Monday, March 05, 2012
Limbaugh limits apology:To two words that were spoken: "I descended to [the left's] level when I used those two words to describe Sandra Fluke," Limbaugh said. "I've always tried to maintain a very high degree of integrity and independence on this program. Nevertheless, those two words were inappropriate. They were uncalled for. They distracted from the point that I was actually trying to make, and I again sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for using those two words to describe her. I do not think she is either of those two words. I did not think last week that she is either of those two words." So, the rest of the stuff holds. In addition, Limbaugh had more negative things to say about Fluke, which appear to be completely unsubstantiated (e.g. Fluke is a "30-year old activist after years of a career championing birth control issues") I have never seen a sustained attack on a private citizen by a powerful figure like this. I've read about Joe McCarthy and how he used the hearings to harass a lot of small fry, That's the closest I can find to what we are witnessing today.
posted by Quiddity at 3/05/2012 01:32:00 PM
37 comments
ahem, Koch.
jms seems to be a Koch-sucker, if that's the best he can come up with in avoiding the focus of the post on Rush Limbaugh's vileness. I imagine a musical about Rush and this incident titled: "Two Little Words ...." Too bad Sydney Greenstreet's not around to play the lead.
Query: Do Pharmas advertise on Rush's show, especially Viagra and oxiwhat'sitsface?
Limbaugh fell head-first into the tiger trap and had to apologize in order to get away and lick his wounds. He should have known better.
This time it was Newt Gingrich who deftly showed how to step around the trap and remove the layer of palm fronds, displaying the array of spikes below. It was exactly the right response, and if conservatives are paying attention he will pick up some delegates today for his efforts.
If you don't condemn it, you condone it.
I see jms is signing on to the "Liberals made me do it!" defense. Rush endlessly preached the "personal responsibility" mantra, but somehow in this case, it doesn't apply to him. I don't know why that doesn't surprise me.
If you don't condemn it, you condone it.
I know. I can't even tell you how sick and tired I am of liberals continually condemning Bill Maher. It's all they can talk about.
No liberals didn't "make [Rush] do it." He said what he said all by himself. He's responsible for his words and ideas, his apology for his words and his non-apology for the ideas.
I'll take the bait. I condone anything Bill Maher has said or will every say.
I'm not surprised one bit.
How about Ed Schultz? I don't think anyone here has ever condemned him. Willing to go the "full Maher" on him, Rockie?
By the way, this entire "sustained attack on a private citizen by a powerful figure like this" liberal lie went out the window when the President verbally attacked Joe the Plumber in front of an audience, and the media "vetted" him -- investigating his personal life and publishing information about a tax lein. This was a guy who was walking in his driveway when Barack Obama came up to him out of the blue with a pack of cameramen and started a conversation. How much more of a private citizen can you be? I guess the only way to avoid being a "public figure" and subject to anything-goes fair-game politics is to run screaming when approached by the press.
Was Sandra Fluke just standing around when the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committe on women's health and contraception showed up in her driveway?
I think not.
Does Joe the Plumber have his license yet? How about a chorus of Danny Boy:
"The pipes are calling ...."
Does Joe have McCain's endorsement, or Palin's?
He may not have his license, but he does have the GOP nomination for Congress!
And even better, if he can win the general election, he will take over Dennis Kucinich's seat! (D, Neptune), who was just successfully primaried.
And how about Randall Terry sending 6 delagates to the convention! That should add a little fun flavor to the show!
Plus the weather is beautiful! What more can you ask for in a Super Tuesday?
I have to admit, I don't like Ed Shultz.
But I'm ready to double down. I found out that the right is using their false equivalency not only to compare the misogynous Limbaugh with Bill Maher but also with Keith Olbeman. Now, I hate when Keith gets up on his high horse but I will condone anything that he has said or will say.
...and an other thing is there any double, what so ever, that Limbaugh is both a racist and a misogynist?
Michelle Obama must keep him awake at night. She is a twice the hate in one package.
Rockie,
Maher called Palin a cunt, Limbaugh called Fluke a slut, and Olbermann called Malkin "a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it.” so I'd say that there's plenty of equivalence there. Three personal insults from people who talk for a living, should have known better, and handed ammunition to their enemies and hurt their allies by shooting off their mouths.
