I am going to put this within a thread, because I don't want another thread out there just for KO bashers or Hillary supporters. I have a serious beef based upon journalistic ethics.
Before I even get started, I have to say one thing. FOX News set him up. The right wing has been covering Obama’s Church, talking about its radical tendencies for almost a year. See my recent journal “The Right Wing Media v. Obama” for the details. This is old news. Why did they break the story now? Because they knew that the left wing media would handle it differently than they handled Ferraro—which would anger women all across the country, especially Hillary supporters. In particular, they hoped that Keith Olbermann would handle it in a different way. And poor, naïve KO walked right into the baited trap.
Here is how Keith Olbermann is like the Gang of Five---the five Supreme Court Justices who under Antonin Scalia ruled for Bush in Bush v. Gore. Remember what Alan Dershowitz said was wrong about their judgment?
They based it upon the identities of the parties in the case. They went against their own historical practices and tendencies to rule for Bush---and said that the case could not be sighted for future precedence (although one savvy commenter said that what it really meant was that in any case in which Bush was involved , Bush would always win).
Wright v. Ferraro means that in the courtroom of
Countdown Obama will always win.Since the official transcript of Friday’s show will not come out until Monday, I will have to refer to video of Friday. There is a transcript and video of the Special Comment about Ferraro.
First, here is how Ferraro and Wright are the same. Both are aging veterans of the 60s rights movements. Both struggled at a time when women and Blacks were treated atrociously if they tried to step out of line. Ferraro was an icon among Hillary’s older women supporters since she has the only women to ever run on a major party ticket. Wright was Obama’s spiritual mentor. That made both of them VIPs to their respective campaigns—not people to be tossed aside lightly, both for sentimental reasons and because the base of each candidate might take offense if they were slighted. Ferraro said inexcusable, hurtful things about groups to which the opposition candidate belonged----African-Americans and men. Wright said inexcusable hurtful things about groups to which the opposition candidate belonged---White people and the Clinton family. There was a pattern of such speech from Ferraro going back at least a couple of weeks this campaign and if one searched she had made similar remarks in 1988. There was a pattern of similar remarks going back for years from Wright. There is no proof that Hillary was aware of Ferraro’s remarks until the rest of the world became aware of them. Obama says that he was not aware of Wright’s remarks until the world became aware of them.
So, how did Keith Olbermann handle these two remarkably similar situations?
Ferraro: Rather than invite Hillary onto his show to explain to his left wing progressive audience that she did not share Ferraro’s views and regretted them and perhaps talk about the role that the press has played in fabricating controversy in an attempt to divide and conquer the Democrats this primary season, KO decided to jump straight into a Special Comment, usually reserved for war criminals like Bush and Cheney. That’s right.
Hillary is now ranked among the war criminals and Constitution busters for the crime---of which John Edwards was once found guilty by the Huffington Post---of standing in Obama’s way. Since KO never does a frivolous Special Comment, this alone is enough to indict her in the eyes of many Democrats---unless it backfires and makes his Special Comments seem frivolous.
http://thenewshole.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/12/762678.aspxhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lChUBe6mYC8&feature=relatedHow about the specifics of the indictment? KO accuses her of allowing Ferraro to make inflammatory statements for
fifteen days (without offering proof that Hillary knew about the statements or that anyone else knew about them). He invokes the name of
David Duke a preposterous bit of overblown rhetoric akin to the kind of name calling that gets O’Reilly listed as a worse person (as in when he says that Obama’s oratory is similar to Hilte’rs). He repeats Obama talking points (specifically the one about how can he be ready for VP but not ready for president---I cite Dan Quayle and rest my case).
He says:
Somebody tells her that simply disagreeing with and rejecting the remarks is sufficient.He says:
Your only reaction has been to disagree, reject, and to call it regrettable.
Unless you say something definitive, Senator, the former congresswoman is speaking with your approval.
Her only reaction has been to brand herself as the victim, resign from your committee and insist she will continue to speak.
You must remedy this.
And you must reject and denounce Geraldine Ferraro.
Here is the worst part of the Special Comment imo:
This, Sen. Clinton, is your campaign, and it is your name.
Grab the reins back from whoever has led you to this precipice, before it is too late.
Voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth.
Read that closely. KO has lead her to the precipice---at that moment. He has just repeated a list of lies and innuendos straight out of his own MSM that attempts to back up a phony claim that Hillary is a Bitch whose 3 am ad is racist when it isn’t . KO is trying to say that even if it was not intended to be racist,
, even if it is inadvertent or someone else’s fault--- it is Hillary’s fault if the world believes that it is racist. This is a bit like saying that an innocent man railroaded, convicted and executed for a crime that he did not commit was responsible, because he should not have
looked so damn guilty . Or that Hillary should have been nicer to the MSM, so that they would not be making up lies about her all the time.
If someone else---say Drudge---doctors
60 Minutes video footage to change what Hillary said, it is Drudge’s fault if the world get’s the wrong impression. It is not Hillary’s fault for not anticipating that Drudge might doctor it. If the MSM spreads a smear, it is the MSM’s fault. Sometimes (gasp) it is Obama’s fault, as in the case of the race memo that Obama’s camp produced in South Carolina. And earlier this week,
it was KO’s fault. But maybe KO would have us believe that Hillary used her laser beam eyes to force him to do the Special Comment to get some female sympathy votes.
Note Olbermann’s final demand.
The only way to make it right is to “ reject and renounce” Ferraro and---if possible---muzzle her. Apparently that decision was like Bush v. Gore. It was not intended to set a precedent.
