STOPPED CLOCK ALERT! DAILY SHOW 'S JON STEWART SAVAGES MEDIA OBSESSION WITH SARAH PALIN'S EMAIL

What's a "Stopped Clock Alert"? An acknowledgement of excellence where you rarely expect to find it, in the spirit of the old adage, "Even a stopped clock is right two times a day." Today, that clock is The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, who points and laughs at the news channels obsessed with finding something scandalous in Sarah Palin's emails as Governor of Alaska (which I covered in this REACTOR post).

(h/t John Nolte, Big Hollywood.com)

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

"I'm sure there's a pony in there somewhere." HA! Now THAT'S fair, balanced, and FUNNY!

"WHAT MEDIA BIAS," YOU ASK? THIS MEDIA BIAS, YOU IDIOTS!

h/t Hot Air, Jammie Wearing Fool, Say Anything.

LAMESTREAM MEDIA LOOKS FOR SKELETONS IN SARAH PALIN'S SECRET VAULT, AND (LIKE GERALDO 25 YEARS AGO) FINDS ... NOTHING

Before we go into the past weekend's events, a brief history lesson. Hop in the DeLorean with me and let's travel 25 years into the past.

It was one of the most eagerly-anticipated broadcasts of 1986. Geraldo Rivera, America's highest-profiled investigative journalist, had recently parted ways with ABC News over a spiked story by another ABC reporter (Sylvia Chase) speculating about the relationship between Marilyn Monroe and John and Robert Kennedy.

Freed of the suits that might get in the way of a great story, Geraldo went out on his own, and found what promised to be an intriguing topic: What might be hidden in a secret chamber deep inside Chicago's Lexington Hotel, the soon-to-be demolished headquarters of America's most notorious Prohibition-era gangster, Al "Scarface" Capone?  For decades, rumors had it that within there might be a stash of hidden valuables, or even better, the remains of some of Capone's enemies.

Given exclusive access, a confident Rivera promised to reveal on an uncensored live broadcast what secrets had been lying behind those walls.  How it was promoted...






...and what actually happened when the cameras rolled, live, as Geraldo recounted on the twenty year anniversary in 2006.






The term "Epic Fail" had not been coined yet, but few incidents illustrate it better.

It was thought at the time to have doomed Geraldo's career -- it didn't.  More people watched Rivera fail that night more than any other audience had watched any syndicated program (remember, this was before the advent of the Fox TV network, so there were many more independent TV stations than exist today).  Even though the program was a crushing disappointment, it proved Geraldo's drawing power.  However, the program has joined Gertrude Stein's quote "There is no there there" as an illustration unanticipated vapidity.

Now, back to the present day and age.

Going back to September 2008 when Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was selected by John McCain to potentially serve as his vice president, the media has been clamoring for secret communication with which to hang her. They thought they had something when the college student son of a Democrat in the Tennessee Legislature gained access to Palin's Yahoo email account and uploaded everything to a hacker haven, hoping for something to exploit.

There was nothing.

David Kernell -- son of Mike -- was sentenced to a year in prison.

But finally, on Friday, June 9, 2011, after making legal requests dating back to when they barely knew her name, the day arrived when the state of Alaska gave the MSM what it wanted: A reason to dig deep into Palin's emails as Governor.   She may have been defeated along with McCain in 2008, but she hadn't stated she wouldn't challenge President Obama for the White House in 2012; she was still a potential threat.  At every turn, the media majority have dismissed the idea that she might have been a competent leader in Alaska, choosing instead to magnify her verbal slips, her plainspoken language, and her unconventional celebrity status.  Even her own sex appeal was used as a weapon against her. The hunt was on to find whatever could be found to prove she lacked the all-important gravitas.

Because Alaska only released reams of physical copies rather than uploadable digital copies (24,000 pages), the New York Times and Washington Post called in the cavalry: Their thousands-strong reserve force of Palin-obsessed haters that emerge from the cyber universe whenever and wherever she is covered around the world.

The word went out on June 9th in the Post thusly...

Over 24,000 e-mail messages to and from former Alaska governor Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska's governor will be released Friday. That's a lot of e-mail for us to review so we're looking for some help from Fix readers to analyze, contextualize, and research those e-mails right alongside Post reporters over the days following the release.

The clamor to get in on the gang ... uh, group analysis of Palin was so great, the Post expanded its invitation:

UPDATE: We have had a strong response to our crowdsourcing call-out on the Palin e-mails. We've reconsidered our approach and now would like to invite comments and annotations from any interested readers. 