I think that it's interesting that you would say that you not only condone anything that either Maher or Olbermann have said, but also anything they ever will say. -- that there is absolutely nothing that either could possibly say that you would not support. Conservatives say, as a form of insult, that liberals have no independent thoughts whatsoever -- that the concept of differentiating right from wrong is utterly foreign to their thought process. Far from refuting this, you seem to be reveling in it -- holding your blind acceptance and support of the most cruel, vicious personal insults as a point of pride, so long as they are aimed at conservatives. As if freedom from consequence and responsibility were the highest liberal idea.
Point noted.
You also claim that there's no doubt that Limbaugh is a racist. As I've said before, I don't listen to his show, so all I have to go by are the various transcripts and audio clips I find on Google, but I haven't found any examples of him attacking, insulting, belittling or dismissing Allen West, Herman Cain, Clarence Thomas or any other black conservative. Or any female conservative for that matter. There are plenty of examples of Limbaugh laying into individual black liberals because of their politics. He also lays into white liberals because of their politics as well, but that's exactly what political partisans do. So no, I don't think that it is self-evident at all that Limbaugh is racist or misogynist. Just partisan. Not from what I've seen and heard. But then, I'm an internet reader, not a talk radio listener.
Here we go...
There is a big difference between attacking a citizen that is just standing up for her rights to health care (Fluke) and attacking a professional gas bag (Palin & Malkin).
Secondly, condoning doesn't necessarily mean I agree with everything Olbermann and Maher have said but I trust that their judgement.
Thirdly, let me remind you that Limbaugh was forced to quit his job with ABC Sports because of his blatant racism.
First, looking over her biography, you mischaracterize Fluke as "a citizen that is just standing up for her rights to health care." She's an activist with a professional background in domestic violence activism who having spent three years in a personal campaign to bring birth control insurance coverage to Georgetown University, has now chosen to lobby Congress to force (Catholic Jesuit) Georgetown to provide free birth control, in direct support of the most contraversial issue in America at this moment. This is not some naive child who has blundered into the media kill zone not knowing what's happening around her. She's an adult who knowingly and deliberately took center stage in a white-hot national political fight and got her nose bloodied, in the process scoring a major political point by making Rush Limbaugh lose his cool, something a lot of liberal commentators would give their left nut to be able to do. Screw the victim card. She should wear this week as a badge of pride. Welcome to the big leagues.
On your second point, I'm glad to see you rephrase your position. I think that we hold similar positions. Conservatives see Rush Limbaugh as a tremendously valuable individual who brings populist conservatism to the masses, and cringe when he occasionally steps in poo. But it's like Lincoln said about Grant. "I cannot spare this man. He fights." Limbaugh clearly fights. As do Olbermann and Maher. You say you trust their judgement. Ok, we're on the same page of different books. Sometimes they make you cringe? Good. They should. By the way, I'll gladly give Keith Olbermann credit for coming out with his own well-qualified apology. Still waiting for Maher. Not holding my breath.
Third, I've read up on the circumstances of Limbaugh resigning from ABC sports. He wasn't fired for his "blatant racism." He was fired for accusing other sports commentators of racial favoritism in their coverage of a poorly-performing-at-the-time Donovan McNabb. This turns out to be a great way to get fired as a professional sports commentator. But that's not equivalent to being fired "because of his blatant racism" That's being fired for neglecting to exhibit professional courtesy.
One would think that with a 40 year on-air career to mine for examples of racist commentary, Limbaugh's critics could come up with more than outright fabrications and water-thin gruel, but no. Either he has a supernatural ability to hide his racism, or maybe what you're looking for doesn't exist.
A good night's sleep helps get the cobwebs out. I think I've put it together.
So ...
Rush Limbaugh sees an underperforming Donovan McNabb receiving unwarranted praise and support from his fellow news analyists. Rather than assuming that they are praising and supporting him because they like him personally, Limbaugh posits that they are doing it because he is black and the sports media's inner motivation is racism. This horrifies liberals, who and get him fired and keep him from NFL team ownership because of his poor character.
