‘Morning Joe’ Gets It Wrong on Hate Speech
12 June 2009 12:07 pm by Taylor Marsh
–updated–
I was extremely glad to see that Keith Olbermann had someone on to talk about the Holocaust Museum tragedy who wasn’t taking the moment to make a convoluted political statement about Israel and the Middle East, as Jack Levin did the night before. Here’s what Levin said:
“But let me also point out that it’s not just the extreme right that we find this type of anti-semitism. There’s also a new anti-semitism that comes from the left, from progressives, who blame Jews from all over the world, even those who have never been to Israel, never been to the Middle East, support a Palestinian state, but they still get blamed for all of Israeli policies that they don’t like. So we’ve got anti-semitism coming from both sides of the political spectrum. …”
Um… No, we don’t.
Unfortunately, the Scarborough crew this morning tried to take a bi-partisan line, saying both the left and the right are trying to make hay out of the situation. This is when trying to be “fair” comes off as mutilating the facts.
As for hate mail, I assure you though Scarborough sees more volume, I’ve had more years in the hate mail circuit than any of them on “Morning Joe.” Conflating your average hate mail with the right-wing vitriol that spews out on radio is blatantly dishonest. But that’s what they did today. Watching Joe Scarborough squirm as he tried to criticize Rush Limbaugh was a classic.
Though he’s not my “shield,” as Scarborough deemed Krugman today, saying he was the equivalent of right wing extremists, Paul Krugman, makes note of what I’ve been talking about for over 15 years, something Scarborough is a neophyte to experiencing. No doubt, people like James W. von Brunn are responsible for their actions, but inciting them as right-wing talk does every day is something that must be said.
Contrary to what Scarborough and Willie Geist tried to do today, there is absolutely no liberal, left or progressive equal to a white-supremicist, racist, anti-semite who blames Jews and still uses the “n” word as having any roots in the Democratic side of the political dial. None. Geist trying to be even handed does a disservice to a history of right-wing fanatacism, the type that led to the assassination of Dr. Tiller, which Scarborough never even bothered to discuss in depth, and only adds to this country’s ignorance. Now, I watch Scarborough every day and like the show, but they’ve really gone off the truth rails recently, becoming just another apologist, by ignoring these issues, for the right wing hate crew that spews forth every day.
Another example to illustrate what the right spews forth comes from Andrew Breitbart, who unleashed a profanity laced barrage because he couldn’t take the truth about von Brunn, as the right tries to run away from their responsibility in inciting violence.
Now Krugman:
And then there’s Rush Limbaugh. His rants today aren’t very different from his rants in 1993. But he occupies a different position in the scheme of things. Remember, during the Bush years Mr. Limbaugh became very much a political insider. Indeed, according to a recent Gallup survey, 10 percent of Republicans now consider him the “main person who speaks for the Republican Party today,” putting him in a three-way tie with Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. So when Mr. Limbaugh peddles conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that fears over swine flu were being hyped “to get people to respond to government orders” — that’s a case of the conservative media establishment joining hands with the lunatic fringe.
It’s not surprising, then, that politicians are doing the same thing. The R.N.C. says that “the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals.” And when Jon Voight, the actor, told the audience at a Republican fund-raiser this week that the president is a “false prophet” and that “we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, thanked him, saying that he “really enjoyed” the remarks.
Eugene Robinson, who said on “Countdown” last night that he recently got a hate message sent his way, which no one should doubt, talks about the right wing haters today, too.
For days, some conservative commentators tried mightily to paint the memo as an underhanded attempt by the Obama administration to smear its honorable critics by equating “right-wing” with “terrorism.” It made no difference to these loudmouths that the number of hate groups around the country has increased by more than 50 percent since 2000, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. It didn’t matter that the memo was backed up by solid intelligence and analysis. For these infotainers, the point isn’t to illuminate a subject with light but to blast it with heat.
And it wasn’t just the Sean Hannitys, Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world who pretended to be outraged. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele accused the administration of trying “to segment out Americans who dissent from this administration, to segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration, and labeling them as terrorists.” Steele seems to have decided that telling the truth isn’t nearly as important as the high-temperature exercise known as “firing up the base.”
The thing is, though, that words have consequences. …
This isn’t a bi-partisan thing. It’s a right-wing problem that becomes everyone’s issue when “lone wolf” assassins take hate speech as a battle cry.
