looks like the flight attendant who won't give you a second can of Pepsi. No, you've had enough. We're landing. Looks like the waitress at the coffee shop who draws a little smiley face on your check. Have a nice day.

[...]


I like that Sarah Palin. She looks like the lady in the dental office who gives you the keys to the restroom.

Sarah Palin looks like the weekend anchor on Channel 9. She looks like the hygienist who makes you feel guilty about not flossing. She looks like the relieved mom in a Tide commercial.

She looks like the lady at the bakery who yells out, “44! 44! 45!”

Sarah Palin looks like a real estate agent whose picture you see on the bus stop bench.

Sarah Palin looks like the lady who has a chain of cupcake stores.

Sarah Palin looks like the mayor of a small town that’s banned dancing.

This eventually culminated in Letterman’s June 8, 2009 Top Ten list in which he amended his previous flight attendant remark to say she has a “slutty flight attendant look.” That on top of the implications that (taking him at his word) Palin's 18-year-old daughter is either a tramp or a whore.







Eight months have passed since McCain & Palin were defeated by Late Show’s new idol, and Letterman still can’t let Palin go for a second.


Perhaps Letterman, Barry, Burnett, Stanger, and their gag-writing brethren are taking seriously what proudly ill-informed ABC sports reporter Suzy Shuster (I never heard of her either, before this) wrote on the Huffington Post on September 23, 2008 (bold mine):

[...] From the Friday before the skit on SNL aired to the following Tuesday, Palin’s approval rating dropped ten points. Coincidence? I think not. After all, people in this country are tending to be more influenced by who or what they see on entertainment television, more so than on broadcast news or in print. Americans tune into Jon Stewart for their political appetites more than ever ( and why not). So when you, Ms. Fey, don your Palin wig, you influence millions of voters more than Charles (”Charlie”) Gibson or Brian Williams, Paul Begala or that anorexic blond McCain spokeswoman ever could.

And I think its your responsibility to do so, or else we face the consequence of a woman in the White House who would strive to take away your daughter Alice’s right to choose along with every other woman’s in this country.


Most of us who read the Post are already scared out of our wits of what this woman could “accomplish,” should she reach the Vice Presidency or beyond. Abortion outlawed even in the case of incest or rape. Global warming research dismissed. Polar bears left unprotected, not to mention moose murder celebrated. But you, Ms. Fey, have the ability, with just a wink and a smirk, to change the minds of millions of casual viewers and even more casual voters, to educate them. [...M]any swing-state voters get their information and cue from you, Ms. Fey, and you need to provide as much of it as one woman possibly can, before the election is upon us and it is too late.

Comedy can cure and comedy can enlighten, but it must be a constant to reach enough ears to change the hearts and minds of this country, Ms. Fey, and not a minute more can afford to be wasted. So smear on your lipstick, get that slightly crazy look on your face, sharpen your No. 2 shotgun and get to work…

I once had a civics teacher who had escaped the Soviet Union. I never forgot his stories of how risky it was to joke about Stalin, Khrushchev, or Brezhnev. What above-ground humor there was that wasn’t folksy and benign had to be aimed at the correct targets; in other words, it was used as a political weapon by supporters of the government. Here, in the United States of America, “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” I never had a thought that such cowardly thinking could possibly take hold. But, it seems like we’re heading in Moscow’s direction — humor-wise, and otherwise.

PLAYBOY.COM'S "Hate F[illed]" Post: Hold It To Their Noses, Make 'em Smell It

The following is my reaction to this comment from the HotAir.com thread titled, "Did AOL fire Tommy Christopher for criticizing Playboy?"

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Look, I know in America the new favorite past time is being outraged, but this was just a dumb stunt.

The article should be IGNORED and it will go away. I subscribe to playboy and I doubt I would have seen the article if it was not posted here.

The article was in poor taste. It was removed. The more you talk about it here, the more the AOL guy talks about it, the more it is out there. If YOU and CONSERVATIVES stop talking about it, it will go away.

Why are you giving Playboy so much credibility? Is their influence so great that every word they write is a literary movement? You ask why MSNBC talks about Rush all the time. This is a dumb non-story that will go away as soon as we are finished with our favorite past time of being outraged - which should be common in a free country.

ThackerAgency on June 5, 2009 at 9:30 AM

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Hey, Thacker, maybe you've been too busy with your one-handed "reading" to notice, but the leftist practice of demeaning conservative women through fantasies of forced sex is by no means a new phenomenon. It has been "out there" for at least a decade on the Internet, and probably before then. However, until that Playboy.com piece, it had been limited to the world of individual orifices who sent hate mail/email or posted in newsgroups and free-for-all leftist blogs (Hello, Matt Taibbi). The lovely Michelle Malkin had been the subject of "hate f*ck" screeds (commonly referring to her Asian and/or Filipina heritage) long before they had that name. That was even before she had her own site and her detractors had only a tiny .jpg atop her syndicated columns to (ahem) work with.

Even Hustler's self-aware sleazebag founder Larry Flynt, in all his years of sliming Christians, Republicans, and decent people in general in deliberately shocking fashion, hadn't published anything (to my knowledge) targeting political opponents for rape fantasies. I presume that Flynt's porn movie parody of Sarah Palin doesn't involve her being raped, because that would have (I think) have gotten out. But it was the relatively prudish Playboy that actually dug deep, plumbed the depths of the liberal soul, and gave a mainstream imprateur to the idea that speaking of fantasies of sexually sullying women you "hate" is acceptable political discourse.

Anne Schroeder Mullins, a Politico.com blogger, all but endorsed the idea by excising the misogyny from the Playboy piece with a scalpel and pretended it was about "Hat[ing] to Love" beautiful conservative chicks. That is not shocking to me, because liberal women have commonly tolerated sexism practiced by men who are sympatico with their most valued ideal: the right to abortion on demand. Uber-feminist Gloria Steinem, among the loudest voices targeting then-SCOTUS nominee Clarence Thomas for destruction (ostensibly) due to contradictory sexual harassment allegations, authored a editorial published in the New York Times on March 22, 1998 titled "Feminists and the Clinton Question" defending pro-choice then-POTUS Bill Clinton against more credible allegations of harassment by implying that every boss is -- and always has been -- entitled to one free shot at hired hotties:

[...]The truth is that even if the allegations are true, the President is not guilty of sexual harassment. He is accused of having made a gross, dumb and reckless pass at a supporter during a low point in her life. She pushed him away, she said, and it never happened again. In other words, President Clinton took "no" for an answer.

In her original story, Paula Jones essentially said the same thing. She went to then-Governor Clinton's hotel room, where she said he asked her to perform oral sex and even dropped his trousers. She refused, and even she claims that he said something like, "Well, I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to do."

Now, Thacker, you WON'T find that piece on the New York Times website -- which is supposed to contain archives going back to the 1920's -- but you will find it on an obscure educrat newsgroup, where it was posted in a "Women's Equity" section two weeks after it was first published over eleven years ago. A letter to the editor objecting to Steinem's vapid point three days hence is still online at nytimes.com.