Derrick Bell develops an entire social theory around the idea that everything white people do is actually motivated by racism. We are having it beaten into us by the media that this is actually a respected academic theory, very mainstream, so when Barack Obama tells his audience to "open your hearts and minds to Derrick Bell", certainly he's not a racist for steeping himself for decades in the same "Critical Race Theory" ideas that Rush Limbaugh got fired for dabbling in for about 15 seconds.
Uh huh.
Is it possible that jms actually read Derrick Bell's writings, and if so, whether he understood them? Or is jms once again picking up on right wing talking points?
By the way, who had the larger audience as between Limbaugh at ESPN and Obama as a HLS student 20+ years ago? Apples and oranges, but jms is sooo colorful, isn't he?
The Rush musical titled "Two Little Words ..." I suggested in an earlier comment might feature a number "Drugs and Marriages" since they "go together like horses and carriages" for Rush's rushes in life.
Shag,
I've read excerpts However, most of my opinion on CRT was formed from reading this 1999 Boston Law Review article on the subject.
o It is a published law review article from a respected publication.
o It was published in 1999, one year after the Obama/Bell videotaped endorsement. Thus, it is contemporary with the videotape being considered.
o It was published well before Barack Obama's rise to power, so it is not colored by contemporary politics.
o It is a liberal critique of CRS, not a conservative critique.
Since you bring up the issue of the actual teachings and theories of Critical Race Theory, I'd appreciate if you would read the article as well and offer your comments on it.
I'm in the process of downloading Prof. Bell's article that jms provided a link to. It runs over 40 pages and the printing is very slow, so I may not get to it until later in the weekend.
But I note that jms failed to respond to this:
"By the way, who had the larger audience as between Limbaugh at ESPN and Obama as a HLS student 20+ years ago? Apples and oranges, but jms is sooo colorful, isn't he?"
I don't know if jms attended law school. If he did, then perhaps he might have "endorsed" Ed Meese at the time, being young and naive.
[As I close, the article is still printing.]
"By the way, who had the larger audience as between Limbaugh at ESPN and Obama as a HLS student 20+ years ago? Apples and oranges, but jms is sooo colorful, isn't he?"
I didn't respond to it because I didn't understand why you thought it was relevant. The issue is the development of Barack Obama's political philosophy, not the size of his audience at the time of the video. Obviously the only intended audience for Barack Obama's 1991 speech were the few hundred students and faculty who had gathered in the courtyard, but he couldn't have made it more clear in that small venue that he had deeply embraced Bell's political teaching. He speaks of Bell not just as a friend, but as a man of great and important ideas. It's important because if you look at what Barack Obama has done over the years, not what he says, his scorched-earth campaign tactics -- his presidential appointment of vicious racists like Van Jones and Eric Holder -- are completely in line with the CRT political philosophy. If justice itself is just a racist construct, then there is nothing wrong at all with turning the Department of Justice into an instrument of racial spoils. If the civil rights laws are just racist tools of white oppression of blacks, then what is wrong with dismissing the Black Panther voter intimidation case or refusing to enforce the civil rights laws against black offenders?
If anything, what we are seeing is the first rational explanation to come to light for the behavior of the Holder justice department. In their eyes, they are legitimately exercising the power of their spoils, getting their revenge on white people, and there's nothing wrong with that because according to CRT theorists like Bell, that's what justice is all about -- raw coercive power.
On a personal note, I have an engineering degree, not a law degree, and I was a teenager during the Reagan years. I was generally apolitical at the time. I attended a Reagan reelection rally and took some pictures. I also attended a Mondale/Ferraro rally and still have the poster. I don't remember being particularly impressed by either event. I also remember going to some sort of event at the Newberry Library on the anniversary of some radical event. The speakers spoke warmly and effusively about justice and fairness, but the printed materials for sale in the lobby were uniformly vicious, hateful and anti-American, which turned me off. It didn't seem right. I didn't feel the need to take sides politically until after 9/11; my political awareness began at that point.
I'm really taken back by suggestion that endorsing Edwin Meese is somehow comperable to endorsing Derrick Bell. really?!?