Here’s how to participate:Over 24,000 e-mail messages to and from Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska's governor will be released Friday . We’ll be posting them here, and are inviting you to comment on the most interesting or most noteworthy sections. Please include page numbers and, where possible, a direct excerpt. We'll share your comments with our reporters and may use facts or related material you suggest to annotate the documents displayed on The Post site. We may contact you for further details, by way of your registered e-mail with the Post, unless you specify otherwise in the comments.

For micro-updates as tomorrow unfolds, check out our new Twitter feed .

Michael Isikoff (who will go down in history as the man who wrote the famously spiked article about Bill Clinton's inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky) was all but licking his chops in his Friday morning conversation with NBC's Ann Curry live via satellite from Juneau, AK:






Like the promo for the Al Capone's Vaults special, much excitement and amazement was anticipated.   

Instead, what actually happened is what Palin predicted would happen.

From CNN:






From CBS News:






and from POLITICO.com:







Even people who don't like Palin weighed in on the attempted high-tech lynching:

So, there you are.  Unlike Geraldo, nobody like Jill Abramson of the Times, Isikoff of NBC or Dana Milbank of the Post promised a song and dance if their mission failed.  But that's OK, I have a song for them instead.

Ladies and gentlemen, from 1981, Blondie's Debbie Harry.






Enjoy your baked Alaskan crow, lamestreamers! Hope it's been worth the wait!

NOTE: This is NOT an endorsement of Palin for President.

NO BIN LADEN PHOTO: ONCE AGAIN, PRESIDENT OBAMA FEELS NO NEED TO PROVE HIS OWN HONESTY

A Facebook friend of mine (whose name and face has been obscured, along with those issuing comments) posted this on the evening of Tuesday, May 3, 2011:



I first began using the pseudonym "L.N. Smithee" on FreeRepublic.com in 1998 during the run-up to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Free Republic was one of the few places on the internet where you could get more than pro-Democrat MSM reports out of Washington D.C. about the Whitewater investigation, the Paula Jones sexual harassment civil suit, and later, the Monica Lewinsky allegations.  But I tapered off my daily visits to FR beginning in 2008 mostly because it began crawling with more conspiracy-believers than founder Jim Robinson could delete.

The last straw for me was finally tiring of trying to talk sense into Freepers who put any kind of faith in the word of Larry Sinclair, a career criminal who has made scurrilous accusations about then-Senator Barack Obama. In 2008, Sinclair posted a YouTube video making this charge: In 1999, when Obama was an Illinois state senator serving the city of Chicago -- years previous to people thinking of him as the future of the Democratic Party --  the two of them shared cocaine in the back of a limousine after meeting in a Gurnee, IL hotel bar.  On top of that, Sinclair claims he did a very special kind of (ahem) job for Obama.

While the MSM would go on to protect Obama from many legitimate questions regarding his pre-political personal life (such as his real estate dealings with wealthy neighbor/corporate criminal Tony Rezko and the closeness of his friendship with unrepentant domestic terrorists William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn), questions about Sinclair had no business being asked, because Sinclair has no credibility.  Larry the Loser had not one iota of evidence of his allegations.  He would often promise scads of proof, but all he ever delivered was backup for his claim that he once checked into the hotel and had rented the limo.  That didn't stop Sinclair from upping the ante, accusing the Obama campaign of murder to cover up his being "on the downlow." As the story went, an allegedly gay choirmaster at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ (home of Jeremiah Wright) supposedly was silenced so he wouldn't spill the beans.

When his allegations predictably were ignored by the MSM and failed to catch fire with the general public, Sinclair pulled out all stops.  He sued Obama, David Axelrod, and Howard Dean for undisclosed conspiracies against him that violated his free speech rights under the "First Amendmant (sic)." Sinclair sued anonymous individuals on websites who doubted his story, including a YouTube user with a sock puppet (Sinclair v. TubeSock TedD, et al).  He hired infamous media whore-torney (and deadbeat dad/vexatious litigant) Montgomery Blair Sibley, who insists he wears a kilt instead of trousers because unlike average men, he's just too darn prodigious for pants (video). Without evidence of his own for any of his charges, he desperately badgered the Obama camp to reveal his personal contact information and his calendar of events on certain dates so he could hang him with it. His last gasp was to hold a press conference at the National Press Club that Sibley presided over.  At the close of the conference, Sinclair was arrested on a warrant out of Colorado. The phlegmatic Sibley, it turned out, had been suspended in the District of Columbia a month previous.

