BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Thursday, December 30, 2004
FRANKS TALK. I started
fact-checking Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby's annual
column on "liberal
hate speech" this morning,
but stopped after I satisfied myself that he had not taken
Walter Cronkite or Bill Moyers out of context. Oh, my. What were they
thinking?
Still, I couldn't help but be
struck by how pallid Jacoby's examples were compared to, say,
George
W. Bush's attaboy to the
guy at one of his campaign rallies who accused John Kerry of faking
his war wounds, or Dick
Cheney's insinuation that a
vote for Kerry was a vote for Osama bin Laden.
But never mind. Here's what I
really wish Jacoby hadn't left out. At one point he criticizes
liberal Republican Colin Powell for saying that Undersecretary of
Defense Douglas Feith was running a "Gestapo office." Jeff! Why
didn't you also quote conservative Republican Tommy
Franks, who called Feith
"the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth"?
Talk about lost
opportunities.
DISSECTOR SIGHTING. The
New York Times has a nice profile today of Danny
Schechter on the occasion
of his new documentary, (WMD) Weapons of Mass Deception. Is
Danny really 62? I think that may be a typo. I quote Danny in my
story this week on podcasting (below). In case you haven't discovered
his blog, here
it is.
MEDIA LOG ON CNN. I'll be
appearing on CNN's Reliable
Sources this Sunday at
11:30 a.m. with bloggers Andrew
Sullivan and
Ana
Marie Cox.
NEW IN THIS WEEK'S
PHOENIX. A look at podcasting
- downloadable radio for your iPod or other MP3 player - that
promises to be one of the big media trends of 2005, and that could
pose the most significant threat to commercial radio since the advent
of television.
posted at 9:58 AM |
8 comments
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link
8 Comments:
Jacoby's column is depressing only because it is objectively true. If the best Bush's critics can do is resurrect his S.C. tactics against McCain, (who as I recall now supports Bush), they weaken their own argument. When Dems do it, it is "realpolitik" but if Republicans do the same thing, we are "shocked! shocked!". What whining hogwash.
Dan-
Have a happy new year... I've enjoyed your blog very much throughout '04.
Mr. Jacoby's current column contains the following quote:
"Alfred A. Knopf published Nicholson Baker's "Checkpoint," a novel in which two Bush-haters talk about assassinating the president. "I'm going to kill that bastard," one character rages."
I haven't read the above book, my question is, has Jeff?
Beacuse my understanding is the book is about a completely psychotic character who threatens President Bush will all kinds of imaginary harm while his friend (a well meaning type) tries to talk him out of it fearing for his friends life and that of the President.
If this is the case, the books inclusion is deeply disengenuous.
But then its a labored list, full of quotes from certified dingbats like Cameron Diaz (oh now there is a threat to free speech) and some yap from the op-ed page of the Guardian.
Jacoby's a chump. Anyone can excise a few words from the body of work of these men and criticize. Franks & Co. truly Cornponesque and living symbols of American failure.
Tip of the chapeau for the great work in '04, Dan. Very best to you and yours in '05.
I'm surprised at you; Jacoby's a waste of time, much like Brooks. Probably on RM's "tribute" list.
Those of us who love newspapers ought to take heed over the sad decline of the Times of London, one of the great chronicles over two centuries. RM managed to ruin it in a score of years.
The Globe had a chance to send Jeff home to the Herald a few years back: they didn't, and we're stuck with him. He fills the Podhoretz role. The problem is, the Globe shouldn't feel it needs a role filler.
Strange that Jacoby could discuss "hate speech" in 2004 without mentioning the Swift Boat slander, which has organized and coordinated at the highest levels of the Republican party.
Dan, where are your balls?
When an admitted plagiarist like Jacoby pens conservative misinformation, you should pummel him for being a right-wing fraud, not "tut-tut" as if he used the wrong fork to eat his salad.
Jacoby whines that, "Overwhelmingly, though, political hate speech today comes from the left," pretending that Dick Cheney never told Pat Leahy to go f*ck himself (on the Senate floor), Tony Blankley never attacked George Soros as "a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust," Ollie North never said, "Every terrorist out there is hoping John Kerry is the next president of the United States," Bill O'Reilly never told a Jewish caller, "if you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel," Pat Buchanan never said, "homosexuality is an affliction, like alcoholism," the Club for Growth didn't run TV ads in Iowa telling Howard Dean to "take his freak show back to Vermont," and Rush Limbaugh doesn't slur feminists as Nazis every week.
The Republican Right will continue to get away with comparing Methodists to the Antichrist (Pat Robertson), airing ads comparing Democrats like Tom Daschle to Saddam, praising segregation (Trent Lott), lauding the Confederacy (Ashcroft), and saying America deserved what it got on 9/11 (Falwell) as long as people like you, Dan, give their Jocobyesque enablers a free pass.
Get some balls and start fighting, buddy!!!
-Anthony G.
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