Why can't you find it in the New York Times' archives? Because some people -- likely Steinem herself -- wants it to "go away." Why? Because it reveals her to be a fool and a hypocrite. She knows that if that editorial stayed within easy access, the next time she opened her trap about sexual harassment, it would be held in her face like she was a dog learning to be housebroken. And rightly so.  Playboy.com, Politico.com, and everyone else who is suggesting that this should just be allowed to blow over should be made to take a deep breath and inhale their handiwork, with the reminder that's what they can expect every time they cross that line. 

Saying "if CONSERVATIVES stop talking about it it will go away" is an argument that Playboy understands well, because it doesn't want to face the consequences of its contribution to the coarseness of the political debate. On the other hand, LIBERALS never stop talking about misstatements and errors conservatives make, and aren't above simply making schtuff up out of thin air and pretending it's established fact. Just in the past week, Katie Couric furthered the lie that Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her house, and Rachel Maddow -- defending Judge Sotomayor -- repeated a specious, Wikipedia-sourced, apochryphal alleged decade-old quote from Rush Limbaugh that Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassin should have been given the Congressional Medal of Freedom.

You may enjoy the double-standard of "being outraged." I don't. Conceding the internet and the airwaves to dirty liars on one side of the debate may be for you, but it's not for me. If you've got nothing to say, get outta the way.

You may now resume your "reading," Thacker. Lock your door and close your blinds.

___________________________________________________________

UPDATE: Anne Schroeder Mullins has given a half (ahem)-hearted mea culpa on her giggly post on the Playboy list and the link to the later-deleted post.  Here's what has replaced her original post of the list of "10 Conservative Women We Hate to Love":

I don't buy her story as 100% truthful, but can't disprove it.   What it does prove is how sloppy and lazy Ms. Schroeder Mullins and/or her editors are.  Yet another example is how Mullins -- either by design or in an attempt to cushion the blow of the outrage -- refers to the list of women Playboy "love to hate" when in fact, it was the women they "hate to love." 

CORRECTION regarding Miss California USA Pageant Co-Producer Shanna Moakler

CORRECTION: In a comment in response to an anonymous reader of my blog post of April 22, 2009, I erroneously wrote that Shanna Moakler, one of the "producers" of the Miss California USA pageant, is a former Miss California USA winner. She is not, and I got several aspects of her history dead wrong.

Here is a part of a short (and enthusiastic!) bio of Moakler as listed on the Miss California USA website:

She started off winning the Miss Rhode Island Teen USA and finished 7th at the Miss TEEN USA! she then went on to win titles as Miss Teen All American and Miss New York USA to eventually win the Miss USA crown in 1995!

However you feel about the pageant industry, it's no small feat to go from Miss Teen Rhode Island to win the whole shebang.

I've decided it was also unfair for me to refer to Moakler as a "b-movie actress." True, she has been in low-budget flops such as Love Stinks, Love Sucks, and Pauly Shore Is Dead, but she also has had roles in hit movies such as The Wedding Singer (the first Adam Sandler movie I thoroughly enjoyed) and Big Momma's House 2 (I'm not a Martin Lawrence guy). In addition, it's inaccurate and incomplete not to refer to her regular role on the popular syndicated cop show Pacific Blue ("high concept": Baywatch meets CHiPs, except it's on bicycles) and her many guest stints on popular TV shows like Friends and Entourage, her work as an Entertainment Tonight reporter, and her reality TV exposure, being the one of the protagonists of the MTV series Meet the Barkers with her former husband, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker.  





Here's what's NOT listed on her bio on the Miss CA USA page: She was Playboy's Playmate of the Month for December 2001. Needless to say, it's quite a contradiction to have as a producer someone who has done what is supposedly verboten for the young adult women entrants to do in light of the new details about Carrie Prejean's pre-pageant modeling career.

Be that as it may, on her official MySpace page, Moakler angrily claims that she is NOT the person who leaked word that the Miss California USA organization was the benefactor of Prejean's breast implants. Her fellow Miss USA judge Alicia Jacobs made a cryptic reference to Prejean being helped by openly gay co-producer Keith Lewis in her own blog thusly:

"Her very own state pageant director, KEITH LEWIS is an openly gay man who has been a very generous benefactor of hers...in many ways. (2 ways in particular....if you get my drift??)"

Jacobs first removed those sentences from the post, and later deleted the entire thing, citing alleged death threats. My repost of the original version of Jacobs' blog is here, and my skepticism regarding her reasons for deleting the blog in its entirety is here. For her part, Moakler wrote in her MySpace blog that when she was asked about any enhancement surgery for Prejean in an interview, she chose not to deny the truth, but added that...

"I personally believe Ms. Prejean's Breasts are her own business, It was a option that she vied for and it was HER choice, regulations about plastic surgery in pageants have not been slated as yet, but I believe what ever choices a woman makes personally to feel better about herself are those of her own, for me Confidence is real beauty and if breast augmentation helps with that. then so be it."

"I will NOT talk about this again. I also don't believe that this has ANYTHING to do with the issues that have been discussed and hope it ends from here on out."

Keith Lewis has gone on record as being disappointed in Prejean's response to Mario "Perez Hilton" Lavandeira's loaded question regarding gay marriage, but expressed his support for her as the reigning Miss California USA. Moakler has expressed her support of Prejean as well. This raises the question, who is the source of the implant details, and who provided the media with a .pdf file of her signed application stating she had not allowed herself to be photographed semi-nude? Only someone who is an insider in the Miss Universe organizations (either Miss California USA, Miss USA, or Miss Universe) could possibly have access to the document. Somebody is stabbing her in the back and not leaving bloody fingerprints behind.

With the additional information I have found, I believe there is insufficient evidence to presume Ms. Moakler was among those responsible for the leaks. I regret the factual errors in my hasty reaction, and the unfair characterization of her performing career.

I don't blog as often as I would like to because I try to supply my readers (as relatively few as they may be) with all the facts that form my opinions. That takes time I rarely have. I fell short of that goal this last time because I wanted to get my thoughts out too quickly. I thought better of a truly acid-tongued blog response to the leaking of the Prejean "sideboob" photo in response to spammers who posted dozens of links to it on MY place on the internet (which I have deleted). I decided to try to take the higher road, and stay out of the sewers where Perez Hilton does his work. You know what they say about getting into a pissing contest with a skunk.

This will not be my last word on this controversy, because it is not as trivial as it seems.

THE VIEW VIDEO: Barbara Walters Attacks Sarah Palin To Deflect Attention From Obama's "Special Olympics" Gaffe

I should have had this here on my blog over a month ago, but I had not yet converted the layout from the old Blogger template to the new(er) edition. I've already had stuff vanish off my Blogger setup (my old counter is gone as is my "Payola Free" button in response to Armstrong Williams) and was reluctant to mess with it any further.  Turns out I had nothing to fear once I bit the bullet, and now I got new features like my updated Tweets.

 

The Blogger upgrade also made it easier to upload and embed video.  Here's my second YouTube video.