Believe me, I am sympathetic when it comes to baseless conspiracy theories and the frustration that sets in when people you thought were smart start buying into them.  But in the wake of the MSM's campaign against the very questioning of Obama's eligibility for becoming President, I felt compelled in response to my fellow Facebooker (at the risk of losing her "friendship") to say that not all conspiracy theories are baseless.

My reply:

Here's the problem with treating all conspiracy theories as false: There have been enough outrages that are now established fact that can lend credence to wild speculation.


Speaking as a black man, I can tell you that there are a number of things the U.S. government has been accused of doing to African-Americans that make no sense whatsoever. A prime example is an accusation made by old school rapper (and former Air America radio host) Chuck D, who at one time said that a secret ingredient was added to malt liquor to make black people act stupid. Before you say, "Duh! Alcohol!" consider that Chuck believed that other ethnicities were immune to the mystery additive's effects by design. Also popular at one time was the lie that the AIDS virus was created by white scientists to eradicate blacks, which was repeated by Obama's longtime spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright in a sermon.


One might wonder why any black person would buy into such conspiracies. While there are many answers, the best one is the established truth of the Tuskegee Experiment, a decades-long tracking of the effects of syphilis on the human body. Begun in the early '30s, it was conducted by lying to approximately 400 poor black men in Alabama who had contracted the STD, but never informed of the true nature of the infection. They were given non-effective treatment for an imaginary disease, and lured back for observation (despite not improving) by being provided their medical care (such as it was) free of charge. The project was uncovered in 1972, and in 1997, President Clinton held a ceremony formally apologizing on behalf of the federal government to the eight remaining survivors of the experiment, some of whom were in their late 90's.


Indeed, when the levies that held the waters surrounding New Orleans failed under the beating of Hurricane Katrina, no less a black icon than filmmaker Spike Lee suggested that George W. Bush blew the levies up for the purpose of scattering the black population in order to change the demographics of Congressional districts so they would be more white (and thus Republican). When challenged as to how he could believe such a thing, Lee cited the Tuskegee Experiment.

Now, to the current topic: I don't believe Osama bin Laden died in 2002 or that the incident this past weekend was staged. Still, there are things about the account of the raid that make you go "Hmmm," primarily the fact that it appears no evidence that he was apprehended, killed, and buried at sea will be made public any time in the near future.

[From 60 Minutes May 8, 2011's broadcast of Steve Kroft's interview with President Obama]:

KROFT: Did you see the pictures?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes.

KROFT: What was your reaction when you saw them?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: It was him.

KROFT: Why haven't you released them?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, we discussed this internally. Keep in mind that we are absolutely certain this was him. We've done DNA sampling and testing. And so there is no doubt that we killed Osama bin Laden. It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence. As a propaganda tool.

 You know, that's not who we are. You know, we don't trot out this stuff as trophies. You know, the fact of the matter is this was somebody who was deserving of the justice that he received. And I think Americans and people around the world are glad that he's gone. But we don't need to spike the football. And I think that given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk. And I've discussed this with Bob Gates and Hillary Clinton and my intelligence teams and they all agree.

KROFT: There are people in Pakistan, for example, who say, "Look, this is all a lie. This is another American trick. Osama's not dead."

PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, the truth is that - and we're monitoring worldwide reaction -- there's no doubt that bin Laden is dead. Certainly there's no doubt among al Qaeda members that he is dead. And so we don't think that a photograph in and of itself is gonna make any difference. There are gonna be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you will not see bin Laden walkin' on this earth again.

KROFT: Was it your decision to bury him at sea?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: It was a joint decision. We thought it was important to think through ahead of time how we would dispose of the body if he were killed in the compound. And I think that what we tried to do was, consulting with experts in Islamic law and ritual, to find something that was appropriate that was respectful of the body.

Frankly we took more care on this than, obviously, bin Laden took when he killed 3,000 people. He didn't have much regard for how they were treated and desecrated. But that, again, is somethin' that makes us different. And I think we handled it appropriately.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20060530-10391709.html#ixzz1LvJnbufk

For the second consecutive month, Obama has been shown to be reluctant to prove he is an honest man. Most people rolled their eyes at demands to view the President's original birth certificate, but think about it; rather than just show everybody back in the summer of 2008 that he was telling the truth, he *deliberately acted as if he was hiding something* to the tune of legal fees estimated at $2,000,000.


Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein -- who in 1972 were initially discouraged from pursuing additional coverage of what was seen as a minor political espionage incident -- ended up toppling the President of the United States, Richard Nixon. Since then, journalists have treated them as patron saints, men whose determination to root out White House malfeasance was a example to use as a guiding star. But no longer do reporters seem to feel the need to hold the POTUS' feet to the fire -- they're too busy kissing them. Journalists are refusing to honestly investigate Barack Obama, choosing instead to lash out at his critics as being insane or unstable "conspiracy theorists" even if they don't meet the classic defiinition.


