CNN host: “Is there going to come a point where something’s going to have to be done legally” about anonymous bloggers

 Annoyances, Current Events, Popular Culture  3 Responses »
Jul 232010
 

In the wake of the Shirley Sherrod story, Andrew Keen, Kyra Phillips, and John Roberts are all in a lather about anonymous bloggers “(saying) rotten things about people.”  (The former is an author; the latter two are CNN employees.)  Story here.

For example, if I were to call Andrew Keen, Kyra Phillips, and John Roberts pathetic, sniveling, fascist douchebags, that would presumably be the sort of thing they were talking about.

Quoting Roberts from the story:

“Well what Andrew talked about with me was this idea of a gatekeeper but there are huge first amendment rights that come into play here – freedom of speech and all that. And he said the people who need to be the gatekeepers are the media to check into these stories.”

“Freedom of speech and all that.”  Some, you know, basic constitutional rights or some crap.  Perhaps John Roberts is too slack-jawed stupid to understand the fundamentals of U.S. history.  (I guess that would be some more of that rotten stuff.)  Also, Kyra Phillips needs to do something with her hair, and she should buy clothes somewhere besides a whore convention.  (Ditto.)

All right, all right.  Point made.

Something struck me immediately about that quote, and I’m surprised the NewsBusters piece didn’t mention it.  Roberts reports Keen as saying “the people who need to be the gatekeepers are the media to check into these stories.”  That is a comically ironic assertion.

Hey, CNN types?  Those “anonymous bloggers” who need “gatekeepers,” in your opinion, have significant audiences because they’re doing what used to be your job, before you quit.  They’re breaking stories.  They’re doing serious investigative journalism.  Know what you’re doing a whole lot of the time (when you’re not worshiping Barack Obama, I mean)?  Repeating what they’ve reported.

Andrew Keen thinks “the media” should be the bloggers’ “gatekeepers”?  I say bring it, and bring it hard.  It might reacquaint the older folks—who might have once been real journalists—with what it is to put together a real story.  The younger employees might see it for the first time.

You know, that’s only if you media types are going to be serious about it.  If you aren’t, then it’s essentially you quitting a job; someone else picking it up; and you griping about how poorly they’re doing it.

We shall continue to point and laugh.

 Posted by at 7:06 pm

Thursday miscellanea #97

 Menagerie  5 Responses »
Jul 222010
 
  • BP is using Photoshop to create “photographs” of its crisis response—often and badly.  This is needless and damaging stupidity.  Why?
  • Friends, Romans, countrymen:  never email me to ask me what a word means.  If you’re emailing me, you’re online.  Think there might be an online dictionary or 50 out there?
  • A new colleague is someone from whom I lived two apartments away almost 14 years ago.  Cue Twilight Zone theme.  I kept thinking she looked familiar.
  • I believe Five Guys is the best burger in northern Alabama.  Productive contradictions encouraged.
  • I’ve noticed that high school movies set in the past rarely get the cars right.  If a movie is set in 1957, the parking lot can’t be full of 1957 cars.  Most of the cars need to be 6 to 10 years old or so.  Children coming to school in new cars is a relatively recent phenomenon.
  • I just saw a television commercial for toilet paper that boasted of “fewer pieces left behind.”  That’s just a tad too familiar, don’t you think?
  • I’m digging the Taddy Porter record.  Strong Southern rock vibe—vaguely Skynyrdish, even—but considerably heavier.  It’s a good recipe.
 Posted by at 11:00 am

No way around it: Shirley Sherrod got railroaded

 Current Events, Language, Politics  3 Responses »
Jul 212010
 

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has offered Shirley Sherrod an apology and a promotion after his department forced her to resign over a video clip, first released by Andrew Breitbart’s biggovernment.com,  that appeared to show her telling about not giving a white farmer her “full” help in terms of aid distribution.

Problem is, the incident she was relating happened 24 years ago when she was not a government employee.  Worse, the video clip removes substantial context.  The full video makes it clear that she was telling of learning from her mistakes.

Much of the right side of the blogosphere jumped all over this.  They’re going to take some flack, and it’s deserved.  This was classic “fire, ready, aim.”  I’m heartened to look around and see some contrition.  It’ll recover.  No widespread long-term harm done.

Andrew Breitbart, however, may have damaged himself irreparably.  He should know as well as anyone that the rules are different for conservative media and liberal media, as in the former gets exactly zero do-overs.  A compelling narrative is worse than worthless if it can’t withstand any scrutiny, and clearly this shouldn’t have gotten out of the conference room, however plausible the 10,000-feet view of it was.

(Jonah Goldberg says Breitbart says he received the video edited.  I suppose that’s small mitigation.)

Incidentally, the rationalization over there comically misses the point.  That piece should contain much more about prizing integrity and improving in the future, and much less defiance.  Not helping, folks.  Not helping.

One thing it does get right is that this is another screw-up for the Obama administration.  Did you know Sherrod was made to pull her car over and resign by cell phone?  The USDA official who called her said he was acting on pressure from the White House.

Actually I’m satisfied that Vilsack has been genuinely apologetic.  Now we just need Barack Obama to display some of that grace and humility he’s so known for and apologize to Sherrod as well.

 Posted by at 7:15 pm

Oh, NOW the individual mandate is a tax

 Annoyances, Consumption, Current Events, Language, Liberty, Politics  7 Responses »
Jul 202010
 

“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase.” – Barack Obama, September 2009

It can’t be a tax increase, see.  Barack Obama repeatedly promised that there would be no tax increases on the middle class during his presidency.  So it may be the federal government requiring you to make a business transaction and charging you money if you don’t, but “tax increase”?  Pish-tosh.  That’s just responsible government.  That’s Our Betters looking out for us.  That’s hope.  That’s change.

Here’s George Stephanopoulos asking a bristling President Obama about it (in the interview from which the above quote comes):

You know, though, gee whiz, turns out it’s a tax after all.  Quoting a July 16 New York Times article:

When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.

Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.

If this surprises you, then you’re an awfully slow study.

 Posted by at 7:12 am
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