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On the March 23, 2009 edition of ABC's The View, Barbara Walters (filling in for the sick Whoopi Goldberg) introduced the topic of President Obama's omnipresence on TV lately.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck said she watched Obama being interviewed on 60 Minutes the previous evening and that it was "good," but she said he shouldn't have compared his poor bowling skills to those of Special Olympians on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

 

In response, apropos of nothing, Barbara Walters glanced down at her notes and dutifully criticized Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a mother of an 11-month-old Down's Syndrome baby, for her statement criticizing Obama. To draw moral equivalency with a mother of a Down's child, Walters spoke of the discrimination her late "developmentally disabled" sister had to endure, claiming to have sufficient sensitivity to say that Governor Palin should be faulted for not letting the gaffe go upon his apology.

Hasselbeck responded that regardless of the apology, the statement itself was offensive enough to be hurtful. To illustrate her point, she spilled her cup of water on the table at which the cast sits, and the water quickly streamed across to Walters and Joy Behar. She apologized for spilling the water on the other panelists (it appears she didn't intend to get them wet), but her point was made well to anyone who was listening: If she had unintentionally spilled the water, the water was still spilled. Even if she apologized immediately afterward, THE WATER WAS STILL SPILLED.

If the other ladies "got it," it wasn't immediately evident. In response, all three shouted that Obama had apologized. Sherri Shepherd asked, "Where's the forgiveness?" Behar quoted the Lord's Prayer's reference to forgiveness of others. Hasselbeck said, "I forgive him, I'm just saying, why are we on Sarah Palin for responding to his comment?"

Illustrating her total cluelessness to the logic of Hasselbeck's three-dimensional analogy, Barbara Walters, who got wet from the water dripping over the edge of the table, said "I forgive Sarah Palin," but then (half-jokingly) said to Elisabeth as she announced a commercial break to clean up, "I am not sure I forgive YOU because I'm getting soaking wet!"

Really, Barbara? So Elisabeth did some damage and immediately apologized to you, but you didn't immediately forgive her. 

Now you know how Sarah Palin felt.

P.S. - As Joy Behar came to Obama's defense, she made reference to Republican pundit Tony Blankley's summation that taking into account Obama's known record, the gaffe was not indicative of any untoward feelings he has about "the retarded, or however you want to call them now" (Behar's words, not Blankley's). In doing so, she said that Obama had not "cut funding for Special Olympics." I cannot read Joy's mind (and wouldn't want to if I could), but just in case she was making a wink-and-nod reference to false stories spread by Keith Olbermann, ThinkProgress.com and other leftist outlets that Governor Palin had cut funding for Special Olympics in Alaska, I inserted a link to evidence disproving that charge.

UGLY, PETTY My Reaction To Remarks by Miss USA Pageant Judge Alicia Jacobs

BACKGROUND: On Tuesday, April 21, 2009, four days after the Miss USA pageant debacle, Alicia Jacobs, one of the lesser-known personalities on the judges' panel spoke up. Jacobs, an entertainment reporter for KVBC-TV in Las Vegas, wrote smack about Carrie Prejean, Miss California USA, and attempted to rebut the charge by judge Mario "Perez Hilton" Lavendeira that it was the political-incorrectness of Prejean's response to his loaded gay marriage question that cost her the title.

I discovered it through a link from a Los Angeles Times blog, but apparently Jacobs thought better of her remarks, and took the post down Thursday at around noontime. That post has been saved via Google cache and reposted in my blog, below.

This morning, she added a new post to her blog, which is a brief video interview of her conducted by The Advocate, America's most popular gay-themed news magazine.

The following is my reaction, which at this moment is still online at Alicia Jacobs' blog.

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You told The Advocate that you took down your blog post "Pretty is as Pretty Does!" because "[T]o be perfectly candid, there were some threats..." Really? I have on my computer the cache of your blog shortly after you deleted it Thursday afternoon (April 23), and there was not a single "threat," much less "some threats." Even if there were threats, what does that have to do with what YOU wrote? You could have always removed any violent or cruel comments (and alerted authorities) without stifling your own voice.

So what's the REAL reason you took it down, Alicia? Only you know the true answer to that, but judging from the comments responding to your post, the only real "threat" was to your credibility as a fair, impartial judge or as a "journalist," as you call yourself. Responders were calling you out on your remark about Prejean's supposed breast enhancements being paid for by Keith Lewis (which you cut out of your post, but not before they were linked and quoted by Richard Abowitz of the Los Angeles Times) and your contradictory remarks about freedom of speech and the right to one's own opinion.

You also promised that your later discussion with Keith Lewis and Shanna Moakler would reveal in detail the actual scoring in the late rounds in order to prove that Prejean did NOT lose because of the gay marriage question. Whoops! Neither your Wednesday night report on KVBC nor your Advocate quick video hit even addressed the scores. And you are in good company lying like a rug about "very loud booing" after her answer -- I dare ANYONE reading this to produce a video in which any booing after her answer was not drowned out in the cheers as she stated her belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

It is my opinion that there is NO answer that would have satisfied Perez Hilton, you, or anyone else who is beating the drums for same-sex marriage. If there was, you (as a former "pageant girl" yourself) would have provided an example of what answer she could have possibly given that would have displayed "social grace" (whatever that means), "diplomacy," "compassion" and "heart" while at the same time saying "No." If I am wrong, and such an answer exists, I suspect you wouldn't dare state it publicly. If you did, that would suggest there is an acceptable answer other than "I think gay marriage should be legal in all 50 states." But that's not what you want. People like you just give lip service to valuing opposite opinions on this dilemma.

Worst of all, Ms. Jacobs, is the fact that you fault Carrie Prejean for not considering the feelings of her audience and the judges, and repeat that she has no "social grace," yet you have NOT A SINGLE WORD OF CRITICISM FOR PEREZ HILTON. Minutes after the ceremony, he took to the internet and called her a "dumb bitch," later amending that on national television to "the c-word," which is to say "cunt." He also promised that if she had actually won, he would have yanked the crown off of her. How is it that Prejean is being judged for her lack of "social grace" or "diplomacy" by someone whose entire reputation is built on having absolutely NONE?

You twittered that Hilton introduced himself to the other judges by saying "According to Criss Angel, I am the world's biggest douchebag." (You seemed to think he was being funny -- perhaps he was just being candid.) You wrote about Prejean's "lack of good judgement (sic)." As compared to the good judgment of Donald Trump, Phil Gurin, and Paula Shugart in letting a foul-mouthed, self-promoting loose cannon be a judge and make the entire pageant about HIM? Now you're making an effort to promote Miss North Carolina's victory (what's her name again?), but if what you say is true, and Prejean's answer didn't cost Prejean the title (despite your own declaration that "if I could have made her 51st runner-up, I would have"), Hilton is wrong in saying that he's the reason Miss North Carolina won. Yet, all the criticism from your ilk goes to Prejean, NOT Hilton.

All of you involved in this debacle -- the other judges, the producers, the entertainment media, even the mighty Donald Trump -- are running scared of upsetting Perez Hilton. WHY? Has he got dirt on ALL of you?