Ok. I'll bite. I see from Wikipedia that Meese was a law professor at UCSD from 1977 through 1981. I would have had to be about 10 years older to be a law student there at the time. Politically, I wouldn't have been the same person. I would have had to balance Meese's legal scholarship up to that point, which I am unfamiliar with, against his public record -- which included the rough handling of the Berkeley riots, which seem heavy handed and probably would have weighed against him in my mind. I doubt I would have spoken of him effusively, physically embraced him publically and asked a crowd of strangers to open up their hearts and minds to Edwin Meese though. That's the sort of response you give when you are head-over-heels in love with someone's ideas, which is how Obama appears to be relating to Bell in the video. If I had endorsed Edwin Meese then, I would not be trying to hide it now, although I would freely admit that some of his Reagan administration priorities -- pornography and drugs -- seem misguided and counterproductive and seemed that way to me at the time. I certainly wouldn't consider it a "bombshell" to discover that someone had endorsed Edwin Meese in the early 1980s. Would you?
By the way, I notice that I misspoke. The article is 8 years after the videotape, not 1. I don't think it makes a difference. Many The sources cited in the article -- including Bell's writings -- date from the late 1980s.
So apparently jms did not come across the article fairly contemporaneously with its publication but it may have come to his attention because Derrick Bell has become a current right wing talking point. I'll follow up with the article and perhaps other articles related to the theme "On Race & Criminal Justice" and the Boston College Law Review.
There was a national spotlight shone on Rush regarding his ESPN situation. Was there even a local (Boston area) spotlight on Obama as a HLS regarding the Bell video? Again, this is comparing apples and oranges. jms is serving as a tool for right wing talking points. As earlier noted, I'll get back to this. jms's discovery and disclosure of the date of the article relative to the Obama HLS event was sort of a mea culpa, but not quite. jms is a colorful fellow.
By the way, the reference to Ed Meese has to do with the legal theory of original intent in interpretation of the Constitution. Original intent was basically abandoned fairly quickly after Meese proposed it, and there resulted variations of originalism which continue to today. But original intent of the founders/framers/ratifiers was like a leaky sieve. Since jms was not a law school student, that may not be relevant. But since he provided the link to a law review article to buttress, he thinks, some claim against Obama back when he was a HLS student, this might be further evidence that he is a tool for right wing talking points. Perhaps jms' source can line up other connections of Obama with Derrick Bell since the late 1980s to date.
I find it endlessly amusing to be told over and over again that I must be being fed information from some sort of right wing cabal whenever I post something here before it hits the regular blog cycle. I never said I discovered the article in 1999. I had never heard of Critical Race Theory before last week. That's sort of the point of the Breitbart campaign. No one outside of left-wing academia even knows this stuff exists. Now conservatives are busy learning about it, so you can expect all sort of sources to pop out of the woodwork from every direction.
Since you seem curious, I got the link from Glenn Reynolds, who got it from someone else. It looks like it first appeared on Wednesday March 2nd on this blog, then Thursday here. Each author implies having found the article on their own, which is not surprising, since the article is well indexed in Google, and every conservative blogger worth his salt is spending their time this week researching Critical Race Theory.
Note that right now, if you do a google search on the entire paper title, there are only 75 hits, so this paper has barely scratched the consciousness of conservatives. This is why I don't spend my time listening to Rush, Hannity or the like. It's a lot more fun to spend my time with my nose to the ground and stay a few days ahead of the news cycle. By the end of the week, there will be a lot more than 75 hits on this rather juicy academic paper.
Ross gets it. He writes that "Bell was a dangerous brand of crackpot, roughly equivalent to a black David Duke, only more extreme." I think that Bell is more of a black William Luther Pierce than a black David Duke, but the point is that anyone who would praise someone like Bell has a whole lot of explaining to do, and right now all Obama and his sycophant press have done is a whole lot of hiding. Shag asks, "Was there even a local (Boston area) spotlight on Obama as a HLS regarding the Bell video? " No, and that's the entire point. Obama was a nobody then. There was no reason for any spotlight to be trained on the relationship then. Now he is President, and the spotlights are being trained on the relationship right now. You seem to be claiming that the video is unimportant because it was not reported at the time and was successfully covered up for the first three years of Obama's term by a complicit press. That used to make a story unimportant, but that was in a different era. Breitbart's accomplishment was in smashing the ability of the mainstream media to cover up a story. It's happening right now. This video is a teaser, not a bombshell, and the media is being led into the kill zone by their nose. It's quite delicious to watch, actually.