It only makes sense to dismiss *all* disagreement with the White House as "conspiratorial" if you are willing to believe everything it tells you. I know you're smarter than that.

She is still my Facebook friend. I had a feeling she'd understand. And I picked up a new one based on the above reply!

SATISFACTION AND APPREHENSION: MY FIRST TWELVE HOURS OF THE POST-BIN LADEN ERA

As I commented at 8:02 am the morning of May 2, 2011 on the Patterico.com post What the Hell? Report: Bin Laden Buried at Sea, “In Accordance with Islamic Law”

The last twelve hours have been tough for me. I was out Sunday night visiting some apolitical friends when the word came down that bin Laden was dead, and out of respect for their hospitality, I did not turn the conversation beyond satisfaction that the mastermind of the greatest single act of murder in all of our lifetimes got what was long overdue coming to him.

Harley Carnes, CBS News           

When I got in my car to go home, I listened to KCBS, the all-news channel in San Francisco, which I already had on the radio on the way; I was listening to the simulcast of 60 Minutes as Lara Logan told her chilling story of barely surviving gang rape by Egyptian men in Tahrir Square. I heard the CBS News announcer -- Harley Carnes -- as he ran down the details as they were known, talking back and forth with experts whose names nor voices were recognizable to me. Carnes then spoke with Terry McGovern, the daughter of a WTC victim. Ms. McGovern said that the elimination of bin Laden restored her faith in government, quoting drooling Bush-hater Maureen Dowd in the process. Carnes agreed, saying that it seemed for so long that the government was like the Keystone Kops, and that finally they were able to get something accomplished.


My stomach started turning as I felt the story turning political. Then as a D.C. reporter described the celebratory scene outside the White House, Carnes, apropos of nothing, said that President Obama would get a bump up in his approval rating as a result. "Uh, we'll see about that," the reporter replied. Carnes doubled down: "Oh, sure he will." When I got home, I surfed the web on my phone while still in my car to see just how much of a left-wing wacko Harley Carnes was.

I found some brief commentaries that he does for CBS News Radio on his personal website (he's also a novelist), and was shocked. The topics he tackled: "What a mess Libya has already become." "This time a government shut-down might be a good thing - because unlike Washington - the people get it, the U.S is broke - we can't afford this government." And this one [which is really worth a listen]: "It is fair to ask the question now -- are you better off today than you were two years ago? And how will the answers be presented to you?" This guy sounded more like a more even-tempered Bill O'Reilly than David Gregory.


I then wondered what was wrong with me -- why couldn't I shut down my media bias calibrator long enough to enjoy the justice, as did Carnes? Honestly, I don't think it's my fault. After a lifetime of news addiction and about twenty-two years of recognizing and being able to predict slant (beginning with the character assassination of Dr. Eric Foretich), it's cut into my brain now. It's as if I'm on a fishing boat in rough seas, and to remain upright, I lean starboard when the vessel tilts port. If I lose that balancing mechanism, I'll be sliding all over the decks, flailing all over.


I'll take the hit now for not being sufficiently appreciative of the Obamastration's part in getting bin Laden. We all know good and well that it's going to be used as a bludgeon against Republican candidates in 2012 -- the media will trumpet this success as if it is a counterbalance to his economic incompetence and the amorphous folly of the Libyan intervention. Long-term, losing my vigilance for just a second doesn't feel like it's worth the risk of reverting back to a being a bleating sheep like so many clueless "independents," who are mostly people who believe whatever the MSM tells them.

UPDATE: Here's the latest "Not Just Another Story" commentary from Harley Carnes regarding whether photos of bin Laden's corpse should be released to the public:

"Killing Osama bin Laden was the brave and right thing to do. In today's news and comment, Harley Carnes says .. now is not the time to worry about making Jihadists angry"

LOST 2008 VIDEO: OBAMA GIVES A PREVIEW OF CROSSING INTO PAKISTAN WITHOUT PERMISSION TO STRIKE TERRORISTS

Osama bin Laden is dead, shot in the head by U.S. Special Forces that crossed over into Pakistan and invaded his compound near the capital of Islamabad -- all without prior authorization of the Pakistani regime.

That President Obama would have the boldness to charge into a Muslim nation whose relations with the U.S. have been spotty over the years is something that really should have been expected, as is indicated by the 2008 interview that he gave to ABC News' former nightly anchor, Charles Gibson.