Like I said, only you know the REAL reason why you took "Pretty is as pretty does!" off your blog. But if I accidently spoke from my heart and revealed myself to be one of the bitchy, catty, petty, vengeful people behind an American institution that is struggling to maintain its relatively clean reputation, I would have deleted that post too.

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BEAUTY QUEEN CATFIGHT! The Blog Post a Miss USA Pageant Judge DOESN'T Want You To Read!

BACKGROUND: Below is the cached version of a rambling blog post written last Tuesday by Las Vegas entertainment beat TV reporter Alicia Jacobs. Jacobs, a former Miss Nevada USA and Miss United States (whatever that is), was one of the lesser-known judges of the Miss USA pageant broadcast live April 18, 2009 in which a fellow judge -- obnoxious flamboyantly gay gossipmonger Mario "Perez Hilton" Lavandeira -- asked a loaded question about gay marriage to conservative Christian contestant Carrie Prejean, Miss California USA.

As you probably are aware, Perez Hilton took credit for Miss Prejean only finishing as first runner-up to winner Miss North Carolina, stating that Prejean was a "dumb bitch." He later upped the profane ante.

Here's Alicia Jacobs' initial take, which she later unsuccessfully tried to flush down the memory hole (thanks, Google!). 

NOTE: I have re-inserted Jacobs' allegation that Keith Lewis was "benefactor" of breast implants for Prejean at the point where L. A. Times blogger Richard Abowitz quoted its location. 

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TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2009

Pretty is as Pretty Does!

I had planned that this blog entry would have been my first hand account of judging the 2009 MISS USA PAGEANT. I will write that story, but not today. Today, I want to briefly discuss what is now known as "THE MISS CALIFORNIA USA DEBACLE!"

Since Sunday night's pageant, I have been inundated with people wanting to know how Miss California's answer to Perez Hilton's question affected my final judging. I can tell you that it GREATLY affected me & the final score I gave Carrie Prejean. I can reveal that throughout the live telecast, I LIKED Miss California, but I certainly was not overly impressed by her. Throughout the competition, I gave her very good scores. (truth be known, I was probably most impressed by MISS TENNESSEE, but unfortunatly,she did not make it past the top 10...oh well, to each his own.)

For the final round of scoring (which is, of course, the most important) the judges are asked to assign a ranking to each young woman. As each finalist is brought to the foot of the stage, we judges then punch a number into our scoring computers. We assign a ranking of 1 thru 5. Assigning the #1, means she is our choice for MISS USA, #2, first runner-up.... and #5, means she is my choice for fourth runner-up. In our 7:30 am judges briefing, it was made VERY clear that the "final ranking" should be decided by everything we had seen throughout the entire pageant. Ironically, I asked how heavily we should weigh the girl's performance on the "final question." Miss Universe president, Paula Shugart said, that yes, it's important to articulate & answer intelligently, (remember MISS SOUTH CAROLINA TEEN USA a few years ago, "such as, U.S. Americans, such as, such as...well, Paula told us she had been winning the pageant until that fateful moment) Paula & Executive producer, Phil Gurin added that yes, the response to the question is important, but make the final ranking your overall impression of the young woman. Made sense to me.


Interestingly, of the 5 judges who asked questions, Perez was the only one who had written his own question...& when I asked him what his question was, he would not reveal it, telling me he wanted to keep it secret, but that it had been approved by Paula Shugart & the producers. So of course, when Miss California selected Perez, I couldn't wait to hear the question. HOOOOOOLLY COOOOOW!

Most of us former "pageant girls" can't help but play along, so my first thought upon hearing the "gay marriage question" was ,"what a great question!"...& in my head, I answered it, & of course, I was instantly crowned Miss USA 2009!

Ok, back to reality, to be fair, the beginning of Prejean's answer was ok...but, she made the mistake of not knowing when to shut her mouth. As she continued to speak, I saw the crown move further & further away from her. When she finished, she looked strangely proud for a moment. Personally, I was STUNNED on several levels. First, how could this young woman NOT know her audience and judges? Let's not forget that the person asking the question is an openly gay man, at least 2 people on the judges panel are openly gay. Another judge has a sister in a gay marriage. Her very own state pageant director, KEITH LEWIS is an openly gay man who has been a very generous benefactor of hers...in many ways. (2 ways in particular....if you get my drift??) Did I mention I was STUNNED? I was also personally insulted & hurt. Prejean's words hit very close to home for me. Some of the most important people in my life, happen to be gay. A few months ago, on November 1, 2008, I was maid of honor at the wedding of my very dear friends, Robert Aganza & Jorge' Rodriguez. I flashed back to that beautiful wedding ceremony, where everyone in the room was crying tears of joy & love. How can she be saying this, is all I could think in that moment. Remembering that we were on live television, I actually recall having to close my wide-opened mouth, I then looked over to Perez, who was seated right next to me, he was just shaking his head, he actually seemed a bit hurt? Then came the very loud booing in the theatre, followed by "a word from our sponsors."

During the commercial break, fellow judges, Perez, Shandi Finessey (Miss USA 2004) & I spoke, we were all shocked by what we had just heard. (I tweeted as much too ) we came back from the commercial, & now, it was the moment of truth. This was the moment where we had to assign that all-important final ranking...1 thru 5. Yes, I struggled, prior to her final question, Miss California was not my pick for Miss USA, but I would have chosen her as 1st runner-up. My final ranking for Miss California was 4th runner-up...& if I could have made her 51st runner-up, I would have.

Please understand, that as a journalist, I am passionate about freedom of speech, however, I am also passionate about the importance of compassion & humanity, & that we should ALL have the right to love & share our lives with WHOMEVER we chose. If Carrie Prejean is against gay marriage, she certainly has that right, but, if it was her intention to be MISS USA (and I think it was) why not answer that question with diplomacy & heart? Sometimes, (pageants & politics, to name a few) we have to be mindful of using a platform in a hurtful way, like international television (The Miss USA PAGEANT was seen by over 7 million viewers in the U.S. alone, & in at least 121 different countries) Yes, Miss USA should be beautiful, be physically fit, & look great in a swimsuit, she also has to be able to think on her feet & answer any question thrown at her in an articulate & non-offensive manner. Outwardly, Miss California was wonderfully prepared, & in many ways, she looked the part of Miss USA. It has occurred to me that the all-knowing power of the Universe took over the final 15 minutes of the Miss USA telecast. What were the odds that Perez Hilton, an openly gay man, who insisted on writing his own question, would have his name randomly selected by Miss California? Thank goodness, or thank the universe for this occurrence...how horrible if Miss California USA's lack of good judgement had not been disclosed until it was too late? Maybe it's true, & maybe everything really does happen for a reason. It is my opinion that MISS USA must have social grace...Miss California USA does not.