I think that once this all sinks in, it will cost Obama a good 10 points in the polls as independents learn about this stuff. That probably won't happen for another two or three weeks, but that's why it's tremendously important to start educating the public on who Bell is and just exactly what those ideas are that Obama wants his audience to "open your hearts and minds to."
The only other relationship between Barack Obama Derrick Bell between the 1990s and the present that I am aware of is the discovery that Derrick Bell visited the White House twice in 2010, on 1/29 and 1/31. The date seems significant; Perhaps Barack Obama invited his philosophical mentor to the White House as part of his New Years Eve celebration; just a couple of old friends gathering around to ring in the new year. If they remained that close, then I'm sure someone will turn up more connections. There's a lot of time between now and November.
So jms and "Dumbbart" are on the same wave length. 10 points? What a maroon. Let us know what you have engineered so we can avoid them.
"The date [sic - you mentioned two dates] seems significant; ...." But no facts follow, just a "perhaps."
jms might check out Jonathan Chait's "Derrick Bell and Jewish Republican Paranoia" at:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/03/derrick-bell-and-jewish-republican-paranoia.html
The fact that the visit was on New Years Eve, a non-business day, suggests that it was not a business or lobbying visit, but a social visit to celebrate the holiday. It goes to the suggestion that Obama and Bell had a long-term mentor-student relationship -- as opposed to a college-era ideological flirtation.
Now on to "Space Traders"
Boy, I think that everyone should read that short story. It combines the fluid poetry of Ayn Rand, the industrial strength axe-grinding of L. Ron Hubbard, the genocidal fever-dreams of William Luther Pierce, and about three tons of crazy-ass projection and anti-white paranoia. Chait is right that Bell mischaracterizes the role of Jews in the story. But if he thinks that Bell is using Jews as some sort of moral heroes in the story, then he hasn't read it very carefully. That's hardly their purpose. All he does with them is sweep them on stage when he wants to paint the entire white population as really just exactly like Nazis. Then he sweeps them off stage once the point is made and you never hear from them again. You can't really imply that the white population are all like Nazis without having them oppress some Jews, now can you? So Bell brings in some Jews, lets the white population intimidate them with a campaign of murder and bloodshed ...
Oh, wait. That's not how they intimidate them at all. Bell's Jews are cowed into silence mostly by threatening their money. They "... lost their jobs; their contracts were canceled; their mortgages foreclosed." They suffer some non-specific "harassment", non-specific "physical violence", and vicious rhetoric, like "Send the Jews into Hell". Even though there appears to be no murder of Jews, no imprisonment of movement leaders, and deliberately understated violence, this barrage of financial and verbal threats intimidates the 35,000 Jews who had signed pledges to protect the blacks. And it doesn't drive their efforts underground. They don't form a secret resistance to carry out their sworn promise. Instead, they are "intimidated into silence and inaction. Yes, a movement with 35,000 sworn members fades away as in, "Dude, what could we do? they threatened the 401K!"
Bell portrays Jews -- who in real life are a people who have clung fiercely to their faith and principles through centuries of violence, slaughter and subjegation -- as feckless cowards full of cheap talk who are trivially intimidated into silence and, in Bell's own word, inaction. Perhaps that's what Pollack meant when he said that Bell's Jews "would stand by and let it happen."
Or maybe he noticed that out of a United States population of some five million plus Jews, Bell estimates that a full 0.7% of the Jewish population would rise up in protest against a decision to sell the entire black population as slaves.
Perhaps Pollack is referring to the 99.3% of the Jewish population in the story that, you might say, stand by and let it happen.
Either way, it shows what Bell thinks of Jews.
Once again, I think that everyone should actually read some of Bell's work just to get the unrelenting stink of his ideas. "Space Traders" is very easy reading and helps the reader fully understand what a complete and utter wack job Obama's political mentor was.
Please, by all means, let us all have a national debate on the finer nuances of "Space Traders."