I'm having problems locating the video of that interview, so for the time being, I will just post the transcript of the relevant part.

GIBSON: Do we have a right to anticipatory self-defense? Do we have a right to make a preemptive strike again another country if we feel that country might strike us?

OBAMA: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend.

GIBSON: Do we have the right to be making cross-border attacks into Pakistan from Afghanistan, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government?

OBAMA: Now, as for our right to invade, we’re going to work with these countries, building new relationships, working with existing allies, but forging new, also, in order to, Charlie, get to a point in this world where war is not going to be a first option. In fact, war has got to be, a military strike, a last option.

GIBSON: But, Senator, I’m asking you: We have the right, in your mind, to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani government.

OBAMA: In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.

GIBSON: And let me finish with this. I got lost in a blizzard of words there. Is that a "yes"? That you think we have the right to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani government, to go after terrorists who are in the Waziristan area?

OBAMA: I believe that America has to exercise all options in order to stop the terrorists who are hell bent on destroying America and our allies. We have got to have all options out there on the table.

All right, I have found the video -- thanks for waiting.  Here it is.




Congratulations to all of you people who actually, y'know, pay attention to the news, and  recognized where this was going.  For the rest of you: Didn't those answers have more gravitas when you thought Obama had given them?

You've been punk'd, punk.

GLORIA ALLRED'S SO OUTRAGED AT AN OBSCENE GESTURE THAT NINE-YEAR-OLD GIRLS SAW, SHE DEMONSTRATES IT REPEATEDLY IN FRONT OF THEM

(NOTE: The clip of the Allred press conference initially posted below was taken down by YouTube due to copyright violations by the user in unrelated videos. It has been replaced by the story as it aired on the weekday TMZ syndicated show.)

The Inglorious Barrister strikes again.

In case you're not a baseball fan and haven't heard the news, here's a quick recap:

• On Saturday, April 23, 2011, 33-year-old Justin Quinn, father and fan of The 2010 World Champion San Francisco Giants, drove from Fresno to San Francisco with his adorable nine-year-old twin daughters to watch a game between the Atlanta Braves and The World Champion San Francisco Giants (it never gets old!) at AT&T Park.

• The Quinns arrive early enough to watch the Braves take batting practice and warm-ups, and take their place in the front row of the left field bleachers hoping to catch balls hit over the fence.  As some Braves players go about their preparation on the field, some Giants fans heckle them.

• In response, Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell -- a retired player and member of the legendary pitching staff of the 1986 World Champion New York Mets -- heckles back, in "homophobic" terms.  In the course of profanely accusing three male hecklers as being a "homo" "threesome," he makes an obscene gesture with a baseball bat and his fingers meant to signify sexual penetration.

• Mr. Quinn, who is not McDowell's target, objected to obscene words spoken and suggestive gestures being performed in the presence of his children (or anybody's, for that matter).

• McDowell responds by telling Quinn that children don't have any [bleep]ing business being at the ball park, and wielding a bat menacingly, asked Quinn how much he thought he teeth were worth.

• Quinn notified AT&T Park security, who aided him in making a complaint about McDowell's abusive behavior.

So far, I'm with Mr. Quinn. He had a perfect right to expect ballplayers and coaches to act professionally and responsibly, even in the face of heckling, and especially in the presence of children.  One never goes to the ballpark expecting that a coach will threaten bodily injury while holding a baseball bat (even if it's just for show). On top of that, it's difficult to believe that McDowell -- who pitched in the Majors for twelve seasons -- could have been reacting that day to something he hadn't been subjected to at Shea Stadium in New York, Fenway Park in Boston (his Mets defeated the Red Sox in the '86 Series), Philadelphia's infamous Veterans Stadium (where football fans once booed Santa Claus and pelted him with snowballs), or the Giants' old stomping ground, Candlestick Park, not a friendly place for Dodgers pitchers. 

But then, for reasons that are at the moment still a mystery, celebrity attorney Gloria Allred pops up out of nowhere into the situation -- with Quinn, his wife (?) and his pre-pubescent girls in tow -- in her natural habitat: Before a bank of microphones with clicking cameras and bright flashes popping.

What happens next would be unbelievable if you had put it in a screenplay.

From TMZ (a site that I hate, but that had the most complete video):



Allred, seated at a table with a baseball bat in front of her and flanked by the Quinn twins as if they were bookends, recounted McDowell's crude sexual remarks.  As the girls sat and looked at her with rapt attention, Allred spoke of how McDowell was at one point "thrusting his hips forward and backward in a sexual manner..." She said that McDowell AND the Atlanta Braves ought to be fined, suspended, and made to apologize to the Quinn family.