Tune in to my STAGE 3 segment tomorrow at 4:00 & 11:00 for more exclusive, first- hand scoop...including my interview with Keith Lewis, Executive Director of THE MISS CALIFORNIA USA PAGEANT, & I'll tell you about my dinner with Keith & his business partner, former Miss USA, actress, SHANNA MOAKLER. I'll also tell you exactly where Miss California & Miss North Carolina stood in the scoring BEFORE Perez' question...VERY VERY JUICY!!!!!

Posted by Alicia at 2:11 PM

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Miss California, Carrie Prejean: The REAL Winner

This is my reaction to Richard Abowitz, who writes the The Movable Buffet blog at the Los Angeles Times website. In his post named "Another Miss USA judge says Miss California gave wrong answer," he forwards the thoughts -- such as they are -- of Alicia Jacobs, a former Miss Nevada. As you probably know by now, Miss California Carrie Prejean was asked a volatile political question on same-sex marriage by another judge, the petulant, obnoxious homosexual blogger Mario Lavandeira, the gossipmongering orifice that calls himself "Perez Hilton." Mr. Abowitz ended his post by writing the following:

As for Carrie Prejean, she will be as remembered as well as former Miss Oklahoma Anita Bryant.

Oh, wait, Anita Bryant is still alive. Well, I admit I had to look that up, and my guess is that most of you would too!

Setting aside that Abowitz never suggested that Bryant was dead, my response (which I am surprised to report has been published in full) - is as follows (links added):

________________________________________________________

Interesting, Mr. Abowitz, that you should mention Anita Bryant. While the media rushed to the defense of the Dixie Chicks after their anti-Bush free speech invoked a backlash against them, nobody in the MSM similarly suggested that Bryant shouldn't have suffered the consequences of her controversial remarks about homosexuality.

For the too-young and/or under-informed (which is likely if you're a Times reader): Unlike the way the DixChix fought the tide of popular approval of the looming Iraq War, Bryant's opposition to gay rights reflected the way the overwhelming majority of Americans felt in the late seventies. Still, Bryant lost her commercial endorsements, her singing career was ruined, and she went bankrupt. OTOH, while the Dixie Chicks' music was lifted from radio station playlists throughout the nation and their CD sales dropped like an anvil, they got tons of sympathy and media assistance that Bryant didn't: 60 Minutes featured them, Time, Rolling Stone, and Entertainment Weekly magazines put them on their covers (EW had them pose nude), and Good Morning America had them perform live twice in a week before their Taking The Long Way CD was released. The DixChix were the bestselling female group in American history, having sold over 30 million CDs and as many as 12 million copies of one album before Natalie Maines opened her mouth. When they had to cancel their 2003 [actually 2006-07 - LNS] tour due to plummeting ticket sales, they insulted their audience ("rednecks") and the country music community rejected them in kind. Taking The Long Way didn't win any awards based on public voting, but it swept the industry-insider Grammy Awards in the biggest sympathy (ahem) ...display since a sickly Elizabeth Taylor won an Academy Award for Butterfield 8. Even with that boost, Long Way has yet to sell a comparatively measly three million copies. Political correctness was rewarded by the mucky-mucks, but the public turned their thumbs down on the Dixie Chicks.

It's been "uncool" among the arbiters of coolness to be against gay marriage for years, but a majority of Americans AND Californians are still against it, and it has been voted down in all 30 states in which the question has been put to the electorate. And deep down, you know that with every sparkling, unapologetic smile in interviews, Prejean knows she's America's REAL winner; we know HER name now, unlike Miss North Carolina, who is probably eating her heart out at the attention (and wary of saying something that might lose her the title). Beautiful, respectful, and honest, Carrie Prejean represents the USA more than the vile, profane, sleazy, narcissistic thug Perez Hilton ever will. And your rejection of Prejean in favor of that weasel has further diminished the already-damaged image of the beauty pageant.

As the kids say, Ms. Jacobs, you just played yourself.

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It's clear that people who criticize Prejean are grasping at straws trying to diminish her answer instead of giving Lavendeira the rhetorical slapdown he deserves for his self-serving publicity stunt. Here's Abowitz answering one of the commenters on his post (bold mine):

A beauty contestant is supposed to be innocuous and get rewarded for it. That is what pageants are all about, which is why they are stupid. And, there is no reason to admire this woman for messing up her contest with her stumbling answer that was alienating to anyone who did not agree with her. She played along with the silly contest until the final round and then decided to become famous.

Hilton's question was asked in a pageant context not a political call in show. Yrs, Richard

Whoa - now this is a publicity stunt on Prejean's part? Yeah, that's the ticket, Abowitz - all of a sudden, she decided that she would rather be vilified by the show business establishment than achieve the title she worked years trying to win.

I guess that's the sort of disingenuous nonsense for which she would have been rewarded. But hey, Richard, it's not too late for you! What size tiara do you wear?

WHAT YOU SQUAWKIN' 'BOUT, WILLIS? - A Mendacious Media Matters Man Splatters Glenn Beck With Faux Outrage

The following is a response to a blog post by Oliver Willis, a blogger who also works for David Brock's leftist "media watchdog" group, Media Matters for America.  Willis has been front and center among liberal bloggers who have been blaming the mainstream right (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, etc.) for supposedly creating an atmosphere of "hate" that led to the killing sprees of two gunmen well-known to be unbalanced.

In Willis' latest blog post about Pittsburgh triple-cop killer Richard Poplawski, a white supremacist who was dishonorably discharged from the Marines during basic training (among many other unappealing traits), Willis seized upon a brief mention of Glenn Beck in an Anti-Defamation League article on the incident to imply bloodguilt on Beck's part.

This is my reply, slightly modified for readability.

The ADL article you quoted ("Richard Poplawski: Making of a Lone Wolf")  said the following:

Poplawski bought into the SHTF/TEOTWAKI conspiracy theories hook, line and sinker, even posting a link to Stormfront of a YouTube video featuring talk show host Glenn Beck talking about FEMA camps with Congressman Ron Paul.

Mr. Willis, if you were an honest person and had done your due diligence, you would have taken the reference to Richard Poplawski's Stormfront weblink to "a YouTube video featuring talk show host Glenn Beck talking about FEMA camps with Congressman Ron Paul" for what it is: Insignificant. It is especially insignificant considering the fact that the ADL piece is misleading. Beck and Paul discuss "FEMA camps" in those clips from his Fox News Channel program, but neither buy the dystopic horror stories that Poplawski apparently did long before Beck began addressing the topic.

Here are the facts: Rather than promoting conspiracy theories, Glenn Beck was trying to quell them, but he said that he didn't have enough information to do so. On March 3, 2009 on the early-morning Fox & Friends show, Beck said he was trying to debunk constant rumors about the camps, but that neither he nor his staff could gather enough solid evidence sufficient for the task. He outlined on F&F how his researchers found that the FEMA facilities indeed exist, and that they are empty at present. He said he would discuss his research on his own Fox show later that same day.