Wright: Oh boy! Did KO ever fall into this right wing’s trap on this one. He even came in when he was supposed to be out to help his chosen Democratic candidate through a tough spot.
Here is the video since I do not have the transcript yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk3Rra3CgMAFirst thing to note, Obama was allowed to appear on Countdown to explain and defend himself to KO’s audience, which consists of a lot of likely Democratic voters. There will, of course, be no special comment. Also note Obama did not fire Wright. He allowed him to step down.
“I would not repudiate the man.” Obama said. And later “The comments that have been played are contrary to what I believe” but he considers Wright to be part of his family, so he will not distance himself from the man.
KO asks if Obama thinks that Wright will be used against him in the future. Obama believes that he will. The headline beneath the two men reads “Wright is no longer on Obama’s spiritual advising committee”
Obama uses the excuse that Wright came of age in the 60s and has a lot of anger and frustration. Praises the work people of that generation did to help us have less anger. “We are seeing a transition from the past to the future.”
The two men conclude their interview amiably. KO has done what he used to do in the past for all Democrats. He has defused a right wing media smear. Minus points to his substitute host for making a snarky comment about how Hillary must be deriving malicious enjoyment from Obama’s trouble (is she a mind reader?), and for the Hillary bashing story in which
Orin Hatch is quoted as a reliable source claiming that Hillary lied about her contributed to SCHIP .
(Guys, we know that we have entered the Twilight Zone when
Countdown quotes members of the Right Wing Conspiracy like Drudge and Orin Hatch in order to come up with anti-Hillary smears)
So, what was disparate about the treatment that the two plaintiffs received in the court of pubic opinion called
Countdown? Olbermann said that nothing short of a rejection and denunciation of Geraldine Ferraro the human being would absolve Hillary of the sin of allowing the American TV news viewing public to believe that her campaign had made racist attacks on Obama (even though he was one of the MSM journalists stoking the rumor with lies and distortions at that very moment!) However,
Obama said that he would not repudiate Wright and even gave reasons why he considered the man an member of his family.
He would only criticize his words. The excuse which Obama made for Wright is applicable for Ferraro. In the 60s, members of the women’s movement were often treated hostilely by members of the civil rights movement, who acted as if women’s concerns about reproductive choice, equal pay and day care were frivolous compared to racial equality---even though “women’s issues” cause the nation’s children of all colors to grow up in poverty---and women were told to wait until men of color achieved equality before they tried to ask for their rights. If KO does not understand this, then he should read Angela Davis’s
Women, Race and Class . However, KO should have known this, and if he didn’t his guest Alter should have known this. If Bill Moyer was doing the interview, I can guarantee that he would have raised the issue of Ferraro and talked about the parallels on this point. Bill Moyer is not afraid to delve into complex topics.
When Obama announced that he was letting Wright resign but keeping him as part of the family and when he said that he disagreed with his words but would not repudiate the man, we did not hear anything like this pass through KO’s lip:
“Your only reaction has been to disagree, reject, and to call it regrettable. Unless you say something definitive, Senator, the (minister) is speaking with your approval.”
No, KO nodded his head in agreement and consoled Obama over the fact that his political enemies would probably try to score points off this affair. Makes you wonder if the two men exchanged high fives after the cameras were off them. “How about the way your points rose after the Ferraro affair!” “Yeah! Good thing, too. I’m gonna need them”
Things KO did not say that he said to Hillary: “You had to have known about Wright’s political beliefs for at least a year, because that is how long the right wing media has been reporting on them.” “As the candidate, it is your fault if people get a bad impression of your campaign, even if the bad impression of your campaign is created by someone over whom you have no control. Even if that someone is a member of the right wing media that regularly attacks you. How are you going to make it up to America, Senator?”
That would have been equal treatment before the law in the court of
Countdown I would like to think that the Wright affair opened KOs eyes to the atrocious way that he handled the Ferraro affair, but I don’t think so. Until he apologizes, I will have to believe that he is playing along with the rest of the mainstream media which has decided that it is fun to set the Democrats at each others throats in hopes of witnessing another Chicago 1968. Primary coverage as a gladiatorial battle. The Democratic Primary as monster truck competition. KO loves sports.
In defending Obama, KO was hoping to blunt the impact of the silly Wright story. For this, I applaud him. However, by failing to address the Ferraro story at the same time---and he could have done it. He could have said "This has made me rethink the Ferraro incident and realize that the press over reacted"---he must have realized that he was doing something potentially much more harmful to the Democratic Party. He was deepening the rift between two camps within the Democratic Party, both of whom can make excellent cases that they are the most oppressed group in America---
Blacks have been enslaved, lynched, incarcerated, subject to police brutality, given lower wages and inadequate education.
Women are the group that is most often the victim of violence including child sex abuse, rape, hate crimes, domestic violence---and this has been the case since the beginning of time in all ethnic and racial groups. Women have also suffered from inadequate education and lower wages.
Indeed, as Davis spells out in her book and as Frederick Douglas whom Hillary mentioned in one of the debates advocated, the two groups are natural allies---whom the Man has tried to keep apart. They are doing it again this election season. KO is helping them.
KO is a tool of the white power elite and he does not even know it. All because he decided---or someone at MSNBC convinced him---that only Obama can beat McCain.
Wrong! Only a united Democratic Party can beat McCain. And Hillary, who once worked Texas for McGovern, is not the enemy of the Democratic Party.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
Edward R. Murrow
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