Quinn, taking his turn with his prepared statement, then claimed that in addition to being offended and disgusted, he actually felt threatened, saying he didn't know if McDowell was going to attack him with the bat.  He added that he thought about Brian Stow, the Giants fan who is still in an induced coma after nearly being beaten to death in Dodger Stadium's parking lot on March 31.


At this point, I have to call BalderdaSh on Quinn (the kiddies, y'know).  The outfield walls in AT&T Park are eight feet high in center and left field. The 50-year-old McDowell would have to be an Olympic high-jumper if he wanted to be able to reach Quinn unless he leaned over the fence. All Quinn would have to do is back up out of the front row if he felt like his choppers were actually in danger.  I find it difficult to believe that a guy in Quinn's shape truly feared he would be physically harmed by McDowell.


The twin girls then read their own prepared statements ("I hope that you never go to a baseball game where you were in a bad situation like I was," one read).  And finally, to demonstrate exactly what obscene gesture McDowell made, she held the fat end of the bat, papa Quinn formed a circle with his fingers, and she started sliding the bat back and forth.  Back and forth.  Back and forth.

Then Allred started to put the bat down.  But apparently, someone in the pool of photogs didn't get the shot.  She lifted the bat back up, and Quinn prepared his fingers.  Back and forth.  Back and forth.

Right in front of the daughters.

McDowell issued a statement apologizing within minutes of the press conference's end:

"I am deeply sorry that I responded to the heckling fans in San Francisco.  I apologize to everyone for my actions."

The Braves management issued a statement:

“We were made aware of an incident in San Francisco this past Saturday. We are concerned by these allegations and the behavior described by a witness today. This in no way represents the Braves organization and the conduct we expect of our employees. We will withhold further comments until we finish gathering information.”

(I have just gotten the word that McDowell has been "placed on administrative leave" pending an investigation by the Braves. That sounds like a suspension, but isn't really.  We'll eventually find out whether that's good or bad news for him.)

Bud Selig, IMHO the 2nd worst commissioner in Major League Baseball history, issued a statement of his own:

“I was informed today that Roger McDowell, a coach of the Atlanta Braves, is being accused of engaging in highly inappropriate conduct toward fans at a game in San Francisco. Although I do not yet have all the facts regarding this incident, the allegations are very troubling to me. The Atlanta Braves have assured my office that they will immediately investigate the allegations, and report the results of the investigation to me. After I have all the facts, I will make a determination of how to proceed.”

If you know Allred as well as I do, you know that only one shoe has thusfar dropped.  The second one is going to be the one that either shakes loose some cash, shakes up the political world, or both.  Quinn says he's not gay, but hates discrimination, and wants to teach his young girls to stand up against it.  Maybe so, but I tend to think he's not putting himself out there before the globe without thinking that with Allred on board, there's some gold at the end of that rainbow (minus her share).  It certainly seems to me that a good father wouldn't want to subject his young daughters to that terrible, awful, vulgar stuff over and over and over and over and over again.  Not for nothing, anyway.

We'll see.

________________________________________________________

My reaction below is to the report on the website of KNTV in San Jose, NBCBayArea.com, recounting the report on the controversy broadcast April 28. Apparently, in the original version of the report, Allred was referred to as "infamous." The first person commenting via Facebook wrote: "Where does this writer get off dismissing Gloria Alred as 'infamous?'" This is how I replied.

The article above no longer refers to Allred as "infamous." But I will. She's a high-profile ambulance chaser who doesn't care as much about the law as she does trying to extract large amounts of money out of famous and/or rich people by embarrassing them on a large multimedia stage.

For example: She was able to get $10 million out of Tiger Woods in exchange for the silence of one of his mistresses, skank-to-the-stars Rachel Uchitel. What did Uchitel do to earn that money besides mess with a married celebrity? Nothing. Woods did nothing illegal, just immoral, but so did Uchitel, so what principle was Allred serving besides lining her own pocket? She tried to pull the same trick (pun intended) with a porn star who played a few rounds with Tiger, but he refused.

More recently, in October 2010, Allred represented illegal immigrant Nicky Diaz Santillian, the former housekeeper of billionaire GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. At stake this time for Allred wasn't money, it was something that money couldn't buy -- free bad publicity for a political opponent. Diaz *admitted* she gave her employment agency falsified legal documents to qualify for work in California. With polls showing Whitman and Democrat retread Jerry Brown in a dead heat, Allred held one of her trademark press conferences. Sounding much like the cleaning woman [in] the "The Red Dot" episode of "Seinfeld," 

Diaz tearfully and dramatically read a prepared statement while sitting beside Allred, moaning about how difficult it was to be an immigrant cleaning house and running errands for the demanding Whitman (not mentioning her otherworldly pay rate of $23/hr).