A few hours later, on the March 3 edition of the Glenn Beck (radio) Program, he explained that he got involved in the FEMA rumors because he got calls about them the previous week, and he wanted to smack them down. He mentioned that members of his staff said "Ron Paul wants to talk to you about it." Beck says his response was, "I don't want to be 'that guy.' I don't want to believe that stuff!" But once they started investigating, it got harder to let go. "If it is true, then it is true. If it is not ... (sputtering) I'm on the side of it not being true...I really expected [it to be] a slam dunk 'yes' or 'no' [answer]. It's not! ... We are digging, and I will tell you that I will not say that it's happening, I won't say that it's NOT happening at this point, but I won't say that it is happening until I know that it's happening. I gotta have more than anything on the Internet, I have to SEE them ..."

Hours after that, Paul appeared on the March 3 edition of Beck's TV show. However, before going to the live remote to Paul in Washington, Beck told his TV audience that despite his promise on Fox & Friends hours earlier, he was postponing his "FEMA camps" story.

GLENN BECK: I got up this morning after a very long night of tossing and turning. If you watched Fox & Friends or listen to my radio show, I told you that I was going to tell you about the FEMA camps, or the FEMA prisons today. This is something that I snapped on the air, 'cause somebody called me up and said, "[I] want to talk about the FEMA prisons," and I said, "Urrrumph!" Can we just settle the "FEMA prison" thing? I don't believe in the FEMA prison ... if you don't know, I'll tell you about it in a couple of days. I was going to talk about it today, but as I came and did the show this morning, and I went into the office, and I was looking at all the research that was being compiled, and it wasn't complete. And I am not willing to bring something to you that's half-baked. If these things exist, it's bad, and we will cover it. If they don't exist, it's irresponsible to NOT debunk this story ... This program is not beholden to anybody; we answer to ourselves. I answer to ME. I lost sleep last night worrying about this story, thinking about this story, making sure I got it right. I just want to be able to look at myself in the mirror, and also to sleep at night.

He instead set up a discussion of how new charity restrictions on wealthy American donors seems to dovetail with other Obama WH efforts to force a scenario in which the Feds have complete control of healthcare and medical research. He then introduced Paul -- an M.D. and ObGyn -- in a discussion regarding creeping government takeover of all things medical. But before asking his first question, Beck thanked Paul and his office for assistance in researching the FEMA rumors. Here is the entirety of the conversation regarding FEMA:

BECK: Joining me now is Congressman Ron Paul. Hello, Congressman, how are you?

CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL: Fine, Glenn, good to be with you.

BECK: Good to be with you. First of all, on the FEMA thing: I want to make sure we're turning over every stone on anything, because there is a lot of crazy stuff that is being said about these things, and I appreciate you talking to us, and we'll be in touch with you again, because I want to make sure we have everything you might be concerned with as well. Will you help us on that, sir?"

PAUL: Yeah, I don't think all the answers are in. Your concern that they might be setting up these camps that verge on concentration camps, there's no evidence I can find they're actually set up, but I think there is a justified concern, not just because of legislation that has been proposed, because that piece of legislation doesn't have a lot of co-sponsors, it's not on the verge of being passed, but the atmosphere in Washington is what we have to be concerned about.

BECK: Yes.

PAUL: You know, since 9/11, dealing with the Patriot Act, and repealing the Posse Comitatus and the Insurrection Act, these are trends that are very, very bad, where personal liberties and civil liberties are not well-protected, and FEMA is already very, very powerful, and they overrule when they go in on emergencies, so in some ways, they can accomplish what you might be thinking about about setting up camps, and they don't necessarily have to have legislation, you know, to do...

BECK: Yeah, I know.

PAUL: ...to do the things that we dread. But it's something that certainly deserves a lot of attention.

BECK: Right, and I want to make it very clear, I am not fearing these things are happening, I want to set the record straight, because we've got to know what we believe in. Now, let me switch topics here. Let me switch to Barack Obama is now taking away some of the charitable donation tax deductions if you make more than $250,000 a year...

THAT'S IT. And there is no video or audio footage I could find on YouTube with Beck and Paul discussing FEMA more recent than March 3, 2008.

The ADL piece saying that Poplawski "bought into conspiracy theories ... hook, line, and sinker" immediately before disclosing that he posted links to Beck's FNC show create the false illusion that Beck was the purveyor of the conspiracies. But did Beck say the theories were true? No, he said plain as day his goal was to prove them false. Did Beck say the FEMA facilities were for "concentration camps"? No, Beck never even said the words. Ron Paul did say the words, but did he endorse the notion? No, he threw cold water on it by saying he saw "no evidence" of it.

On the other hand, the ADL article does outline how Poplawski was a fan of conspiracy maven Alex Jones of Infowars.com and PrisonPlanet.com, the Internet's main source of such theories. Am I suggesting Jones is to blame? NO! To my knowledge, Jones has never advocated his listeners assassinating police officers responding to a dispute over where a dog does his business!

None of this would be a surprise to you, Mr. Willis, if you weren't so dedicated to "truthiness" rather than truth. But you weren't interested in really examining the ADL's assertion. You weren't even interested in the more significant charges in the ADL piece regarding Poplawski's white supremacist views, his rabid hatred of Hispanics, Jews, Asians and Blacks, the fact he was dishonorably discharged from the Marines, his frequenting the neo-Nazi Stormfront website, that he allegedly didn't like the fact Jones' crowd didn't lay enough blame on Zionists, or the paranoia that made him advise white people he met at supermarkets to stock up on canned food. You just breezily ignored the ADL piece's bullet points, which mentioned neither Beck nor Paul. You instead took a 1,252-word article detailing a murderous bigot's multiple phobias and looked for any kernel to extract from Poplawski's bloody legacy that would allow you to place false blame on the mainstream right. You, in effect, strained the gnat and swallowed the camel. Unfortunately, the ADL's sloppy research allowed you to do that, thus your misleading headline, "Pittsburgh Killer Richard Poplawski Used Glenn Beck Videos."

Willis, I had never heard of you until I was alerted to your nonsense by other blogs. I knew what type of person you had to be to demagogue the crimes of Poplawski and the deaths of the officers. But that's just the half of it; after reviewing the ADL link, it's apparent you think your readers are idiots, and will accept what you say just because it's what they want to believe without checking for themselves. And clearly, many of your readers ARE idiots.

Had I known going in you worked for Media Matters for America -- an organization that thrives on disingenuity and deliberate displays of false context -- I would have expected that. Now I know exactly what you are. And so does everybody reading this comment.

Nice try.

PALIN > PELOSI (In Response to "jimt", Palin-hater)

Originally, this was a response to jimt, a poster on an article in ABC News' The Note blog. It's regarding Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's criticism of a Conde Nast Portfolio magazine story suggesting she has been impeding the progress of a natural gas pipeline against the wishes of the Obama Administration. My comment was rejected for submission as a comment due to its length, which got it flagged as potential spam. But I can't let a good rant go to waste. Enjoy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Writes jimt: "It is true that the left has blago and switzer, but we dont claim to be the party of holiness like the repubs."

Setting aside for the moment your inaccurate cut-and-paste Daily POS bull-oney about Valerie Plame and the Iraq War: You forgot a couple of Dems, Jim. Just a couple.