Bell mischaracterizes --> "Pollack mischaracterizes"
1/29 and 1/31 visits in 2010 were on Christmas Eve? Has jms morphed into "Dimbart"?
jms' mischaracterizations is catching, as I should have referenced his reference to "New Year's Eve" and not "Christmas Eve." 1/29 and 1/31 are neither.
Obviously Shag knows nothing about Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish New Year for Trees, which was being celebrated on 1/31/2010. Clearly Obama and Bell were gathered together, gorging themselves on wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates.
Aah, who am I kidding. I misread the date as New Years Eve. One point to Shag.
During Bush/Cheney's 8 years, I had the good sense to keep my assets in an "Oye-ge-Vault."
Perhaps jms had his "birther" hat on and the Kenyan New Year's Eve in mind.
Or maybe Obama and Bell enjoyed a recitation of Goyim Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" with some collard greens in lieu of bitter herbs.
Lahayam!
Critical Race Theory appears to be the "Fight Club" of liberals:
The first rule of Critical Race Theory is that you do not talk about Critical Race Theory.
Here's what jms admitted in an earlier comment:
"I had never heard of Critical Race Theory before last week."
Now he wants to talk about this because Dimbart and other dimwits "discovered" a video going back to Obama's days at HLS showing him hugging Derrick Bell. But let's go back to the days of the Constitutional Convention and the document that did not use the words slavery or slave but included numerous provisions protecting "property" owners of slaves. Let's continue the trip to the Civil War and the Civil War Amendments, to Pressy v. Ferguson, through Jim Crow, to Brown v. Board of Education, to the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s, to the GOP's Southern Strategy that continues to this date as demonstrated by Gingrich and Santorum. All of this is background for Critical Race theory that has been dormant until highlighted out of context by racists as a means of preventing the reelection of America's first African-American President. Yes, let's talk about this background in detail, since Critical Race Theory is new to jms. Let's put the picture in context. Maybe, just maybe jms does not know much about history. Now, all of a sudden he pulls Critical Race Theory out of this derriere. As I have commented earlier, jms sure is colorful. jms is just a racist tool.
I mention CRT in a discussion of Rush Limbaugh, Shag reaches for the first argument at hand -- that I don't know what I'm talking about and don't understand CRT. I pass along a highly critical, and extremely well documented political study of CRT, written long before Obama was a national politician that shows that, yes, I do know what I'm talking about. Shag tries to change the subject to the difference between the size of Limbaugh's audience and the size of Obama's audience. I say that it doesn't matter. Now Shag wants to change the subject to originalism, and wants to talk about Ed Meese. I haven't addressed that but I will shortly. Next, Shag wants to change the subject to Republican Jewish paranoia about black anti-Semitism, which is really rich, because the subject of the article is a short story by Derrick Bell that is drenched, then deep fried in black paranoia about white racism. Next, Shag wants to change the subject to my misreading of a date. We trade a little humor.
Now Shag is ready to discuss CRT. Instead of discussing CRT from a liberal perspective, however, Shag has chosen to wrap himself in the academic cloaks of Derrick Bell and conduct the argument from a CRT perspective! Shag begins by changing the subject once again. He begins by expressing an wishful hope that I am utterly ignorant of the purpose and meaning of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War, civil rights laws, the "Southern Strategy", or anything else about American history. Having just asserted a hope in my ignorance of these subjects, Shag comes to the conclusion that I am a "racist tool."
I'll have more to say on all of this later, but Shag, I think that it was you who once told me to bring my "A" game to this site.
Is this your "A" game?
jms' effort is to tar and feather President Obama with CRT based upon a hug with Derrick Bell back when Obama was a HLS student more than 20 years ago. Perhaps jms can demonstrate actual actions taken by Obama as an elected official in local, state and federal positions that tie into CRT. Much has been written on CRT over the years since the Civil Rights movement. But CRT has not been a major player even in legal academia. So let jms demonstrate causation beyond a hug. But one article on CRT is a mere drop in the academic bucket that jms has been wallowing in as the "Dimbart" talking point du jour. Yes, indeed, jms is a tool of racists.
By the way, to understand CRT, one must first understand racial history going back 350 years in the colonies. jms needs such a tutorial.
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