Diaz said she was stressed out by the work she did for Whitman. How badly stressed? She worked for her for *nine years,* before Whitman got word that Diaz was illegal and fired her. Truth was, there was no way that Whitman and her husband could have known Diaz was illegal, since the reputable agency through which they hired Diaz was the victim of her scam. In addition, when a notice arrived at the Whitman residence suggesting that Diaz's SSN was errant, they left it up to her to resolve, trusting her integrity and believing it was a clerical error.

Whitman ended up losing to Brown largely due to the stunt, which sullied her name among Hispanic voters whose main source of news is Spanish-language media. In the end, Diaz & Allred never sued Whitman for being abusive (and certainly didn't want her to be charged for hiring an illegal), only failure to reimburse Diaz for overtime and mileage. Her somewhat trivial legal complaint was simply a conduit through which Whitman could be portrayed to undecided voters as an evil hypocrite.

Diaz settled in late November for a piddling $5500, with the stipulation the Whitman household admitted no wrongdoing. Only after that was it revealed what everybody who was really paying attention already knew: Diaz, disgruntled after being fired, had been steered to Allred by union allies of the Brown campaign.

One would be naive to believe that the 4-figure settlement was the extent of her compensation.

This raises the question, how did Justin Quinn, a supposedly unassuming father of 9-year-old twin girls from Fresno, get involved with a superstar Southern California celebrity attorney who is, yes, infamous for being a puppeteer to sympathetic victims for mutual financial benefit? He doesn't say, and nobody seems to be asking (nice job, Suzanne Shaw). But he's asking for the weight of the world to come down on Roger McDowell, whose actions were inexcusable and outrageous for a person who was not assumed to be drunk.

 NOTE: He is responding to non-audible questions.

Quinn ideally wants McDowell to resign, and for Major League Baseball and the S.F. District Attorney to get involved. Seems to be a negotiating tactic, IMHO. Key phrase in the NBC11 interview of Quinn via Skype: "I don't know what can bring that moment back for me as a parent."

I'm sure Gloria can think of $omething.

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Tell me what you think.  Please add your comment below. 

AMAZING DISG-RACE: COLOR OF CHANGE.ORG FIGURES DISFIGURE FACTS IN BREITBART-BASHING COLUMN

Below is my reaction to a piece written for The Root, a blog dedicated to African-American issues. Naturally, the overwhelming majority of its content (as in everything I've ever read on it) is pro-Democrat and anti-Republican, and really anti-Tea Party.

The dismissal of Andrew Breitbart from the Huffington Post after a campaign by the leftist organization Color of Change (most famous for targeting Glenn Beck for boycott and cancellation after his remark accusing President Obama of not liking white people) has been a hot topic of late. Breitbart was vilified already for his role in the exposure of ACORN and especially for his BigGovernment.com's thorough investigative reporting about the Pigford Farms settlement, which I wrote about briefly in July 2010. Harsh remarks about former Obamastration "green job czar" and COC co-founder Van Jones got him bounced from HuffPo, despite the fact that other writers were more than welcome there after saying much worse things about conservatives.





In a column entitled "Race-Baiting Is Different From Racism" and subtitled
"When ColorOfChange.org campaigned against conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart's presence on Huffington Post, it was for what he's done, not what he feels, say leaders of the organization", COC co-founder James Rucker and campaign manager Dani McClain insist that Breitbart got off easy due to too much respect issued to him by other white journalist types. They were upset because HuffPo founder Arianna Huffington and founding editor Roy Sekoff admitted in an interview that they even though they ejected Breitbart from the site, they did NOT believe he is racist.

This is the original draft of my comments on the below-quoted part of the Rucker/McClain piece before I had to divide it into two parts to fit it into The Root's comments section (links added):

This same reluctance (cowardice? postracial delusion?) was evident in some of the coverage of our campaign. David Weigel at Slate conflated our members' efforts against Breitbart with Media Matters' work monitoring Fox News, characterizing both as " … a liberal campaign aimed at getting conservatives off the air, off the Huffington Post front page, off Fox News. It's as blatant as the conservative campaign to dismantle the liberal media."