Let's see ... there's Chris "Friend of Angelo Mozilo" Dodd who is solely responsible for the AIG bonuses, as he has confirmed today [March 18] after lying about it yesterday [March 17]. But if he told the truth yesterday, it would have denied Dems a high-tech lynching of the B-HO Admin's hand-picked AIG CEO today. It also would have taken the wind out of Barry Teleprompter's attempt to 'channel the anger' of the country against private business instead of his own party.

There's Maxine "this Democrat will be about nationalizing oil companies" Waters, who had a hot flash in front of the world demanding answers of CEOs who received bailouts without disclosing she engineered a bailout for her hubby's bank. She enlisted Bawney Fwank in doing that, who is so maddog smart he didn't know his bf was running a whorehouse out of his townhouse and who was LITERALLY sleeping with one of the guys who helped put Fannie Mae on the path to self-destruction. (Now the rest of us know how it feels to get screwed by Frank too).

There's Harry Reid, who announced that the surge would fail and the Iraq War was lost to take attention off of his shady land deals, and doesn't have the integrity to admit that he was wrong. There's John Murtha, who flashes his veteran credentials often, but who called the 43rd POTUS (an Air National Guard pilot) a "chickenhawk" but didn't say the same of the 42nd, who actually was a draft dodger. Murtha convicted Iraq soldiers of "cold blooded murder" in the media before they saw the inside of a courtroom, and hasn't had the decency to apologize when they were ALL acquitted.


Then there's William "Cold Cash" Jefferson, who commandeered a Katrina rescue vehicle so he could retrieve 99K in bribe money out of his flooded house while others were waiting for fresh water and food (and cried racism when the feds found it in his freezer). High-living Ways & Means Chair Charles Rangel broke several laws and rules regarding his vacation home and his home office, and claimed that his constituents took pride in his expensive car taxpayers pay for (all of which -- unlike AIG bonuses -- he thinks isn't any of our "goddamned business").


And on a personal note, there's Nancy Pelosi. As I am a San Francisco resident she's "my" congressperson (gag). Everything you haters mistakenly think of Sarah Palin is the reality of Nancy Pelosi. The woman hadn't done diddly-squat for America for a decade until suddenly she was voted Minority Leader on the strength of her vise-grip hold on her district -- that, and her genitalia. She's an empty pantsuit with no skills other than fundraising and strong-arming, and no record of accomplishment that had nothing to do with being Democrat Party royalty by birth. Should the unthinkable occur to Obama and Biden, that blithering idiot will be Leader of the Free World.

Is Palin any better? You bet giraffe. Rising from nothing, after promising to clean up corruption in Alaska, she *actually* cleaned up corruption in Alaska, even among her fellow Republicans. Pelosi promised to clean up "the Republican culture of corruption," and then refused to take swift action against the aforementioned Jefferson (who finally lost his seat to an Asian Republican) and dragged her feet on investigating Rangel's inexcusable behavior.
If Pelosi was a Republican, some of the dumb stuff she has said ("I don’t know what was so 'Great' about the [Great] Depression, but that’s the name they give it") would have made her a national laughingstock long ago -- as she should be.


Similarly, Barack Obama has made gaffes and missteps and fall-down funny foul-ups, but he's protected by the entertainment and comedy community. This is not disputable: Never before in the history of show business (as we now know it) has the President been treated as untouchable for serious, biting satire. If you know your facts about totalitarian regimes, you know that's NOT a positive development in a free society.

So, yeah, Jim, you forgot a few (it's a partial list, done from memory). But it's not like the roster of honor-deprived, incompetent Dems would matter to you. As you said, "[W]e dont claim to be the party of holiness like the repubs." That's right. When you stand for nothing, when you have no hard-and-fast principles, nobody can ever call you a hypocrite.



As Dana Carvey's Church Lady used to say, "How conveeenient."

You Had Your Chance, Yunji...

...and you blew it. Big time.

My response is being prepared now.

Open Letter to ABC News' Yunji De Nies: Here's Your Chance Not To Be a Hack

At about 7:00 pm the night of Monday, March 16, ABC reporter and World News Now co-anchor Yunji De Nies (or, as I should say since this is an open letter, you) sent the following message via Twitter (with explanations of tweet-imposed shorthand in parentheses for novices) :

"heading back into work 4 wnn (World News Now). working on a piece on the meghan mccain controversy for gma (Good Morning America) ... tweet me ur thoughts - was ingraham out of line?

"Was Ingraham out of line?" is the ONLY question that you thought to ask. As recovering litigator Ingraham might say: Leading the witness, your honor! Sounds like you only want one kind of answer. Where is the question of whether Meghan was out of line when she wrote of Ann Coulter, "Maybe her popularity stems from the fact that watching her is sometimes like watching a train wreck"?


Hopefully, Yunji, you won't fall victim to the freewheeling, biased culture of World News Now, which brought us this outrage on the subject of Coulter back on June 28, 2007, when then co-anchor Tania Hernandez suggested to deskmate Ryan Owens that Coulter and Paris Hilton engage in a "skinny death match." That statement of disdain for Coulter and Hilton -- with unsolicited commentary on womens' bodies to boot -- took place as the unknown WNN director called for the playing of Elton John's "The Bitch is Back".


If you missed that, and doubt it's how I describe it, don't worry, I can back it up. Here it is now:

You know that was no accident. But you have a chance to redeem World News Now and ABC News simply by being honest.


If you are more honest than the reporters who selectively edited Rush Limbaugh's multiple detailed explanations of the reasons why he 'wants Barack Obama to fail', you'll click here and listen to the ENTIRE part of Laura's show dealing with Meghan -- in context.


If you are an honest person, you will note that in Ingraham's stream-of-consciousness reaction to bytes from Ms. McCain's shallow interview with leftist MSNBC talkhost Rachel Maddow, she described Meghan as "kinda cute" before she referred to her as a "plus-sized model." Maybe in the looks-obsessed culture of TV news, being referred to as a "plus-sized model" is an insult. As a flamboyant heterosexual male who adores both the female form and the wondrous minds often contained within, I don't agree -- and I am on record as saying so.


If you are an honest person, you will review what Meghan has written about Ingraham's snide remark, and come to the realization Ms. McCain has completely transformed Laura's words into something completely different. To wit: In her turn on The View yesterday, Ms. McCain suggested -- without contradiction from the hosts, who were disinterested in the full picture, that Laura Ingraham meant to say 'She's fat, she's shouldn't have an opinion.'"


As a regular Ingraham listener, I understand what Laura meant: She was not making fun of Meghan's weight, she was making fun of her "valley girl" manner of talking, which is associated with shallowness. Ingraham's reference to The Real World was suggestive that Meghan wanted desperately to remain in the media spotlight, but wouldn't be cast on that show since the only women who make it onto that show are the hard-bodied, scantily-clad types.