Well, no. Unless there's a conservative campaign afoot to keep race-baiters who intentionally deceive from appearing as trustworthy, ethical pundits on the Sunday-morning shows and network news, then there's really no comparison. Perhaps Weigel realizes this but fears what an honest assessment of Breitbart's race problem might do to his own bona fides as an objective journalist.

You folks haven't been paying attention, because Weigel has no "bona fides as an objective journalist." He was exposed as a hardcore lefty when his participation in the now-defunct pro-Democrat, anti-Republican JournoList mailing list was leaked to Tucker Carlson's right-leaning Daily Caller website. His supposedly objective column in the Washington Post examining the right wing was belied by his angry, profane rants on JournoList about Glenn Beck, James O'Keefe, Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin (partial list). When Rush Limbaugh was hospitalized in December 2009 with chest pains, we know now, Weigel snarked to fellow left-leaning JournoList reporters "I hope he fails." Following those revelations, Weigel was dismissed from the Post, but retained by its parent company, which operates Slate.

When it comes to Weigel's comparison that you find wanting, I say it's perfectly sound. It's true that what he described as "the conservative campaign to dismantle the liberal media" is not narrowly focused on -- to quote you -- "keep[ing] race-baiters who intentionally deceive from appearing as trustworthy, ethical pundits on the Sunday-morning shows and network news." But the default position on those programs is that it is fair to assume Republicans have "a race problem" (quoting you again) unless they make grand gestures of ideological departure from traditional Republican positions (e.g. Jack Kemp). No amount of equitable treatment of non-whites on a personal basis -- even marriage -- can do anything to alter that template unless it is expressed in *political* outreach leftward. Calling out the common presumptions as fraudulent is part of the larger fight against prejudicial treatment of the right-of-center in the mainstream media, and need not be specific to quashing race-baiting. The fact that you have felt it necessary to issue your statement above because Huffington & Sekoff admitted that they did not believe Andrew Breitbart is a racist proves my point. As media figures to the left of Fox News, they ran afoul of an unwritten law, and you fancy yourselves as the enforcers.

Finally, your assertion that somehow Breitbart had "destroy[ed] Sherrod's career" is laughable when one examines the facts of not only Sherrod's resignation under pressure from the Obama Administration, but the circumstances under which she even got the position.

Let's recap: According to Sherrod, she was pressured by an aide to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to announce her resignation in a phone conversation while she was driving on a Georgia freeway. Why right then? Because the USDA wanted to head off a discussion of the controversy on Glenn Beck's TV program that afternoon. (Remember that it was under the heat Beck brought upon your pal Van Jones that he resigned as Green Jobs Czar at midnight on the Sunday of a three-day holiday weekend.) Initially, the NAACP backed the decision to shove Sherrod out, based on the incomplete video of her discussion of how she pulled back assistance to a white farmer. Beck ended up actually sticking up for Sherrod, and criticized Breitbart for commenting on the video before he knew the context of the total speech. The NAACP did an about-face, claiming that it had been "hoodwinked" by Breitbart. Even Bill O'Reilly apologized for jumping to conclusions. The White House issued an apology to Sherrod. Vilsack offered an apology and her job back, but Sherrod refused the offer. Her "career" and her reputation were restored as quickly as they were tarnished, but she chose to walk away rather than return.

How did Sherrod get the job, anyway? The exact circumstances are unknown, but here's what we know: She was named Director for Rural Development for the state of Georgia on July 25, 2009. Mere *days* earlier, New Communities, Inc., a farm trust that Sherrod co-founded with her husband in 1969 (but had ceased operations in the mid-'80s), was given a cash award of $13,000,000.00 in the Pigford Farms settlement. Over $4,000,000.00 of that total amount was specifically termed as "lost wages," and Shirley and her husband Charles each personally received $150,000.00 each for "pain and suffering" (three times the average settlement issued to Pigford plaintiffs). The Sherrods were newly-minted multi-millionaires when she was appointed by Vilsack, who as Ag Secretary is the one who ultimately authorized their payment.

(I won't speculate in print about that last part, because I don't have a lick of evidence backing up what I'm thinking. But think about it.)

It's not only ridiculous to suggest Breitbart "destro[yed] Sherrod's career," it's outrageously disingenuous. The Sherrods were the most richly compensated awardees of the entire Pigford suit out of tens of thousands of filers stretching back to Clinton's second term. She didn't need the job when she got it, and she doesn't need it now. But the bitterness she has expressed after being booted from her USDA position could be predicted by anyone in the audience of that famous videotaped speech, in which she said "Have you heard of anybody in the federal government losing their job? That's all that I need to say, okay?"

Tell me what you think. Comment below, link if you like.