Now, for some honesty of my own: As a big Laura fan, I don't think it was a fair attack, and don't think it was funny. Getting on Meghan for her voice and speech pattern rather than the content of her argument is no better than the way Sarah Palin critics (look around, Yunji, they're all around you on the set) unfairly suggested she was an airhead because of her Alaska accent and dropped "g's." I said as much as I could in the space of a tweet to Meghan:

@McCainBlogette Although I am big

Laura I. fan, I've researched situation,

and Laura was out of line. That being

said, you need thicker skin

But once again Yunji, you have the golden chance to show the journalistic power of honesty in reporting. You can show you are a cut above the common MSM hack, and thus prove that you don't use your precious, powerful perch as The Face of The News to twist the truth to settle scores, act as an unpaid political aide, or gratuitously steer public opinion against someone you don't like for petty reasons.

I know it's late, but you still have time to reverse the tone of any outrageous copy you've already written. You can do it!

I'll be watching (well, actually, taping). And you can bet I will let you know what I think either way. C U on Twitter.

L.N.

Obama - "I Don't Know This Man." Excellent Michael Ramirez Cartoon

Found on Twitpic. Click to enlarge.

It's Official -- I'm a Twitterer

I first registered at Twitter in August 2008 after hearing about it from Michelle Malkin. During the House sessions held in the dark after Nancy Pelosi ordered the lights and microphones shut off, Congressman Peter Hoekstra used Twitter to keep in contact with Malkin and other advocates of new authorizations for oil drilling at the height of the spike in gas prices.

I hadn't thought much about it until recently when I was watching Nightline -- the extent of national MSM News I can stand on a daily basis -- when Terry Moran announced that the inane "Closing Arguments" forum on ABCNews.com could be accessed using Twitter. As Moran was saying this, a bottom-of-the-screen crawl showed the "tweets" that an earlier story had generated, and the two that I saw echoed my feelings -- something I didn't expect. So it reignited my interest, and have now discovered why Twitter has become such a phenomenon -- it's addictive.

If you care what I think, you can hit my Twitter home page on the right. Since this is like a "reply to all" email, I hope I don't say something I'm sorry for moments later. I can't make any promises.

QUESTION O-THORITY

By L.N. Smithee



I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, the "bluest" metropolitan region in the United States of America. Do those of you living elsewhere think you're surrounded by Obamamania? Within the city limits, you cannot walk or drive more than half a block before you see the ubiquitous (yet brilliantly conceived) Obama campaign logo or some sort of poster, sign, or t-shirt lauding his existence or victory. People here are still in the moment that began last November, hanging on their own personal sweet love hangover.

For all of us who don't buy into the hype, it's difficult to express ourselves without sounding belligerent. This is not because we are itching for an argument about President Obama's abilities, but because that is the way every doubt about him sounds to his True Believers. Their admiration of him, devotion to him, and in some cases obsession with him usually is reserved solely for followers of religious leaders. I got sick of waiting for someone else to come up with a way to forcefully -- yet politely -- express resistance to something I have never experienced in my life: Americans treating a national leader as if he were a god.

Noting that people -- led by mainstream media figures and politicians on both sides -- are being encouraged not to question Obama's judgment (or at least, temporarily mute their concerns) on his appointees, his policies, his stated goals, and his methods of attaining them, it seemed to me the tables had turned since the '60s and '70s, when default wisdom was to distrust the government rather than rally around the President. Back then, it wasn't uncommon to see the bumper sticker reading "QUESTION AUTHORITY."

It has been a while since I've seen that sticker. The ones condemning the President have been a good deal more personally insulting the past eight years. It occurred to me that it was time for that sentiment -- which is a good idea regardless of the quality of the leader targeted -- to make a comeback.

And so, I give you..."QUESTION O-THORITY."

Resolution Broken. Sorry 'bout that, folks.

Or should I say, me.

If you have actually been reading, I apologize to you. But I doubt I have to do that.

New, Shocking Video of BART Cop Shooting Passenger In The Back

High-profile Defense Attorney John Burris has announced he will file a $25 million dollar wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the family of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Oakland man who was shot in the back by a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer.

The deadly January 1 incident began as a fight aboard a Fremont-bound train among passengers returning from New Year's Eve revelry. When the combatants were detained by BART police after the train was stopped at the Fruitvale station, Grant was among those who was initially told to sit against a wall on the above-ground platform. Amidst indistinct shouting, Grant was then flipped over onto the ground with his face to the concrete floor. Eventually, the situation devolved to a point at which Grant was being held down by an officer with a knee in Grant's back. Finally, with one officer on Grant's left seeming to be grabbing for his hands to place behind his back, that officer holding Grant down reached for his gun, unholstered his weapon, stood over Grant, held the gun at Grant's back, and cocked it. It discharged. The other BART cops were stunned into paralysis for a moment. The officer who fired the shot held his hands away from his body in seeming disbelief at what he had done.

Now, keep in mind everything I have just described is a result of viewing video of the killing not from BART surveillance cameras, which are all over the train stations; it's from a cell phone video of a BART passenger who shot it through the window of a different car in the train. BART has insisted it has no video of the incident that shows the actual shooting, stating that all of the cameras are not connected to recorders. That is ludicrous on its face, but we will not know until later if it's a ludicrous lie or a ludicrous policy.

BART Police cover-up in shooting death? Looks like it, so far

The first high-profile case of police brutality in 2009 is about to explode.

In Oakland, CA, in the early morning hours on January 1, a donnybrook broke out aboard a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train as it was approaching the Fruitvale station. BART police officers met the train as it arrived and detained several participants, most of whom were bound with plastic pull-tie handcuffs. Among those detained but not bound was 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was killed when a BART cop's weapon discharged.

What happened? BART spokesmouths called it a "tragedy," but said it was most likely an accident. Well, what about the surveillance video from the cameras at the Fruitvale station? Uhhh, there isn't any videotape, BART said. There are some cameras hooked up to recorders, and the others are just monitored. Then, the next day, a BART rep said there was some video of the incident, but it didn't reveal anything about what happened with the shooting of Grant. Needless to say, BART's official stories don't pass the smell test.

Fortunately, there IS video of most of the incident. It was taken by Karina Vargas, a young woman returning to the East Bay on the same train from a San Francisco New Year's Day fireworks show. She had just gotten a new Fuji camera as a Christmas gift, and when things started happening, she put it on video mode and start recording. Here's a link to her video and raw footage of her interview on KPIX-TV, most of it unaired on the nightly newscast.

Vargas, 19, says that she saw with her own eyes that Grant was face down with his hands behind his back, calmly cooperating with police. She also said that she resisted attempts by the police to confiscate her camera. Vargas laughed at the idea that she could sell the video, saying "A boy lost his life. I'm not going to ask for money for that." John Burris, a high-profile attorney who is to the Bay Area what Johnnie Cochran and Mark Geragos are to Los Angeles, is representing the family of Oscar Grant.

It is always my first instinct to give police the benefit of the doubt when they are accused of brutality, and especially when there is video of a repeat offender resisting arrest (remember that the three passengers in Rodney King's car did not resist, and were not beaten). This, however is different -- at least that's the way it appears now.